Diamond Geezer
Gone But Not Forgotten
- Joined
- May 2, 2003
- Messages
- 13,884
Chris Cook in The Guardian
The 'Dikler' column in today's Racing Post features the quite extraordinary story of an in-running punter and his repeated, unsuccessful attempts to gain an edge over his rivals at Perth. On previous occasions, he has apparently set up camp in the back of a van alongside the course and mounted a cherry-picker on the far side of a river by the back straight, but was moved on by the police both times.
His latest wheeze, it seems, was to fly a drone fitted with a camera above the track during races. Course officials were tipped off and the chap was intercepted before he could get near the site.
Bearing in mind that he is competing with others in the grandstand who are seeing the race live, how much of an edge can he hope to gain by getting a slightly different perspective to them? Either the edge is significant or this fella is being driven by some kind of irrational compulsion; either way, we will surely hear more of him.
One thought that strikes me is that the camera angles at Perth are not terribly helpful in the final half-mile, when the field seems to be racing directly at you for most of the time. I suppose that even those in-running punters who see the shots live may have difficulty working out who's in front, which is presumably why Perth has become a focus for such activities.
It has always surprised me that broadcasters of racing don't make more of an effort to improve their camera placements so as to tell the story of a race more clearly. There is scope for much improvement at several jumps tracks. Perhaps we'll know that a good job has been done when punters stop trying to smuggle in their own cameras.
The 'Dikler' column in today's Racing Post features the quite extraordinary story of an in-running punter and his repeated, unsuccessful attempts to gain an edge over his rivals at Perth. On previous occasions, he has apparently set up camp in the back of a van alongside the course and mounted a cherry-picker on the far side of a river by the back straight, but was moved on by the police both times.
His latest wheeze, it seems, was to fly a drone fitted with a camera above the track during races. Course officials were tipped off and the chap was intercepted before he could get near the site.
Bearing in mind that he is competing with others in the grandstand who are seeing the race live, how much of an edge can he hope to gain by getting a slightly different perspective to them? Either the edge is significant or this fella is being driven by some kind of irrational compulsion; either way, we will surely hear more of him.
One thought that strikes me is that the camera angles at Perth are not terribly helpful in the final half-mile, when the field seems to be racing directly at you for most of the time. I suppose that even those in-running punters who see the shots live may have difficulty working out who's in front, which is presumably why Perth has become a focus for such activities.
It has always surprised me that broadcasters of racing don't make more of an effort to improve their camera placements so as to tell the story of a race more clearly. There is scope for much improvement at several jumps tracks. Perhaps we'll know that a good job has been done when punters stop trying to smuggle in their own cameras.