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There seems to be a lot of short-priced good things (Kauto Star, Punjabi Sizing Europe, Nepture Collanges) but you know a few of them are likely to flop.
I’m backing Sizing Europe – it’s daft to overlook that there are doubts about Kauto Star (at a price where there shouldn’t be doubts) and I think Punjabi’s a bit overrated.
I don’t think Crackaway Jack is good enough (has only won handicaps so far – proven graded form is required in these races IMO). Celestial Halo needs further. Katchit needs the Cheltenham hill (and has been out of form). Chomba Womba isn’t good enough (and has had hard races). I think Binocular will win, using his speed, and then the next few months will be spent discussing whether he will be as effective at Cheltenham or is just a flat-track bully. That will be the big question until March.
Well, that’s the way I see it anyway, and I think 5/4 is perfectly fair.
Wow what a load of misanthropes on this forum!
Yes my socialising with my co-workers (including at Christmas parties) is enforced, and our conversation is often superficial, but I realise that my co-workers have probably made the same observations – we all know this – so rather than staying inside and moaning, I think we all (unspeakingly) agree to compromise – we don’t all need to be bestest friends to make conversation for a few hours, have a laugh – and that way we can drink all of the free booze that we get at these things.
I think the smoothest conversationalists, the friendliest people, are often those who are perceptive enough to realise that it (socialising in general) is often a sham and therefore don’t have any unrealistic expectations about it.
The way Pandorama won on Sunday (26 lenghts and unextended) would suggest to me that is easily the best novice seen so out far this season in England or Ireland and on current form looks the one for The Ballymore Properties Hurdle.
After the next probable win on Dec 14 the 6/1 on offer now for the festival should shorten the odds by half.
I agree that it’s a good arbing opportunity; I don’t think he’ll win at The Festival though. Doesn’t Mullins have one of these horses every year? a novice hurdler (an embryonic chaser) that wins its races easily on soft ground in Ireland then flops at the festival when it encounters good ground, a big field and a fast pace for the first time. Aran Concerto was one, apparently the best horse that he’s ever had (still could be over fences, I guess).
He breeds, owns and trains all of his own horses (well, with a few exceptions: Finsceal Beo, and the ones being poached for breeding rights) – very much a self-made man – and he’s the only one who can compete with O’Brien in terms of proper Group 1 horeses. Bolger has more big-race success than Godolphin, with all of their money and resources, and Stoute, etc, with all of his owners. It’s staggering really…
I know there was the Derby fiasco but I think Bolger comes across well in interviews. Maybe it’s his accent…
Racing seems to be the only sport in which international competition doesn’t matter much to any except the most committed fans.
Agreed. Since when has something not appealing to ‘betting-shop punters’ been a bad thing?
I’m sure any real horse-racing fan will be excited by the prospect of Duke Of Marmalade, Henrythenavigator, Raven’s Pass and Curlin taking each other on – how can anyone who has had an interest in this flat-season not be intrigued?
To me, it seems like a ready-made narrative which is similar to that which was proposed with The Soveriegn Series – this year’s stars taking on the best from The USA. The problem is the time and the TV rights.
Write off Raven’s Pass at your peril I think..
His price of 9/1 seems big to me. Why’s he bigger than Henrythenavigator when he’s just beaten him (in what was a prep. for this), and has had a lighter campaign than him?
Lovely photos of Curlin, Badactor, thanks for posting those! I dig your enthusiasm, and I hope it’s rewarded with a great Breeders Cup.
I think Curlin is a great bet at the price. I think he will win if they keep him up with the pace. Being a dirt-specialist, I would think that he would need to use his stamina at this trip on polytrack.
I can’t see either of O’Brien’s horses winning: both of have been over-raced and this is an afterthought (much like with Dylan Thomas last year). I may place-lay Henrythenavigator depending on the price. Raven’s Pass is going up 2f which puts me off (I prefer him to O’Brien’s two though). I think Casino Drive, who has a prep. that I like, is an outstanding EW bet. I’m thinking of going in heavily on it.
but not that it could turn you into a complete superficial idiot.
Haha yes. There is rampant anti-intellectualism in popular culture – and it doesn’t help that there are so many semi-intelligent people (say, in the broadsheet’s review sections) who respond by ironically celebrating the moronic inferno rather than criticising it, distancing themselves from it. I’m not a snob but there is little difference now between the television and films aimed at teenage girls and that aimed at women, that aimed at hormonal boys and that aimed at men (Transformers anyone? Jason Stratham’s latest beat-em-up?). I’d like to see things aimed at grown-ups for once and leave the idiots to dribble and watch the washing-machine spinning around. I think mainstream music is growing-up a bit though…
If she was mine, I’d have retired her.
She has nothing to prove. And a filly as, um, erratic as her could be a liability if kept in training.
It makes you appreciate how amazing it was that Lord Derby kept Ouija Board in training after her injury.
Yes, i’m talking about modern day celebrity’s. As humans, i’m sure we all wish to be a celebrity sometimes. No matter what ethnic, religious, racial, economic, or age background, there’s always someone we aspire to be or someone we’re (in some small way) jealous of.
I’ve never wished to be a celebrity, ever. Sometimes I’ve wanted to have a celebrity’s money but not there fame. I’m sure many are the same.
It’s patronising to think that all children or teenagers want to be famous. I have a 15-year old cousin who is intrigued by the lives of the famous, finds the spectacle of it all rather amusing – but ultimately know that it’s abstract, far removed from her and her world, and instead concentrates on getting an education. Not every person who passively watches Pop Idol on a Saturday night wants to be famous.
The last person to truly deserve they’re fame was Princess Diana, who helped with many charites and was a role model for the way she looked after her children; she was not a scavenger.
