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I find myself agreeing with both sides of this debate , I am , or at least I always like to think I am , a traditionalist and I don’t like change for changes sake alone. However I don’t believe that is the case here and I agree the big races should be Saturdays now , it’s inevitable and it’s not the end of the world. The Ebor is not big enough to be better off midweek , that’s no disgrace …as has been mentioned , the DERBY couldn’t hack it on a Wednesday . Royal Ascot and Cheltenham set the standard here. None can compare . As discussed elsewhere racing is in decline , the financing a fiasco , big changes are approaching , smaller courses will find themselves on the endangered species list . That is also inevitable. Racing for change often leaves a bad taste in the mouth but unfortunately with or without it , racing is changing anyway …. Like a landslip or like Coastal erosion seems to be the only choice left.
Many good jockeys mentioned here , the likes of Cauthen and Swinburn were at the top of their game when I was young , Lester probably wasn’t at the top of his game but he was the best of all. I never really saw much of the American jockeys , Jerry Bailey was a master and apparrantly Willie Shoe was better than that . What I always wonder about Fred Darling, Willie Shoe and even Lester to a certain extent …just how many good jockeys were there way back when? After Francome retired PeterScu was out on his own , absolutely out on his own , maybe 5 or6 could live with him and that was only the 80s. Have there ever been so many good jockeys at one time as there are now? Watch the old reruns !!
Undoubtedly my favourite trainer and indeed my favourite character in racing full stop. Not only do I share his interests in country pursuits such as coursing and fighting cocks , but he has always had a remarkable attitude towards racehorses and racing in general. In 1995 I was told "this will win" and so it did at 10/1 ….a couple of days later "it’s kicking the stable door down it’ll go in again today , and so it did 7/2 into 11/4 ….and finally , ten days after that first victory "absolutely can’t be beat today" , 9/4 into 7/4 and won by 8 lengths. That’s why I had so much money to put on lammtarra In the arc, that was the ten days that changed my gambling career ; I’ve loved horses , Istabraq , One Man , Kauto ..Lammtarra himself … But my favourite horse of all time will ALWAYS be Warming Trends.
Channel4 racing is very tired . Thommo the clown is extremely patronising , it’s almost like childrens tv. I agree tanya and tom are lifeless but I don’t think mac making a spectacle of himself is any better . What job does he do anyway? 5/1 into 7/2 ? The trainer interviews are interesting tv but not slotted in between races , maybe better suited to morning viewing on the racing channels. Far better to show horses in the paddock when they are actually in the paddock rather than a recording when they are at the post. Maxilon – I thought ‘jaundiced’ was an unusual turn of phrase , when I looked it up it means "affected by envy or jealousy" ……what an extremely low opinion of me you must have if you think that is the basis for my dislike of big mac !
I backed TWICE OVER e/w and I’m glad he was an each way price as I would have backed him at plenty shorter today. I made him favourite and was reasonably confident he would reverse Ascot form with Byword and only had Rip to deal with. There’s a horse I can’t figure out. After STS retired he was timeforms highest rated horse in the world … Not Ireland or Europe , The World. So when he came out in the Queen Anne , I expected more. Goldikova is top class , Paco Boy under rated , yes yes , all well and good but Rip is the best horse in the world right? Before Ascot Ballydoyle said he would need it .. You can’t blame me for viewing press releases/statements with some scepticism, however with a couple of months hindsight I guess he was undercooked at Ascot. I thought he was better as a miler and with the Prince of Wales being more prestigous than the Queen Anne and the Sussex Stakes to follow , I just thought today would stretch him. Add to that , he did seem to be finding one or two too good a bit too often. He mugged me today though , properly mugged me on the line ….still at least I have a chance to get him right in the future , he looked to me like he got going late on , really late on to be fair , he’s a good Gp1 horse so he looked like he’s staying well and maybe that’s why he keeps getting turned over at a mile. You’d think today that he would get further wouldn’t you? ….."Will you step him up in trip Aiden?" ……"Ah , no need to step him up , listen , this horse has bags of speed you know" no , I don’t know, not really Aiden , I haven’t got a clue !!!! I wouldn’t have a clue if he was going to run better in the QE2 , the Champion , the Irish Champion , the Arc or the Irish St Leger .
It would seem that channel4 racing has become ‘an introduction to horseracing’ no doubt racing for change have played their part here and also with the BBC’s occassional race coverage. There has been a not so gradual decline in terrestrial coverage , which I’m sure has been discussed here already. The trivia coverage of fashion etc and the explanation of betting and racing terminology is aimed at newcomers……and why not? The sport is aging , new blood is needed , maybe this is one of the things that will work. I expect most ‘old hands’ experienced gamblers have long since decamped to ATR and RUK . As to Big Mac , what role can he play ? He is an oddity I suppose , some newcomers to racing may well enjoy him – as a figure of fun , someone to ridicule , but other than that he is not in the least bit representative of anyone else in the racing world and as the face of racing as it were he is a disaster. An arrogant rude and bigoted man in real life as well as ‘in character’ his day is long gone (about 100 years long gone).
