The Good
With Sydney in the doldrums and Melbourne not much better Stern Idol added good to the turf scene being exclaimed during the official broadcast as the “Vo Rogue of jumps racing” in last Sunday’s Crisp Steeple at Sandown as well as “champion” on more than one occasion.
Maybe it was the influence to witnessing Laurie Morgan, the great Australian equestrian ride Aintree in the United Kingdom, one of my great memories, or being thrilled by the great Irish Chaser Arkle over there in the 1960’s but the poetry in motion of National Hunt has always been intriguing.
The Irish bred Stern Idol on Sunday won the Crisp Steeple for the second year and Crisp, too, was one of the exceptionals. Saw him here before he went abroad and produced one of the great Grand National efforts at Aintree going down by three quarters of a length humping 70kgs to Red Rum, conceding him 10kg. Red Rum ran a race record and won the next two Grand Nationals.
Yes, Aintree has been modified and so, too, Australia’s most daunting obstacles to what thrilled Adam Lindsay Gordon, daredevil rider, poet, and politician, but Warrnambool in Victoria still produces thrills and so, too, Sandown the scene of Stern Idol’s most recent triumph.
Trained by Ciaron Maher, Stern Idol, starting at $1.22, made the opposition look like pit ponies and perhaps their quality was questionable.
Like Crisp and others Stern Idol, winner of nine over the jumps in Australia, could be sent abroad because the gelding is running out of options here.
Of Stern Idol Gordon would well have versed:
“But none can outlast him, and few travel faster,
“He strides in his work clear away from the drag,
“You hold him and sit him; he couldn’t be fitter.
“Whenever you hit him he’ll spring like a stag.”
The Bad
It was bad enough Berkshire Breeze, also Irish Bred and a stablemate of Stern Idol being part of the Ciaron Maher herd gaining Genghis Khan proportions, going down at $1.45 in the Inside Run Trophy at Flemington on Saturday but subsequently? The excuse was lack of pace.
Racing Victoria stewards reported Ethan Brown, rider of Berkshire Breeze, reported “his mount travelled well, had every opportunity and he was not disappointed with the performance.”
Berkshire Breeze led and being a Melbourne Cup hope those who took the short odds could argue the navigator should have put speed into the race and made it more of a staying test.
Had the Inside Run Trophy been run in Ireland and Berkshire Breeze trained by Aiden O’Brien recent events indicate the use of pacemakers, stablemates employed to go fast and furious in front to benefit the chosen runner would have been employed.
“Aidan O’Brien’s use of pacemakers (which is at best questionable but to which British and Irish stewards turn a blind eye) once again proved to be a major factor,” John Wathen-Berry wrote in the Winning Post last week, regarding the recent King George V1 and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.
The Ugly
Not having the historical background of AFL teams being demolished like the Swans last Saturday I can only put it down to cardiac arrhythmia so far only diagnosed in racehorses.
Cardiac arrhythmia has only cropped up in recent decades, with a penchant for the strongly fancied, and transforms fit, healthy equine athletes onto legs unsteady, the situation with Unanimous the favourite in Saturday’s James McDonald Handicap at Rosehill Gardens.
Going down by over a century isn’t unique in AFL and the Swans were down a few players, particularly the energiser Tom Papley, but in Rugby League it would be rare, if ever before, that a club has been so decimated with injuries as South Sydney. Sure, they were beaten by the Sharks but not savaged. Goodonya Jye Grey, light enough to ride at Rosehill but a Papley for the Rabbits.
Perhaps it could be argued prior to Port Adelaide that negatives cropped up the previous week, and commented on my blog that renowned Swans supporter reckoned they wouldn’t win another match this season. I was even held to ridicule by a Perth reader for cancelling Grand Final tickets in Melbourne.
Anyway, the redeeming feature about cardiac arrhythmia is horses usually win, or do much better, at their next start after being smitten.
4 Responses
Oh dear Max I share your pain about the swans
But as a rooster, revel in the plight of the bunnies
All the best
Ha ha yes good luck Swans recovering from cardiac arrhythmia. Sometimes hope is all you’ve got!
THE ROSEHILL INQUIRY
I sat in on the proceedings in parliament house this morning.
A couple of those questioned were straight shooters. Most of the rest, the more important players, were fast-talkers speaking very fast. Very fast, about a process that can only be described as a shambles from the start and likely to be ongoing until a royal commission opens the can of worms.
As for the great-architect, I took particular note of his claim that he had ‘never denied anyone fair process and natural justice’
Peter Mair / punters representative at RacingNSW 2000-2004.
PS Below is a copy of a note on the way the great-architect treated me in 2004 .. it was circulated after he lost, twice, a defamation action against the ABC.
