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If you google 1960s pay TV there are a few articles on this service. To summarise you paid to watch individual programmes. Kempton was the only track signed up and it appears it was only available in certain areas. If that’s true then large parts of the uk would have missed out on seeing Arkle’s last ever run.
Ps, I’m no oldie. Monksfield and Sea Pigeon are my earliest memories.
As you may guess from the username I’m a Pats man as well.
I reckon your Steelers each way bet is worth a go as they have the knack of winning games without playing well. As for the Saints I don’t think they have defence to get far in the playoffs.
The Lions looked good on Monday night. You are always waiting for them to self destruct but if they can keep heir heads then a trip to the NFC championship game is a real possibility.
The Pats will be up there but I don’t think their receiving corps is strong enough and the D will have to improve on Sunday’s efforts.
There are two paragraphs in Lord Oaksey’ book "Mince pie for starters" which cover this subject.
He worked on a service called Pay TV which covered all races at Kempton which meant that the 1965 and 1966 king George’s were pay per view and not on terrestrial. It ended some time in 1967. This meant that Arkle’s last race was on Pay TV.
I would echo the comments re Hislop and Mellish and add Neesom to the list.
My main gripe with RUK are the presenters giving away the results at the start of Racing Replay. I don’t get the chance to watch much live racing do I make good use of the endless replays. But there’s nothing worse than sitting down to watch a really good meeting only for Gordon Brown to start listing some of the runners as you just know that these were the winners. Either that or Nick Luck will open up with "welcome to sandown on a day that Andrew Balding won’t forget".
I now turn the sound down at the start.
If you don’t mind I’ll just move in to break up the old boys reunion…
Discussion regarding the Scottish Independence question at Perth today with both Sam Morshead and Peter Scudamore being interviewed on Racing UK.
Sam is normally pretty bullish about opportunities but, having apparently had discussions with the Yes campaign about the financing racing post independence he was not happy about a reply along the lines of "it will be alright". He expressed serious concerns about Scottish racecourses ability to operate at the same level that they are currently.
Peter Scudamore is concerned that the Russell training establishment would not be able to operate at the same level post-independence.
Nick Alexander (local NTF rep) has made some thoughts public in his blog, and is a No voter, but avoided being drawn into the discussion on television.
Interviewer Gordon Brown (the racing one!) was then taken to task by a "Yes supporter" about apparent bias in the broadcast, resulting in a mildly heated discussion which went on for a fair while and gained a bit of an audience. A handful of us had a chat with Broonie about the subject. I said I’m still pretty much in the Dinnae Ken camp wavering between Yes and No and, as an Englishman living in Scotland for 8 years, just a bit uncomfortable with the whole matter. A telling comment came from a guy from Northern England who said that people had to remember that this is "an all time commitment and not something you can change in a few years if you don’t like it". I know a few in the Yes camp who would get uppity about that sort of comment, but often wisdom can come from those looking on.
I just wonder if the telling time might be those hours and minutes leading up to voting when it dawns on voters that this is for keeps. But for the noo I’m still Dinnae Ken!
Rob
One of the biggest problems with this debate is that too many people appear to be basing their decision on their selfish needs. Whichever way the e vote goes this will have ramifications for generations to come and that’s what people need to think about.
And as much as I love my racing my vote will be decided by much more important considerations than the effect of independence on Scottish racing.
There was an excellent letter to a local paper a few weeks ago stating that the No campaign would win due to the amount "aye beens" voting. These are the people who will vote no not because they want Scotland to stay in the UK but because "it’s aye been that way". In other words they don’t like change. These are the people who complain when the presenter on their favourite TV show changes or a new postie starts.
The latest opinion polls are making things more exciting but I agree that come the day fear will override hope and ambition and the Nos will win the day.
Did anyone see the interview with Towcester’s chief exec on the Sunday forum?
He didn’t really convince with regards to the horse racing future. I can understand his reasoning for the move to so many greyhound meetings but Towcester should be a horse track first and foremost.
