Saturday August 13th 2022

GOING GLOBAL in delmar 00,34 also ex paddy twomey in same race burgoo ave.

A few irish n uk tnite.

Going Global has won 8 from 11 in the US since being sold over there, netting USD900k in win prize money alone. Not bad for a filly that had won only a 6k Dundalk egg and spoon handicap.

Im breaking a promise I made to myself but I cant shut up any longer .

In the 60s I was taking horses at this time of year down to NA for the start of the NH season ,trying to nick 3 and 4 runner races against David Barons and Les Kennard and co.

On the flat it was the same though we didnt molly cuddle horses so much as we had no aw gallops at home and cantering around stubble fields was the order of the day.We had Sundays off ,there were the respective seasonal breaks ,not as now ,round the clock action week in week out.Horses lasted . They dont now .NH definitely needs to revert to the old seasonal break.

Theres a very good reason why there are small fields ,especially in the better class events in both codes.

It's simple, theres to many races for a shrinking pool of the animals rated to run in them.

To many class 5 and 6s hcaps are being run, and believe it or not it's hard to get in them often ,for only 2 bodies benefit , the bookies and courses and not necessarily in that order.

What's the point of training or owning horses who are so slow and of poor ability. None .

The staff situation is still at a severe critical level, so the prospect of even more such low level racing is ludicrous. How hard is that to see and understand and act upon.

No matter what anyone thinks of the prize money issue ,anything 3 years old and any good is open to being nicked to go abroad which is exactly what's been happening for at least the last 8 years ,more so in the last 4 .

Hence the reason why the 3 yo NH hurdle division has got progressively weaker.( and why Milton has plundered it because we saw the chance)

Harrington's decision to arbitrarily cancel her own bodies recommendation to ko those 300 races has only worsened the situation.

I just wish someone ,somewhere is lurking who has the common sense ,ability and knowledge of the sport to get the obvious sorted and go from there.

i doubt any dissenting voices here - I rather selfishly like a bit of summer jumps but if there was proper flat racing on i maybe not miss it. Not hordes of dross - i wouldn't even say AW dross as often the best card of the day is on the AW at the moment. My local track Hamilton puts up ok prize money and has good facilities but struggles to attract fields and its rare to get a good betting heat. They seem to run most weeks tho but its not attractive fare...

Sounds like sense to me - shame there's not more action...

I had my first visit to Newton Abbot racecourse this week - unfortunately, it was to take my mother for an overdue Covid booster, but I would like to get there for racing sometime soonish... (been to Exeter a few times which is 10 miles further, but only a few more minutes driving). And I hadn't realised when we collected our new VW 7 years ago that it was only a few hundred yards away!!

I'm sure no one here would mind if you changed your nap Alan, as long as it's before the off, obviously! Edit function (unlike The Guardian) on top right of your post and we'll not even notice :P

Yep, Luke is spot on. I'm happy for anyone to change their nap.

And we all know what happens when you have a change of mind….so sticking with my nap