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Good old Timeform,never ones for being afraid to over hype a horse and both
Frankel
and
Celtic Swing
fall into that category! I still think
Dream Aheads
Middle Park victory was the 2yo performance of the year
but what do i know!
You know that Dream Ahead beat Strong Suit and Approve by 9 lengths. Many other people know that Dream Ahead beat Foghorn Leghorn in the very same race by 10.5 lengths. I’d rather believe that Strong Suit and Approve ran well below form rather than that Forghorn Leghorn improved by 15 pounds or more in his ninth race of the season, just a week after being beaten 9 lengths in a nursery.
Is the angler you’re thinking of Bob Nudd? Subject of a campaign from
Angling Times
and the like to take the 1991 renewal of SPOTY.
HTH,
gc
Despite decades looking at computer screens, I am still learning about the world of forums, instant communications and, especially, the acronyms. A quick google leaves me with several options, but I guess that HTH is not Heavy Transport Helicopter, Hand to Hand (in combat games), How the Hell, so it must be Hope That Helps. It did. Thanks.
I think the distinction that should be made is between the subject’s ‘personality’ as a person and their ‘sporting personality’.
They should perhaps rename it the ‘Sports Achiever of the Year’ award.
btw didn’t Giggs only win because of an orchestrated voting campaign/strategy rather than a genuine public ‘free’ vote?
I like the idea of Achiever rather than Personality. I am not sure that most people know the true personality of any of the ten people in this contest. Perhaps only their closest friends and family do. For all we know they might have regular public relations lessons and coaching in how to project an ideal personality to the outside world, despite their temper tantrums, moaning and whining, unkindness to kids and animals, tight-fistedness, and being a general all-round bore. So I just go with what I can see.
I wonder if the Welsh community were a big plus for Giggs, after they had the practice of voting for Joe Calzaghe (what a great boxer he was!). Can anyone orchestrate a win in this contest since the BBC changed the rules to keep the angler out (can’t remember his name)? I would have thought it would be difficult to do it for a footballer because it is such a factional sport – not many Arsenal and Chelsea fans etc would vote for a Manchester United player. Pehaps it was just an organised Welsh vote.
I shall vote for AP McCoy. I do realise that after being regarded as a reasonably intelligent person for the last few decades I shall instantly become a “retard” (thanks Bluechariot) or a “nerd” (Venusian). I suppose I am beyond the pale in thinking that Ryan Giggs has a personality (fitzer1987), or that Muhammed Ali was a great sports personality and the most brilliant boxer ever despite never having fought against an Australian, Brazilian, Chilean, Dane ….. Zambian (ReasonoverFaith).
Some people on this thread, on both sides of the argument, are treating this much too seriously. It’s a TV programme for goodness sake.
For me it’s just an opportunity to give a bloke a vote for competing in a hard tough sport in such a relentless, determined, never-say-die manner. To me that smacks of great personality. Personality doesn’t always mean speaking charmingly to the public at large, or projecting a civilized outlook on life. Sometimes personality is about being thrown from the top of a half-ton horse into the ground at thirty miles an hour three times in an hour and a half, and then having the guts to get on a horse in the next race and be determined to give it the best ride possible despite the potential pain. That’s personality. I may not like everything the man says or does, but my respect is huge. He is easily the most deserving of the ten candidates.
Is it a good time for Pat Keane to bring out an article like this when we’re all trying to get AP a deserved award?
I guess that when you are a journalist you have to write about what is happening “right now” rather than what happened two or three months ago. You cannot expect a journalist to forego a good story just for the sake of a sports award show. There are editors, shareholders and families to feed, especially in Ireland’s current financial situation. Anyway AP himself doesn’t seem to mind that there has been a bit of a minor fuss. I expect he is well content to be forever known as the toughest, most determined, most successful NH jockey. An annual BBC award does not come close to the continuing knowledge of racing fans about his lifetime achievements.
I was incredibly impressed with MasterMinded today. He was jumping only 70% for me. I think he fiddled a few today compared to his normal extradinary leaping.
I’m still trying to work out what race you were watching; apart from edging to the right at the 7th, his jumping was absolutely flawless. Indeed, if, at any point this season, a horse makes a better shape over a fence than Master Minded did over either the first, second-last or last, I’ll be astounded.
