The "Oh My God, How Long?" Blog

I hang my head in shame that this is the first blog since the beginning of November!

In that time:

·        Richard Hughes became champion flat jockey for the first time

·        Frankie Dettori has been given 6 months ‘rest’ from the racecourse and is currently to be found inside the Big Brother house.  

Frankie lines up with the other runners

·        Barney Curley has voluntarily retired from training horses and is now devoting his time to his DAFA charity for Africa

·        John McCririck has involuntarily retired from his position as resident misogynist on TV and is now devoting his time to suing C4 for several million for alleged ageism.  

·        Kauto Star has retired from racing and now spends time practising bouncing in time to music 

·        Paul and Clive fell out

·        Big Bucks and Al Ferof were both discovered (on the same sad evening) to have tendon injuries ruling them out for the rest of the season

·       Frankel is now happily ensconced at Banstead Manor Stud ready to share his ‘£125k–a-pop’ lovejuice with 130 mares in his first season (I did the maths – it’s 16 ¼ million!)

·        Silviniaco Conti has announced his arrival on the NH scene in style (he’s a personal favourite of mine for 2013 so gets a mention!)

·        I vow not to leave my blog neglected, forgotten and forlorn for quite so long in future!

PS   You may remember the handiwork of the bad driver/bad SatNav combo on the 19 April!  The car insurers settled months ago BUT this is how the medieval cross now looks today.  

The delay is now due to the council.  The moral of this story is "if you want something doing don't give it to a committee"....if you look hard enough, in the middle of those pick up sticks is a 12ft high stone cross!

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Thursday's Selections & Updates - 24 November

A (as yet non-RP calendar buying) member of my family has commented on the boring titles to my posts that I put up each day.  They will not grab peoples attention apparently!  I think they do "what it says on the tin" but who am I to argue with proven marketing strategy hence the totally dishonest and misleading title of today's post (but probably not that far off the mark if the truth be known!) 

My lucky mug has reappeared on Wednesday - that's it on the right.  The one I drink my coffee (cough cough!) from when I am working on my selections.  It had been spirited away to one of the kids bedrooms a few days ago and came back with the remnants of hot chocolate in (any longer and the contents could have grown legs and walked it back to the kitchen - yeuch!)  Order is restored and I can once again select with confidence........... please refer to yesterday's profitable day ;)

Adam Beschizza was back riding at Kempton last night and hearing his name again reminded me of its pronunciation.  He had to report to the stewards after one race last year to do his explaining bit and when the steward asked him his name he replied "Beschizza".  The steward referred to him for the rest of the hearing as "Mr Biscuit".  

Stewards are still trying to track down a Mr Dasooze and a Mr Spent that they want to speak to about unrelated matters!

Well it all started so well !....a -1.5 today

	Taunton	First Choice	Danger
1	12:40	Dancewiththedevil 2nd	Kickahead 1st
2	13:10	Monturgeon 2nd	Watergate Bay 1st
3	13:45	Le Corvee UP (3rd)	Cantabilly F
4	14:55	How’s my Friend UP (2nd)	Briefcase UP (3rd)
5	15:30	Thunder Child UP	Rivermouth 3rd

Notes:

1/             Dancewiththedevil is back in class and with Aodhagan Conlon’s 5lb claim should have a best chance here.  Kickahead hasn’t had a run over hurdles for 2 years but that was in listed company and he’s been seen chasing and on the flat since so fitness is not an issue

2/             I usually avoid selecting un-hurdled runners in novice (any!) event unless from a top stable such as Watergate Bay but I still suspect he’ll need the run.  Monturgeon was placed in a couple of ptp last May so knows what to do on a racecourse and Alan King has a good record here (only surpassed by Paul Nicholls in this race!)
3/         I did have Sky Calling as my danger horse initially but on review have changed this to Cantabilly 

5/             Thunder Child was fighting above his weight in group class LTO and will have needed that run anyway.  Glassonbury has had four wins from seven rides with him.  Only tiny question mark is over the distance (never stayed this far) so Rivermouth is my insurance!

Have a look at this 'debate' on hare coursing back in 1977 and in particular take note of who thought tearing a hare to shreds for fun was perfectly ok but now thinks that using a whip in racing is barbaric (at least he does when he's paid enough by the Daily Fail !) 

Finally,if you are going to spout and preach proverbs at the younger generation then it's best to get them correct.  I was spouting off words of wisdom to my daughter last night. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" does not have the same meaning when you get say cock instead of bird! 

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Friday's Selections & Results (& DH) - 21 October

Well, Fallon is off to ride in the Melbourne Cup on the 01 November which means he's away from UK racing for a week and effectively has given up on the Jockey's Championship this year.  A shame because I feel this year is (was?) probably his last realistic shot at it. At present he has "the chance of 2 possible rides".....which horse he rides will be revealed Friday but it certainly won't be Bauer unless he can get 4lb lower than his lightest !!  


Hmmmmmm........I wonder

UK Subs....you have to be old to remember them but also cool (honest!)

or.......

McCririck has written an ill-advised moronic well-paid piece for the Mail on Thursday claiming that racing whips are barbaric and must be banned.  While the rest of the racing world are doing their best to educate and explain to the public that whips do not hurt the horses (Greg Wood from the Guardian even had Jim Crowley whip him on Tuesday to prove this point) this pillock (politely put) has taken his 30 silver coins from the Waily Mail and I'm sure I'm not alone hoping that he never earns another penny from horseracing again.

A quick note about the draw bias at Dundalk over 7f!  The last 18 races have been won by a low draw which is a nice juicy 72%. 



19:35  I shall have an e/w on both Flic Flac at 6/1 and Sunset Beauty at 9/1.  Both will be up with the pace & have good low draws.  Flic Flac likes it here having run 3x and placed 3x - all but one occasion from the worst draw.  


Not at all bad - they both won!  A dead heat WOW!

Today’s selections are:

Fakenham

14:10  Murfreesboro  NR

14:45  Court Red Handed 2^nd

15:20  Mush Mir (1.74 bsp) 1^st

15:55  Get It On 2^nd 

16:30  Chicklemix F

17:05  Reelwill 3^rd

17:40  Hot Head UP

Not such a tasty day with the jumps - loss of -5.26

I've just been looking at the 15:45 at Doncaster and I'd made a note re. Madany - last time she was due to run on the 22 September, I had backed her the previous night at 9/1.  She was a late NR after the price shortened beyond belief!  The low draw isn't the hindrence some may think as she can run held up and Servoca won from stall 4 2 years ago!  22/1 right now.....

Five jockeys began their BHA hearing into alleged corruption yesterday (Thur) - this is being held in secret and likely to continue until 02 November when a verdict will be announced on the finding shortly after.  

Meanwhile there are supposedly two more jockeys about to be 'investigated' for new claims of corruption but the BHA are keeping a lid on it for a short while as there is so much negative publicity surrounding horseracing at present.  More scandal on it's way by drip feed then......

Let's also hope the BHA are able to come up with an announcement to appease the jockeys on Friday - abolition of the last furlong rule (hooray - this has been dropped!) and a lightening of financial penalties should it (and this has been reviewed favourably) or there may not be too much racing next week........... Great to see that the BHA have seen sense and listened to the jockeys and PJA concerns then acted on them - albeit not to the extent that the jockeys wanted.  Hughsie is already on four at Newbury this afternoon......however, the PJA are still balloting jockeys this evening so there may still be a strike next week (eeks)

Ongoing non runners list – these are previous blog selections that were scratched on the day and worth looking out for NTO:

Grumeti

Gala Casino Star

Best One

Captain Dash
Mursfreeboro

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