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I managed to watch the race on BBC online at work although would you believe it – the connection was lost in the final half furlong! My keyboard took a right bashing and there was much swearing. But I knew by then that Frankel would hold on.
IMO Frankel won despite Queally. I’m not one to knock young jockeys who suddenly find themselves thrust into the limelight on exceptional horses – it seems evident that Queally is panicking far too much on Frankel when there’s no need to. He needs to have more confidence in Frankel’s abilities.
Frankel has an incredible turn of foot. All Queally has to do is sit, sit and sit and then let go. Absolutely no need for this demented kick-on-with-four-to-go nonsense. Rerouted went off at 100mph and was always going to come back to the field. Queally only had to ease past him, hold on to Frankel’s head and kick on in the straight – or sit further back and ease through the field like in the Royal Lodge.
It’s easy to be an armchair jockey though. I’ve not ridden a horse for 2 years. Would happily pay a lot of money to sit on Frankel!
I’m sure Queally will learn from this. I just hope he’s not bottomed Frankel out with the last two rides. I’d like to see Frankel in the Juddmonte – held up – threaded through the field and taken to the front with 2f to go. He’d stay no problem with a good ride.
Who knows if Frankel’s as good as the older horses or how decent this year’s 3yos are – time will tell – but facts are facts and Frankel is unbeaten and won yet another G1 today despite a mad ride. What I do know is that this horse has rekindled my interest in racing like no other and once Queally learns to relax in the way Frankel has learned to do, then I’m sure he can go on and beat the older horses later this season.
I’ll be at bloody work tomorrow afternoon. Will the BBC Sport website show live video feed like they did last year? I NEED to see Frankel run!
It’s happened a few times as all my dreams are vivid and well remembered. Unfortunately I’ve not acted on many.
The best one was in 1997 when I dreamt Mudahim won the Grand National. He actually swerved the race and I was disappointed, but he was entered in the Irish National. I duly put £5 on him (well, my parents did, I was about 12 at the time!) and he won at quite nice odds.
I believe it was 1997 anyway, seems an age ago now.
Wow so many old names on here, harking back to the times when I was a teenager spending unhealthy amounts of times watching racing and discussing it on TRF and getting in fierce debates over how good Hawk Wing was etc. (then I went to uni and got a social life!)
I’d like to know what’s happened to Katy as well corm. Would be good to know what some people are up to and where they’ve gone…
I’ve not posted that regularly since 2006 ish, but I’ve been lurking on/off for the last 5 years. I really miss going racing!
1. The horse. In my opinion, God’s most magnificent creation. Nothing takes my breath away more than a horse at a flat out gallop, giving his all, and the partnership with the jockey. Jockeys are the most underrated of sportsmen, the fittest and the bravest, and the luckiest to be able to ride such amazing creatures.
2. The structure of the seasons – both flat and jumps – and the breeding/bloodstock aspect of racing, which I’ve always found fascinating.
3. The fact that year after year, brilliant champions come along (OK I suppose we get some poorer crops than others, but you never have to wait long…) Frankel proved it yesterday. There is always something new which takes your breath away, that you’ve never seen before. As a spectacle, no other sport comes close.
Wow!
For one reason or another, the past 5 years of racing have somewhat passed me by. I thought I’d been losing my interest in it somewhat, and no horse had captured my imagination since Dubai Millennium.
And then came Frankel. I’d been longing for the return of Henry Cecil for years (probably to remind me of the good old days!) and then last autumn I found myself with a couple of spare Saturdays to tune into Frankel’s wins at Ascot and in the Dewhurst.
I thought he was magnificent then, but I never expected a win like this in the Guineas after a solid but fairly workmanlike performance in the Greenham.
Frankel blew me away. After 2 furlongs my mouth was wide open in disbelief. I never thought he could stay in front, but he did. There was no point Queally trying to fight him. Frankel embodies everything I love about racing – a horse born to race like the wind – so why not just let him run.
There is a debate to be had about the quality of the field, but time will tell. Personally I can’t see him winning the Derby running like that, unless he settles somehow. I’d keep him to a mile. If he were to win the Derby I’d swear he was a freak of nature. But for now, I’m happy to settle for the visual display he put in yesterday. In a Classic, I’ve never seen anything like it.
