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Phil Smith has given up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/20 … s-up-arkle
Denied his great white hope to endorse his view that Timeform dropped a clanger, Greg Wood now effectively accuses the tea boy of coming up with the rating.
According to the RP there were over 24,000 people at Chester yesterday, so it looks like they were right about the viability of the fixture.
We might wish things were different, but this is the way of the world, for the moment anyway.
The BHA gave up the old ’50-mile rule’ to fend off the OFT.
Chester would have known that York and Haydock were already racing on this date when it bid for what looks like a surrendered fixture from Doncaster. They obviously made a commercial decision that they could make sufficient profit for it to be worthwhile.
For a popular course, a summer Saturday will normally be a cash cow, regardless of where else is staging racing that day, whereas, generally, they have apparently struggled to get value from Sunday fixtures.
You have to remember that the sort of customer in which racecourses are interested will mostly be oblivious to the other options available that day and that, for customers in their target market, it’s preferable to wake up with a banging hangover on Sunday than Monday.
For anyone interested in the political side of racing Mark Davies’ blog http://markxdavies.blogspot.com/ makes fascinating reading.
As one of Betfair’s head honchos he’s clearly got a particular perspective on things yet he deals with matters openly.
He’s spoken about the French position several times, most recently here http://markxdavies.blogspot.com/2010/04/dunkirk.html
The simple fact is that we know, and customers know, that there are plenty of work-arounds for IP blocking, should people chose to use them; and without operator co-operation, the chances of the French government enforcing their legislation – short of sending the police randomly into people’s front rooms and catching them on their computers – is zero. Operator co-operation will only come from those with brand names to protect, so the law will shut out precisely the sort of company that ought naturally to be welcomed in.
Anyone else who wants a bit of the action in defiance of the French government has the playing field wide open, so the black market will flourish. By France’s own estimates, it already equates to around 5,000 sites, even before the addition of new rogue operators which are likely to pop up in the way that music file-sharing sites did when Napster first got banned.
You might say, "well he would say that", but it’s hard to argue with the nub of his argument. If EU legislation makes France open up to more firms it would make much more sense to welcome legitimate operations.
The issue of notification came up in a thread previously.
Trainers do get fined if they don’t notify Weatherbys about a gelding operation at least 5 days before the animal concerned runs. Most recently…
KAYFTON PETE / Reg Hollinshead
The Disciplinary Panel held an enquiry to consider whether or not Reg Hollinshead, a licensed trainer, had committed a breach of Rule (C)17 of the Rules of Racing, in respect of his failure to notify the Racing Calendar Office by noon 5 days before running, that KAYFTON PETE had been gelded. The failure to comply with Rule (C)17 was noted when the Veterinary Officer examined the horse at Ludlow on 25 March 2010.
Having considered the evidence, the Panel accepted an admission from Williams that he was in breach of Rule (C)17 and imposed a fine of £200 upon him, this being his second offence of the Rule within 12 months.
STARKSIE (IRE) / Evan Williams
The Disciplinary Panel held an enquiry to consider whether or not Evan Williams, a licensed trainer, had committed a breach of Rule (C)17 of the Rules of Racing, in respect of his failure to notify the Racing Calendar Office by noon 5 days before running, that STARKSIE (IRE) had been gelded. The failure to comply with Rule (C)17 was noted when the Veterinary Officer examined the horse at Ffos Las on 18 February 2010.
Having considered the evidence, the Panel accepted an admission from Williams that he was in breach of Rule (C)17 and imposed a fine of £200 upon him, this being his second offence un the Rule within 12 months.
Whether these penalties are proportionate was, as I recall, the subject of the previous thread. Personally, I wouldn’t allow the horse to run in these circumstances.
The problem with geldings from the point of view of a database is that the sex of an animal tends to be regarded as a fixed field, rather than something that has to be captured each time it runs. Hence you usually need to rely on text references (like Timeform) for information about the change of status.
Thanks again Wit.
