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The "crowd" at Wolverhampton of 400 is a disgrace, there wasn’t a meeting within a hundred miles of the place.
I see that on Sunday the point-to-point at Cottenham got more spectators than regional Southwell (1250) and Plumpton (2800) combined.
What a horse he was, a tremendous jumper of fences, one of the best I’ve seen, and a most striking-looking individual.
Like some others, I was never really taken by all the hype about Dawn Run, fine mare though she was, and I would have preferred Wayward Lad to win. (Though no doubt I backed something else that finished out of the numbers!).
I don’t think he quite stayed 3 1/4 miles, and perhaps preferred a flat track.
Incidentally, if any one from BBC radio looks at this thread, could he/she inform Luke Harvey that the horse he remembers pipping Wayward Lad in the Gold Cup wasn’t Desert Orchid. If Harvey spent less time giggling and twittering, the 6.55 racing bulletin on Five might occasionally contain something intelligible or interesting.<br>
Alex Bird was the first person in racing to understand, and to profit from, the optical illusion that exists when you see two objects, in this case horses, running past you it appears that the object furthest away is in front.
Armed with this knowledge, Bird disciplined himself to watch just the line, and not the horses moving in his peripheral vision.
He won vast amounts of money on betting on photo finishes – for several years these winnings probably exceeded what he won from "normal" betting.
Prince R, I think Tony Morris really meant 1959, not 1955 which was a pretty wet summer as I remember, but anyway, the point he was making was that horses were allowed in the main to run on whatever going nature threw at them, and that that breakdowns weren’t more frequent than they are today.
So the horse welfare point you make is irrelevant.
On the matter of inherited goping preferences, while there isn’t a "going gene", many stallions pass on combinations of characteristics which predispose their offspring to liking, or not liking, certain underfoot conditions.
The reason that Sadler’s Wells sires so may horses that like a little bit of cut in the going is that he tends to pass on a slightly rounded action and a certain lightness of bone – put together, these are features which will inhibit a horse’s ability ot show its best form on a firm surface.<br>
(Edited by Venusian at 9:46 pm on Sep. 30, 2003)
What an awful tragedy.
Other than his Cheltenham win on Hardy Eustace, I didn’t know too much about him, but it seems he was a lovely lad, which makes it all the worse.
Sympathies to his family and his many friends.
Darkknight, I agree with your comments about Johannesburg and Trade Fair, both of whom were always likely to prove best at distances short of a mile.
But there is nothing magical about distances between a mile and a mile and a half, and we shouldn’t decry horses who are most effective outside those distances, nor should we accept the prejudices of unimaginative commercial breeders without question.
Look at European racing over the last 100 years:
Take The Tetrarch, arguably the best 2-y-o, or Abernant, arguably the best sprinter, or Tudor Minstrel, arguably the best miler, or Ribot, arguably the best horse.
What do they have in common? They were all sired by stallions who stayed beyond 2 miles.
Roi Herode, the sire of The Tetrarch is especially interesting. He was a high-class, rather one-paced stayer, who was best at distances of 2 miles or more, and who has been described as large and rather clumsy-looking.
Remind anyone of a horse who won a race this week at Goodwood?!
For the life of me, I can’t understand why it should be a bad thing that the top staying Group races are mostly contested by horses that frequently run against each other.
One of the weaknesses of flat racing is that far too often its equine heroes are retired to stud before they’ve reached maturity. In the last 8 months we’ve lost the best miler for at least a decade, Rock of Gibraltar, and the most exciting sprinter for ages, Choisir. I’m not proffering any easy solutions to this problem, but let’s at least celebrate a sector of the sport where the problem thankfully doesn’t exist.
Would other sports, such as football, cricket, athletics be more exciting if the leading players retired after their first or second season?
To say that the staying division is composed of horses who aren’t good enough at 12f. and is therefore a "joke", is itself risible. You might just as well say that the top middle distance races are merely contested by horses that are too slow to win the top sprints.
And why should the short-sighted policies of commercial flat breeders adversely affect either the number of staying races in the Pattern, or our appreciation of the horses that contest and win these races?
Hill House was discovered to produce his cortisone, which was why he had failed the dope test.
The way Price and Gifford were treated by the racing authorities and the press over this matter was disgraceful. Price was certainly a good "plotter", but I don’t think he was half as cunning as people liked to make out.
Rory, if what I’m saying is incorrect, why then do bookmakers prefer to sponsor large fields of handicappers, rather than WFA or conditions races? It’s because the profit margin on their book is greater in such races. For every £100 of business conducted on a 20 runner race they’ll make about £25, whereas on a 8 runner race it’s going to be around £15. The whole notion of ‘Per-runner’ profit margins is a fiction dreamt up by bookmakers, and is a mathematical nonsense.
