video: sir hughie.
How ironic, given the neoliberal passion for cutting the workforce.
But what a hugely impressive performance.
Showing posts with label horse-racing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horse-racing. Show all posts
video: sir hughie.
How ironic, given the neoliberal passion for cutting the workforce.
But what a hugely impressive performance.
Well, I was down on my bets on the race overall- despite an each-way return on third-placed State of Play - but who cares after such a memorable outcome. It was great just to be at Aintree to witness what the Racing Post has described as ‘the defining moment of a legend’.
14 times champion jockey Tony McCoy had tried to win the Grand National- 14 times he’d failed, often in the most unfortunate of circumstances (just think back to him being carried out by a loose horse when cantering on Clan Royal at second Becher’s in 2005). Yesterday, it finally all came right for the greatest jump jockey the sport has ever seen.
As Lee Mottershead writes in today’s Racing Post: ‘Now at long last, let him be handed the recognition he deserves. Give him his due, give him the BBC Sports Personality of the Year ward, heck, give him the keys to Downing Street if he wants them. Tony McCoy has won the Grand National. What a joy that is to write.'
Camaraderie has disappeared from much of our society, but it still exists, as I argued here, in the jockeys' weighing room, as the generous tributes paid to McCoy after the race by his rivals shows. And let's not forget Don't Push It's trainer Jonjo O'Neill, one of the nicest men in any sport, and who was also celebrating his first ever Grand National success.
Well, that’s enough about Britain’s Tweedledum v Tweedledee General Election, now let’s focus on a much more meaningful and interesting contest: tomorrow‘s Grand National. Chris H has asked me if I have any tips for tomorrow’s race. Well, here’s my Punter’s Guide to all 40 runners from today’s First Post. I hope it might help you make a bit of money. The very best of luck with whichever horses you decide to back. And let’s hope all the runners and riders come back safely.
Even though the first winner of the Grand National, back in 1839, was called 'Lottery', the world's most famous steeplechase is not quite the totally random event many believe it to be. Last year's winner, Mon Mome, may have been a 100-1 shot, but he had solid form and should really have started at around a quarter of those odds. Finding the National winner is never easy, but by focusing on some key race trends we can prune the field of 40 down to a more manageable shortlist.
First, concentrate on horses aged between eight and 12. No seven-year-old has won the race since the year Hitler invaded France, no 13-year-old since 1923. Then look for a horse carrying 11st 1lb or lower - no horse has carried more to victory since Corbiere in 1983.
Even though the fearsome National fences have been modified in recent years, the race, run over the extreme distance of 4m 4f, is still a severe test of stamina, and special attention should be paid to horses who have won, or run well in other top staying chases, such as the Scottish, Welsh and Irish Nationals.
Finally, when it comes to Aintree, there's no form like course form. Five of the last seven Grand National winners had safely completed a race over the course on a previous occasion, including last year's winner, Mon Mome.
So, here's The First Post's intelligent punter's guide to the runners in the Grand National, more prosaically known as the 4.15 at Aintree, in weight order:
**** A LIKELY WINNER
*** EACH-WAY POSSIBILITIES
** ONLY OUTSIDE CHANCE
* NO HOPER
MADISON DE BERLAIS ** Classy performer but has it all to do off top weight.
MON MOME *** Last year's winner looks sure to run well again, but carrying 7lb more this time may scupper his chances of a repeat.
BLACK APALACHI *** In the lead when unseating his rider at second Becher's last year; good each-way chance if putting in a clear round.
JOE LIVELY * Veteran who is not so lively these days and is better suited to Cheltenham.
VIC VENTURI **** Irish raider who has never fallen and who won over the Aintree fences in November. Solid chance of at least making the frame.
COMPLY OR DIE *** Winner in 2008, and runner-up last year, the Aintree specialist has a good chance of another first-four finish.
You can read the rest of my Punter’s Guide to all 40 runners in tomorrow’s race, here.
Well, he was out to 999-1 on Betfair after trainer Nicky Henderson ruled him out of the race last month and today the one-time 'non-runner' landed the spoils. I hope you had a few winning bets and enjoyed the great action.
Less than 24 hours to go before the Olympics of National Hunt racing begins.
Here’s my piece from the Daily Express, on the wonderfully retro world of horse-racing and a hare-brained scheme to change, modernise and spoil this fantastic sport.
AND they’re off! The roar from the crowd will be deafening as the annual Cheltenham National Hunt Festival gets under way at 1.30pm tomorrow afternoon. Thousands of racing fans – myself included – will be converging on the Cotswolds for four days of thrilling action, featuring the finest horses and jockeys in the world.
No one knows for sure who will win the big prizes but one thing is for certain: an unforgettable week of sporting drama lies ahead.
Horse racing appeals not just because of its excitement but because it is wonderfully, splendidly and defiantly old-fashioned. It is the one sport in Britain that hasn’t changed significantly in the past 30 years.