I don’t expect IC to run well in the King George. How could I ? He’s disappointed there the last twice , there’s no reason to expect any different. I backed him when he dead heated Kauto and when they went Evs and 16/1 about the Gold Cup , I thought it was an insult really. More to do with the trainer than the horses performance and NTD was entitled to have his say regarding the medias view of his horse , after all , he had just won the Gold Cup. He’s a great trainer and as has been posted here , he has a knack with staying chasers but you would be hard pushed to say running at Kempton again was a shrewd move , I think IC runs well at the festival despite his regular debacle on boxing day , not because of it , I don’t see how you can view last years KG performance as any kind of positive , sandwiched between dead heating Kauto and beating him , the kempton run was a bad performance . How can that be a positive part of the horses prep? That said, the trainer’s enjoyed success with the horse but it’s not out of order to question this latest decision , racing is about opinions and as every trainer of a top class horse soon discovers these stars soon become ‘public property’ to a certain extent.
I see racing as the wholesaler , the bookmakers as a retailer and the punters and racegoers as the customers. Aside from redefining the balance of power with the betting industry , racing should put it’s own house in order. The allocation of levy money to the racecourses with no stipulation as to how it should be spent , despite it being paid pro rata to races staged , clearly cannot be allowed to continue. If the figures reproduced here and elsewhere on TRF are correct – courses recieving £4-5000 per race staged and allocating £600 for prizemoney – then surely this needs to be thrashed out between the BHA and the Racecourses. It would seem that the ‘family racegoers’ who attend Sunday meetings will attend no matter the fare on offer , and the punters who bet in the shops , for whom the low grade ‘ day / time specific’ meetings are staged , will bet on any fare. Therefore the racecourses can get away with poor prizemoney because their customers are there already. I don’t know the answer to this but I do think that low levels of prizemoney have a detrimental effect on horseracing. The owners can’t pay the bills so skullduggery is rife and British racing fails to compete on the world stage. The sport’s regulatory board should at least be in a position to regulate the funding , from income through to expenditure.
Where has pandering to ‘racing’s biggest customer’ got us so far? It’s time for a reversal of power within the sport , too long have they called the shots. If the racecourses are packed to the rafters on a Sunday , but the offcourse turnover is minimal , then be damned with what the bookmaker wants , keep the Sunday meetings. If the offcourse bookmaker wants a low class fixture at a certain time of week to maintain betting turnover , but there are only 300 people through the gate , then be damned with what the bookmaker wants . The present logic dictates that we pander to the offcourse demands and keep the meetings they want based on the myth of levyable turnover … Which they are doing their utmost to turn into unlevyable turnover by trading offshore. This is madness. Repackage the media rights , and let racing trade as an honest business instead of running it inefficiently , then demanding input from an industry which runs itself efficiently. It really is an embarrassment , the tote should be an industry leader but they couldn’t even make that pay. The bookmakers will continue to promote football and casino betting and will continue to divert trade offshore , all in an attempt to stop contributing to British horseracing. Racing should market it’s product correctly and run itself to develop the sport . Certainly pandering to it’s biggest customer is what has put us where we are today. To continue to repeat something and expect a different result would indeed be madness.
The levy is an embarrassment. The racing authorities are an embarrassment. and their power(less) structure is shambolic. Whilst we have a levy system in place , I believe the offcourse bookmakers should be held to pay what is due , loopholes should be closed and wherever in the world you take a bet on British horseracing , that turnover should be levyable.
However , the question has to be asked – just how much longer can this system of funding be expected to work? It is normal business practice for bookmakers to attempt to reduce their expenditure and this will continue for as long as this system is in place. How embarrassing that the racing industry needs to lobby the government for legislation to ensure that funding for the sport is collected , as some very large employers continue to uproot and move abroad in order to avoid payment .
I really don’t want to go too far down the route of comparing racing to football, clearly they are very different creatures but it has to be said that the old div1 turned itself into the multi million pound monster that is the Premiership by placing the correct value on the sale of it’s media rights. Their sport seems to me to be funded by gate money , shirt sales and tv rights. Racing is in the enviable position whereby the horses are provided by the owners who also pay the jockeys, trainers and transport costs. The bookmakers can not operate without the pictures of British racing , make them pay the correct value and scrap the levy once and for all. Mr Roy says that , although he has heard this suggestion before , noone can make the figures add up…..so be it , I’m afraid , this is the way that the sport should be funded and racing will have to make do with the revenue it is able to generate , personally I think the media rights are worth a hell of a lot more than their projected value at the moment and will certainly generate revenue of a similar level to future levy payments , which are clearly moving rapidly in one direction.
Racings authorities have constantly danced to the bookmakers tune for as long as I can remember , the vast increase in racing fixtures over the last 10-15 years is in no small part due to lobbying from offcourse bookmakers for more, more, more racing. Now that they have as much virtual racing and numbers games and as many gaming machines as they need to fill the gaps between racing , they have turned to concentrating on reducing levy expenditure. The offcourse bookmakers have refused to dance with the girl they brung and it’s about time they got slapped in the face for it. The ‘rabble’ as I believe it is customary to call them , should wake up to what an incredibly desirable product racing is , take back control of the funding and put an end once and for all to the tail wagging the dog. Now would be a good time to announce a gradual cut back in fixtures over a 5 year period , in order that breeders trainers jockeys and racing industry staff in general , can have an adjustment period to the reduced workload. The last thing to be considered in deciding which fixtures should be axed , is what the bookies want .
