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For anyone interested: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/video-archive/committees/
Go to 20th June Committee of Public Accounts (supposed to be about the missing CFO and other financial issues, but the RTE programme featured heavily) and 26th June Committee on Agriculture Food and the Marine (the first hour or so is in private session, so skip through).
I wouldn’t hold your breath on much changing with this lot in charge.Agreed. Anyone would think poor old ‘Tony’ was at home nursing a cold (even though he wasn’t at home). A trainer serving a doping ban clearly operating as normal. Not the first time, won’t be the last.
That was also covered in the RTE programme – they interviewed the mother of a Swedish girl who had got a horse in similar circumstances and suffered a bad fall because it wasn’t suitable.
Breeders tend to have a rule (or are advised to follow a rule) of giving a mare three ‘chances’, so I bet there are a lot of Deodoros. Here was another three strikes and your out, put on a lorry to the continent. The Racing Post bloodstock crowd decided to present it as a good news story (which it was for this mare, but by pure luck): https://www.racingpost.com/bloodstock/news/good-morning-bloodstock/the-bizarre-tale-of-the-dutch-riding-horse-who-became-dam-of-an-exciting-listed-winner-avvEf5w0qhH3/
I also saw the Panorama one. As Tonge describes, it was about the English version. Quite similar, as I recall. The thing I remember was horses being shot with a rifle, which I couldn’t believe. There’s a thread on it on here somewhere.
Deodoro was also a mare who had bred three registered foals (they did refer to her as ‘him’). Poor girl. Other than the extreme cruelty at Straffan, there was nothing surprising about the programme, or the names mentioned. Of course the usual racing people are now making the expected noises. I hope Miriam buries them on Prime Time this evening.
Every cloud, Befair, and we have ~five months of peace before the next one emerges. Question is, where do we go with our superlatives? Listen, he’s like a tube of toothpaste?
Punchestown is one of two tracks coming under scrutiny: https://www.thejournal.ie/horse-racing-deaths-6303949-Feb2024/
Agree 100% Gladiateur (any other Irish trainer too, in my case). To steal what someone else said on a different forum, they quoted John Hislop as to the problem: ‘The unpredictability of the turf is its touchstone and fascination.’ The more predictable it becomes, the less fascinating.
The question posed is whether it’s boring, not whether Mullins is right to do what he does. In the same way that a mother who buys a fleet of ponies for little Johnnie drives away the competition, so does Mullins. It makes no difference if little Johnnie is a super talent deserving of the chance. The competition will go to another show, rather than be beaten, and spectators will do the same. Such is life.
Yes, Moehat, it’s a problem here. The business model that Cormack mentioned is damaging in that it sucks in talent to feed the system. In the UK your bigger trainers do the opposite – Pauling, Derham, Skelton, Snowdon, Fry etc. have all come out of the system, and that’s not happening here. People are also losing interest. I knew some that didn’t bother going to DRF after the first day, even though they had tickets. It’s mind numbing.
