Racing Post Weekender.

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Colin Phillips

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I haven't read this for some time but I bought a copy this morning, it's been a good read thus far.

Alistair Whitehouse-Jones tackles a number of interesting topics, from the "commercial greed" of moving the July meeting to incorporate the Saturday, why no inquiry into Bullet Man's tailing off when favourite at that meeting, musical horses at Kempton, Dettori's "master class" of front-running on Kite Wood, Fergal Lynch, Hayley Turner and the BHA and complementing Nick Luck's "as good as it gets" interviewing last week.

Matt Williams' thoughts on the Hislop/Mellish/Hannon spat that he finishes with :

"We need to stop portraying strong opinions as personal insults. Does riding experience qualify a jockey as a better race-reader than the rest of us? My answer is simple : listen to multiple Classic-winning jockey Willie Carson next time he is on the box"

Tom Segal suggests that the rules of racing in Britain protect the guilty and punish the innocent.Referring to the July Cup he makes the point that "King's Apostle did absolutely nothing wrong........" yet the connections of that horse lost possibly 30 grand for third or at least 11 grand if he had been fourth. Would they be tempted to sue the BHA for loss of earnings?

Nick Mordin also bases his piece on the non-likelyhood of a horse being disqualified. Have read the whole piece yet but he is quoted as saying, "Jockeys have been prepared to ride more recklessly in order to win", "The percentage of disqualified winners has dropped roughly a quarter of what it was" and "From 2004 British stewards have favoured the idea of penalising jockeys rather than the winners they ride".
 
I've always bought the Weekender, mostly for the form pages, but it used to be a great read.

Over the past 6-7 years the quality of the writers deteriorated (bar a couple) but their recent overhaul has improved it quite a bit.
 
I'm with Nick Mordin's remarks about reckless riding! What is upsetting is the number of horses running on the 'safe' ground of Polytrack coming back with injuries which have in some cases led to them being put down later (AROGANT PRINCE a few seasons back), to being badly-enough damaged to need valuable time out of racing and their owners funding a vet (ORPSIE BOY), and so on. This is because riders are bunching far too closely and far too many horses are being cut into as a result - one of Gay Kelleway's recent runners (on turf) nearly lost the bulb of a rear heel due to some moron running up his backside - the horse placed, but now needs time off to heal. I'd say that at most Flat meetings, there's a bad luck story like these due simply to the madness of jockeys.

I'd like to see jockeys who cause injuries to other owners' horses made to pay the cost of the vet's bills or the cost of carting the carcass off to the crem. £600 and up ought to sort that nonsense out.

The idea that the horse would be penalised, while it would disgust and disappoint owners who have to pay endless bills, might be the only way forward if banning doesn't work. Well, banning doesn't work, really, so disqualifying the horse might have to be the draconian system brought in. What do other countries do - or don't they have such a degree of recklessness? I understand that in the USA, you're not allowed to even touch another horse side-on without facing a hefty fine. Some of our jockeys would go broke if we employed that here.
 
Well, if the BHA give any credence to Mark Johnston's ridiculous request to allow toe grabs on racehorses the injuries incurred from being struck into, clipping heels, over-reaches et al will not only multiply but be far more severe.
 
Sounds horrific. Surely the damage caused by a horse to itself when speedy-cutting or over-reaching would be much worse than normal? So any injuries caused by another horse through clipping heels and the like would correspondingly be worsened. Not to mention any harm to fallen horses or jockeys.

A lady I knew many years ago had a horseshoe-shaped scar over half of her face and nearly lost her eye because the shoe had studs in.
 
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Shadow Leader said:
Well, if the BHA give any credence to Mark Johnston's ridiculous request to allow toe grabs on racehorses the injuries incurred from being struck into, clipping heels, over-reaches et al will not only multiply but be far more severe.
Click to expand...

Can't belive he really said this ..... :mad: then again, yes I can.
 
Shadow Leader said:
Basically, shoes with spikes.
Click to expand...

:blink: Bloody hell, sounds like the Circus Maximus revisited. Perhaps they should give them Boudicea chariots and be done with. Might broaden the appeal of racing though? I swear people only used to watch F1 in the 70's because there was 5% chance of driver being engulfed in a fireball
 
Colin Phillips said:
Matt Williams' thoughts on the Hislop/Mellish/Hannon spat that he finishes with :

"We need to stop portraying strong opinions as personal insults. Does riding experience qualify a jockey as a better race-reader than the rest of us? My answer is simple : listen to multiple Classic-winning jockey Willie Carson next time he is on the box"
Click to expand...

Anybody care to bring me up to speed on the incident in question?

The Weekender is decent enough I suppose, though I'm not convinced it justifies what is in reality a fairly steep price relative to what it contains.

Not a huge fan of the likes of Matt Williams, Alastair Whitehouse-Jones or even Malcolm Heyhoe tbh, though Andrew Barr's horses to follow piece and Ken Pitterson's piece are usually worth a read.
 
Andrew Barr, Tom Segal, Ken Pitterson and Nick Mordin are always worth reading. The first three for their solid, well-informed arguments and presentations, and Nick Mordin for an alternative view of things, although I can understand why he is not everyone's cup of tea.

Pity the supporting cast has been so poor in recent years.
 
I'm tempted to say £2.40, though I'm not at all positive.

How much is the Racing & Football Outlook does anyone know? How much is The Irish Field come to think of it?
 
Value for money then?

I would probably argue that all three mentioned above represent better value than buying the Racing Post most days, though whether their content justifies the price is highly debatable.
 
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