Forum Replies Created
- Posts
In case it wasn’t clear, I specifically said that a betting ombudsperson would NOT concern themselves with bet disputes but with bigger issues.
Tend to think the whole IBAS business is worth a separate thread, but there are plenty who would question your description of them.
My suggestion, made in print 8 years ago, was that there should be some sort of an ombudsperson for punters. This individual would not concern themselves with the minutiae of bet disputes but would make it their business to keep the industry honest regarding things like starting prices and changes to each-way terms etc as well as ensuring that punters’ views were canvassed as far as possible.
The parallel I drew was with consumers, who do not have many shared interests as individuals but who collectively are seen as having rights and the need for appointed bodies to protect those rights.
Any pressure group purporting to represent punters would very likely be doomed to failure from the outset, as they would have no real mandate.
The appointment of individuals to the BHB/BHA who were charged with "taking an interest in" punters’ affairs (but not in any way with creating a culture which took punters seriously) was the ultimate fig leaf.
Well, if no-one else will nominate them, then I will: Arena Racing for pumping £2m in additional prize-money into the winter AW, in the face of inexplicable opposition from some within racing, for announcing innovative ideas for Newcastle racecourse and for standing up to the odious Horsemen’s Group.
Someone may want to nominate them for Villian of The Year at the same time.
This tells you something about Derek Thompson. And about Robin Mounsey. But mostly, I would suggest, it tells you a lot about the HWPA awards.
That I would like very much, gamble. Though I might feel more reassured if you suddenly decided that your favourite films were Babe The Pig and Forrest Gump
The 5-minute riverside walk to the end of the field in front of the house and back is perfect for cogitation
and the banishing of occasional dark thoughts But I would not claim to have scaled Tennyson-like heights. I would say that sectional analysis, in conjunction with conventional form and time analysis, has the biggest potential edge I have ever come across in racing, not least because so many of the racing public just don’t get it. Best if it stays that way, really.
Have we ever met, gamble? An Ultimate Betting Forum occasion, perhaps? My memory is not what it was, however.
Supposedly inaccurate distances, highly questionable times, possible rail movements. At least you know that timing from 4 out to the winning line on the chase course at Haydock is comparing like with like. If you can be bothered.
Thanks to Richard for clarification of the situation for commentators. Of course, if you have trustworthy live sectionals, reliable historical data and allow for any significant alterations to the course, you can write rules to display suitable pars along the way without the need for human input.
Somehow, I suspect that another piece of info on the screen – which would potentially tell you just how the race was unfolding – would not go down well with all, however.
Yes: Prufrock is – has always been – Simon Rowlands. Please forgive my schizoid behaviour in occasionally acting as if it was otherwise: it has enabled me to have an argument with myself when others would not oblige.
If I ever do get up Kinder Scout it will be wheezing, not wandering! Hathersage and environs a regular stamping ground. I do love it round here, but the last thing of note to occur was the Romans leaving nearly two millennia ago: I like a bit more stimulation at times!
"Missing information" is not inconsequential or irrelevant but is part and parcel of betting on uncertain events with incomplete information, which is what we do in each and every race we tackle. Taking one sectional can miss important information (though that one sectional is carefully chosen to be likely to contain as much information as possible) but it is a big improvement on taking no sectional.
Stilvi’s contribution is a reminder of the side of forums that i do not care for. The figures "cluttered up the screen and obscured the action", not in their opinion but as a matter of indisputable fact. Presumably the "question" should never have been asked, but once asked should have been ignored. Some of the rest of us are "missing the point" by allowing the initial question to develop into a wider discussion. If the Q&A referred to was mine, there were not much more than a handful of questions anyway, and more of them were about sectionals than about the supposed subject of the Q&A!
and the banishing of occasional dark thoughts 
But I would not claim to have scaled Tennyson-like heights. 