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A racing "strike" is utterly pointless - it will simply cost the industry money and no one outside the racing and betting industries will care. Strikes only work when a denial of service impacts adversely upon most of the general public. This won't. Racing has zero leverage here.
 
Let’s face it racing’s days as a public interest sport are numbered. Most younger people do not back horses, pub trips to the races are rare now. The National Lottery almost killed Football Pools overnight and backing horses is going the same way.
 
Massive news for this blog - gigantic, seismic.

As regular followers of my online sojourn through the all-too-brief journey along this mortal coil will be aware, for many years now the divine Ms Charlotte Church has been my imaginary gf, future wife, dream woman etc.

But nothing lasts forever and I've decided to move on to pastures new.

My current fixation is with Natasha Gandhi.

She reminds me a bit of a significant ex from the past, Sonia, but Natasha has the edge because, quite apart from being as hilarious as she is gorgeous, she's a top-class cook.

I cannot get enough of her cookery clips on Instagram.

Tbh, she's so full-on - she literally never stops talking at a million miles per hour - her husband, when she allows him to appear, looks in a permanent daze.

My guess is Natasha is extremely high maintenance.

And she's not perfect - in all her clips, not one word about the recent stable form of Geoff Oldroyd.

Anyway, that's the news, lovely day here and just waiting for the afternoon racing to start.
 
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walsworth said:
Let’s face it racing’s days as a public interest sport are numbered. Most younger people do not back horses, pub trips to the races are rare now. The National Lottery almost killed Football Pools overnight and backing horses is going the same way.
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Yes, they prefer betting 7 football match accumulators, at average odds of about 2/7 a game. How boring is that. The young aren't as gifted as you're making out. How many tales have we heard, 'just that one 2/7 match let me' down blah blah blah. They can't back horses because they don't have the intelligence.

I bet horses, and I wouldn't have it any other way. There's enough uncertainty to have a winning day every now and then.
 
Ian_Davies said:
I went to Geoffrey Freer Day at Newbury in 1984 - Baynoun won it.

It was all very different back then.

I think the Hungerford was on the Friday (they didn't always try to stage every decent race on a Saturday) and no one felt the need to stage music after racing on a card the quality of which sold itself.

Tbh, I always found Newbury a disappointment compared to how it seemed on TV, both Flat and Jumps.

Nowadays I think it's positively awful - it's half an hour from me and I haven't been for years.

I will, however, enjoy watching it at home on my phone, ditto Ripon, Newmarket and the cream of the USA action in the evening.
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I’ve only been to Newbury once. We went out onto the corse to watch them jumping one of the fences and I found myself standing next to Robin Cook. I didn’t speak to him assuming that he was having a day out and didn’t want people bothering him but, in retrospect I don’t think he would have minded. I really regret it now. He died on the day my daughter got married and, as a Labour voting family it put a bit of a damper on the day. I think his resignation speech over the Iraq war is one of the greatest speeches I’ve ever heard.
 
It's the eve of the York August meeting and I couldn't be more excited if I was a badger who'd just seen an opportunity to beat the living daylights out of some stoats and weasels. #thewindinthewillows
 
You know it's not been a great afternoon when your best result is East Kilbride winning away from home.

York ended badly, with too many of Thursday's gains given back.

Things are going alright at Saratoga this evening so far, though.
 
I used to run round Beverley racecourse every Sunday in my youth, so I'm all about Distance posts (still has one) and Tis Marvellous being the first to break a minute for the stiffest 5f known to man. I should know - I used to start my run there. Six days to the Beverley Bullet!
 

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In recent weeks, I keep sitting down on Sunday evening to do my weekly betting accounts assuming it's been a losing week and the numbers then tell me it hasn't been - I've won again.

Not a lot - ROI on the year still a very moderate 2.3% - but there is no such thing as a bad profit.

I think it's because I hate losing even more than I enjoy winning, so Saturday's losses felt bigger than Thursday's gains when that wasn't actually the case.

Plus I've been quietly nicking here and there on other betting fronts - I made a profit on four of the five USA races I bet on at Saratoga last night, for example.

I'm looking forward to Bank Holiday Monday now.

It always reminds me of No Bombs winning at 5/2 under Tim Easterby on Epsom Downs in 1982 on a sunny day when I was working in a cauldron of a Habbershaws betting shop.