During that time football has gone from being the “People’s Game”, where ordinary spectators could stand and watch a match for a few pounds, to an expensive plaything of mega-rich foreign owners. Cricket has been transformed from a gentle, un-commercialised sport into one where players wear brightly coloured pyjamas and the names of corporate sponsors appear on the pitch. Rugby league, once the mainstay of cold, winter afternoons, is now, due to the dictates of television, played in summer. Only racing has stayed true to its roots.
Step on to any racecourse in Britain and you feel as if you have gone back several decades in time.
The first things you will notice are the clothes that people are wearing. The racetrack is just about the only place in modern Britain where you still see people wearing matching tweed jackets and trousers and, on their heads, trilbies or big Twenties-style newsboy flat caps.
They are also about the only place where, in this ferociously anti-smoking and politically correct age, you will still see people puffing happily away on big cigars.
Then there’s the sport’s gloriously rich terminology, which hasn’t changed since the days of Queen Victoria. A horse who is described as a “bit of a monkey” doesn’t have an chimpanzee for a father but lacks resolution in a finish. And the “jolly” isn’t a visiting clown but the horse that starts as favourite.
Racing’s fractional odds, unchanged by decimalisation, have a charm all of their own. Put a pound on a horse that wins at odds of 100-30 (or Burlington Bertie in betting slang) and you’ll receive £3.30 profit. Or perhaps you fancy a flutter on an outsider, say at 33-1 (Double Carpet), giving you, if successful, £33 profit for every pound staked.
The unusual odds add to the mystique of the sport, as do the great array of colourful characters that racing has always attracted. In his book Racing’s Greatest Characters, Graham Sharpe tells of such fabulous figures as the tipster Prince Monolulu, who, “dressed in baggy trousers, a flamboyant waistcoat and with spectacular plumage round his head”, became a national icon in the Twenties.
Famous for his cry “I gotta horse!”, Monolulu told some racegoers he was a Prince from the Falasha Tribe of Abyssinia and others that he was a Zulu chieftain. In fact he was a former circus fire-eater of Scottish descent called Peter Carl McKay.
Today, while such larger-than-life characters as Prince Monolulu have disappeared from society at large, they can still be seen at the racetrack. What other sport can boast someone like Sir Mark Prescott, the splendidly Victorian, cigar-chewing, hare-coursing baronet, who has reserved three burial plots at his local cemetery to ensure that when he dies he is not buried next to someone who disapproves of blood sports?
Or Prescott’s fellow Old Harrovian Sir Rupert Mackeson, a former smuggler in central Africa who now sells racing prints at Britain’s racetracks. Then there’s Harry “The Dog” Findlay, the exuberant Cockney gambler and owner of the popular 2008 Gold Cup winner Denman. And, of course, John McCririck.
But sadly the wonderfully retro world of horse racing is under threat from the serial modernisers who have already destroyed so much of what was colourful about the Britain of yesteryear.
In 2008, the racing authorities, in a misguided attempt to increase the sport’s appeal, commissioned a report by the brand consultants Harrison Fraser. The report was a classic example of modern marketing waffle. The trouble with racing, a sport loved by millions, was that it is too much like “Brian” and not enough like “Ben”.
Consultant John Harrison explained: “If racing came to life as a person we think it would be a bit of a Brian. Brian is traditional and British and thinks in quite an old-minded way. Five years in the future, if you have created the ideal racing experience for everybody, the picture is of a Ben industry. Ben is younger-minded than Brian, more worldly, in touch with a new generation.”
Ben, the model new racegoer, is described as “cool and fresh”, “intelligent” and someone who is “athletic” and “speaks many languages”. To me, Ben sounds like the sort of smug, bumptious know-it-all any sane person would emigrate to avoid, let alone want to meet at the races. And that’s not even the worst of it. There’s worse in the pipleine.
Racing For Change, a body set up to make racing “relevant to the leisure consumer of today”, has announced 10 measures designed to bring “positive change for the sport and its customers”. Among the proposed changes are putting the first names of trainers and jockeys in race cards and replacing traditional odds, which date from the mid-1700s, with decimal odds. The group also calls for race names to be “simplified” and racecourse announcements “modernised”.
Unbelievably, Racing For Change feels that the fact that only trainers’ initials and surnames are in race cards and that odds are given in fractions alienates potential racegoers. What utter poppycock.
The whole “modernising” agenda is fundamentally flawed. A large part of the appeal of horse racing is precisely that it is out of step with the times. Going to the races – with its old-fashioned dress, its old-fashioned terminology and old-fashioned atmosphere, provides a perfect sanctuary from the boring blandness of modern, globalised, 21st century Britain.
Millions of us love horse racing exactly how it is. That’s why so many of us will be heading to Cheltenham this week. Only please, please don’t tell Ben.
When Tony Benn recently declared Sir Winston Churchill to be ‘well to the left of New Labour’, he was rounded on by the media Benn-bashers.