It was the perfect follow-up to his Ascot rout and proof positive that he’s once again a force to be reckoned with. He’ll be better granted a stronger pace too, leaving Captain Cee Bee as the only horse capable of getting anywhere near him.
I agree that Master Minded didn’t make any mistakes or even look as though he would, but I can see what Ruby/Saddle means, though. When he is really on song Master Minded gives a masterclass on how to get from one side of a fence to the other as quickly as possible at every fence. He was very good in the Tingle Creek, but there were a few deviations from perfection when returning to earth a little earlier than expected and catching the trailing edge of the fence with his forelegs on the downward trajectory.
Maybe Ruby/Saddle was watching very closely to see if his/her hero might have done the job a little bit differently?
Are you serious? What the hell is this entire thread about if not the fact these people were saying AP never tried?
He’s ran two stinkers miles below his best and you think nothing is amiss.
So if nothing was amiss with the horse are we to conclude you think he was stopped?
If you keep contradicting yourself Ginge we could be here all year.
So come on which is it to be?
Something amiss
The BHA require all jockeys and trainers to report to the racecourse stewards if they know or suspect that there was any problem with a horse that prevented it from running a normal race. It’s a rule, they must do it. All these reports are available from the BHA website, there are usually several at every meeting. Jockeys and trainers have been fined by the BHA when they have failed to report and it has been noticed by someone else, a vet for instance. As well as the obvious reasons like, lost a shoe, saddle slipped, went lame, etc, there are many reports which just say things like, the horse stopped quickly, the horse did not come down the hill, the horse tired quickly in the ground. There were no reports from either AP McCoy or Jonjo O’Neill after the Ascot race (beaten 16L) or the Cheltenham race (beaten 23L).
Earlier in this thread were quotes about commentators who don’t ride racehorses having little clue about how a horse feels when it is amiss or struggling in a race. It seems that in two races, and in the gallops between races, the jockey, trainer, work riders and vet of GMOOH have not been able to say that the horse has been amiss at any time. Even straight after its two poor performances. Are you implying that they are incompetent, and you are able tell that the horse is amiss just by watching a TV replay? That puts you in the same category as non-riding commentators according to AP McCoy.
What the hell is this entire thread about if not the fact these people were saying AP never tried?
This thread is about AP Mcoy’s reactions – not talking to RUK, and saying in writing that RUK commentators insinuated that he was a cheat. Many commentators, as well as the RUK ones, made similar comments about the ride that the horse was given. There may be very good reasons why the horse was ridden like that, but the stewards didn’t ask and the jockey and trainer didn’t volunteer any information. In similar circumstances commentators have been critised for not pointing out unusual happenings in races and for being too cosy with members of the racing fraternity. But outspoken commentators don’t usually have the ammunition to go to their lawyers with, like the RUK commentators have, if they chose to take it further.
Met Office forecast for Cheltenham area:
Daytime Thursday max temp = plus 1 C
Nighttime Thurs/Fri min temp = minus 1 C
Daytime Friday max temp = plus 5 C
Nighttime Fri/Sat min temp = plus 3 C
Daytime Saturday max temp = plus 7 CIf those figures apply to Prestbury Park there has to be a good chance of both days racing taking place, especially after all the course covering done by the Cheltenham staff over the past week.
The July Course problem will be solved by another aspect of these changes.
In order to avoid confusion between countries using different numbering systems, a uniform system of binary shall be adopted for racecard numbers and draws. The only drawback is their length, which will have to be restricted to four digits owing to media ‘space constraints’. This will make 20 runner fields on the July course a thing of the past – 15 runner maximums from now on.
That’s a bit clever for the BHA..
I’ve said more than a 1100 times that I 1000 it when life get too complicated. I’d have a proper 0101 star life, if only I could get to cope with the BHA like a Hong Kong gambler, but I’m usually at 0110’s and 0111’s with all this draw malarkey. I get in a right 0010 and 1000 about it. I’d give this new initiative 1010 out of 1010 if I really thought it would help the punter, but at best I’d give it a 0011. I reckon a lot of the BHA top brass don’t what it’s 0100.
