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RE: Ugly Mare’s post.
Sheik Mohamed is well hnown to have little respect for architecture. He owns Shadwell Park in Norfolk the site of his well known stud farm. The house is by the idiosincratic Victorian architect SS Teulon; it is listed grade 1. Over the years he has developed the stud & let the house fall down. The Victorian Society lists it amongst the 10 most at risk buildings in the country & the local council have been serving him orders to repair it. To restore the house would cost less than one of the two year olds he hoovers up other yards at the end of the season. At the Victorian Society’s AGM I heard he had finally sucumbed to the council’s demands to repair the roof, but it’s future is less than rosy.Hope ypur friend has a lovely time.
Surely the statue is to Chamossaire not Persimmon; though a lot of things have changed since I went to (preArab) Newmarket last. The Hyperion statue used to be on the same road as Chammossaire & you could make an appointment to go round the private studs.There is a free paper called Metro which is distributed on public transport. I have noticed that they no longer cover any racing at all in the sports section.
They are quick to report any negative aspect though, like a horse or jockey injury or malpractice.I had forgotten that Quartette was a stayer. Of course Red Rum was bred to be a sprinter, he must have derived stamina from Anwar, but he would never have been a stayer on the flat on pedigree. Quorum’s pedigree is interesting as he is by a fast horse from a mare with a staying pedigree it looks like the mares ability to stay or sprint tapped into one or the other portion of his pedigree. That is why I find the breeding side so interesting.
I am interested in what you say about neutrality Veusian; I see this with Ahonoora & March Past but please can you give me an example of Quorum, other than Red Rum, who doesn’t factor in this being a jumper.
He isn’t truly bred to stay & I think that he would have struggled in the last two furlongs & been beaten by a much inferior animal. True, Classic colts were aimed at this race in the past & took part whether they were stayers or not, some being beaten by horses thats attributes werre purely stamina. 50 years ago he would not have been bred this way for the classics any way & I agree with the previous poster, that the Derby & King George & Queen Elizabeth stakes are in danger of being the next casualties in the racing calendar.
It might even becoming possible that none stayers are winning these races anyway as so many horses competing in the classics are by milers or even sprinters. I read that Airborne was the only true stayer in the 1946 Derby & had he not been in the race Gulf Stream would have been declared a stayer.
I think that breeding, due to fashion is in a dangerous state in the world, soon they will have made the St Leger a G2 race & relagated the Derby to a mile & a quarter to accomodate all those horses from Green Desert & Danehill lines.I really don’t know the answer (how to get people interested).
It is my love of horses that got me into the sport, I don’t bother betting.
We always watched the big televised races, primarily the jumping, at home in the 1960s & followed Arkle & Millhouse. Gradually I gt interested in the flat & breeding.I am considered an oddball by most of my friends who have no interest in the game, even though some like horses, some people think it’s cruel & work colleagues don’t think that I am PC.
As a child & teenager there seemed to be a much more positive spin on racing; the Queen was more involved & had serious winners, horses like Arkle, Nijinsky, Red Rum, Mill Reef & Brigadier Gerard appeared on the news & TV programmes.
Where as jumping (apart from Animal Aid type pressure groups) still maintains some of its magic the Flats appeal is diminishing. It becomes very boring (to people who are not punters) when nearly all the horses in the big races are from one or two stables & are from the same bloodlines. Ironically I think that Coolmore & Godolphin are slowly killing the sport.Breeders should grasp any opportunity to use none Northern Dancer male line stallions with open arms. The world is swamped with Northern Dancer & this is surely not healthy for the future of the breed.
He must have been gelded as the site mentions that they onlywork with geldings. Perhaps he was infertile, didn’t Silver Patriarch have low fertility?
Any way he seems to be enjoying life but it would be interesting to know why he had been gelded.Does this mean that he has been gelded? Why, was he infertile or just unpopular. The photographs on the site show two different horses, one with a blaze, who I presume is Papaneau & a horse with a small white star.
I have looked at Scenic Blast’s extended pedigree & there is no evidence of Star King(dom) though he does have the sprinters Princely Gift & Golden Cloud on the dam’s side. She goes back to the stayer Precipitation.
Genetics can be odd, his bulk might be derived from Golden Cloud, who was a typical sprinter in appearance.I was irritated by the BBC’s coverage. Especially that the horses were not shown properly before the races; I especially wanted to see the colts before the King Edward VII stakes, as this is a good pointer to later races. It was so annoying that they were in the paddock talking about the horses & all we the viewers, got to see were the commentators faces.
There are people for whom the fashion, interviews etc are important, but there must be a balance. I wonder what cricket & football enthusiasts would feel like if their sports were presented in such a dumbed down manner.
I do not think this "all things to all men" approach is going to attract a bigger TV audience to racing; one thing is sure it will alienate the true enthusiasts.Barry Hills had time to plan what he wanted to say & whether he wanted to talk about his illness on the TV. Henry Cecil strikes me as a private sort of person & clearly felt uncomfortable being asked this question on live television.
Some years ago a newspaper, writing an article about my work, found out I had some years before a heart surgery. They persuaded me against my initial wishes to reveal this in the article saying "it might help people facing the same thing". Perhaps this is one of the reasons the press want these two trainers to talk about their treatments on air, or it could just be plain nosiness.Surely this insensitivity & intrusion (re: Henry Cecil) is easily as bad as the comments Clare made about the Grand National jockey’s teeth?
Royal Palace didn’t run in the St Leger, it had been Jim Joel & Noel Murless’s intention to win the Triple Crown with him & he may well have done that if he hadn’t rapped a leg during his preparation for the Great Voltigeur Stakes, this injury took longer than expected to resolve so he did not take part in the final classic.
His pedigree suggested he would have stayed the distance being by Ballymoss a previous winner out of a mare by Solar Slipper who won the Irish Triple Crown. His second dam won the Oaks.Willie Carson makes a lot of mistakes, he said the Cape Cross wasn’t from the Northern Dancer bloodline for instance, he should have known this running a stud; he needs to research more, have an auto cue & have some sessions with a voice/public speaking coach.
What I can’t stand is not seeing horses before the race; when will both channels realise this is of primary interest to most of the serious viewers? Also I find all the tacky fashion shows & interviews with B list celebrities extremely tedious. Clare’s rush across the paddock trying to do interviews with owners & trainers (when they are obviously giving out final instructions) is gut wrenchingly awful; I scream at the TV, I want to see the horses not Clare’s bum.
I have taken to recording a lot of the televised racing & fast forwarding all the dross.The Triple Crown is the ultimate test of a thoroughbred demonstrating both speed & stamina. In the 19th & the earlier part of the last century racehorses were tougher & more adaptable. Now there is far more specialism in breeding & horses seem to be generally weaker.
Since the middle of the 20thc some breeding pundits have been warning about the obsession with total speed & the danger that this might result in horses that are unable to stay beyond 10 f. There is also too much inbreeding to Northern Dancer & his sons. Where breeders are going to get outcrosses I don’t know, but certainly the gene pool has shrunk dramatically in the last thirty years. you only have to flick through a Stallion Book to see this.
Personally I cannot see breeders applying more stamina to matings as the industry is too commercially driven & the small owner breeders are few. As a previous poster mentioned breeding is all about fashion & this fashion does not include the St Leger. I don’t want to see it changed or open to geldings. IIt is more possible we will see a filly contest it again & win like Oh So Sharp, Meld & Sun Chariot in the 20th c.