I don’t agree. Nearly every celebrity helps charities, so if that’s a barometer for what makes a celebrity ‘deserving’ or not – then nearly all celebrities are deserving!
Maybe if you changed the criteria to if they helped charities before they were famous (so that fame was a kind of reward). Say, did volunteer work on a weekend while working Monday-to-Friday in a 9-5 job. I wonder if Princess Di did that.
And surely she can’t be a ‘role model’ for the way she looked after her children? You’re supposed to look after children. It’s what millions of decent parents do! It’s not extraordinary.
Yes, celebrity culture did grow during Labour’s reign but I’m inclined to think it was a co-incidence (not Tony Blair’s fault).
I think it’s more complex. I think it (debt) is more to do with a culture of hedonism, a ‘live for the day’-spirit. In the 1990s, hedonism (wasting £100s on a weekend out, superclubs, drugs, holidays in Ibiza) was sold to people who couldn’t afford it. Low-earners who should joylessly scrimp and save but said **** it all and rebelled against the self-imposed caution that previous generations believed in (rightly).. or perhaps the rise of aspirational middle-class types spending above their means on schools, ponies, weird organic vegetables, to compete with their neighbours.
I propose to fellow forum members that celebrity has caused society to go insane and malfuction, both financially and socially, discuss….
To be honest, I think this point should have been made a few years ago because, if anything, it’s dying down now – and something far less tenuous has definitely caused society to malfunction (I’m speaking of the collapse of the mortgage market).
but student loans are largely spent on beer, books and…well…beer.
And things like rent and food; and toileteries, things like that (it all adds up). Sorry I just thought I’d argue against the student stereotype (though you did put books too!).
(and the stereotype is largely true).
The advice to put the loan in the bank and accumulate interest is surely only an option for those who don’t need the loan in the first place (say, those students whose parents have given them a trust fund). For the rest… what exactly are they supposed to live off if not the loan? After rent, I have about £30 a week to live off (discounting money from work) – ill-discipline is not the reason that I won’t have anything left of the loan by the end of my course.
(I was going to put that in my original post but I thought that I’d misread it – they couldn’t possibly mean put the whole thing in the bank?).
That’s brilliant Gareth, well done to you. I have a weakness for horses with a white blaze too, and those look beautiful animals.
Second thoughts; tell him to get a proper job.
Have you watched the news this year? I hear that finding worthwhile full-time employment is becoming quite difficult… especially for someone without a degree/speciality.
Anyway I’m a first-year student and there simply are no tricks to getting by. The only advice I could give is of the most commonsensical kind: he needs to calculate how much he can afford to spend each week (dividing the total amounts of the loans), and stick to it. If he doesn’t stick to it, then he will get in debt.
He could consider getting a part-time job in a bar or something? I work 16 (sometimes 22) hours a week and don’t really need to worry about money.
Alternatively I’d just tell him not to worry about the debt. It’s an abstract thing: you don’t need to pay anything back until you’re earning £15,000+ (and then it’s £10 a week) and if you don’t earn that… well, they don’t send the boys around or anything. It’s not like being in debt to The Krays. So who cares?
By the way: I don’t have an overdraft myself (I don’t need one with working, and having a little saved-up as a ‘cushion’) but it should be easy enough to find out which banks offer the best one. Do interest rates and such like really matter if you don’t have much money in there, and it’s not a savings account?
I think Return To Cookie Mountain (the last TV On The Radio album) is brilliant: the distorted guitars and grungey synths give it a dystopian atmosphere that I dig (imagine a nightmarish future city with crackling neon and smoke coming out of manholes!) and its mixed with African drumming. Their last one (Dear Science) is not so… it’s like a post-modern take of Prince, with lame funky-trumpet bits and high-pitched singing (and three brilliant songs which return to the R.T.C.M sound).
I thought Down’s ‘jolly-jape’ with the owner of Look Here the other day was a far greater crime.
"Oh do be a good sport and tell us what was wrong with her?"
"No, all you need to know is she’s fit."
"Oh you are a rascal, Sir, best of luck!"The great, good and crooked must shudder at the thought of the arch inquisitor brandishing his microphone. All very well hiding behind your pen, Ally; but sometimes the spoken word is a lot sharper.
Presumably you didn’t read Down’s RP article about the owner’s reluctance to speak about her injury. It was certainly critical of him.
You’re as backwards as any of those Southern-state, Bush-loving ‘Yanks’ that Michael Moore like to bang-on about.
There’s one thing disagreeing with what someone says and countering that point of view with another one. It’s a different matter when you resort to insults to try and discredit another poster because you don’t have anything sensible to say on the matter.
It wasn’t a sensible reply but your inference that a number of ‘yanks’ are racist wasn’t sensible: just typical anti-US xenophobia.
This is an utterly contemptible point of view, and completely ignores the inherent racism towards blacks by the ethnic minorities you have described, and the continuing legacy of slavery in the USA.
Can you say who is racist towards black people? Who is enslaving them? Are you referring to the dreaded ‘The Man’?
In other words: who and what are you talking about? Please stop talking in vague soundbites and be explicit.
Perhaps the government should give a million dollars to all black people living in poverty and tell them to ‘do something positive with it’. Yeah… I think Farrakhan suggested that as compensation for slavery. He also said Hitler was his hero (they both hated Jewish people).
If you want to rant about racism, why don’t you look at more deserving targets like, say, the instances of ethnic cleansing in Iraq, Kenya, Zimbabwe, China? But then that’s too complicated because that would mean admitting that another race has done something wrong – does that make you racist? Do you even understand what real racism is? Hold on… breaking news… a white guy who used to star in Seinfeld has said something a bit dodgy; that’s far more important.