Stall numbering left-to-right ascertained from a position behind the stalls is an endearing idiosyncrasy; and the question ‘using no more than a straight-edge, compass and the 1inch-to-the-mile Ordnance Survey maps you’ve been supplied with, determine the high, low, stands, far, inside, outside draws at Epsom, Beverley and Sandown’ a regular but feared inclusion in the GCSE Punting exam paper.
Great fun it all is, but daft. So I’ve no problem with the proposed change, though it will take this ageing dog a long time to learn the new trick of forsaking the illogical for the logical
Though to labour APRacing’s rather good ‘tinkering with the Titanic’ analogies when RFC BHA XYZ come up with their latest wheeze whilst heads remain buried in the sand – on a sinking ship it matters little what order the lifeboats are numbered in
But isn’t it comforting for UK and overseas punters (and UK racing stats compilers) to know that with BHA logic that the draw will be in reverse order on the Sandown 5F course depending on whether the stalls are against the nearside rail or the far side.
Good article by Chris Cook in The Guardian that lays things out with actual quotes from the RUK staff involved.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/20 … uk-boycott
You’d have to say McCoy is being precious, selfish and derelict in his duty to the sport as things stand.
Almost incomparable as a sportsman, but he needs to get over himself on this one, imo.
The usual story with racing.
If that Guardian report is accurate, then Tony McCoy might well think about apologising to the RUK commentators before this gets to be better known by the general public and somebody starts posting videos on YouTube. The RUK commentators seemed to be saying what the Racing Post and Raceform Update analysis said. They were saying that he was surprisingly lenient on the horse, they did not say there was no good reason for it, but that maybe the stewards should have asked what those reasons were. For McCoy to accuse them on his blog of saying that he cheated is very wide of the mark. He is a man with lots of strong, positive attributes. I hope his friends can persuade him that he has overreacted and to settle this in the right way.
Knowing the No.1 draw will always be on the inside means that casual punters will not have to think about whether tracks are left- or right-handed before factoring their conception of the draw bias into betting calculations.
I think that casual punters might not take the draw into account at all. On straight courses where the stalls can be placed on either side of the track, or even in the middle, the new rules would not help. On certain courses on particular types of going the jockeys swing wide round the bend and race up the far rail. On certain courses there are now cutaways on the inside rail that allow hold up horses to get up the inside. But most of all it is knowing the horses that makes all the difference in understanding whether having an inside or outside draw is any advantage. An habitually slow starter running at Chester from Stall One would suffer from the draw rather than benefit from it. Unless the BHA standardize all tracks in the UK, the punter really has to know the track configuration and the racing style of the horses to make a good evaluation of what the draw means. The simple number on the stall at a UK track confers very little information on its own. Overseas punters, betting on UK racing, would be deluding themseves if they thought that the draw number would help them without knowing that Ascot is right handed, Newbury left, Chester tight, etc. And if they know that, then they have no need of this new regulation.
This new edict is window dressing, the appearance of doing good but achieving little or nothing for punters either in the UK or overseas. The BHA should be spending this time on achieving things of much more value than this, and not annoying all the form and stats people.
Robert99: I totally agree with you. The BHA is making a change that adds value to nothing and no-one, and steadfastly refusing to countenance changes that would be beneficial to punters and racegoers. The BHA yet again making a change without first flagging it up to the people who ultimately pay the bills, and could help them make better decisions. As they say: “You coulndn’t make it up, could you. No-one would believe you”.
To the experienced and knowledgeable people on this thread who say it makes perfect sense, I notice that you did not say why you thought it was sensible, other than conformity. I think it makes perfect sense to read from left to right; Number One is on the left, then Two, then Three, etc. No confusion there at all. In a country where we have left hand, right hand, straight, and figure of eight courses, this new edict is a recipe for confusion, uncertainty and annoyance. Conformity with the rest of the world is fine if there is some value in doing it. Our courses are not all left handed. Yet. Or is that the BHA’s next move?
