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Sounds harsh, but Thistlecrack’s chance in the Gold Cup would look a lot more attractive if he was ridden by someone with more natural confidence such as Ruby.
Change is always an inconvenience, but this is just a bit much for me. They are going to drive a lot of casual customers away.
Kevin Blake has updated his stats on this topic – Interesting stuff
Perhaps Ruby can start falling off again in a few months time so Blakey can update for a third time or perhaps he can find something new to write about instead?
Earlier on the thread, you said “the racing media will not even raise any questions, let alone criticise him”, and a few posts later you are criticising a journalist for writing about the issue too much?! Hmmmmmm…
This is a farce. Gilligan broke the rules, but for him to get a harsher penalty than Jim Best is just mind-blowing.
What a train wreck of a man. All the talent, none of the brains/discipline to go with it. Horse racing’s version of Mike Tyson.
Here is the slippery slope that this whip debate is putting racing on. Anti-whip views go hand-in-hand with anti-racing views. If you are a fan of racing, bear that in mind when spouting off about the whip.
It’s very simple. It needs more controversy, conflict and/or humour. It isn’t rocket science.
Blake is a small part of the media circus. Hardly likely to upset his chums at the expense of earning his living is he?
As regards the whip hurting have you spoken to a horse recently? The only actual fact is that if you don’t hit them there is no pain at all. It is the pro-whip brigade not accepting the obvious that leads to this debate going round in circles.
I don’t understand your first point. Francome is seen as royalty in racing, I’d imagine that by coming out as strongly as he did against Francome flies in the face of what you are trying to suggest?
Your second point is just awful. If you think a comparitively tiny weak man balancing precariously on top of a 500kg adrenaline fuelled semi-wild animal can be hurt by a air filled foam cushioned stick, you are on the wrong side of the fluffy bunny line of reality. Even the RSPCA acknowledge that isn’t a welfare issue, so anyone that disputes that is just being pig headed.
I don’t understand why this debate always ends up going into such depth. Surely the most important question here is "does the whip hurt horses?" Even the RSPCA admit that it doesn’t, so if horsemen think that it is necessary for propulsion and safety, why any sensible and informed person would have a problem with it is beyond me.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing coming out on Francome on ATR last week. He is completely out of touch with reality, not just on the whip either. I enjoyed Robbie McNamara and Kevin Blake taking his silly opinion to pieces on the Final Furlong Podcast. It starts at about 42 minutes. https://m.soundcloud.com/emmet-kennedy/ … ers-tweets
If Toormore gets there safe and sound, he bolts up surely? Proper impressive at the Curragh.
No headlines about his exit from the sport on the front page of the RP I suspect. The whole thing stank of a Racing For Change PR exercise. What price Rooney never paid a penny or got a big incentive to get involved?
The missus finally handed this book over to me yesterday morning. Read it in one sitting after dinner (approx. four hours) and it is one of the best betting/racing books I’ve read. He’s a very impressive operator and it comes across as honest/no nonsense throughout. There are lots to be taken from it in terms of race-reading techniques and his opinions on each way betting have really made me look at the way I use each way betting. Very much recommended.
My success was short lived, proving even more emphatically that ”it cannot be done”.
Or perhaps proving even more emphatically that it cannot be done BY YOU. Don’t blame the game for your own shortcomings.
It cannot be done because of the problem of disguised ability, no amount of hard work and midnight oil will unlock racing to the punter who is not party to information. Blake is simply trying to rekindle enthusiasm in those who have abandoned racing. It seems as if decades have passed since I last backed a winner at an Irish course. Walk away from this increasingly crooked game, that can be done.
These lines sound like they were aimed directly at you, Woolf!
"It is also my opinion that racing’s shady image in mainstream consciousness is partly due to losing gamblers who look to blame the sport for their losses rather than acknowledge their own shortcomings.
The conclusion often drawn by these losing punters is that it simply can’t be done. If they can’t bet profitably, no one can. It is impossible. This is their way of dealing with their own poor decision-making and/or lack of discipline. Their dissemination of this view only reinforces the negative image betting holds in the wider world."
