Bad Friday?

Once again we have a day when the majority of the population have a day off work, plenty of leisure time and leisure pounds to spend, yet those who want to are denied the opportunity to go racing.

Why – because it is Good Friday and “traditionally” there has never been racing on Good Friday – so that’s it then, nothing else to discuss.

Bring back the dinosaurs as well, well no need really as there are plenty around in racing.

Funny, we used to not race on Sundays for similar reasons but, eventually, common sense prevailed and we now race on Sundays.

Although being British we have approached the entire concept of Sunday racing half-cocked and have somehow contrived to turn Sunday’s into a day where racecourses struggle to attract decent crowds, when it could be the busiest day of the week in terms of attendances and betting turnover. Elsewhere in Europe Sunday is the biggest racing day of the week.

Musselburgh racecourse have indicated they want to stage a meeting next Good Friday and I wish them well but those in the PJA, ROA, NTF and NASS are, according to Paul Struthers, opposed to the idea.

Well that’s no surprise, between them they have as much business acumen as an amoeba and put their own self interests ahead of those of the industry as a whole.

Let’s have a blank day on  public holiday when we could stage some high class racing and attract big family crowds.

Racing is a leisure industry and needs to be available when there is the demand. All other major sports operate on Good Friday and get the bums on seats.

If racing cannot be bothered to race on a public holiday it, frankly, deserves to fail. If those who supposedly run this sport cannot see the benefits of racing on a public holiday they need to be replaced, pronto.

Their lame argument is staff need a break and a rest and that is something I wholly agree with but I will return to that aspect later.

Another argument is people can spend time with their families. I have limited sympathy with that argument. If quality family time is so important then work in a 9-5, Monday – Friday job.  

Anyway most stable staff will still have to work even if there is no racing – or do the horses look after themselves on non-racing days?  

Perhaps they would care to explain what one blank day will do to help the lot of stable staff, jockeys etc.?

Maybe opponents could explain why there should be a random blank day in the calendar just because it coincides with a religious festival?

Now if people want to believe in such things that’s absolutely fine with me and I respect their beliefs, but I don’t see why they should impose their sackcloth and ashes mentality on those who do not share their views.

Another argument is there is too much racing already. I actually agree with that but would also argue two or three extra meetings would have little effect in the wider scheme of things.

So instead of taking a half-hearted approach and having a random blank day why not take the bull by the horns and schedule regular blank days in the calendar.

Instead of shooting itself in the foot and not stage racing on a potentially lucrative day why not have blank Monday’s?

How about not scheduling racing on those wet winter Mondays where one man and his dog turns up for racing which generates little betting turnover.

Indeed make Monday blank throughout the year apart from Bank Holidays and school holidays. That way the staff will get regular days when they don’t have to go racing.

Instead of one blank day on Good Friday why not have 40 blank Monday’s throughout the year? 

Would that not address the concerns expressed about Good Friday racing?

The jockeys can still have their annual piss-up at the Lesters – just stage it on a Sunday night instead of the Thursday before Good Friday.

I am not advocating forcing people to go racing on Good Friday if they don't want to. Unlike those who advocate not racing on Good Friday on religious grounds who are forcing their views on me and preventing me from having a choice.

So I’m not against having blank days in the racing schedule, what I do find objectionable, and offensive, is having blank days imposed just because of some religious festival. 

  

Thwarted 1,000th

Of all the software, or as it is seemingly called nowadays …. apps, you can obtain, my favourite has to be the spreadsheet.

I love keeping lists and records of what I do and a spreadsheet is a fabulous way of recording information.

I can tell, at a glance, that in the last 12 months I have spent £3,315.13 on diesel, although that is probably a stat I don’t want to be reminded of.

I keep records of all aspects of my daily life and undoubtedly a psychologist would describe me as being OCD – I’ll have to ask my niece, who is studying psychology if she agrees, then again maybe I had best not – she undoubtedly thinks he Uncle is odd anyway.

Of course I use spreadsheets to keep records of my horseracing.

Indeed OCD or not I think it is essential for anyone who gambles to keep an honest record of all their bets – it can not only be quite sobering but careful studying of your betting history can highlight areas where you are going wrong (and right) and can be a useful tool to bet more selectively and importantly, more profitably.

I also keep a record of all the race meetings I have been to.

I didn’t start going racing “full time” until August 2007 and since that time I have been to 777 UK, plus a number of overseas race meetings as well.

