Hurricane Run Wins Arc
“Hurricane Run left little doubt as to who the best three-year-old colt in Europe was with an emphatic two-length victory in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe” (Blood-Horse). The colt may be turned out for the remainder of the year or could run next in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Jockey Kieren Fallon had a very good day, winning not just the Arc, but the two preceding group one races as well. “One broad grin followed another as a jockey at the height of his powers went about his job of work” (Guardian).
London Terror Attacks
Horrific news out of London this morning … more than 30 dead and hundreds injured in three explosions on the Underground and another on a double decker bus. A group calling itself the “Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda” has claimed responsibility. The full text of the statement can be found here on the BBC site, which also has a thorough compilation of breaking news, reporters’ notes, photographs, and a map with chronology of today’s attacks. American writer David Plotz is in London to promote his new book, “The Genius Factory,” and Slate has posted his account of walking around the city post-attacks. Plotz finds the English being, well, English:
When I left the quiet area right around the bus bombing and returned to the busy streets of Holborn and Soho, London appeared just as it always is.
The natural state of the English is a kind of gloomy diligence, which is why they do so well in hard times. In 1940, Londoners went dutifully on with their business while the Luftwaffe bombed the hell out of them. Today, most of them are doing the same. I was in Washington for 9/11, and the whole city went into a panic. Offices emptied, stores shut, downtown D.C. became a ghost town. But in London today, everyone still has a cell phone clutched to their ear. The delivery vans are still racing about, seeking shortcuts around all the street closures. The Starbucks is packed.
And when I walked by the Queen’s Larder Pub, not half a mile from the Tavistock Square wreckage, at 11 a.m., a half-dozen men were sitting together at a sidewalk table, hoisting their morning pints of ale. Civilization must go on, after all.
Eyewitness accounts give a less reassuring sense of the aftermath.
The Thoroughbred Times reports that racing at Newmarket continued as scheduled, but that Epsom has cancelled its evening card.
From the UK
Leaving trainer Michael Stoute was a “massive wrench,” rider Kieren Fallon tells reporters. That the Ballydoyle deal is a three-year contract that pays Fallon four times what he was making with Stoute perhaps made the breakup easier. (BBC)
More: “It takes a little something to knock the Cheltenham Festival from the main slot on the agenda at this time of the year, but then Kieren Fallon has never been a slave to convention. We shall be seeing less of Kieren — in the flesh certainly if not the headlines — following his decision to take the king’s euro and ride for the Ballydoyle juggernaut next season. It is an obvious partnership: the pre-eminent European horseracing empire in conjunction with the best jockey in these islands. The wonder is why it has not happened before.” (The Independent)
—
Louis, Man of Kendal, passes along this story from the BBC: “Premier League referee Mike Dean has been suspended indefinitely over his involvement in a betting website…. The crux of the investigation appears to centre on whether the 36-year-old has played on his status as a well-known figure in football to gain a financial advantage in racing. He advertised the partnership business [Arbitros Racing] in a recent edition of the Racing Post, in which it was stated: ‘Join Premiership referee, Mike Dean, in this great, new, exciting venture.’ Such wording might work against Dean, described as the partnership manager.” That wording is what Dean is in trouble for? The Brits are strict.
—
Traditional bookmakers are crying foul over Betfair’s business model. (Business Week)
Hundreds of Hopefuls Turn Out
Hong Kong is crazy for horseracing, and jockey there are well-paid celebrities. “So when the Hong Kong Jockey Club sought applicants for its apprentice jockey program, 150 candidates showed up — and almost none had ever been within spitting distance of a horse, much less sat on one.” Only six hopefuls made it into the eight-year training program. (International Herald Tribune)
World Drawn to Sha Tin
“For all that has been written about this seething territory, what particularly strikes the visitor is the way extremes can sit side by side in comfort. It is a curious thing. The coming together of China and the former colony’s capitalist culture is but one endorsement of the concept that opposites attract.
“Another is Sha Tin racetrack, where 37 foreign-trained horses will join the locals in disputing more than $7 million (£3.65 million) on Sunday. Sha Tin is a fusion of the man-made and the natural. It is where towering apartment blocks compete with mountainous terrain to enclose the site in a cylinder of rock. And if that image isn’t sufficiently incongruous, you can see Alec Wildenstein, the enfant terrible of French racing, disembark at Sha Tin from a coach overladen with journalists.
“It is within such a framework that Hong Kong’s International raceday has evolved. Once the graveyard for slow horses from Europe, Hong Kong fully merits its baptism as the new-born babe of global racing. There is no doubt that its all-expenses-paid policy has attracted foreign horses beyond their station. Equally, it has contrived a beguiling sequence of four races, none of which will be easily won. And the ten-furlong Cup bequeaths a race to which any nation would aspire.” (Times)
More: “The routine is rarity in Hong Kong” (MSNBC)
More Arrests Made
Three more arrests have been made in the ongoing British race-fixing inquiry. Trainer Alan Berry, jockey Paul Bradley, and blacksmith Steve O’Sullivan were detained Wednesday on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud. The men join 22 others who have been charged in the investigation, including top jockey Kieren Fallon. [Props to Louis, Man of Kendal, for the link.] (BBC)
Good for Ireland
“Ireland’s racecourses are to become among the finest in Europe with a massive €200m cash boost, it emerged today. Minister for Sport John O’Donoghue said the huge five-year funding deal would modernise facilities for punters and match the commitment millions of race-goers had shown to the sport.” (Ireland On-Line)
Did He Know?
And could he have stopped it? Those are the questions being asked of Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai, a leading Thoroughbred owner, who has been placed “at the center of a longstanding international human rights controversy: the trafficking of impoverished children as young as 3 to the United Arab Emirates, where they are forced into slavery as camel jockeys.” Denials abound, but are met with skepticism by international human rights groups, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Child Enslavement Alleged
“Sheik Mohammed, one of the richest horse buyers in Kentucky and the world, has been implicated in the slave trade of child camel jockeys by a cable TV news program. A report aired this week on HBO’s Real Sports includes footage of appalling living conditions at camel-training camps and alleges that boy camel jockeys — some as young as 3 — are kidnapped or sold into slavery, starved, beaten and raped. The report links the abuses to Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.” (Lexington Herald-Leader)
About
Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
Elsewhere
Find Jessica on Pinboard and Instagram, Railbird on LibraryThing and Twitter.
Etc.
Links
Search
Boston Racing
Spreadsheets/Data
← Home
Copyright © 2000-2023 by Jessica Chapel. All rights reserved.