THE SEASONS FINALE

Ascot Champions Day 17.10.15 - The Best of the Best

The flat season finishes on Saturday with an enormous £1.3 million in prize money and in my opinion the very best racing of the season. Would I miss it, not on your life.

Frankie is in action again at with 5 rides. Am I favouring Frankie? You betya! Silverstre de Sousa may be the winning jockey by number of wins but Frankie’s strike rate is higher over the whole season. Ryan Moore beats both of them with 28% over the last 14 days. Bit of a conundrum in betting circles?

Frankel won his last race here the QIPCO Champion Stakes 2012, his half brother Noble Mission taking the honours in 2014. Yet again Northern Dancer, Saddlers Wells and Galileo make an appearance in their blood lines with Northern Dancer on the dam’s side as well. I find this quite mind boggling in terms of who bred what, where, and out of whom. Nice game to play but I don’t have time. Too busy writing blogs!

Ascot Champion’s Day - Punters New and Old.

For the New Punter

For those with an interest in horse racing but not in the know as it were I cant recommend a better web site page to go through than this one---> http://goo.gl/g8coe4  You get a list of runners and riders and a clear picture of the outfits (the silks) they wear for each horse they ride. Prize money is listed too. It’s HUGE.

For the Educated Punter

Use the same URL http://goo.gl/g8coe4  and click on any horse name and you get past and current form, same for the jockey and trainer. Find it on your PC, Lap Top, or iPad and browse at will. Check out Tipster Street tipsters ---> http://goo.gl/bgP0wF and go place your bets.

Everyone will be there, top jockeys, trainers and owners. Weather looks good too.

Cheltenham

Cheltenham Race Course has announced the opening of its new Grand Stand. It will be opened by The Princess Royal on 13^th November 2015. Great timing for the 2015-2016 jump season.

A History Lesson

National Hunt Racing begins usually in late October and runs to the following April, but, where did the name ‘National Hunt Racing’ come from.

Hunting? Steeples? What do they have to do with it. Being an historian I decided to dig a bit and find out.  The name ‘National Hunt’ comes from Ireland. Two horse races were run between to points with country side obstacles in between, just like you find when you go hunting.  As for steeplechasing, those were races run over the countryside traversing all sorts of obstacles on the way between two towns and their church steeples. Point to Point races are amateur steeplechases usually run on farm land.

Only in Australasia (Australia and New Zealand mostly)

Phar Lap : Remember him? His hide is mounted and displayed in the Melbourne Museum. His skeleton is in the Museum of New Zealand, his heart is stored in the Mitchell annex in Australia. (Yuk all-round)

Jemmima J.Jones