Desert Orchid
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2005
- Messages
- 25,037
I was given a copy of a DVD of the 25 greatest races on each of the flat and jumps (hosted by Clare B). (My brother picked it up for £1 in the bargain bin.)
The bonus section contains full replays of:
Dessie's Gold Cup
Dawn Run's Gold Cup
Red Rum's first National
Red Rum's third National
Arkle's first Gold Cup
It was brilliant to watch these races all the way through again but a couple of things occurred to me.
The quality of race commentary back then is well short of what we're now used to. Even O'Sullevan was amateurish in one or two of them, missing some obvious stuff.
The Gold Cup rather fell into Dessie's lap.
Likewise Dawn Run's.
Likewise Rummy's third National.
Arkle was a stone better than the bare result of that Gold Cup. I hadn't realised he'd pulled Taffe's arms out of their sockets for the first two miles and he lost ground at a couple of fences in the last mile.
You don't get them as strung out nowadays at the end of the National as you did back then. Big feather in the cap of the handicapper for his new system.
The bonus section contains full replays of:
Dessie's Gold Cup
Dawn Run's Gold Cup
Red Rum's first National
Red Rum's third National
Arkle's first Gold Cup
It was brilliant to watch these races all the way through again but a couple of things occurred to me.
The quality of race commentary back then is well short of what we're now used to. Even O'Sullevan was amateurish in one or two of them, missing some obvious stuff.
The Gold Cup rather fell into Dessie's lap.
Likewise Dawn Run's.
Likewise Rummy's third National.
Arkle was a stone better than the bare result of that Gold Cup. I hadn't realised he'd pulled Taffe's arms out of their sockets for the first two miles and he lost ground at a couple of fences in the last mile.
You don't get them as strung out nowadays at the end of the National as you did back then. Big feather in the cap of the handicapper for his new system.