As I have said before, I’m not a lawyer (fortunately) but the salient phrase from the point of view of anyone trying to establish copyright on behalf of racing, or any other enterprise for that matter, is
There must be some ‘subjective’ contribution. A ‘sweat of the brow’ collection will not do.
To expand upon your examples to clarify my own understanding, if the final declarations for a race were chosen by a handicapper on the basis of providing the best spectacle or the most competitive contest from those horse which had been entered then that might attract a commercial right in runners and riders.
Similarly the fixture list process could be changed such that racecourses would be entitled to submit as many applications as they wished to stage fixtures, and those granted would be selected on the basis of achieving the best match based on a combination of golden rules and ‘nice to haves’.
One problem here is that these were the sort of considerations which were handed over to placate the OFT. Also, although you could protect the biggest meetings with fixed dates each season [to avoid running The Derby at Bath
] in much the same way that football fixtures avoid international weekends, in order to establish "subjective contribution" the rest of the fixture list would have to vary substantially from year to year, an arrangement that would cost racecourses themselves substantial revenue (variation in the number of fixtures awarded, different dates each year and so on).Good news for punters, bad news for the racing authorities, and a handy "How To" guide for anyone thinking of creating a database with exploitable rights.
An ironically named example of what happens when you have different sources of entries and different sources of results.
Unless you can persuade domestic authorities always to use their own breeding suffix such instances will happen repeatedly.
The ideal would be a worldwide convention covering the entire entries, declarations and results process for thoroughbred racing, including jockeys and trainers having the same style regardless of which country they were operating in and agreed metrics for measuring distances.
Good luck with that.
Well the March ABCs are out.
Average net circulation was 68,332, down from 72,077 for the same month in 2009.
The 12-month average circulation is now 59,668.
Figures include the sales in the RoI.
Very interesting Wit, thanks.
I wonder how much impact web site charges have had on the traffic levels quoted in the accounts.
12-month average circulation for the newspaper had fallen to 60,973 by the end of 2009. The ABC for March — always its highest of the year — is due this Friday.
http://www.bertsblog.co.uk/horse-racing/tif.html
Comments on today’s prospects are somewhat academic now, but it also includes an encouraging update on Morana.
That said, regular readers of his blog will know that Bert can give even the greatest of eternal optimists a run for their money.
Thanks for the legwork Wit. I always enjoy reading a good judgement: some nice dry humour in there.
It may not be immediately as interesting to this forum as the winner of the 4:45 at Ludlow but, as you imply, in the longer term this could turn out to be a ‘big deal’ for racing.
Developments awaited with interest.
So do you know what the final score was?
Interesting spot this Wit, and it’s surprisingly difficult to find out more via Google.
It appears as though there was a hearing in November and that a Danish company Enet Pulse Aps (http://www.enetpulse.com) was a co-defendant at that time.
It can be expensive speculating about legal proceedings, so does anyone have any details?
Anyway, £1.70 just to pay to read bookie advertisements
In the first 45 pages this morning (before the cards start) there are 14 full-page ads plus the equivalent of over 6 pages of half/quarter pages and strips. Pages 44 & 45 is the first spread without any advertising. There are so many offers shouting for attention that I half expected to see DFS in there.
Design is as much a part of delivering a good product as content. It has the look and feel of a free sheet and presents neither the ads nor the editorial in a favourable way.
Courtesy of google…
http://www.visitliverpool.com/grandnati … nd-aintreeAnd why wouldn’t you want to pay £35 to park a car?
It’s at least the third thread about this now. BBC4 viewing figures will be through the roof.
they don’t have the best of records acting on Australian advice, anyway.
This was a strange appointment then.
https://www.britishhorseracing.presscen … 10-c9.aspxIncidentally, there’s now an RSS feed for BHA press releases. A good innovation. More here:
https://www.britishhorseracing.presscen … wsAreaID=2
] in much the same way that football fixtures avoid international weekends, in order to establish "subjective contribution" the rest of the fixture list would have to vary substantially from year to year, an arrangement that would cost racecourses themselves substantial revenue (variation in the number of fixtures awarded, different dates each year and so on).