Before racing full time my trips to the races were limited as I had a job which entailed long hours and if not working weekends I was almost invariably on-call so going racing regularly wasn’t practical, which meant I probably only got to the racecourse 10-20 times a year.

Another sign of my OCD is my habit of keeping the racecards of all the meetings I have been to and I still have racecards from every meeting I have been to bar two, although most of them are boxed and in the loft. One missing card was a meeting at Huntingdon in the late 90’s where I arrived just before the first race and they had run out of racecards. The other was at an exceptionally wet York meeting, where I had the racecard inside my coat pocket. When I later retrieved it, the racecard had turned into papier-mâché.

I still have the racecard from my very first meeting, at Fontwell back in the early 1980’s. My oldest (that’s in terms of longevity not his age) friend Tony took me there, to the course where his Grandfather used to take him. We could only afford the Silver Ring and our bets were no more than £1 each way, probably even 50p.

I don’t recall too much detail of the day but I do know I was smitten with the course and, to this very  day, Fontwell is my favourite small course.

So what is the relevance of all this. Well last Thursday I was updating my spreadsheet following a visit to Haydock the day before and I noticed it was my 998^th UK race meeting.

Out of curiosity I looked to see what would be my 1,000^th meeting and it would have been Towcester, my local course.

It was then I noticed Fontwell was due to race the following day. Now wouldn’t that be good if my 1,000^th meeting could also be at the one where it all started.

So a quick jig around of my schedule meant Towcester would be my 999^th meeting (with Taunton as a back-up) and Fontwell the 1,000^th – easy!!

Na, it wasn’t easy at all.

As you undoubtedly know Towcester was cancelled on Monday, as was Taunton. It did still leave Lingfield though.

My regular reader will tell you I am no fan of artificial surface racing and I will avoid it at all costs but if it meant my 1,000^th meeting would be Fontwell I would bite the bullet and do Lingfield on Monday.

I was all ready to go, on the train, but before I left I wanted to check the train times to see if I could change trains at East Croydon as opposed to the much busier Clapham Junction.

It was then I saw a problem. There were electricity supply problems between East Croydon And Hurst Green - the very line I wanted, with significant delays, busses replacing trains and no idea when the problem would be resolved.

I could have driven to Lingfield but that would have entailed driving home on the M25 in the rush hour and was it really worth the hassle just so my 1,000^th meeting could be Fontwell.

So the plan was scrapped – with the weather I’m still stuck on 998.

My 999^th should be either Ludlow of Ffos Las (tomorrow or Thursday 28^th if you are reading the archive) and, ironically, my 1,000^th looks again to be Towcester, this time on Easter Sunday.

In hindsight I perhaps shouldn’t have made such a fuss about the 1,000^th, after all it’s only a number. Indeed my 1,000^th meeting ever passed by without me even noticing (it was at Catterick if you are interested).

A few final stats, my top three most visited courses are Ascot (106), Towcester (87) and Leicester (60). Whilst Ffos Las, Great Leighs, Kelso, Musselburgh and Perth all have the least visits with three each – there could be a geographic clue there!!!

Lists can be good but they can sometimes be more trouble than they are worth.

An Emotional Festival

Racing is a sport, more than any other, that can tear at the emotions and the Cheltenham Festival 2013 certainly played the entire gamut of emotions.

From the highs of the scintillating destruction of a high class field by Sprinter Sacre to, just over 25 hours later, the gut wrenching numbness as jockey JT McNamara was airlifted to hospital.

The highs began on the opening day, where after the weather scare, Hurricane Fly regained the Champion Hurdle chased home by last years chanmpion.

Quevega

Then we had Quevega winning the Mare's hurdle for the fifth time. It was a run which reminded me of Sea The Stars winning the Arc. A horse emerging from a seemingly impossible position to run on to glory. The sort of run which makes the days spent watching Class 6 plodders all the more worthwhile.

On Thursday we saw a new World Hurdle champion as Solwhit took, or is that borrowed, Big Bucks crown.

Whilst on Friday we saw an epic Gold Cup, a Gold Cup worthy of its status, as Bobs Worth came home an impressive winner. It was a contest where it was impossible to call the winner until the very final stages. There may not have been no Kauto Star (although he looked superb as he led the parade), Imperial Commander or Denman but, being brutal, the race did not need them.

