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For all Pattern Races, for the last half-century, The International Federation of Horseracing Authorities agrees on the standing of each race by averaging the international ratings of the first four home in the most recent three years. There is nobody saying “I have a feeling that race should be promoted/demoted “, it is all done by the numbers.
On January 29 2023 Cormack15 posted:
“Punters are racing’s biggest financiers by some distance through betting, racecourse attendance and tv subscriptions. Without people betting on racing and thus providing finance to the sport and those involved in the industry, it would collapse. “
Punters’ financial contribution is way lower than owners. The total annual levy is about 100 million pounds. Owners pay about 300 million pounds just having their horses trained, after having forked out another small fortune in buying them, or rearing them, in the first place; and then have the honour of stumping up race entry fees to try and win some of their own money back.
Quoting runandskip84: “Unusually for the Italian jackass he’s blamed someone else”
The only thing I have seen in print from Dettori is: “I got bumped coming out of the stalls and my foot slipped out of the irons.”
Just go and have a look at the frame-by-frame video. After one stride out of the stalls, the horse from Stall 8 is in front of Stall 7 (Dettori) after two strides it is nearly in front of stall 6. The horse from stall 8 took Dettori’s horse from under him. Clear video and schoolboy physics, so why does that make Dettori a jackass? Or does jackass mean something different in your world?
Congratulations Triptych. I hope you have a well-deserved, splendid party to celebrate.
Taking a small leaf out of Gamble’s book: I have always loved the concerto party that goes with Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto; the second movement, the cool, calm and beautiful bit. It must be wonderful to play such a beautiful tune like the one in the first four minutes of that movement. So, having the composer snatch it away from the virtuoso pianist, and give it to the the string section of the orchestra, and make the poor soloist just sit and wait and listen to the splendour of what, in other peoples’ hands, would be a pianist’s dream. A good concert party, celebrating a splendid work of art.
Since there is a lot of concentration on the “going” to be the cause of fast times (Oh Yes it is -TRF, Oh No it isn’t – Newbury racecourse), do we know if anybody checked the placing of the rails, or even the placing of the the starts?
I am still wondering why CAS does not have many more votes at this stage; my poem references, unkindly, 15 poem contributers who have ample reason to be annoyed. They must have very tough skin.
Since poetic ability seems to be so highly correlated with sound judgement, physical appearance and charm (Ref: Wikipedia), I would vote:
1. Triptych. Always take note of whatever she says; it is important and good.
2. Steeplechasing. The new hairstyle especially complements the sharp brain beneath.
3. Nathan. Much appreciated work ethic has not diminished his desire to help absolutely everybody all the time.
One or two entrants seem to have been over-trained to allow them to give of their best on the days that matter.
So, what is wrong with betting exchanges? They offer a platform for punters to bet against each other. The business model has no incentive to close anyone’s account, or to change the odds offered and accepted. They are not like Rails- (and Office-) bookmakers where all the losing bets go in their satchel, and all winning bets come out of their profits. Bookmakers have a huge axe to grind. One of the well known Exchanges makes their money by charging a maximum 5% commission on winning bets, which is reduced on a sliding scale by the amount of business you do with them. A punter just need to factor that commission into the odds they are willing to take. Although many of the odds offerers are bookmakers, no single one has the ability to skew the market because they could be “taken to the cleaners” by other bookmakers (or wealthy punters) who might be better informed. What the Exchange supplies is a balanced playing field. Just like Financial Markets.
If today’s punters do not like the way that bookmakers behave, telling them that they are naughty boys is not going to have any effect. You do not even have to go on strike. Or move funds to Australia and wallow in a market of uncertain provenance.
I stole this, just the other day, in case I could rat on a big group of chums still in the pub well beyond closing time. It should be sung, not spoken, hence the pub. Now that Christmas good cheer is well behind us, this just hits the spot. The fifteen contributers to this thread so far appear below, albeit coded.
When you need a shoulder you can cry on
They’ll be there to look the other way
When it takes a chum you can’t rely on
You can call them any time of day
When no one else will listen, They’ll blank out every word
Till you realize there’s chums who do not care
When you need someone who’ll always love you
You’ll be alone, you’ll be aloneWhen you’re lost and stumbling in the darkness
LambGate, Nat and Fussy will not shine a light
When it seems the whole world is against you
Jumper, God and Cheezy will always miss the fight
Others might desert you and friends may turn away
Roller, Fighter, ThreeArt are absent every step along the way
‘Cause as long as They’re around to help you
You’ll be alone, you’ll be aloneWhen you feel the burden on your shoulder
Cannabinoid, TheBellAt and Sleepy will shirk the heavy load
Every day They’ll walk along without you
Every twist and turn along the road
Others might forsake you
As you swim against the tide
FasliyevSon and DickDouble will find no shelter
Arbiter will just hide
And as long as They’re there in spirit
You’ll be alone, you’ll be aloneDifferent times are coming
Somewhere along the lane
You’ll be together once again
And then the tide will turn
And flames of friends will forever burn“The lady wouldn’t make Chezza’s top million cases of racial victims.” I don’t think it is a competition. Since about one million Jews died of starvation in World War 2 without being counted alongside the six million who were gassed or shot, I guess your choice would be on solid ground there. Since nobody outside the royal households knows the truth or falsity of that aspect of their family spat, I haven’t a clue what was said and no clue as to either side’s veracity. But I do know people who have suffered verbal abuse, be they of a different race or religion, or suffering from a physical or mental incapacity. They have often told me that they know there are many victims just like them, but “their” incident was aimed at them at a specific time and place, in a specific way, and will never leave their memory. For a long time I worked alongside a splendid guy called Satpal Singh Gill, who was the victim of an incident of casual snide racial nastiness, after which it took him over a year to get back to his normal self. In many cases it goes deep and it hurts.
