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Like the little boy who cried "Wolf!", the odious little creep that we have for a Prime Minister was believed the first time round but now, thankfully, Parliament has sussed him out. I suspect he is a secret admirer of the US concentration camp at Guantamano Bay and would dearly love to set up a UK equivalent, if only he could. He certainly hasn’t lifted a finger to obtain the release of any UK citizen detained there.
What depresses me more than anything is the result of an opinion poll which suggests that over 75% of the British public are quite content for this fascist government to sleepwalk them into a police state.
Are we really that stupid?
And what about the imbeciles who approach a roundabout signalling that they are going to turn right when they actually intend to go straight on??!!?? You manoeuvre to go up their inside on the roundabout only to find that the b*****d
signals left at the last minute and cuts straight in front of you. Then he/she (usually a He wearing a hat and driving an R-reg Rover with cushions on the rear sill) continues on his/her merry way totally oblivious to the carnage in his/her wake.Don’t you just love them?
Thanks aston and grasshopper…..I’ll watch the 2 TT horses with interest and of course it’s Cyrlight.
yes clivex, Cyrfleet will have a campaign in England aimed at the King George, if it was run at Kempton he’d be a huge contendor….at Sandown I’m not so sure.
And wana, you shouldnt assume the obvious, cos it’s robert lester JUNIOR
Congratulations if, as I suspect, you are the fortunate man who owns Iris’s Gift. I wouldn’t argue with most of your selections, though I’m not going to include Moscow Flyer this year and Rhinestone Cowboy is too much of a risk. I agree that to do well in this competition you need a pool of 20 or more horses which you then permutate in several lines. For me it would be unthinkable not to include 1 or 2 Nicholls horses, and I think Kauto Star and the Arkle hope Hoo La Baloo will win valuable races this season. I would also include Medison representing the Pipe/Johnson team and Monet’s Garden, who could run up a sequence in novice chases. Then there’s Rasharrow from the Lungo yard, and El Vaquero for Howard Johnson. And I might be tempted to include Zeta’s River (Pipe/Johnson again) who could be capable of winning a Hennessy and/or a Paddy Power off a favourable mark.
My weakness is that I never include enough Irish horses, so apart from the obvious….. Kicking King, Solerina, Hardy Eustace, etc. does anyone have any suggestions?
Insomniac, what distinguishes England from its Western European neighbours is that they have learnt from their "shameful episodes" of the past, whereas we are only too keen to perpetuate them (think Iraq).
Spook, it’s pretty obvious why Blair didn’t vote, he’s spent the last 7 years cosying up to the rich and powerful and always backs away from anything that might antagonise them. He doesn’t want foxhunting banned but on this occasion has given in to his backbenchers in an attempt to appease them after the Iraq fiasco.
Despite clivex’s language being somewhat intemperate (that’s what this topic does to you) i think his rant contains some truths. Despite being born, bred and living in the country nearly all my life I, like him, abhor blood "sports". If, in a rare compassionate moment I dredge up a shred of sympathy for the countryside alliance brigade, I only have to picture their chief apologist for foxhunting and that even more grisly pursuit called hare-coursing, and my sympathy quickly evaporates.
I refer of course to Clarissa Dickson Wright…..yuuuugh ÂÂÂ
It’s so gratifying to see that the overwhelming sentiment on this thread is anti the hunters. It confirms what I have long suspected, that the vast majority of people who follow the sport of horseracing want nothing to do with foxhunting.
I know quite a few people who hunt and when I ask them if they would go drag hunting in the event of a ban they say "I doubt it, just wouldn’t be the same without the thrill of the kill."
Sadists one and all. Have no sympathy for them!
My childhood favourites, rightly or wrongly, remain the best horses in their sphere that I have ever seen:
NH — Arkle, who else? Only Flyingbolt (ironically his contemporary) has ever inhabited the same planet. Since then I have been thrilled by the likes of Tingle Creek, Desert Orchid, Istabraq, and of course today’s equine superstar Baracouda.
Flat — No contest, it has to be Sea Bird II — Timeform’s highest rated flat horse of the 20’th century. I’m surprised that no-one else has voted for him. I admit I was only 12 when he won the Derby but I defy anyone who has watched that old grainy black-and-white recording, and that incredible surge of acceleration, not to be moved by his scintillating brilliance. And then when he destroyed a high-class Arc field pulling his jockey’s arms out. I’ve been thrilled by Sir Ivor, Shergar,<br>Dancing Brave, and the great Derby/Arc winners of the present era but for me nothing will ever hold the candle to the immortal Sea Bird.
