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Blimey, I hadn’t realised you were on here, Simon. I only found your Betting People podcast a few weeks ago and have been binge-listening ever since, accompanying my daily walks. Such a good listen, you get the best out of your interview subjects every time. I’ve now subscribed so look forward to this latest episode. Thanks again
I listened to the race on William Hill Radio last night. The commentator gave it the usual “……has gone wrong” and the first thing I thought about was this column.
No problem Ian. I wasn’t offended, just wasn’t expecting such a reply! I did laugh at your second paragraph…..
Not sure I expected “pseudo-cognoscenti utter drivel department” in a reply, but thank you anyway. As you say, each to their own. As prefaced in my post, I know I’m a sucker for doing it and that it’s fairly irrational. Just thought I’d start a topic on it to see if there were similar punters on here, or any different thought processes to this method of judging a horses’s chances.
Thankfully I didn’t see this either however, just looked on the At The Races app and a full replay of the race is available. No idea if they show this horrible event before and after the first – if so, that’s pretty grisly – or if they pick it up after the first. I can’t bring myself to watch it.
Really hope I’m not tempting fate and it shows how low the bar is now, but the frequency of deaths in recent times means that I was pleasantly surprised on logging on this morning, to see this note from the 15th as still being the most recent tragic loss of life on a racecourse. Fingers crossed this continues for a little while longer, at least.
Based on the RP comments, it doesn’t sound too hopeful for Caught On The Hop either (“pulled up before 2nd, looked to go wrong”). That’s one race I definitely won’t be watching back.
Fair play Prong (and others), you do a great job with these updates, albeit they are always ultimately thoroughly depressing fayre
Absolutely, Paul. I suppose it’s slightly different when talking of cars as compared to large horse boxes, where the type of road infrastructure is more relevant for the latter.
Getting to Ffos Las isn’t helped by the convoluted signposting, once you arrive in Llanelli. It’s ridiculous that they pretty much send you via Kidwelly. I’m sure some of the locals wouldn’t want this broadcast too much, but the quicker and more direct route is to go in to Llanelli town centre, head for Furnace and then on through Trimsaran. I always go that way.
Definitely a quality link. Going to plough through it to find the lowest recent attendance, Covid-notwithstanding. The winner so far is Southwell for a flat meeting on Friday 2 March, 2018, where only 79 people (and 4 bookies) were in attendance. Conversely (and interestingly), a crowd of 8,096 (and 45 bookies) was in attendance for a jumps meeting there on Sunday 19 August. Even during the height of summer and it being a weekend, that’s an impressive crowd.
As for other courses, the lowest jumps attendance I can find in recent years is 289 for a meeting at Ffos Las on Monday 3 September, 2018. As a Welshman, that pains me to report.
This link also confirms a gut feeling I had about certain courses. Having never been to either I could be off-the-mark here, but I’ve always felt that Nottingham and Leicester were very similar – big cities with unremarkable courses. Leicester’s recent low was 428 on Thursday 14 February, 2019 (not much love in the air) with Nottingham’s being 551 on Wednesday 6 November, 2019.
The other interesting statistic on there is the number of runners at each meeting. Southwell’s flat meeting on Thursday 7 March, 2019, attracted only 19 runners (with a crowd of 146 and 9 bookies). It was a 6-race card that oddly started at 15:00 and ended at 17:40. These included three x 3-runner races, two x 4-runner races and a 2-horse race. Doesn’t get any more low-key than that, surely?!
My post looks silly now! I’ve not seen the race yet but a quick glance at the RP comments would suggest all horses came home safely?
Thanks and great to hear. Apologies I’d meant to post this under the Memorials section.
I hope I’m wrong but I have a feeling of foreboding ahead of the first at Punchestown today (3m 1f cross country chase). Five of the runners ran in the La Touché on Thursday and one ran on Wednesday. Of the five that ran on Thursday, Classic Concorde’s RP racecard comments are “Jumped badly and pulled up in the La Touché. Clearly not a natural over varied obstacles”, Call It Magic’s are “Had a hard race in the La Touché” and Blue Templar’s are “Got tired when sixth in the La Touché”. Add in the fact Stand Up And Fight finished third in the race and Ballybroker Bridge slipped up, it seems crazy these are being allowed to run again today.
One of my real bugbears, just update the post-race notes with the grisly news, out of respect to the horse. The RP comments are typically euphemistic (“…..when hung left and pulled up quickly”).
