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In any other sport where you break the rules you lose whatever you win, racing is unique in condoning people to cheat
No "cheating" or rule breaking goes on in football then?
Thought it was a poor ride from Baker and he should probably have won, he was slow at using his whip a number of times in the finish.
Took an age to get organised and pick it up one time, just watch the head on of the finish, looked like a geriatric.James Willoughby strikes me as foremost an enthusiastic recreational mathematician who chooses to use another of his hobbies – horse racing, as a conveyance on which to spin and crunch his integers, and quite possibly irrational numbers
Spot on, looking at his predictions for this years Arc, where he stated that Mathematics helped predict each nation’s chance of Arc success.
Apparently, according to him there was a sound statistical basis for believing Japanese trained horses were set for an overdue breakthrough in the race.
Not too despondent at this slight setback I believe he is basing next years number crunching on the race on the colour of the horse divided by the country of birth.
Excellent letter in the RP today about the pollution of our screens.
"This year’s Arc? What a joy!
For the second consecutive year viewers were allowed to enjoy racing’s greatest selling point – the aesthetic beauty of the spectacle – free from gimmicks that spoil the television coverage of British Group races.
No farcical fantasy furlong-markers superimposed on the screen by Channel 4, no ludicrous Racing UK sectional times descending and blotting out horses. If only every day could be Arc day".R Browning
Newtonabbey,
County AntrimCompletely over the top, they can’t stop talking about it yet the racing man in the street has absolutely no interest in it.
How many people have talked to you about it?
How many posts on here about it?
What is the fascination for journalists, presenters, pundits and commentators?
Somebody should inform them that Hughes is 1/20
This is one thing where Ryan Moore is absolutely spot on and gives the subject the recognition it deserves.
Meanwhile Carruthers begins his umpteenth season over the sticks at Chepstow today.
They should have given him a spin in the National by now, with the fences being so soft.
I wouldn’t think twice about running a staying chaser in it for the money on offer, now it’s just another long distance chase.
Regards Australia, he looked pretty much injured to me from the pictures on the Morning Line.
So Eddie, what exactly is the point of outriding your opponent for 9 tenths of the race, getting a two length lead by your own racing skill (and Doyle’s stupidity)… Only to deliberately lose the race?
Surely if wanting to lose, it would be easier not to get in to such a bloody good position in the first place?
To fool people like you
Obviously if someone wanted to throw a race they would follow your criteria for throwing one then no one would be any the wiser
Was is not Tiggy Wiggy’s race where the commentator gave us the split for the first furlong – "It’s 11.8!!" – and then (instead of commentating on the race) said: "Let’s wait for the time of the second furlong…it’s 11.4!!" like some demented random number generator.
Whilst I would acknowledge that sectionals will be of use in later analysis of a race, randomly shouting numbers mid-race will hopefully have a limited future.
Mike
Spot on, absolute rubbish style of commentary from Simon Holt. I would imagine it was of no interest or use to 99.999% of C4 viewers. Got to make an allowance if James Willoughby, Simon Rowlands or Kenh are tuning in.
Meanwhile Steve Mellish on RUK was totally unaware of any sectional times being used at all at Newmarket despite them covering a quarter of my screen for every race and him desperately wanting them for the Cheveley Park.
Not sure what mischief you’re trying to create Woolfy, but surely this is an issue of a very badly judged ride rather than a horse being stopped. Think
Lost In Normandy
rather than
Rascal In The Mix
.
How would you know the difference?
In your first post you of course jokingly referred to "Franny’s backed the winner" but seriously expressed shock there was no enquiry and he didn’t receive 28 days.
The shocking thing is that the BHA are actively encouraging this type of ride and find it perfectly acceptable while farcically suspending Silvestre De Sousa for using his whip when "clearly winning".
Think you will be seeing a lot more rides like Norton’s in the future.
Most incisive piece of analysis I’ve heard so far from a RUK pundit regards sectional times was Steve Mellish following the Cheveley Park who said –
"I’d like to have known what the pace of the race was but without sectional times you just don’t know".
Bluffers United
I find it strange that they’ve had features in the middle of quality Saturday afternoon flat racing, on jumps stables O’Neill & Henderson in recent weeks.
These would be ideal items for the Morning Line.
