protecting the image of racing

mikesack wrote: As far back as the 80's and Mr.R.Napier Chairman of Jockey Club of S.A. owned horses.

Going further back to the mid and late 70's and trainer Fred Rickaby is on record as having his most successful horse Country Fair win 13 races .Guess who was the owner?
Sir Francis de Guigand, Chairman of the Jockey Club. Source article by Mike Moon.

Haha......just remembered good ole Fred Rickaby had a horse called Sir Francis.No prizes for guessing who was the owner!! Major-General Sir Francis de Guingand.

Sleep well Mr.O'Connor and dream of more winners. :lol:

FYI The whisperer tipped the winner to his clients and he has a big following

Probably explains the price shortening

I think this puts to bed everyone's questions

As long as horse racing has been in existence, connections of horses have sought some advantage.

The handicapping system, has traditionally given rise to a sport in which the form of horses must be deliberately blackened, to have any chance of further winning.

It is all part of the modern trainers skillset - racing horses at the wrong distance, wrong surface, less than fit, against too strong opposition - in order to get the horse a favourable handicap for any given race.

This is and always will be an intrinsic part of the game, and has always been part of the competition amongst gentleman. In fact it is such that these coup's are the source of respect amongst gentleman and their peers.

I suspect that anyone wishing to compete in the sport of gentleman will need to have an acute knowledge, of not only form study, but the tactics engaged within the sport itself.

On the other end of the scale, situations just naturally present themselves, which allow for a coup.

Take for example nine o clock news, obviously a good horse, with a singular poor run. I was expecting a good run from the horse, definitely not on the basis of it's form. I have no doubt, that it had not been so unsettled in the pens, and getting left a length or so at the start - it would have won that race.

Good horses come out and their runs don't go according to plan (the intrinisic variables of racing) naturally creating an advantage to be leveraged on the next run.

Horses suffer some niggling issues, which are identified sometimes as a result of deliberate effort, other times by chance, sometimes later in a horses career. These situations lending themselves to coups, as a horse finds a new lease of life after some hindrance is idnetified and treated.

It's all part of the game and always will be - Punters need to learn these strategies and factor them into their handicapping.

In the case of musical man --- The horse loves soft going, Form study will reveal that, the horse was having it's first run on the Vaal track, the horse opened at 25/1 and was backed in to 7/1 , had a decent run at Durbanville --- flopped badly ....in it's first attempt at the Turfontein track. I don't believe there is anything unethical or underhanded in the win --- these very factors caused me to mention the horse in the track discussion prior to the race.

Just my opinion but I think Pirates is right, has plenty potential for being bad for the IMAGE of the sport.

PS Plenty won't know The Whisperer tipped it and thus that won't affect the image, it might be argued though that plenty won't bother knowing who owned the horse either.

Unfortunately SA racing has reached a position where any horse receiving significant support that wins/places creates some degree of suspicion amongst many and is no doubt one of the main reasons for the floods leaving the game. There have been, and continue to be, plenty of opportunities for everyone involved to "clean up" the sport's image but they seemingly show no willingness or desire to do so. The image of the game is thus pretty much permanently farked anyway in this regard!

Agree with Dr Fager This horse was easy to find
Firstly comes from Cape Town where the horses are very much better than elsewhere in the RSA and the competition week after week remains strong
Had to acclimatise but started fairly short last time
My opinion far too much bitching from the pocket

Pulling betting coups is a norm in sa racing. how many first timers win well backed? how is joe public supposed to know how good the animal is? this will never change cos everyone wants to be on one.

The real question is if anybody can really blame someone doing this given the crappy returns on investment and the wonderful MR system.

Elmer this horse was not easy to find, it was consistently being beaten against lowly rated rivals

Sorry but cant agree with you regarding consistently being beaten
JHB and KZN fields are far weaker than CT

Look what Kannemeyer is doing in KZN Strike rate with mostly horses than could not
place in CT is 70% in places
The Whisperer actually gives the reason why the horse had to be included in all exotics

LOL

Bob Brogan wrote: Elmer this horse was not easy to find, it was consistently being beaten against lowly rated rivals

it's only easy to find after it wins.