Combined with Blue Bunting’s win in the 1000 Guineas today, I’ve not enjoyed a weekend’s racing this much in a long time.
I always thought TRF was the best racing forum and still do. That said I’m another old member who barely posts anymore. I pop in from time to time and have been reading a lot more lately over the Cheltenham/Grand National period.
When I first joined in 2002 I was on here all the time, but then again I was 17 then and life had yet to get in the way!! I gradually spent less and less time on here and then sadly, grew further apart from racing when I decided to drop the idea of becoming a racing journalist, for various reasons.
So when I did come back a month or so ago to read the forum again, I didn’t know most of the names who post on here. The observations I’ve made though is that there don’t seem to be as many threads any more in this section (maybe due to some being in the ‘big races’ section) and the lounge is a lot emptier. Also, I did prefer the old original layout best!
I do find TRF useful for getting racing insight I don’t get from what I read on RP online or watch on TV. These days I feel very detached from racing. I still love it, but I’m stuck back in the early 2000s when I was last immersed in it, and I find little time to get involved anymore.
I don’t think I’ve posted on this forum for a long time. These days I don’t get the time to keep up with racing as much, but always keep an eye on what’s going on, and I always watch the big races.
I’m not sure whether it’s due to having ‘stepped back’ from racing a bit in recent years, but I felt more than uncomfortable watching the National yesterday. It’s the one race that’s made the most of more than any other. To outsiders of racing, they may think this is what all racing is about.
I love the National, and racing, and have for years. But it really is hard to justify the race to the general public when horses are fatally injured and quite obviously so – the dolling off of fences emphasised this, not least the BBC’s unfortunate camera angles. Then there was Ballabriggs’s exhaustion. I too was terrified he was going to collapse after the line.
The fences are smaller but I don’t think this has helped at all. The ground looked like it was riding much faster than the official description and I think the time reflects this, despite two fences being omitted.
Today’s Daily Mail website makes cringeworthy reading at best: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article … ntree.html although I have major issues with how they’ve reported it (but I have issues with the way the DM reports anything).
All in all, the Grand National is racing’s biggest PR disaster.
Pompete – I find that link disconcerting to say the least.
I voted Conservative at 7.30am this morning. Am taking the rest of the afternoon off work to get out the vote in Ealing Central & Acton constituency – good times!
Dubai Millennium’s death of grass sickness in 2001. I was so upset I couldn’t go to school the next day, despite the fact I was revising for my GCSEs at the time!
In person, the death of Coshocton in the 2002 Derby. I didn’t see him break his leg, but saw him on the ground in pain before the screens went up. I nearly had a major row with someone standing near me who was shouting at me ‘why are you crying? It’s only a horse!’ Thankfully I just walked away.
Another sad note was when my all time favourite chaser Moorcroft Boy fell in the 1994 Becher Chase and broke a vertebrae in his neck. I feared the worse and was so so upset, but amazingly he was saved and the story ended like a fairytale when he won the 1996 Scottish Grand National. Good days!
Robert Pattinson
Nick Bryant (a male model)
And a guy I’m friends with I’ve had my eye on for quite a few weeks now :-pI didn’t think anyone would remember me!
I still read the forum from time to time (just hardly ever post) and am currently in the process of actively returning to racegoing after a good day out at the Hennessy Gold Cup.
Unfortunately since joining this forum as an eager 16/17 year old in 2002 I’ve been sucked into a world of political spin
I wonder what happened to some of the others Grasshopper mentions…..?
How coincidental, I’ve just had Lloyd Grossman Thai Red Curry and it’s rather nice.
I usually make my own but can’t be bothered midweek/after work.
Hmmm this must be my first post in a while – hello forumites! (I do monitor TRF regularly though!)
There are a good number of MPs and prospective MPs that are worryingly far removed from reality…especially the ones who have been MPs for God knows how many years. Public perception on this one is pretty accurate.
A lot of political bloggers are perhaps what Blears would label ‘anti-establishment’, but in reality they’re only saying what most people think and what most printed newspapers won’t say. Most of the bloggers also have too much time on their hands and lurk around Westminster trying to sniff out stories. I know and have met most of the prominent ones, and yes, most of them are right wing…but not all.