And I've been to the meeting a few times in more recent years.

I could have obtained a free ticket for tomorrow but I 💯% couldn't be bothered.

Got nice food and drink in and it will be a French Windows open, on the patio, sort of day.
 
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Haydock Park Sprint Cup winner Regional is among 21 entries for the Beverley Bullet on the Westwood on Saturday. My last visit (four-hour drive from Hampshire) to Beverley was in 2021, when I saw Tis Marvellous clock 59.51 seconds to win it. I'll be back there one of these days.
 
Not the best photo I ever took, as it was taken facing the setting Sun after racing in 2021, but that's the view from the 5f gate at Beverley. There is no stiffer UK minimum trip than the dog-leg five on The Westwood. It's a complete contrast from the downhill 5f on Epsom Downs.
 

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I still can't quite believe I won today.

Literally everything had gone wrong until Jagged Edge.

And unless things go spectacularly wrong in the five races at Saratoga, Kentucky Downd and Del Mar I've bet in at USA tonight, I won't be giving it back.

The weather is miserable here in Hampshire, but a short-head win made everything right - it's a game of fine margins.
 
Very nice winner today Ian well picked.
The handicapper should be chuffed with the closeness of over half the field.
I had a decent run from my 2. Coeur d'or and state actor who was given too much to do.and I thought Big Gossey ran a cracker off topweight and wasn't beaten far.
 
Outsider said:
Very nice winner today Ian well picked.
The handicapper should be chuffed with the closeness of over half the field.
I had a decent run from my 2. Coeur d'or and state actor who was given too much to do.and I thought Big Gossey ran a cracker off topweight and wasn't beaten far.
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Thank you, that's very kind of you.

I bet three in the race - Godwinson disappointed, but I thought Coeur D'Or ran a cracker, as he was entitled to.

But his stable mate intrigued me - Coeur D'Or had a solid chance, wasn't badly handicapped, but as a veteran was vulnerable to an improver.

And for me, his stable mate was the most unexposed runner in the field.

His credentials were the mirror opposite to those of Coeur D'Or, he wasn't obviously well handicapped, but the trainer was running him too and he was all potential.

Plus at the price it didn't cost much to find out.
 
"Winter comes in on the tail of the last horse home in the St Leger." No, it doesn't, it's still mid-September and as often as not Town Moor is bathed in 20-degree sunshine that day. Anyway, the St Leger is on its way and if you spell it "Ledger" with a "D" you're going to Hell.
 
I'm looking forward to you hopefully starting the threads for next Saturday tomorrow, Ian.

There's rain due at Haydock, what impact this has on the ground I don't know. If it comes up softish, this will affect the dynamic, I'd have thought.
 
Ian_Davies said:
I think I've read others state no horse is literally black, but depends on the exact definition of black, I guess, I think there are even shades of black.

But there are horses listed as black - they are rare, but there's a few.
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Horslaloi111 by very definition means horse all black (I think Ians French language expertise may correct me) and considering his name was followed by the 3rd id suggest there have been at least 3 of them.
 
Danny said:
I think Ians French language expertise may correct me
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You flatter me, Danny, in truth my knowledge of the French language is scraping a Grade C in my French O Level in 1979, a few choice phrases my-then 20yo French girlfriend Claudette taught me (they definitely wouldn't appear on any curriculum!) circa 1990 and learning the names of significant French Flat and Jumps races plus their venues.

So thank you for educating me on this point.
 
The Fortune Teller said:
I'm looking forward to you hopefully starting the threads for next Saturday tomorrow, Ian.

There's rain due at Haydock, what impact this has on the ground I don't know. If it comes up softish, this will affect the dynamic, I'd have thought.
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As the Haydock Park Sprint Cup is an early-closing race, I've now set it up as a thread and I'll look at the other races after the five-day entries go online circa 2pm today and see if there are ante-post markets later in the afternoon.
 
Aidan O'Brien: "Sheikh Mohammed is probably the greatest sportsman we’ve ever seen." No words, literally no words. Good trainer but, from talking up his employers' next stallion prospect (Delacroix being the latest) to trying to lure Ombudsman to Leopardstown, it's pure cringe.
 

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