First of all my apologies for the late arrival of this bloggy-thing. Apparently, the software was up-dating itself at the very same time I wanted use of my website. Have you noticed how inconsiderate modern technology is: no please, or thank-you, no if you wouldn't mind but we need to do an update, when would it be convenient to you. Well, yes, sometimes we, the human, is taken into consideration, while on a similar subject, there seems no way I can alert microsoft or any tech company that I do not own a mobile phone, so have no need to have the data here moved to data there.
Yesterday, in the blog title, I suggested a snapshot on how racing differs today to days long gone. There is no great enlightenment and you could go without the tit-bit I am about to include without you ever feeling hard done by, yet I made a note of it and .... The next day he (Stray Shot) won the Brownlow Nursery Plate - he had run second the previous day. Not really relevant. - and then Woodman of Arden was purchased by Mr. Hughes for £500, for whom he won the Bentinck Welter Handicap at Liverpool Autumn Meeting on the last day of the races, after having fallen in the canal in a race just before. The way William Day constructed sentences - he was writing around the turn of the century - can make it difficult to extract the bit I wish to convey to others. Anyway, such a thing would not be allowed today.
I cannot say anything about the death of Tom O'Brien other than I was shocked. Only a few days before Cieran Gethings mentioned him after winning a race, hoping Tom was by the fire in his sitting room and that the win had cheered him some what. When he said Tom was seriously ill, it was the first I had heard of it, and then for him to pass away only a few days later took me completely by surprise. Why I can live to 72 and someone of much better quality of a man can die aged only 39, someone with a wife and young children, baffles me to my core. Is it any wonder I am an athiest.
Usually, I am appalled by the punishments handed out to jockeys for small errors of judgement. Yesterday, though, I thought the Warwick stewards had no alternative but to slap a 14-day ban on Freddie Mitchell for taking the wrong course. A jockey has the responsibility to know the course he is about to ride on. I dare say in the weighing room there is a map of the course, both hurdles and fences. He did not deliberately make this silly, perhaps unprofessional, mistake and I hope after cross-questioning him that Nicky Henderson will continue to trust him enough to continue giving him rides.
On this sad day, there remains much to look forward to, especially with the John Durken on the horizon, with Willie Mullins assembling a platoon of the great and the good of the steeplechase division to make their first appearances of the season. Gaelic Warrior, Fact To File, I Am Maximus, Kitzbuhel and Final Demand to name but five, with Lossiemouth expected to make her season debut in the Morgiana Hurdle the day before. For me, the main interest in the John Durken will be how Harry Cobden gets on with Fact To File, a horse that seems to delight in teasing his connections with great performances as well as disappointing performances. I would not be at all surprised should Fact To File beat his more esteemed stable-mates first time out, and that is not meant to shed any criticism on Mark Walsh. I just think Cobden's style of riding will suit Fact To File. Jonbon on Friday, though, might not be quite the same heavenly match-up. I would bet a shilling that Nico de Boinville ends up back on Jonbon, a horse that positively hates change.