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When was the "Golden Age" of top-class flat classic winners staying on to race at 4, 5 or 6? Horses do get injured – even top-class ones!
Just what the "golden triangle" of SE England need, ANOTHER GP1 race! Wouldn’t do to think that racing fans anywhere else might like to see top animals a bit nearer home. If this had been earmarked for Ayr, say, or Chepstow, would it attract an inferior field? Or why not run it at a different track each year?
I never watched it today, so maybe the annoying updates on the latest "team" scores aren’t done anymore.
It may be "different", it may be "novel", "groundbreaking"even, but it’s still a blxxdy daft idea. Maybe some youngsters will enjoy it, but they’ll probably have enjoyed it because of the racing itself, not the "team" angle of it. Just because something is "new" or "novel" doesn’t automatically mean it’s any good.
Or maybe I’m wrong; maybe little Johnny will have enjoyed it SO much that he’ll pester his parents to take him racing again. Just imagine:-
DAD. "Johnny, you enjoyed the Sergar Cup day so much, I’m going to take you to Cheltenham tomorrow."
JOHNNY. "Thanks dad, I’ve been looking at the 2 day decs and can you just tell me which team A.P.McCoy is in?""I have got nineteen names
nineteen sinners "Are there even 19 contributors to the lounge?
A daft concept, but what really annoys me is the over-the-top faux-excitement that the TV presenters try and generate. No one really gives a ??it about the "teams", do they?
How to improve it? Run the daft event at different tracks around the country – that might just generate enthusiasm amongst non-racing fans. Try Ayr, Catterick, Bath or Chepstow.
Surely they meant "Derby Winners", there being no race named the "English Derby." The Derby needs no national identifier.
Hypothetical situation. Close, say, four horse finish. 3 are being vigorously ridden with their riders overdoing the whip. The 4th horse is not having the whip used on it, but hangs sharply and bumps the other runners making them stumble/possibly fall over. The three riders who used the whip get fined/banned for overdoing it with whip. The rider who didn’t use the whip gets fined/banned for dangerous riding/ bumping/ not keeping his mount straight and yet pleads that he’d have had to whip his mount so vigorously to have kept him straight that he’d have got punished for that too!
BTW did anyone else read an article in one of last week’s
Times
World Cup supplements about a coach who got so p*ssed off by England’s lack of technique / skill that he went off to Brazil to find out how they coached their youngsters. He came back to the UK and, despite some initial opposition from the old guard, managed to get the Brazilian method introduced more and more throughout England. The guy was really optimistic about the future of English football. Can’t remember the chap’s name and, as the paper is pay to view, can’t give link to it.
The story had a headline about players being two-footed. The current England squad probably has more players at ease with either foot than any previous English World Cup squad, and they’re nearly all youngsters who’ve benefitted from the techniques this coach imported.
If you haven’t read it, it’s certainly worth the effort to seek it out.
Tend to agree with the negative comments re. Gerrard and Rooney on thread.Crepello, you have my sympathy – mixing with people who read
The Guardian
An interesting topic Kasparov. That it needs to be asked is, in some way, indicative of the sport’s decline.
I don’t talk about racing to people who I know have no interest in it and, with luck, they don’t speak to me of their interests.
Golf enthusiasts are the greatest breakers of this protocol. They seem incapable of grasping that – to non-players – it’s as boring a topic as could be imagined.Personally, I’m all for working with the louche.
Only guessing here, but maybe having a "sold at auction" status allows animal to run in some of those races for horses sold at public auction!
Or maybe it establishes insurance value. Only guessing though.FWIW I didn’t have a bet in the race; didn’t care who won the race. Just think the likelihood of fields splitting is something that is unsatisfactory ( from a form / betting and spectator point-of-view) and has the potential to make a farce of a race. As Newmarket hosts classics they could have and should have done somthing about it to reduce the likelihood of a split. Fair enough if a field of 40 had gone to post, but they know days in advance the likely number of runners.
It’s not as though the Rowley Mile needs to be that wide. Perhaps the course are too tight to buy long lengths of movable running rail.I’m quite happy to believe that Saturday’s result was fair and that the best horse won on the day and that, even if the field hadn’t split, the result would have been much the same.
Don’t get me wrong, I almost quite like Newmarket and used to go there quite often. However, the view is rubbish and made even worse when fields split, making it necessary to swivel ones’ eyes across the track like Mr. Magoo on LSD. Having to pay the sizeable entance fee for this experience is just not worth it.
It may be an historic place, but that doesn’t make it above criticism – or even incapable of change. Aintree has had to adapt its fences for instance; Chester (even more historic than Newmarket) started using a false bend on the home straight some years ago. The sun still rose the next day.
History is all very well, but not when it’s used as an excuse to avoid obvious improvements.
One of the big disadvantages of Formula 1 racing as a spectator sport is that, after the first couple of laps, it’s impossible to tell by ones own efforts who’s in front and the respective position of the various competitors. It’s like that sometimes at HQ when fields split. Furthermore, it can radically affect the outcome of a result (even if it didn’t on Saturday) which, when it happens in a Classic race, is just not good enough, especially when the risk can be drastically reduced by a simple, cheap and paying-spectator friendly remedy well within the wit of the track to introduce – a false running rail for the first few furlongs.Sad news. As a teenager (many years ago), I had a job on the fringes of racing and had to deal with him and some of his other contempories. He was always polite and a gentleman – more than could be said of some of the others.
Champions Day should be at Wolverhampton. (And maybe the St. Leger should be on all weather too.)