Drone, here are a few figures to judge the impact of racing in this country and also whether Government would be wise in not giving ‘two hoots’ about racing:
Latest available figures from 2008:
# Tax contributed by British Racing – £325m
# Attendance fixtures for British Racing – £5.7m
# Direct, indirect and associated employment of British Racing – 100,100
# Capital Expenditure (5 years up to 2008) – £706m
# Contribution to Local Economy on racedays from racegoers -£222m (Estimate)# Of the top ten attended sporting events in Britain in 2008 Racing accounted for – 2nd, 6th, 7th & 8th
# In total attendance of sporting events racing holds second place behind football
Source: Deloitte, Economic Impact of British Racing 2009
One should really be able to trust figures published by such a distinguished company as Deloitte. Maybe it’s not their arithmetic but their definition of “event” that causes me to think there is something akin to wishful thinking or “pleasing the customer” in their depiction of Racing as the 2nd, 6th, 7th & 8th best attended sporting events in 2008.
The Levy Board website shows that the highest Racing attendance was the Thursday of Royal Ascot at 73,130 and the second highest was the Friday of Cheltenham at 70,138. Third was Grand National day at 64,944. It is possible that non-paying guests increased the Derby Day attendance beyond the official figure of 38,250, but by how much is only a guess. Manchester United’s average home league match attendance was 75,304 for the 2008/2009 season. I think there is a fair chance that all nineteen home league matches were better than Ascot’s highest.
Maybe Deloitte chose Ascot Week, Cheltenham Week, Goodwood Week, etc. as an “event”. But to be fair, they would have to be placed against England’s Six Nations home matches, Henley Week, The London Marathon, Cowes Week, the Fourth Round of The FA Cup. It starts to get as silly as a Monty Python sketch. (Bring on the Country Gentlemen’s Association gathering at Blenheim which brings the surrounding area to a halt for three days).
It makes me question the other definitions in that list. How much value would I put on Deloitte’s valuations? Racing in general and the BHA in particular has to make sure it is not deluding itself on its value to the economy, and how quickly employment opportunities and finance would be redirected in the economy if Racing did not exist.
I have loved racing since I was twelve years old, but I realise one has be be completely realistic and honest with oneself to battle to save what one loves.
Hi MV. I consider that stuff as dissimulating baloney.He was responding to the Arabs who wanted Dettori.What was all the talk about Fortune not being fully fit? Was that really true or was it just more of the same crap? Cecil had no problem bringing out Queally to ride with no American experience.Maybe the Kerry strand was what was needed.
OK, I’ll rise to the bait while it’s still warm in California, and about to be 80 mph gales with heavy rain in the dark of the night here. What is a Kerry strand, if not one of the best places to haul in ten pound sea bass if you are a good fisherman and lucky ? How does it relate to Fortune?
Whether we like it or not Gosden did not support Fortune’s claim to ride for him in the US. He brought Buick the next year with absolutely no experience of the US.
Geoff Lester – Eveening Standard
23.08.10Gosden, who trained in California for 10 years before returning home in 1988, said: "I got some stick when I let Jimmy go but I have to look to the future, and, whereas Jimmy never ever spread his wings and attempted to gain experience of American racing, William set about to do just that when he was in his teens and I think that is important.
William used to ride out regularly in the winter months in the States, getting used to the pace of races out there, and with racing having become so much more global these past couple of decades, I decided that I better try and sign him up before anybody else gets hold of him.”
Buick was riding in Dubai last Winter when he received the phone call from Gosden offering him the job. His father was a jockey in several European countries and William travelled around a lot with him.
Happened in 2008 and 2009, Gosden put Frankie on his rides, and said it was due to the owners.
From the Guardian 21/01/10
Visibly agitated when quizzed by reporters over the situation, Gosden said: "It was a very difficult decision and not one I found easy to make. It is not my fault that my normal jockey has not experienced racing on American racetracks.”
Maybe Gosden thought that Fortune could have spent a bit of one of his Winter breaks riding in the USA to broaden his international experience. Gosden trained for quite a time in the USA before taking out a licence in the UK. He has a lot of contacts there. Maybe he wanted a jockey who would relish riding in the USA, Dubai, Japan, Hong Kong, etc when there was big money on offer, and was willing to go and get the necessary experience.