Our Conor

Friday also saw the next generation, both equine and human come to the fore, with the two coming together in the opener as Our Conor and young Bryan Cooper both made a striking impression in the opener. Our Conor, arguably, doing the second best demolition job of the week.

Sprinter Sacre

The consummate demolition job came from Sprinter Sacre who made it eight from eight with his imperious victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase leading to many dubbing him the Frankel of jump racing.

It wasn’t just the manner of his victory, it was the impressive way he cleared his fences, spring heeling his way to victory in a near faultless display of jumping.

Sizing Europe, a previous winner of the contest, is no mug, yet he was well and truly mugged by the Nicky Henderson trained winner and listening to the emotional post-race interviews with Henderson it was evident he is in awe of the horse.

On Thursday though, we saw the other side of our sport. On the equine front we lost the talented, promising Matuhi. Who paid the ultimate equine price in the Byrne Group Plate, despite vets battling for almost an hour to save him. Earlier in the afternoon had Davy Russell being taken to hospital with his punctured lung.

But when we though things couldn’t get much worse, the danger of this sport was no more firmly underlined by the horrific injury suffered by top amateur rider JT (John Thomas) McNamara. One moment he was riding Galaxy Rock to the first fence, the next he was prostrate on the turf with a broken neck.

There were not too many concerns in the crowd or media centre as the fence was by-passed on the second circuit but as time progressed the news began to spread.

When we heard an air ambulance had been called there was a realisation this was no ordinary fall and although there were some updates over the public address system it was only when contact was made with those more closely involved the full realisation of what had happened became apparent.

Eventually airlifted to hospital in an induced coma, he has undergone surgery and we all hope and pray the outcome is positive.

JT was certainly been to the forefront of the riders thoughts on Friday and there were no exuberant celebrations.

It must had been a difficult day for the riders for although JT McNamara is an amateur rider as a 37 year old he has been in the weighing room longer than most of the riders and the lieks of AP McCoy and Barry Geraghty have been friends with him for near on 20 years. Also in the back of their minds must has been the thought "there but the grace of God go I."

The accident has demonstrated how, in a split second, a jockey can one moment be in control of his mount and the next sustain a life threatening, life changing injury.

On a positive front the treatment given to both Matuhi and McNamara shows how seriously racing treats the welfare of its participants, both equine and human. They must be the only workers at the racecourse who hope they do spend the day doing nothing at all. Thankfully most days they have to do very little but on the days when they do have to do their job there are none better.

Seeing the air ambulance circling the course also reminded me of the excellent job they do. What is so wrong is all the air ambulances in this country rely solely on charitable donations and sponsorship. They do not receive any money from central Government.

The Injured Jockeys Fund rightly gets a huge amount of support from those in racing and those who follow the sport and the IJF will be closely involved in JT McNamara’s journey ahead.

However if you had a successful punting week at Cheltenham perhaps you would also like to give a few quid of your winnings to your local Air Ambulance service – it may be you, a love one or a friend who needs a big red or yellow helicopter one day in the future.

A Bad Festival Prep

It’s funny how you change in your ways as you advance in years.

There was a time when spontaneity was my middle name. Very often I would finish work on a Friday afternoon and go straight to a travel agent (yes that’s how long ago I’m talking about, the Internet hadn’t even been thought about in those days) and see what flights were available to any European destination that evening and within a few hours I would be jetting off to visit some random city for the weekend.

As I have “matured” I have become more organised and more of a planner, there is still some spontaneity but I like to be more organised.

For example I know, weather and unforeseen circumstances permitting, where and when I will be racing for the remainder of this year.

My Cheltenham “routine” has changed over the years. There was a time when I would begin my ante-post punting the previous December. Sometimes it would be spectacularly successful, my best ever being Voy Por Ustedes in the 2006 Arkle who I backed at all prices from December until the day of the race, giving me my biggest winner ever. For the rare successes it also turned out to be an expensive long term approach, not least due to the seemingly increasingly large number of multiple entries and it’s impossible to second guess plans. Consequently I no longer bet ante-post.    

My routine nowadays is not to start looking at Cheltenham until the weights announcement, usually the last Wednesday in February.

The first week in March I look at the early closing races then the week before I put three days aside to look at the remainder of the card.

That was my approach this year but it almost went completely wrong. The Championship races went fine but part two came off the rails.

I had put Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday aside to look at the non-championship races and finish my preparation for the festival, followed by a day racing in Carlisle on Thursday.