Ian said: “It will leave The Derby, like the St Leger, as a race that generates NH stallions unless the winner already has Guineas form at a mile or can successfully revert to 1m2f after winning at Epsom.
This process is already well under way – the reality, as I’ve said many times, is The Derby would have more modern-day commercial relevance if it was 1m2f itself. That’s not something I want to see, but I think it is destined to remain the elephant in the room.”I say:
If ten furlongs is “where it’s at” these days and the two top ranked horses in the world (Baaeed and Flightline) are both ten furlong specialists, we have to respect that reality. That is where the money is. Just like yesterday in the extraordinary race for the ten furlong Tenno Sho (Autumn) where Equinox picked up the over £1.3 million first prize money. But we still have to respect the reality that those horses could not be what they are without the quantity of twelve furlong sires in their previous generations. Both Baaeed and Flightline have 26% twelve furlong Group 1 winning sires in their first four generations, and Equinox has 47%.In the future, if the Derby was ten furlongs it may well indeed have more relevance, but only relevance related to who is the “champion” horse, or who won the most money, in any given year. If we get rid of the championship twelve furlong races that create the twelve furlong stallions then the future champions may well be eight furlongs specialists, and eventually, following the same logic in sequence, the future will belong to the Quarter Horse. Horse racing without any of its specialisms is a diminished sport, less interesting, and less fun. If you get rid of the twelve furlong stallions, you get rid of horses like Baaeed, Flightline and Equinox. Of course, if we had done it four decades ago there would have been no Frankel.
The characteristics of thoroughbred horse racing are like a whole eco-system, many factors blending together to create what we now understand to be the sport we love today. Change a significant factor and problems arise. Have you heard the story about the beavers in Scotland: “Eurasian beavers are a native species to the UK, but they were hunted to extinction in the 16th Century. They are one of the world’s most adept natural engineers, with an incredible ability to create new wetlands, restore native woodland and improve conditions for a huge range of species including dragonflies, otters and fish.” They have recently been re-introduced, and are now a proteced species in Scotland.
Just because a potential action looks like common sense, in the long term (with hindsight) it might look really silly. Thank goodness we can use foresight if we want to.
Here I am. At home today.
My wife says I need to keep fit. I asked if Rambling would be a good thing. She said: “Yes”.
Here is a Ramble. So you have to blame her, not me.
What am I doing, right now? Just my regular stuff.
Protecting against my inadequacies being released to the world at large.
This exercise I perform each day. Berating the horse racing of “The Past “ for pushing off without my permission and taking lots of good things with it. Like a mentally and physically tough straight ten furlongs on lovely turf to determine a Champion, rather than the “The Present” being a weedy, curvy ten furlongs on frequently hopeless ground. Like a plethora of tough and artistic jockeys (I was 11 years old when I first learned about the hero of the age, Fred Winter), trainers and owners. Like the draw being numbered from left to right making life easier to avoid form analysis mistakes. Like Timeform Annuals; sheer idleness in not bothering to produce a perfect blend of science and artistry, when the information to do so is sitting right of front of the perpetrators all the time! The monetisation of useful data; APEX stallion data is no longer free, but Bill Oppenheim is a good guy and deserves the money!
Another daily task. Transferring todays selected racing data into my various spreadsheets to calculate if there are any value bets.
Digitising my late father-in-law’s photographs from North Africa and Italy in the early 1940s and editing them to improve their clarity. Eighty-three done from this album, with two hundred and fifty two to go. Six albums going back to 1920 done, with another five post-war to do, ready to distribute to the far-flung relatives. In this arena, the past would have been a real nuisance, with huge postal costs (very weighty albums) and high chances of lost items, plus many arguments along the lines of: “ It’s my turn to have the album of1960s holiday pictures. Not yours!”
Doing the monthly update to my wife’s (and her chums) website about their string quartet. It has become more interesting since a young whipper-snapper challenged me to learn HTML and CSS to build the website properly, so that I understood what was going on, and could therefore understand how to change it. It does beat the “modern” way of using some huge conglomerate’s drag-and-drop website build program online. The HTML/CSS method has the added benefit of using about 20% of the code of the drag and drop method and hence runs much faster; pages load more quickly.
Listening to Paul Carrack. Starting the day with: Eyes of Blue, The Only One and Where would I be, sets my brain to rights.