But once again, it's Tony who's right and not his detractors.
Yesterday a Labour government- yes a Labour government, announced its plan to privatise the Tote. The Tote, which had been set up in 1928 as a publicly-owned body by none other than Winston Churchill.
Labour want to sell a publicly owned asset that was set up by Winston Churchill and the Tories and which even survived the pro-privatisation Thatcher and Major Conservative adminstrations.
It beggars belief how anyone who considers themselves on the left, or on the 'progressive' side in British politics could even consider voting for today's Labour Party. The fact is, if Sir Winston Churchill returned to life today, he would find that his views on public ownership of the Tote would put him to the left of all our three major parties.
Doesn't that tell you something about the desperate state of British democracy?
Below is my 2006 Guardian article on Winston Churchill's 'Nanny Goat', and why selling it would be such a terrible idea.
Considering his other political achievements, it is understandable that setting up the Tote - or Horserace Totalisator Board - in 1928, only features as a minor footnote in the extraordinary career of Winston Churchill. But for lovers of racing, the impact of Churchill's creation has been immense.
For 78 years, the "nanny goat" has enjoyed a monopoly of horse-race pool betting in exchange for a guarantee that its profits are ploughed back into the sport. The arrangement has helped make British racing what it is today - a compelling, richly varied pageant which enhances the lives of millions of people.
But now racing's beneficial relationship with the Tote is under threat. The government is hellbent on privatising Churchill's creation in a move which has caused consternation throughout the racing world. Despite the opposition of the late Robin Cook, one of the few politicians in Westminster to understand horseracing and the role the Tote plays within it, in 1999 the government announced a "review" of the options for the future of the Tote. The outcome was a 2001 manifesto commitment (repeated in 2005) to sell the Tote to a Racing Trust "to allow it to compete commercially" - a favourite catchphrase of the pro-privatisation lobby which we have heard ad nauseam in relation to the planned sell-off of the Royal Mail.
To placate critics of privatisation, the government made it clear that they would not countenance a sale to another big bookmaker. But when racing, in the shape of a consortium of Arena Leisure, the Racecourse Holdings Trust and an owners group did come up with a bid, they were told that their offer was far less than the official £400m-plus valuation and that a sale at a "knockdown price" of £310m would contravene EU state aid rules.
The government has subsequently backtracked on its commitment to keep the Tote in racing, saying recently that its aim in the sale is "to achieve value for money for the taxpayer, while recognising the racing sector's legitimate interest in the Tote by ensuring that racing benefits from the sale". In reality, racing will benefit very little, regardless of what cosmetic measures the government put in place when the sell-off goes through. The Tote made a £10.7m contribution to racing last year, and the absence of shareholders means that the Tote's post-tax profits (which last year were £6.5m) remain in the sport as well. Contrast this with Ladbrokes, Britain's largest retail bookmaker, whose profits from racing have, until recently, helped its parent company Hilton embark on an ambitious programme of hotel acquisitions.
None of the arguments regularly put forward by supporters of privatisation apply. A Tote sell-off to one of its rivals will not increase competition - it will do exactly the opposite, leaving millions of punters with much less choice than before. The Tote is no inefficient loss-making enterprise, on the contrary it is inherently profitable and, in its 78 years of existence, it has never taken a penny from the government in subsidy.
Why then, when virtually everyone in racing was happy with the status quo has the government been so determined to privatise? The boosting of Treasury coffers to the tune of £400m is of course a factor, but the real reason for the sell-off is, I believe, ideological.
The privatisation of the Tote demonstrates just how wedded to neoliberal dogma New Labour is. When a Labour government tries to sell off an institution that was set up by the Tory government of Stanley Baldwin - and which escaped even the attentions of the serial privatising Margaret Thatcher - you realise how far down the road to market fundamentalism we have travelled.
Just hours away now from the greatest and most exciting horse race of them all: The Grand National. You can read my 2004 Guardian piece on why, in a globalised and increasingly homogenised world, this great race means so much, here. As to who's going to win this year's renewal, I think Himalayan Trail, Rambling Minstrel and Irish Invader should go well.
Good luck with whatever you decide to bet!
It's Gold Cup Day tomorrow- and it'll be exactly 20 years since the epic race of 1989, when the legendary Desert Orchid defeated 66-1 outsider Yahoo in one of the most stirring finishes to a big race ever seen.
I was lucky enough to have been at Cheltenham that day and even though I have been to hundreds of race meetings since, that cold, wet day in March 1989 will always be a special memory. Dessie looked a beaten horse on the run-in, but he rallied superbly to deny Yahoo in the closing strides.
The race also featured one of the greatest acts of sportsmanship I have ever witnessed, when jockey Tom Morgan, who had finished second, rode over to give the victorious Desert Orchid (who had just deprived him of a place in racing history) a loving pat.
Enjoy the video of one of the greatest horse races of all time.