Da Dalai Lama will be on again shortly telling us the Superbowl isn’t the pinnacle of American Football because it takes longer than other games.
It is the pomp and ceremony around events such as the Grand National, the Superbowl the Olympics 100m that make them the supreme test of their respective sport. Twice a year the rest of the sporting world pauses from their normal routines and embraces horse racing: today it’s the Grand National, next month it will be the Badminton Horse Trials. Then it’s point-to-points, Cheltenham, the RDS, Hickstead, Fairyhouse etc until the big one at Aintree rolls around again the following year.
[quote=“His Holiness Da Dalai Lama, post: 755771, member: 1503”]
For anyone else with even a partially functioning brain and the mildest of interest in racing the Blue Riband of jumps racing is the Gold Cup. It is the race that crowns the champion jump horse. It is level weights, over the championship distance of 3m2f, over proper chasing fences.[/quote]
4 miles 4 furlongs is the championship distance, and the Grand National is the race that crowns the champion horse. Tony McCoy never shed tears after winning at Cheltenham. He did when he finally won the Grand National a few years ago. That’s what it means. There’s a reason TV has always demanded a prime Saturday afternoon slot for the race while Cheltenham languishes in the graveyard weekday daytime slot, replacing the foreign property porn programmes for retired Tory voters that are usually broadcast in that slot, except with less viewers. Meanwhile today you’ll be lucky to get in the door of the bookies. The public know the score.
The World Darts final is played over an unusual distance - the best of 13 sets. The World Snooker final is played over an unusual distance - the best of 35 frames. The Tour de France is the blue riband of cycling because it’s the longest and toughest race. That’s why those events are special and so it is with the Grand National. If you had your way the World Snooker final would probably be best of 9 or something and the Tour de France would be reduced to one week with no mountains. The Grand National’s length and difficulty enables real class to win out.
They simply weren’t good enough to make the step up in class. On the other hand it would be pointless to waste most Grand National horses on Cheltenham. No point wasting energy on a warm-up event. Tiger Woods doesn’t waste all his energy trying to win the Irish Open - he saves it for the real Open.
[quote=“Rocko, post: 755786, member: 1”]Da Dalai Lama will be on again shortly telling us the Superbowl isn’t the pinnacle of American Football because it takes longer than other games.
It is the pomp and ceremony around events such as the Grand National, the Superbowl the Olympics 100m that make them the supreme test of their respective sport. Twice a year the rest of the sporting world pauses from their normal routines and embraces horse racing: today it’s the Grand National, next month it will be the Badminton Horse Trials. Then it’s point-to-points, Cheltenham, the RDS, Hickstead, Fairyhouse etc until the big one at Aintree rolls around again the following year.[/quote]
+1
If he is on later ill put it to him logically that its a bit like saying Oxford are not the best boat crew in the world after winning The Boat Race just because its a very long race, Sir Matthew Clive Pinsent CBE has gone on record to say it is…
You couldnt’t make up Da Dalia Lama’s ignorance and bitternes really here in this regard.
Per the Daily Mail , two thirds of the adult population of Great Britain ( where horse racing was invented) are estimated to be tuning in at 4-15pm today, Ok, i understand Cheltenham is a decent meeting with some competitive racing, ill give you that but its on at half three on a Tuesday afternoon for a reason. The British public understand their horses, there would not be a total prize fund of almost 950,000 GBP up for grabs if this was not the greatest race in the world now would there?
Yes horses will suffer heart attacks and massive internal injuries, Yes a few will break their legs , Yes some will be whipped to death, Yes you will see real fear in the eyes of the beast as they ooze a thickly white sweat at the start and defeacate themselves due to fear , Yes some will be shot dead in cold blood by their owners who couldnt be bothered paying for vetinary fees after they blew it all on the gee-gees,… But, this is what makes the race great, The joy real horse folk like Sally from Preston who will throw her fiver on an outsider and yet has the chance of winning cannot be compromised, Men in pubs up and down the country will dream of that holiday in Benirdorm that awaits them if they can get the winner,
This is the people’s race, its gives hope to punter and trainer alike and is rightly called the greatest.
I generally find bookies’ shops to be slightly intimidating places, where non-regulars like myself are not especially welcomed by “regulars”. One Saturday before Christmas I found myself with a bit of time to kill and wandered into a bookies where I decided to do a football accumulator for the first time in about ten years. A slight frisson of fear, alright, not fear, but mild uneasiness, surged through me as I walked through the door. I found myself getting flustered as I looked in vain for a football coupon. After a few minutes of sheepish searching I eventually found one that had been discarded by another punter. But to my chagrin, the way the coupon was laid out was totally different from what I was used to back in the 2000-2002 period when I used to bet semi-regularly. I felt as though everybody was looking at me and secretly laughing and smirking as I tried to work out how to enter my selections. Where do you put the “1? Ah, this is ridiculous.” I eventually worked out how to enter my selection. Then I realised there was no second sheet attached tot he coupon which the cashier would rip off and keep. I couldn’t understand this and wondered how they would possibly keep a record of my bet. I nervously approached the cashier with my docket but was told “we only do returns” and I was directed across the counter to the next cashier. I was flabbergasted when I saw her photocopying the coupon and after what seemed like a cumbersome and inefficient process (much more inefficient than had been the case ten years ago - but that’s progress I guess) I was handed a receipt. I shuffled, slightly embarrassed, out of the shop. I found the whole thing a minor ordeal, in truth.
