Saturday 30 July 2011

Musings, Stating The Obvious and Some Other Thoughts

Today was my first day at a race course (Doncaster) since May - well overdue. My husband being unavailable due to Saturday village cricket (is there really any contest??), my daughter was only too willing to accompany me (herself accompanied by newly acquired Greek tan, shoes, dress and payday).  Now you have to understand that I've been to Doncaster before but she hasn't - nonetheless, she has the sat-nav homing pigeon instincts that an alcoholic heron would be proud of and it took all of 5 minutes from entering the gates to find the champagne and seafood bar.  My protestations that the champagne was for after you've won fell on deaf ears - you really can't fault the logic of "well I might lose then I'll have no money for champagne".

What followed was an afternoon with not a single winning favourite.  I broke even with Swendab winning and Dhaular Dhar and My Love Fajer placing.  I wish I'd taken Mulldog's tip for Barren Brook with me!  Now the clever bit was race 2.  This I had no doubt at all would be won by a low drawn horse between 1 and 3.  I put my money on the two drawn 1 & 2  (New Planet to win & Palace Moon each way).  My daughter backed to other horse drawn 3, Prime Defender ...aaaargh!!  She walked away this afternoon nicely in profit - me about evens.  At least the weather was fab and I got to drive a little bit fast on the Mway with the hood down coming home (and I'll fess up to a guilty pleasure MaccyD at the Flouch roundabout).

By the way, the poor bride-to-be whose hen friends persuaded her to keep drinking (they were relatively sober) and that she needed to hold a dildo and inch away from her mouth for EVERY single photo should dump those friends!  They'll be published on FaceBook by now, forever to circle cyberspace until her future children find them in around 10 years time.


I've just watched a replay of the Goodwood 14:35 and it made for horrible viewing.  My thoughts and those of many I'm sure, are with both Ryan Moore and the connections of Captain John Nixon - a horse that I remember watching on many occasions.  I've heard it said often that flat jockeys suffer more injury from falls due to the (a) speed they are riding at and (b) the unexpected nature of the fall (i.e. jumps jockeys are always prepared at each fence and can roll with the fall). This is the second Saturday in a row where a horse has broken down on  terrestrial TV and therefore to an audience of many more than usually would be watching.  No doubt the misguided (I'm being kind with my adjectives here) animal activists will be out in force on the Daily Mail tomorrow.  The same idiots that claimed Frankie was "beating his horse with the wrong and hard end of the whip" as if he'd still be riding if this was the case.

I heard that Ryans's injuries may be worse than at first feared although I hope that's not the case.  Earlier this evening I was listening to Terry Norman on Timeform Radio who offered the information that Kieren Fallon has been contacted for the name of the surgeon who saved his arm in 2000 when he suffered a similar terrible fall at Royal Ascot.  He also voiced his opinion that Ryan's father Gary's statement after the accident was pretty downbeat and perhaps the statement had some 'spin' to it.  Moving along to the subject of the jockeys championship. he mentioned that K Abdulla will not use Fallon after his many 'misdemeanours' which will rule out many of the spare rides available from the Stoute yard going to Kieren - one can only assume that Buick will pick up a fair few of these instead and I wonder if Sir Michael might entertain the idea of using SdS?  I can't imagine that Ballydoyle will find it a problem to use Fallon more than they have been doing of late though - assuming they have checked every piece of paper that has been in the same room as himself and a pen!

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