It’s purely a smokescreen to try and protect their FOBT’s, why they were allowed to have them in the first place beggars belief.
Giving instructions to your jockey to give the outside to no one in a 7 runner race smacks of lacking confidence in your jockey.
Does anyone really believe Moore would have been given the same instructions if riding Australia?
Like when Tapestry beat Taghrooda I think Moore was worthy of plaudits for his ride on The Grey Gatsby, in fact I was surprised how little praise he got for both rides, when they made the difference between victory and defeat in both races.
Swap the jockeys in both races and I believe both Taghrooda and Australia would have won comfortably.
I don’t think enough is made about the quality of the jockey in a race and that’s no sleight on lesser jockeys than Moore. Like any profession the quality of riders will vary.
Plenty of jockeys wouldn’t have won on Estimate last week for me.You seem keen to accept what George baker has said but ignore the fact that after an enquiry the stewards concluded that, after interviewing the starter and no doubt watching several replays, that the horse broke through the stalls.
You say it doesn’t matter if one stall opens before the other and a horse gets a flyer. If that is the case what is the point of having starting stalls ? I have again watched the race and it is quite clear that one set of gates opened before the others and the horse got a flyer. Therefore the starter was absolutely right in calling a false start. In fact he did a remarkable job in spotting it and reacting straight away with resorting to watching a replay. well done him.
Exactly the same thing occurred today with Escarlata Rossa in the 2.50 at Brighton today, funnily enough the same starter who called the false start at Epsom was on duty at Brighton yet no false start was called. The race was also not voided by the stewards.
If you consider they did the correct thing at Epsom how do you explain them not doing exactly the same at Brighton?
You learn something everyday, I never knew there was a correlation between the mobility of the presenter/pundit and paddock shots.
However RUK managed to defy this the other day at Carlisle when Mark Howard was in action.
Not sure betlarge & apracing are the normal RUK viewer as one is doing something else most the time and the other hasn’t got it. Paddock shots don’t have to come from within the paddock and on the odd occasions they are used they don’t always come from within the paddock eg Kempton last night.
However useful they are and I like them, paddock shots and horses going to post are certainly preferable to endless waffling from "expert" pundits etc on screen.
KenH,
I don’t keep a record of all the races and I’ve neither the time or inclination to trawl through videos for your benefit.
I’ve seen enough races over the years to know there have been many far worse cases of horses bursting out the stalls and no action taken by the starter, I’ve even seen cases of stalls half opening and a horse only recently got his nose trapped in the grills at the front of the stalls, again no action was taken by the starter.
The difference in time of the stall opening at Epsom was insignificant and I suspect the starter would be in for a bollocking, behind closed doors of course.
George Baker who of course has a vested interest has been through the race frame by frame, something neither me or you have done and he states all the evidence points to a perfectly fair start something which I concur with.
As for the jockey seeing the flag, he admits this but was unable to pull up, is that not good enough for you?
Regards the flagman, of course he could make a mistake blowing his whistle but any Tom, Dick or Harry could see he was positioned in the wrong place in the first place, he should have been directly in front of the runners not in the middle of the track were there were no runners in front of him.
Jamie Stier was at Epsom and should have seen that and ensured the flagman was correctly positioned. It was after all the flagman’s first time at Epsom.
Where is your evidence to support this ? The enquiry reports that the horse anticipated the start and broke through the gates on his stall. In fact the horse now has to have a stalls test. A stall can be opened before the starter presses his button. This wasn’t a ‘fast’ start it was a case of a horse going before the signal was given therefore, a false start. Correct decision by the starter. Can you give us these daily examples of where some stalls open before others ? In any case this wasn’t an issue of one stall opening before the others, the horse broke through the gates.
If the horse broke through the stalls before the starter pressed his button then why did he proceed to open the rest of them?
If a horse breaks through the stalls surely it is better not to open the rest, withdraw the horse that has broken through and run the race.
You can’t watch much racing Ken, stalls fractionally open before others all the time, it can’t be helped if a horse is putting pressure on one when the starter releases them.
It is a mechanism of the stalls and cannot be avoided, nothing wrong with a horse getting a flying start.They don’t recall them in athletics if the runner is quick off his blocks when the starter fires his gun.