Today I’m going to return to the same shop confidently, this time in the knowledge that most people there will be like me, not knowing what to do, looking at the different screens, confused, looking at the different dockets on the little shelves on wall wondering what they are for, asking the cashier a question which she’ll grunt rudely at - “do I put the price on the screen on the docket or is it the price at the start of the race that counts?” “How do you fill this out?” “If I do an each way bet and my horse finishes fifth, do I win the same amount as if it wins?” “What are these Lotto dockets? Are they anything to do with Grand National?”
I’m going to play up my ignorance. I’m going to shove the regulars out of their usual spots and take as much time as I feel like hogging the table in front of the form guide. They regulars can strain their necks all they want to get close enough to read it. The losers, wasting their lives and their money on races at Southwell, Fontwell and Uttoxetter. They have the shop 363 days of the year. This is a day for the fair weather gamblers, the once a yearers like me. Fuck off, regulars. Today your spot is my territory, be on your way.
You’ve riddled that post with amateur errors Sid. For example, Irish bookies only open 362 days per year rather than the 363 you outline. As a man who prides himself on detail I’m sure this will prove quite embarrassing for you, possibly the same level of embarrassment as you felt in the bookies that day.
That the Grand National is far, far more important than Cheltenham is proved by one thing - the IRA phoned in a bomb scare to Aintree, not Cheltenham. Cheltenham is too much of a niche event for any publicity to be gained by disrupting it. If you want to make a political point, you make it to the people, and where better to do that than at the people’s race,
However the RA lads like a bet on the National as much as anybody, so they were happy too when the race was held on the Monday. The RA got their publicity spectacular and let eveybody know they hadn’t gone away, the race still was run, and nobody got hurt. The perfect outcome all round, everybody was happy and everything was wrapped up in a neat little suspicious package. All part of the folklore of the people’s race.
FFS. Tim Lovejoy and Denise van Outen fronting Channel 4’s appetiser for the big race here. I don’t like the Cockneys trying to get their grubby hands on one of the jewels in Liverpool’s crown. An insult that Jimmy Tarbuck, Jennifer Ellison and the cast of Bread weren’t involved.
[quote=“Sidney, post: 755819, member: 183”]I generally find bookies’ shops to be slightly intimidating places, where non-regulars like myself are not especially welcomed by “regulars”. One Saturday before Christmas I found myself with a bit of time to kill and wandered into a bookies where I decided to do a football accumulator for the first time in about ten years. A slight frisson of fear, alright, not fear, but mild uneasiness, surged through me as I walked through the door. I found myself getting flustered as I looked in vain for a football coupon. After a few minutes of sheepish searching I eventually found one that had been discarded by another punter. But to my chagrin, the way the coupon was laid out was totally different from what I was used to back in the 2000-2002 period when I used to bet semi-regularly. I felt as though everybody was looking at me and secretly laughing and smirking as I tried to work out how to enter my selections. Where do you put the “1? Ah, this is ridiculous.” I eventually worked out how to enter my selection. Then I realised there was no second sheet attached tot he coupon which the cashier would rip off and keep. I couldn’t understand this and wondered how they would possibly keep a record of my bet. I nervously approached the cashier with my docket but was told “we only do returns” and I was directed across the counter to the next cashier. I was flabbergasted when I saw her photocopying the coupon and after what seemed like a cumbersome and inefficient process (much more inefficient than had been the case ten years ago - but that’s progress I guess) I was handed a receipt. I shuffled, slightly embarrassed, out of the shop. I found the whole thing a minor ordeal, in truth.
Today I’m going to return to the same shop confidently, this time in the knowledge that most people there will be like me, not knowing what to do, looking at the different screens, confused, looking at the different dockets on the little shelves on wall wondering what they are for, asking the cashier a question which she’ll grunt rudely at - “do I put the price on the screen on the docket or is it the price at the start of the race that counts?” “How do you fill this out?” “If I do an each way bet and my horse finishes fifth, do I win the same amount as if it wins?” “What are these Lotto dockets? Are they anything to do with Grand National?”
I’m going to play up my ignorance. I’m going to shove the regulars out of their usual spots and take as much time as I feel like hogging the table in front of the form guide. They regulars can strain their necks all they want to get close enough to read it. The losers, wasting their lives and their money on races at Southwell, Fontwell and Uttoxetter. They have the shop 363 days of the year. This is a day for the fair weather gamblers, the once a yearers like me. Fuck off, regulars. Today your spot is my territory, be on your way.[/quote]
fantastic post Sid
It sums up how most of us norms feel about horsey racing