Your comment about bookmakers not having balanced books on any one race is correct, but in the long run they will enjoy a built-in profit margin (otherwise they wouldn’t be in business), based on their average overround percentage. That’s really the only point of having bookmakers – if they had a balanced book on every race they’d be the Tote!
Ian, you still haven’t justified the mathematical illogicality of ‘per-runner’ percentages.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
It’s like saying that if a shop sells 2 brands of dog food then its markup should be about 5%, but if it sells 20 it should be about 30%!<br>
It’s long been a curious feature of racing in this country that it’s organised primarily for the benefit of bookmakers, rather than those involved in sport itself.
Ian, You write…"With bookie over-rounds of 1.5%-2% a runner, and exchange over-rounds non-existent, a Tote take-out of 16% is a disgrace – especially in fields of eight or fewer runners."
2 points:
1) Your take-out figure for the Tote of 16% roughly equates to a 119% overround. I’d say that compares pretty favourably with the average SP return.
2) The typical bookmaker per-runner overround of 1.5% to 2% is a mathematical nonsense. This is not the first time I’ve had to post on this topic, but it must be understood that the number of runners in a race bears NO RELATION WHATSOEVER to what a bookmakers profit margin should be. A percentage profit is a percentage profit, no matter how many, or few, the number of runners. This why idiot journalists like ‘Thommo’ make me so choleric when they twitter away about big-field handicaps offering ‘great value for the punter’. They don’t, they offer great value for the bookmaker.
Benmore, as Sal says, he’s closely inbred to Northern Dancer, plus he has 3 lines in all of Northern Dancer’s dam, Natalma.
I don’t think a further concentration of ND’s blood would be beneficial, so an awful lot of mares would be ruled out, or (in my opinion), not be ideal mates.
He doesn’t carry any Mr Prospector blood, so there maybe opportunities there, but how many Mr P’s have no ND blood? Not many, it’s a very common cross.
Getting back to ROG…it’s a shame, but hardly surprising, that he’s off to stud.
However, don’t expect him to be a great success at stud – he’s not particularly well bred, judged by the pickiest standards, and he’s not going to be that easy to breed to. But he should sire pretty sound stock and will no doubt be given pretty choice books of mares in his first few seasons.
Not as sensational as I was led to expect, but a most watchable programme, for the ousider and racing buff alike.
1) It told me nothing that I didn’t know about the Jockey Club, Graham Bradley, or Dermot Browne.
2) Clearly the guy currently in charge of security has to go, he seems no more competent than his predecessor. It was curious that no mention ws made of the reasons why Buffham had to leave his job so suddenly.
3) I felt the insinuations against Kieren Fallon were feeble – in keeping with the spirit of the programme surely they should be asking why the Hong Kong Jockey Club had not made more effort to warn off the supposed Triads from the sport out there, rather than criticise a jockey who has to ride for, and therefore associate with, whatever owners happen to patronise the stable he rides for.
4) The suggestion that ‘a whole generation’ of jockeys were corrupted was ludicrous, not to say libellous. I’d imagine that people like messrs Scudamore, Dunwoody and Maguire might be a little miffed, to put it mildly. I wonder if m’learned counsel might be in for a bit of a windfall here? Ardross, start booking those world cruises now!
5) There is a clear requirement for bookmakers to be forced to disclose details of betting accounts where appropriate. The criticisms of Chandler and Hills were well merited. <br>
It seems to me there are 2 choices available for Coolmore regarding Hawk Wing’s future.
1. Put him away until next year, and hope that whatever is ailing him, mentally or physically, goes away after a winter’s break.<br>Downside: He might turn in no better performances next year than this, or even go backwards. It may be that this is just about how good he is.
2. Go for broke on the "Retire him as a champion at 3" plan, by running him in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Lasix and Bute, perhaps adorned with a hood as well.<br>Downside: It might be a disaster, with Coolmore ending up with a stallion that can’t be satisfactorily marketed in the manner they hoped for, and a horse that can’t be raced again.
Once again, Hawk Wing seemed to be going best of all about 2 furlongs out, only to produce little when let down.
Like many offspring of Woodman, Hawk Wing does appear to be a little soft, although there may be a physical reason for it – I suspect a breathing problem.
To be honest, Robgomm, I’d watch neither!
But I still don’t see the point of subsiding slow horses in these unappealing punter- and spectator-unfriendly sprint handicaps. For all sorts of reasons, we should be encouraging the production of more middle distance and staying horses, not pandering to short-running mediocrity.
