All kinds of stuff about horse racing, yes, but also other stuff that we find interesting and which maybe you will, too.
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MORE GAME OF THRONES- AND THINKING OF MICHAEL WALKER...
One wonders how Tabcorp feels about SportsBet sponsoring/funding the recently announced six million dollar Sprint Series by Racing New South Wales?
Is this new huge prize money driven carrot good for the SUSTAINABILITY of the old game when there’s an obvious and inevitable changing of the guard and customers taking place?
How and where does raising and raising prize money lose its lustre and comes across as feeding the greed of horse racing’s usual suspects of elitism at a time when the game is being questioned and becoming more and more subdivided?
This is much more than the usual territorial games played out by our old mate Pete in Sydney and supported by the usual suspects in a quaint and compliant racing media.
While counting the millions mentioned above, let’s hope someone think of a jockey like Michael Walker, below, and everything he’s going through along with every other injured rider.
What’s in it for them?
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Asleep at the wheel...?
On Wednesday morning, The Dead People’s Radio was allowed to continue on delay on delay on delay for so long for so long for so long that we switched the damn thing off.
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Wait: Where IS The Magic Man?
Whilst The Tao Of Zac has been in full flow on social media and showing what it’s like to live La Vida Loca, noticeably silent running and having seemingly pulled a disappearing trick is the magic man that is João Moreira.
We all have our own career plans and unfinished business, and it’s no secret that the brilliant Brazilian rider still has his sights set on riding in Japan on a full time basis and getting on the best equine talent around.
With his cameo appearances in the racing mad country, João Moreira is already a crowd favourite in Japan with everything going for him to be an “idol jockey”.
Of course, he still needs to pass some extremely tough tests before getting to this point.
Could João, who’s no one’s fool and uses some in the racing media with Machiavellian brilliance, be using this time away from racing to cram for upcoming exams and burst into a rendition of “Turning Japanese”?
Yes, we think so, we think so!
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*Australia’s leading racing analyst Deane Lester aka Deano, who’s been in the wars recently, comes up with the line of the year by any racing personality anywhere: “I would like to donate my body to science fiction”.
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A FAMILY AFFAIR?
Could Fifi Moore, wife of former Champion Hong Kong Trainer John Moore, who’s now back in Hong Kong after a quickie failed partnership in Sydney with brother Gary and given up on the idea of training in Queensland, be trying to obtain a license to be an Assistant Trainer? Well, stranger things have happened.
With Douglas Whyte having seen his Assistant Trainer and former jockey Vincent Sit join Team Francis Lui, could Fifi Moore be heading in the direction of The Whyte man?
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Wedding bells this year for Antonia Cruz, daughter of Pauline and Tony Cruz, and bloodstock agent George Moore, son of John Moore?
After all the very many many photos posted on Facebook of the longtime couple posing and posing and showing off themselves in muchos love and enjoying their fabulous lifestyle of the rich and famous in Greece, Paris etc, we’re betting on it.
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Say what?
Interesting to eavesdrop drop in on “Cracking The Codes” last Saturday on the Dead People’s Radio channel where there was a very entertaining conversation between two of the hosts- Simone Fisher and Dan Mielicki- and their guests about who had the bigger snake and the greyer beard.
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Huh? Whaaaaaa???
Though never having met Tabcorp odds man Nick Quinn aka Eraserhead, we always enjoyed his lost in translation pronouncing of the names of horses, French not being his strong suit.
With Eraserhead having moved on, there’s now the very professional Nicole Thomas, below.
Nick or Nicole? Too tough to call...
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Would Hollie Would?
If she’s available and willing to accept the moribund lifestyle in the new abnormal that is today’s Hong Kong, there’s a chance that Hollie Doyle MIGHT be riding in the city on a short term license during the upcoming new racing season.
One very much doubts that the brilliant 25 year old rider, and wife of the equally good Tom Marquand, would wish to stay in Hong Kong for much longer if things don’t open up and change drastically.
Hollie Doyle is riding high in the UK, and Hong Kong, still wounded after the protests in 2019, and hobbled these days with extremely strict social distancing measures, is not the city it was and neither is everything in it. It’s all very @surrealhk.
If we are to be truly honest with ourselves, this surrealism often extends to the racing.
For various reasons, Hong Kong Chinese horse owners, mostly male, come with certain old school chauvinistic attitudes.
These attitudes pretty much saw apprentice Kei Chiong give up her riding career when opportunities dried up along with superstitions- hear us tap dancing?.
Too many owners have always had problems supporting local female riders- which is why there are none.
Hollie Doyle, however, has won over prejudices with her appearances at the Hong Kong International Jockeys Championships in December.
Over the past two years, she has matched it with the very best riders in the world, and has gone beyond gender, something that needs to be said in these ‘woke’ times.
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Could you be Hong Kong Quarantine Hotel Hell...?
People ask what it’s like to visit Hong Kong these days to which we ask, how’s your mental resolve?
If able to successfully compete in the obstacle course that’s awaiting travellers at the airport and which takes around three hours to complete with 6-7 stops along the way for various procedures, you MIGHT have the mental fortitude for a one week mandatory stay in a quarantine hotel.
Sure, if able to get into one of the more luxurious hotel, things could be bearable. But if booked into a three or four star hotel in the boonies of Kowloon, these might offer “value for money”, but what price does one put on mental well-being?
Here’s the deal: No matter where you spend that one week in quarantine, once that hotel door closes, that’s it.
This is your home for a week. It’s a very very nervous stay full of Do’s and Don’ts, more testing which continues even after checkout, and many many papers outlining various rules and regulations. It’s scary sh*t.
Your meals are placed outside your door, windows are not allowed to be opened, no one is allowed in to change bedsheets etc and you’re on your own, baby with only your thoughts for company and on a designated floor hidden away from the rest of the hotel with its own spooky elevator.
What happens if you were to get ill during your one week stay?
Try not to. This will open up another can of worms. And to avoid this, do everything yourself before checking in and remember that all hotels paint a pretty picture and that everyone is different.
Plus, no one has written about The Ultimate Quarantine Hotel Experience and do please take those Trip Advisor comments with a huge dollop of salt.
One person’s “value for money” could be another person’s mass produced styrofoam nightmare.
