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I have no issues with four days, but think that is plenty and things will start to get too diluted with another day. Money talks though, and there seem to be a lot of vested interests in favour of five days.
I wonder which races will move to the Saturday? If we are to have a “flagship” race each day, then splitting the Ryanair and Stayers’ Hurdle onto different days would seem the obvious choice to me.
RIP Ash Hill. I don’t follow fatality rates at individual tracks closely RubyLight, but the change you have described sounds concerning. Do you have any thoughts on why this has happened?
I think in the mid-90s there were two Avertis that did run in the same race. One was a Khalid Abdullah/Henry Cecil runner and the other (possibly with the IRE suffix) was trained by Willie Muir. I’ve got a feeling it was at Yarmouth and maybe it if wasn’t the same race it was the same meeting.
This thread made me think of the two Avertis as well, but I’d forgotten they actually raced each other. It happened on 30 June 1994 at Yarmouth when they were both 3 year-olds. Averti (IRE suffix, Willie Muir) was 5th and Averti (USA suffix, Henry Cecil) was 6th.
Unless the BHA/HRI puts those names forward for protection then they can be used again anywhere in the world in due course. So a potential 2-mile chaser could be called Altior in a decade or so, as could a potential dirt sprinter in the USA. In both cases this seems a shame to me.
The existing thread is https://theracingforum.co.uk/forums/topic/stephen-mahon/
I agree Bonanzaboy, the Mahon case is deeply concerning. The penalties he has been given are pathetic, and give little reassurance that horse welfare is being taken seriously.
Returning to an earlier point, Frankel didn’t obtain automatic protection of his name when he became a Classic winner. It seems absurd, but not even winners of races such as the 2000 Guineas or Grand National get automatic name protection these days. If anyone is interested in which races do obtain automatic qualification, the list is here https://www.ifhaonline.org/resources/NP_2020.pdf. Frankel is on it after he was nominated by the BHA in 2012.
RIP all. I’ve been keeping an eye on these lists as I don’t recall there being any official confirmation about the wellbeing of El Cid who was involved in that horrible incident at Killarney on 10 May. Oddly he still hasn’t been listed as deceased on one of these weekly updates, though the Racing Post race comment seems to have been updated to say he was fatally injured, so sadly there seems little doubt.
There is a name availability checker on the BHA website. Here is what it came up with I typed in Frankel:
The name you have chosen is unavailable.
Suggestions: FRANKEL AT ASCOT, FRANKEL’S MAGIC, FRANKENBEANS, FRANK FLASH, FRANKFOOT, FRANKFORD, FRANKFORD LEADER, FRANKFORD RUN
I wonder how it comes up with the suggestions? I presume they are similar existing names on the database that have become available again for one reason or another.
Totally agree on this. There is a list of “protected names” that can’t be used permanently, but it is woefully short. The argument that names need to be recycled or they will run out doesn’t make sense either seeing as the possibilities are practically infinite.
I certainly get a warm nostalgic glow watching the racing coverage of decades past, but think that is much more about remembering the races and the participants, and also times gone by more generally. The voices of people such as Julian Wilson and Peter O’Sullevan help evoke this feeling, but they weren’t any better than many of today’s presenters in my opinion.
I agree Clare Balding did become somewhat overexposed at one stage, but that came about as she was ambitious and good at her job rather than because she was being over-promoted. I also agree that the BBC have pursued a diversity agenda to some extent, but its declining audience share is much more likely a symptom of the massively widened range of entertainment options available nowadays. And is having some female faces presenting the racing coverage really such a bad thing?
I agree with you about Clare Balding Gingertipster. When she started out, I thought she was a real breath of fresh air for horseracing coverage, and very knowledgeable about the game too. She was certainly quite different in style from Julian Wilson, but not inferior. Sadly as her profile rose she seemed to lose her affinity with racing to some extent though.
Julian Wilson was competent and did bring a certain gravitas to his role, though he was clearly of a bygone era, and was already part of a dying breed in his own day let alone now.
Of the other old BBC pundits, I always quite liked Richard Pitman who was enthusiastic and a good communicator. However, I thought Willie Carson was very unsuited to the role, and his inarticulacy in front of the camera usually managed to hinder whoever he was presenting with too.
Totally agree about themed names. Most of them are very unimaginative, and it makes it sound like the horses are commodities that have come off of a production line. Sadly this may be how they are regarded in some cases.
This year we are at peak Minella with Minella Gold Cup winner and Minella Grand National winner.
Love these podcast ideas! Worryingly, I would definitely listen to all of them as well.
Not yet had the pleasure of listening to Vanilla Ice’s contribution, but it’s on the playlist…
I never knew Mill Reef had been so precocious Ian, interesting stuff.
I know the huge Derby fields seen in some of these videos from yesteryear contained plenty of optimistic entries and caused their share of traffic problems, but there’s something special about seeing a great Derby winner romp away from a big field.
