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Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] And Another Thing September 2008 Horse Racing and Jockey tactics FOUR ITEMS dominate the Racing Post today. Three of them represent the dark side of our game in my view. By that I don't mean to infer they are concerned with skulduggery, more that they are rather like the idiot who moons from the back of a coach when you are driving home after a long hard day losing money at the office. It is just the time when the last thing you want to see it a white bottom staring implacably at you. I have a mirror and a bottom so I know what one looks[...]

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Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] And Another Thing September 2008 Mistakes RACING is a great leveller. Open your mouth and make a statement and if proved wrong, there is no hiding place. My comments regarding Jim Bolger's bid to win the Group 1 Coolmore Fusaichi Pegasus Stakes with Lush Lashes need repeating. I may as well draw attention to them rather than afford some one else with the opportunity. I felt sufficiently superior this morning to tell Mr Bolger that the ground was too soft for Lush Lashes and that in running her he ran a serious risk of Halfway To Heaven confirming Goodwood form. In which case, there was the possibility[...]

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Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] The Bookies' role is to relieve us of money THERE has been some comment this week from that nice firm of bookmakers, William Hill, complaining that in 2009 there will be four blank racing Sundays. Such an oversight must be a body blow to Hills and all who sail in her. Their chief executive, one Ralph Topping, a man with whom I am not familiar and one that I suspect moves in slightly different social circles to myself, lodged the complaint. Judging by his photograph, he does not appear to be the sort of man who would be too perturbed if his gas boiler suddenly broke down. But[...]

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Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] EXCHANGE BETTING THE YEAR OF 2008 was for many the year when the dress rehearsal stopped. They had earned their wings. Having taken the concept of exchange betting for various test flights, during which teething difficulties were adjusted, now was the time for lift-off. It is a fact that most people who open an with Befair lose their initial deposit. There are good reasons for this statistic and for those not familiar with the pitfalls, allow me to elucidate. Faced with the sight of hitherto unheard of generosity as regards prices, the newcomer to exchange betting will feel compelled to bet more often and with greater[...]

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Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] AND ANOTHER THING... September 2008 Youth is wasted on the young YOUTH is wasted on the young, or so they say. At least that well-known philosopher Robbie Williams said it! Actually, there is a paradox about growing older. You become wiser as you age but less able to utilise such wisdom as first the mind, then the body becomes a barrier. After a certain age, when we own two-thirds of our houses, appreciate fine wine, have paid for the car and have a suit for every occasion but never wear them, we yearn to play safe. So those most able to make sound, risk-based decisions find themselves[...]

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Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] And Another Thing September 2008 Newmarket Trainers Inside Information seminar MID-MORNING and we are all still here. The Hadron Collider has not got us yet but there is time - two months by all s. It strikes me all this questing to re-create the Big Bang is a strange situation, sprung without any warning on those of us who live on this planet. Apparently, there is a remote chance of this contraption metaphormaphisising solid matter into something nasty enough to make us a gooey mass. Quite how remote a chance this is has not been revealed. Alternatively, it could produce a black hole that would suck us[...]

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Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] And Another Thing August 2008 A novel way to get a well handicapped race horse SO IT IS OFFICIAL! After two episodes at the starting stalls, Bentong is to be issued with a warning by the authorities. He refused to race in the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood and then repeated the formula at Ascot in the Shergar Cup - much to the chagrin of his inactive pilot, Jamie Spencer. I cannot help but speculate what form this warning will take. Bentong is by Anaaba and trained by Paul Cole. Note it is not Mr Cole that is to be warned but the horse itself. So will a deputation[...]

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Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] And Another Thing August 2008 A novel way to get a well handicapped race horse SO IT IS OFFICIAL! After two episodes at the starting stalls, Bentong is to be issued with a warning by the authorities. He refused to race in the Stewards' Cup at Goodwood and then repeated the formula at Ascot in the Shergar Cup – much to the chagrin of his inactive pilot, Jamie Spencer. I cannot help but speculate what form this warning will take. Bentong is by Anaaba and trained by Paul Cole. Note it is not Mr Cole that is to be warned but the horse itself. So will a deputation[...]

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  • Dec 2013

Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text]Is it me or is everything in racing designed to be misleading. Take for example the GoingStick reading. Surely anyone starting from scratch with this would decide that the softer the going the higher the rating. But no, we can rely on it to be the other way round: Heavy reads 1 and hard 15. Now looking at it logically, the softer the ground, the further the stick will penetrate. So shouldn’t heavy be 15 and hard – barely scratching the surface – be 1? Or is that too simple? And who decided on the Oddschecker site to make blue the colour of a market-mover inwards and pink[...]

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Category - Racing Thought-Provokers!

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] AND ANOTHER THING... April 2009 Self appraisals FROM TIME TO TIME, if you work for yourself, it is advisable to review your performance. It has to be you because there is simply no one else to do it. If you are in traditional employment, you will receive an appraisal from the next person in the chain of command. When you work for yourself, you are the next person in the chain, and the next after that and so on right up to the managing director. You can buy a plaque and put it in on your door if you so wish declaring that you are the big[...]