Letsgohorseracing - Horsing Around

Details: Published: 16 September 2009

BUILDER BOB WASN’T ABOUT TO RISK DODGING BIG RITCHIE’S SIZE SIXTEENS

THE late mail was strong and Bob the Builder was more than a shade concerned about the consequences of failing to reach a compromise with angry jockeys over the whip issue.

If things turned nasty for the ‘little lads’ big Richie Callander had threatened to throw his size sixteen shoes at the podium during the media conference.

Details: Published: 08 September 2009

HONG KONG WILL NEVER BE THE SAME WITHOUT CHRIS AND ‘THE KID’

FOR a punting tragic, working in Hong Kong, this was always the most exciting time of the year with the new racing season about to begin.

Unlike Australia – where there is wall-to-wall racing most days of the week – you tend to suffer withdrawal symptoms in Honkers during its 10-week absence.

Details: Published: 02 September 2009

FROM MINGELA TO THE MELBOURNE CUP – the best of both worlds

IT’S a long way from Mingela to the Melbourne Cup – and a bit of a culture shock as well – but my friends and I were determined to experience the best of both racing worlds.

The Kentucky Derby adventure had whet our appetite for more overseas racing trips but the crew decided to first attend a picnic meeting in the Australian outback and make a return visit for yet another Melbourne Cup.

Details: Published: 26 August 2009

GETAWAY & GO RACING – It Can Be An Unforgettable Experience

MY first major venture away from home for a big race meeting occurred in the Spring of 1976 when good mates Ginger, Waldo and I were in our late teens.

This proved to be a trip that we would never forget nor would the tens of thousands of race-goers who got drenched watching Van Der Hum win the Melbourne Cup.

Little did we realize that morning when the three of us set out on the train to Flemington for the greatest racing adventure of our lives what lay ahead. As the storm descended and the heavens opened our main concern was that the big race would be called off – surely we had not come all this way to witness a wash-out.

Details: Published: 18 August 2009

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HALCYON DAYS OF BIG RACE CROWDS?

SPECIAL occasions aside - like the MELBOURNE CUP - whatever happened to the good old days when racing played the Pied Piper and like the rats of Hamelin thousands of punters would religiously flock to racetracks across the land most Saturdays of the year?

It wasn’t as though the masses gave up chasing their weekly fix on the punt. All that has changed is the venue. I was one of those who deserted the track preferring to join my mates at the local club or pub and sometimes just as content to watch the races in the comfort of my own home.

Live coverage on Sky Channel and Racing.com has taken us into a new age of horse racing and has, in the process, produced a new breed of punter, many of whom prefer to bet with the cashed-up predative corporate than the traditional on course-bookie.It could not have happened at a worse time for race clubs that were already struggling to compete in the lucrative leisure and entertainment market.