Monday morning I woke up to a rare mild, sunny day – such a relief after the depressing weather of the past few weeks. So lovely it was I decided to be spontaneous, I forgot the racing and decided to have a day at the seaside.

Unfortunately I live in one of those rare places in the UK which is miles from the coast, so it was almost three hours later I arrived in Cromer, looking forward to some lovely fresh crab. It wasn’t to be Cromer was closed, with only a handful of eateries open and then came the devastating news that the crab will not be “in season” until the end of the month.

So there was little else to do than walk and get some sea air. I do love the Great British Seaside but, having said that, there can also be nothing more depressing than a seaside resort off-season.

After Cromer it was a case of following the coast, through equally desolate, closed, resorts until Hunstanton at which point I gave up.

So I still had two days to finish off the Cheltenham prep. Granted it would be two long busy days but hard work never hurt anyone.

Tuesday was an early start, at the laptop by 07:00 but by the time I finished at 22:00 I had done all the non-handicaps and had done one handicap as well.

So Wednesday was just a matter of doing the fearsome handicaps and second guessing the trainers plans.

That’s when the fun started. I powered up the laptop to be greeted with a message telling me I had a hard drive fault and Windows was trying to repair the problem.

An hour later Windows told me it had done its best but there was still a potential problem. I soon found out what the problem was when I, unsuccessfully, attempted to open the software I use to run my website. It wasn’t playing.

In the immortal words of James Lovell “Houston we have a problem”. The next two hours was spent getting backups of all my critical files.

I needed a new laptop and fast. Now that was annoying as normally I am very fussy with my requirements and have my laptops custom made to my requirements but that takes time and with Cheltenham less than a week away, time was something I did not have on my side.

Whilst the backups were running I made a scouting mission to the dreaded PC World to see what they had in stock and built a shortlist of possible candidates.

Luckily I was still able to get online on the ailing laptop and I checked out the specs of the candidates online and I narrowed the choice down to two.

Back to PC World just after lunch to find, since I had been in the store earlier, they had sold the last remaining first choice laptop – typical as it was a bargain. So it was down to the second choice.

Here is an edited version of what ensued.

Me: I would like one of these laptops please.

Salesman: Fine. Would you like any software with it?

Me: No thank you.

Salesman: What about anti-virus?

Me: I already have anti-virus thank you.

Salesman: What anti-virus do you have?

Me: That’s irrelevant – I have anti-virus and I am not interested in the one you are selling.

He then went off to get the laptop but was gone for nearly ten minutes. I was about to walk out when he re-appeared.

I knew what was coming next.

Salesman: Would you like an extended warranty?

Me: no thank you.

Salesman: Why not?

Me: Because I don’t want one.

Salesman: What happens if it goes wrong?

Me: If it goes wrong in the first year it is covered by the manufacturer’s warranty, after that I can either repair it myself or get a replacement.

Twice more he asked me if I wanted a warranty after my final curt no I think he got the message.

He then scanned the laptop into the till.

Salesman: Can I have your name and address?

Me: Why?

Salesman: For the warranty.

Me: I’ve told you I don’t want a warranty. I am happy with the manufacturer’s warranty.

Salesman: But I need your name and address for the manufacturer’s warranty.

Me: No you don’t, all I need for the manufacturer’s warranty is a proof of purchase.

Salesman: If you don’t give me your name and address I cannot sell you the laptop.

Me: Why?

Salesman: because the law says you have to provide your name and address.

Me: I’m only legally obliged to provide my name and address if the laptop has a TV tuner which it doesn’t.

Let’s just say the conversation progressed to a level I cannot repeat in a family forum and needless to say I did not purchase the laptop from PC World and apologies to the person who does buy it if the salesman followed my advice as to where he could stick his laptop.

Luckily there is a Staples nearby and they had the exact same laptop but out of stock. However with a completely different level of customer service they said they could get one in for me by 16:00.

The laptop duly arrived and, guess what, when I paid for it there was no offer of an extended warranty and no requirement for me to provide my name and address ….. strange that.

By 22:00 I had a near working new laptop, although it still needed some work, so the trip to Carlisle had go but by mid-afternoon on Thursday I had a fully working laptop again …. but unfinished Cheltenham prep.

So I’m still going to Cheltenham without having assessing the handicaps in advance.

There is one consolation though – at least the laptop went into terminal decline the week before, rather than during, The Festival.

A final thought, isn’t it frightening just how much we depend on technology nowadays?