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I’m sure he meant 3yo filly.
Maybe, however Time Charter was a 4yo filly when she won the KG. The last 3yo filly winner prior to Taghrooda was Pawneese in 1976. The only other 3yo filly to take the prize was the great Dahlia.
While it’s true that this was an error, there is general confusion about the definition of a "filly" versus "mare"
Strictly speaking, a filly becomes a mare on her fourth birthday, but the racing industry confuses the issue by giving every horse an official birthday on January 1
In races like the KG, a "filly" should be a female horse receiving WFA (eg Pawneese and Taghrooda)
Time Charter and Danedream were actually mares, because they didn’t receive WFA, ie they were considered to be fully mature
But the racing industry still refers to them, incorrectly, as "fillies". Biologically, they were mares
Homage won again at Windsor today
The commentator called it Homarge but the owners want it to be pronounced hommidge
I suppose they can pronounce it however they want, but there are two different popular (and correct) pronunciations for the two slightly different uses of the word. Well done betlarge
Hommidge as in "pay homage"
but Hom-arge when it’s preceded by the indefinite article
The suggestion that the second pronunciation doesn’t exist is wrong
And "it’s" only has an apostrophe when it’s short for "it is"
All of which, SC, may explain why it retains its popularity as an attendance event (i.e. you don’t really
need
to understand it to have a wee bet and a day out in the sunshine and see the horses) rather than a TV event, where some knowledge is more or less required to make it enjoyable.
This is true. The on-course atmosphere at the big days and the family fun days/bank holidays, Fri and Sat evenings etc is as good as ever
When it comes down to it, most people see a trip to the races as a bit of fun and long may that continue. They don’t have to be experts
In the past, TV offered so little choice that the likes of the ITV7/the Peter-Julian show/Channel 4 at its peak gained extra viewers, but there are now 500 channels compared with 3 or 4 then
It’s ironic that Channel 4’s viewing figures are suffering because the racing rights negotiators somehow managed to turn their backs on BBC 1. The exposure the sport had on the Beeb, even if only 12 days a year, was priceless, and it would have had a knock-on effect on Ch4’s figures
Having said that, the new Channel 4 format is so tired and dreary, and lacking in character, they must accept some of the blame for the decline in audience
Outside the Grand National, Derby, Royal Ascot and Cheltenham, there won’t be much terrestrial racing from 2017 onwards. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ch4 were to try to pull out before then. The question is whether the racing rights team would consider an offer from BBC or ITV to televise the crown jewels between them, and whether that would be better for racing as a whole than Ch4 doing every Saturday plus the festivals
Personally I believe it would. Currently TV racing is disappearing down the plughole of popularity faster than show jumping ever did
Yes Frankie was hot stuff for TV 20 years ago
But now?
And won’t viewers be able to see through it?
Where the administrators of racing have gone wrong is to assume that millions of extra people are likely to be interested in it as a sport. For casual observers, it’s just a numbers game
TV can make that entertaining to a wider audience but it needs the characters to make it watchable
Look at shows like X Factor – the phoney arguments between the panellists, press stories about rows behind the scenes, etc. The public seem to lap it up even though most of them must know it’s all nonsense
The fact is that in a multi-media age, pictures of horses running on a racetrack aren’t going to attract huge numbers of TV viewers
However a team of presenters who have genuine chemistry, sexy good looks (sorry but that is one of the things that people watch TV for) with spontanoeus and witty banter, the occasional argument etc would stand a chance. Nobody thought that ballroom dancing could attract 10 million viewers but the producers of SCD got it spectacularly right
It wouldn’t be everyone’s idea of a good show but there’s always ATR and RUK for the specialists
Big Mac was regularly criticised on internet forums but he was TV gold (though admittedly his time was nearly up, they needed a replacement but didn’t find one)
Unfortunately, the Channel 4 Racing editorial team haven’t got it right and terrestrial TV coverage of racing outside the big meetings will be finished in just over 2 years. It might have happened anyway but Channel 4’s disastrous failure to capture the imagination of the nation will have played a major part
I agree there are issues about the Derby in general – how do you make a race interesting to a wider audience when it’s contested by horses that have hardly ever raced, competing on a non-handicap basis so some of the runners have a much better chance than others, and the winners are owned and trained by people that have little connection with the public?
However, a good TV team would get the best out of it, and every week the Ch4 team show they don’t have the flair for it
Look at the way other TV shows are put together and you will see what it’s lacking – controversy, humour, banter, eccentricity, unpredictability
Because of that, it has NO chance whatsoever of doing what the BHA and Racing For Change would have hoped, ie the last 18 months have been a disaster
Although there has been general delight at the relative stability of the Grand National audience, it’s a fact that it has also lost around a million viewers
That, then, is the net effect of the switch from BBC to Channel 4 of racing’s crown jewels – about 1m people lost to the sport’s feature events
In part it’s because major occasions acquire extra gravitas and spare viewers just by being on BBC1. It’s a huge marketing tool for any TV show, so it’s incredible that those who run racing felt they could turn their backs on it
The reason was that Ch4 were prepared to cover every Saturday, but a compromise should still have been worked out
And of course the style and presentation of the show is crucial too. If viewers enjoy watching a programme, they will stick with it. It’s been obvious from the start that the new format doesn’t make the sort of entertaining television that would attract a new audience (or for that matter even entertain many of those who already like racing) in the modern era
It’s dull, lacking in chemistry and there is no presenter who can get people tuning in just to see him or her (the Simon Cowell effect)
Racing will be in terminal decline if Ch4 and the BHA don’t do something about it – and pronto. Currently they are both in denial, and sleepwalking towards disaster for our wonderful sport
yes 0.4 seconds in your example (divide lengths by 5 to get get the time, or you can make it 4 in soft ground and 6 on firm) but bear in mind that it’s an approximation
a problem in jump racing is that the way the races are timed (ie when the first horse crosses the starting line) adds a further approximation because that isn’t the same as the time when the horse you are talking about crosses the starting line
also I forgot to say that they finish slower at stiff tracks/uphill finishes (eg Carlisle and Towcester) than they do on easy courses/flat finishes
also long races compared with short races
jumps compared with Flat
so that’s something else that confuses the issue
it’s all to do with the finishing speed of the horses, so it can never be completely accurate if you do it this way
Depends on how quick the ground is
The official formula (which varies from day to day according to circumstances) is roughly 5 lengths = 1 second, but it’s approx 4 lengths on soft ground and 6 lengths on firm
But it isn’t a perfect calculation
Particularly in jump racing, if the second horse is easing down it can be misleading because it takes longer than it should for it to reach the winning line
so be careful and check the video to spot any potential for discrepancies
Problem is that (unlike every other week of the year), Easter moves from year to year, it can be any time from the end of March to the end of April. So those feature races would be all over the place
Bring back Andrew Franklin and the Highflyer production team. That would solve most things (and no I didn’t work for them)
I don’t know why Channel 4 got rid of them in the first placeMy first post and slightly off topic but worth talking about
I had to miss channel 4 because I was working so I listened to the first ever commercial radio commentary as mentioned in the racing post
see what you think
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCju8hwBP98
I thought they missed too many fallers
