Red Rum

Morning training , then lunch then bookies , pub , or racing . Few nights a week at dogs betting and boozing . Loads of free time and places for those guys to burn through the wage packets in London. Claudio Pizarro more recent Chelsea player owns a fair few racehorses in South America .For reasons that defy logic he went into one with that total complete fxxxwit Joey Barton .

Anyone with half eye on Coolmore and Ballydoyle could see a mile off they would have used Hippocratis . A check shows a once raced Hennessy colt out of Ballydoyle yard 16 years ago, 7th under Pat Cosgrove at Naas earning career total zero prizemoney towards his million buck price tag at yearling sales.

Dixon could be found on cold Monday afternoons at Windsor when they used to race over jumps there round the figure 8 track mid winter ducking and diving round the Tatts enclosure ,an easy drive from West London .Yes old Brazil would take a bit of time to turn on the ball now .

Yes , very sad . George Best " I've spent a lot of money on booze, women and fast cars the rest sadly I wasted " . I liked Stan Bowles a poor man's George Best .Bowles could rate a race , a big punter , like Kerry Dixon and Alan Brazil . Players more like working men in those days .

That's a very poor likeness of Socrates , in all the time I've watched the now departed Socrates play for Brazil he never had a beard like that for a start. 1982 Brazil team wow what a team that was.

Yes Latrobe a long way off best wfa horses in Europe as seen by its entries up there this year. , the wfa scales didn't do him no favours as a NH 3 yo , got 3lb off Trap for Fools a 5 yo gelding for head beating and gave Extra Brut 15 lb and finished in front of him. . Had Shillelagh behind a multiple group 1 winner and It's Somewhat who was handy horse in Oz so not sure what point you are making . Is it the Mackinnon is a weak race ?

Yes , only other horse that has finished in front of her was Shutter Speed , same owner trainer and Dettori chose her over Enable correctly at Newbury. She went on to finish 4th in French Oaks , within a length of Sistercharlie who is one of best stateside now . Shutter Speed went to states but has never got back on racecourse. Raymond Tusk iam liking in Ebor .Logician should win at short odds tonight to keep Dettori /Gosden train running .

We don't agree on this one , but that's whats great about racing .Benbatl, Adelaide ,Side Glance are a few recently picked up wfa group 1s from Europe.Latrobe went pretty close last year . Cheval Grand goes for another win for Japanese tonight in International. The Statesman running over sticks at Ballarat Sunday , should hose home . Won its only race over hurdles in UK in October of 3 year old season before it went to OZ . Ran over 8 hurdles, two miles carrying 70 kilos , 52 odd kg for a NH 3 year old in Cup featherweight .

There's some time put in those speed maps 100 -1 not sure when they became the thing , one day iam going to record every race on a Saturday on my old VHS recorder and see how accurate the great Ron Dufficy speed maps are . Iam a nickels and dimes punter but that " should have predicted 2 length worse run" seems to take a lot for granted how race pans out but speed maps are not my area in punting mix.If you can what lengths worse or better run did Melody Belle get compared to ED on the speed map.

Not sure stayers here too good nowdays , I had look at Subzero 's Cup field the other week out of interest , the suffixes are very very different to Cross Counter's Cup, or Rekindlings .The numbers of top ten NZ bred stayers in Cup top 10 last few years would be few . Good in age group racing but swamped thereafter nowdays .

Not sure how much more you get out of big steeplechaser with whip after 4 miles in soft . If it's given its all to run in and still in contention to that point the horse is gonna plod on just same hand and heels imho . . Only allowed 8 over fences in UK anyway now and jump racing never been so popular , no one wants horse belted 30 odd times do they ? John Francome ex UK Champ and legend of game says whip days of past, Brendon Powell hardest of hardmen of jumps circuit in same camp.They know their jump racing better than most so if they want it gone it's worth listening to.

Your comparing the three seasonal debutants against each other , how about Comeback and Helena Baby close proximity to these horses , could be argued race fitness aided them against these other higher rated horses.The race needs to be seen as a whole not a head to head x beat y by x lengths to assess a horses performance as both might be sub par on day. Maybe both will come on for race. It's not playing trainer , trainers try to peak horses for targets at that level imho. Very few horses I would guess are ready full bore every race in campaign but trainers on here would be the experts in such matters.

I didn't say will make a good stallion , I said be looking at Group 1 and place at stud , two different things . We all know that there are a lot of dud stalllions . Per Incanto off top my head , won in Italy , brought by Shadwell , underachieved, injury or the like . Cast off , top stallion so who knows. Lockinge a very good race , underrated as start of season . Winners normally pretty good horses imho. Many differing opinions out that Foxbridge , that's what a decent race should produce at start season .

Race record and ability I see as two different things , Belardo without doubt better race win record , ability wise on ratings similar . Belardo a Dewhurst winner , Endless Drama unbeaten as a juvenile in only race . As for Lockinge it produces good horses and stallions at times . Take out the fillies and geldings left with horses such as Cape Cross who actually made a mess of his job and won as a pacemaker, Medicean had long stud career , Frankel probably the most well known winner . Night of Thunder , Farrh early in stud career to name just a few. Wouldn't be hard to write an advertising blurb for ED , unbeaten as juvenile , raced against best of generation , stakes performed in four countres, and so on .

Belardo is here for 12500. Same sire as him , similar level of ability ( was in front of Belardo in Irish Guineas ) .Relations seem to have similar level of ability .Raced with credit in four different countries up against the best on occasions , Tepin, Winx, Gleneagles etc , and still racing with enthusiasm as an entire in older years. Balls still in so maybe they kind of hope he gets a gig at stud . Certainly be worse horses at stud would there not .