Responding to quotes:
[Quote: –]“When you consider how few rides Dettori has had this season even for the Gosdens, it makes me wonder if the feud between them has had far deeper roots than Royal Ascot.
Why does Dettori not ride at the likes of Windsor on a Monday night or Nottingham on a wet Tuesday afternoon? I do not recall Pat Eddery and Willie Carson refusing to ride at these meetings after they had turned 50.
I do not believe you can just ride on Saturday and at selected midweek meetings. You have to ride at the bread and butter meetings as well to keep your eye in.”[Unquote]TRC still have Dettori at number six in the world in the Jockey Rankings. Dettori has had many fewer mounts in the UK/IRE than the championship chasers this year, but still 33% more than the Irish champion Colin Keane
I think there is a reasonable chance that, a few years ago, Dettori settled on the type of jockey he wanted to be. He possibly chose to be a jockey who could have a family life, in two different countries; wife and children in England, father, mother, siblings in Italy. He might also have decided not to be the type of jockey who finished his career, beholden to alcohol and totally knackered. Too many top class jockeys over the last century became burned out, or with compromised health issues. There are too many stories in the public domain, all the way from Doug Smith, through Pat Eddery, Steve Cauthen and Walter Swinburn, to Richard Hughes who nearly, or actually, paid the ultimate price of living a lifestyle and battling the pressures that a career as a jockey can bring with it. It is reasonable to suppose that Dettori thought that concentration on riding good class horses in high class races was the answer.
For Dettori – arrive at Gosden stables 7:00 AM to ride five unraced two-year-olds. Drive to Folkestone to ride two maidens and three 60-80 handicappers. Drive to Redcar evening meeting to ride three maidens and three 50–70 handicappers. Get back home at 11:00PM.
Response: No thanks. Taking a day off, then riding in German Derby and Oaks, Another day off, then flight to USA for four Grade One chances at Belmont. See you next weekend for three Group racesFor Michaelangelo – “Oi! Come here, there are these three doors and four staircases to paint in the next five hours”
Response: No thanks. I am off to paint the Sistine Chapel.The different interpretations that people in the wide world of horse racing have given to John Gosden’s criticism of Frankie Dettori is very interesting. My view: Dettori deviated from the plan. Maybe in the early stages the other horses/jockeys did not do what was expected, but whichever way you look at it Dettori made a mistake of analysis or judgement. There have been times when Dettori has deviated from a plan and won a big race because his judgement was spot on. Just like many other good jockeys. What came as a surprise to me was John Gosden losing his cool and heading straight to the press to let the world know how much he did not like Dettori’s actions. John Gosden, like all other trainers, is a human being, which makes it a 100% probability that he has made many mistakes which have cost a horse a big prize. But I cannot recall an owner, jockey, vet, work rider, groom, going public with their view that: the horse should never have been asked to race on such a hard/soft surface, over such a long/short distance, after such a long/short gap since its last race, after such a long/short time to recover from injury, after such a long trip overseas, etc etc.
It is no longer the 1980s, or 1890s come to that, and most people understand much better these days how to get success from good teamwork. I can understand John Gosden having a right old barney with Frankie Dettori over his ride in Stradivarious’s race (in private), but with an eye to the future, and the wider connotations, it is not a good look to make the press your first port of call.
There is nothing quite like horse racing, and predicting the future, to make anybody look foolish. So I shall just take a look at one race from the past and predict the winner of the Lingfield Derby Trial, and probably make a fool of myself. Horses can progress rapidly, physically and mentally, in the first few months of their three-year-old season (see Adayar 2021). So investing heavily at this stage of the season is a dodgy proposition because there is often no settled form and no information about the horse’s racing requirements. Natural World, in his one and only race so far, acted like a seasoned pro throughout the race, like a sprinter out of the stalls, responding instantly to his jockey saying “no need to go THAT fast, cruised easily with a smooth stride until the three pole, had the other runners off the bridle well before he came off the bridle himself, responded to his jockey even though his jockey had dropped his whip, and still had plenty of energy at the post. So much energy that his jockey could not pull him up for forty seconds. Throughout the race he just shouted “Hey! I really love this running lark.” He races for fun, but already understands why being in control in the early stages allows him to run faster at the end. Natural World has a big chance of winning the Derby Trial today. Despite various negatives, like the stable jockey being on a different horse. Foolish? Moi?
On Tiger Roll’s handicap mark this year. I think Gladiateur is confusing two different numbers. Tiger Roll was on a rating of 159 BEFORE he won the GN in 2019. After that win, and because of that win, his BHA rating went up to 171 (the RPR went up to 174). His new rating, used to handicap him in this year’s GN is 161 and has therefore gone DOWN ten pounds. If Tiger Roll’s team want him to have the opportunity to match Red Rum, then they must know that Red Rum was asked to run off a mark of 162 when he was twelve.
Tiger Roll is a horse who has been capable of running 12, 16, 80, 4, 65, 22 pounds below his rating in the last few years, which indicates a great lack of consistency. Well, it is either that, or his owner and trainer have not known what type of race conditions suit him best, which I cannot bring myself to believe. It is probably a good thing for normal punters that the horse will not be running in this year’s GN.