Very worrying news as I can’t see this as anything other than detrimental to the future of racing at Towcester. I can only hope that this is a temporary measure and meetings will increase in the future.
The only positive is that Doncaster’s underused jumps track looks like picking up some extra meetings.
Why don’t Towcester try a mixed meeting with dog and horse races on at 20 minute intervals. It might work as a novelty.
What about those of us who enjoy racing as a sport rather than a series of betting mediums? Should we boycott it as well?
I’ll be going to Perth a week on Monday Rob. Hopefully there’ll be bigger fields than they’ve had so far this summer.
These races at Ffos Las have been absolutely farcical. I always thought that there was a minimum amount of jumps that had to be included in a race for it to be legal.
There definitely has to be a debate about the amount of NH races being run with half the jumps omitted. It’s bringing jumps racing into disrepute.
Can we trust the viewing figures when they are calculated from such a small selection of tv watchers.
The whole tv viewing scene has changed in the last 20 years with wall to wall tv coverage of sports meaning that many sporting occasions are no longer the big events they were(does anyone remember when race meetings started in the morning on FA cup final day). I would definitely favour moving the Derby to wednesdays where it wouldn’t have the same competition from other events.
As for the comment from a previous poster about it being ridiculous that we have two racing channels that’s nonsense. we should be glad that we have the only sport with dedicated channels.
When the original ATR was on the go i used to get hugely frustrated on saturdays during the winter when you would have four good quality jump meetings and the donkey racing at Southwell. They didn’t have time to show all five meetings so needless to say they would drop one of the jumps meetings and show the dross on the sand.
I’ll say it again. There is too much racing for one channel.
As for the point about the subscriptions RUK have stated that their courses shared £65million last year from the sale of worldwide media rights so there would be enough in the pot for all UK courses. However i hope it doesn’t come to that as i think the current set up is fine.
RUK does have it’s flaws(as do ATR) but we need two channels.
Do not fear sir , the dross channel will get its due rewards in the fullness , just wait until the cream of Irish racing switches ,,,,then we shall see some rapid movement…perhaps some old scores settled , and please God , it will be off our screens for good
Yay ….off with the dross channel ….soonest please
imo
Why do you want ATR off the screens? It’s not that bad.
There’s too much racing for one channel and that’s before we add the Irish action.
Espmadrid, i bow to your superior knowledge. I was wrong about Huntingdon as well. We can add Fakenham to the list of courses with a jump by the winning post. And Aintree of course!! I can recall races at Perth and Newbury having issues with horses being squeezed out at the Elbow. I think it is the decisions of the stewards at Stratford which have brought this course into the limelight.
APracing, there has been a tendency from some racecourses to move their final hurdles nearer to the winning line in recent years with Chepstow, Towcester and Plumpton amongst those doing so. It puts a greater premium on jumping but obviously causes problems at Stratford.
Result reverse again due to the water jump getting in their way
The problem is clearly the water jump. Several years ago this was solved by removing it, re-siting the last fence and adding another fence in the home straight.
However, some decided this had created an issue with unusually high number of fallers at the second last, which had to be positioned early in the home straight after the final bend. The course reverted to it’s previous configuration and we are back to square one again.
The solution to just remove the water jump would seem simple, but I’m sure there are still regulations laid down by the BHA on how many obstacles have to be jumped – 12 fences in a 2 mile chase. Removing the water jump would only leave 11 over that distance, so an extra fence would need to be added somewhere. That in itself is a problem as there are also regulations on minimum distances between fences and siting of fences a sufficient distance from starting points, road/path crossings and bends.
I don’t recall Stratford removing their water jump at any time.
With the second last fence having been removed there is now room to shift the last fence further back. Maybe someone could correct me but Newbury, Perth and Huntingdon all have water jumps beside the winning post but their final fences appear further back than Stratford’s which allows more time for horses to make room to go around the water.
Has anyone been to Cartmel? I always enjoy watching racing from there and it looks like a beautiful course but i believe that the viewing is awful.
For me i will only go racing if i can watch all the action in the flesh. If i want to watch racing on a tv screen i’ll do it in the comfort of my own home.