ROUGH RACING INJUSTICE
A recently confirmed dismissal of a defamation claim nonetheless had some empathy with the claimant ‘him’. Remarks criticising the respondent’s behaviour included:
…………treated him very shabbily………..without giving him the opportunity to respond ……… not fair or decent treatment of him.
Such situations, all too familiar in the racing industry, prompt sharing a recollection of some two decades back when the goose was the gander.
A chance meeting in 1995 with the head of an inquiry into the racing industry, coupled with a plea to the consumers association, saw a submission put for consumer representation in the administration of the racing industry.
The revolutionary but reasonable theme — no taxation without representation – found favour with the inquiry. Legislated provision was made for consumer representation – on a racing industry participants committee, subordinate to a principal board.
In late 2000, with the consumer representative position becoming vacant, yours truly was duly nominated by the independent public-interest agency deciding the statutory appointment. In late 2001, after finding his feet for a year, a paper titled ‘Racing out of Control’ was widely circulated by the consumer representative (the ‘rep’).
While considered by some respected industry players to be among the better bits of industry commentary for some years – that view was not shared by industry administrators nor the minister for racing.
In short order the minister summarily decided that the ‘rep’ was to be sacked forthwith. Alas, that could not just happen to a statutory appointee — the minister lost some face. The rep, still unsettled, was assured by the legal team in the department of racing that no action would taken to displace him without notice being given and offering an opportunity to respond.
Leaping forward, and cutting to the chase — in mid 2004 the rep was surprised to be told, by the then chairman of the participants committee, that the racing legislation had been amended by the parliament some months earlier and was, that very morning, signed into law by the state governor.
Just how legislation was passed by both houses of a state parliament and signed into law without the rep being told remains a mystery to those not aware of how this world works. The racing industry is a most holy alliance of politics, business and media.
Asked what was going on, the rep learned that the position of consumer representative was being re-advertised. The amendment changed the appointment process so that three people would be nominated by the selection agency and one would be chosen by the racing board to be the rep. In short the present rep was ‘no way’ to be re-appointed even if one of the three nominated.
Long story short – at the end of the refreshed selection process the only applicant left standing was the present rep – nothing was done to re-appoint him, the committee was more not less dissolved.
In due course this display – which could be considered shabbily unfair and indecent while showing disregard for natural justice – was put before the parliamentary committee reviewing the performance of the minister for racing and his department – all ducked for cover when an explanation of the malpractice was asked for.
The sadder ending to the story is that the law was again amended – they did not miss this time because the position of a consumer rep was abolished. There would be taxation of but no separate representation of punters in the administration of racing. That’s racing, so to speak.
…. as for recent events with similar overtones and undertones: schadenfreude comes to mind
SHABBY, UNFAIR AND INDECENT IN THE BROADER INDUSTRY CONTEXT
(a) participants
The racing industry is itself no stranger to suggestions that it behaves shabbily, unfairly and indecently – and, one might add, often unjustly in respect of participants.
There are recurrent illustrations of racing industry participants being treated shabbily – often over long periods in ways that were destructive of their mental and financial well-being. As for the why and how of this toxic culture taking root and roving unchecked, it is not a moot point.
Much has to do with the racing industry being a law unto itself with discretionary rules enforced by misusing a power imbalance allowing administrators unlimited funding to financially resist otherwise legitimate claims for a fair go. Suck-it-up, cop-it-sweet is the law.
Much like elsewhere, administrator offenders exposed are typically re-homed in the racing industry.
(b) punters
A once revolutionary call for ‘no taxation without representation’ is dashed The administration of the racing industry is now institutionally corrupted beyond credible belief.
The association of administrators with fixed-odds, bookmaker-conglomerates has relegated ‘tote’ betting to an irrelevance – bar providing bookkeeping services to corporates feeding off tote-dividends ‘not paid to anyone’ from pools already plundered by 20%+ industry take-outs. These free-kicks, gifted to fixed-odds corporates, were taken to another level once administrators embraced inflated-field racing.
Inflating fields, with no-hopers and track-workers hoping to hang on for 10th punted a fair-go for the overcrowded, rough-result racing routinely delivering skinners to bookmakers. Betting services are unrestrained by caps on total-takeouts, still entitled to deny punters likely to place a winning bet – and even prosecuting the use of bowlers. 100% take-outs, near enough, common enough.
Talk about loyal, addicted punters paying the freight while being treated shabbily and unfairly and indecently. The administrators have upped the ante on greed-is-good to make greed-is-essential a virtue. The now polite idea, in 2001, that racing was then out of control totally lacked imagination.
(c) a royal commission?
Peter Mair 29 May 2023