General / Graham Cunningham / 16 October 2009 / Leave a comment

Graham Cunningham casts his eye over a couple of the week's big news stories...

"So many racing personalities seem to think the public are dolts when it comes to horses being ridden with another day in mind."

What do Paul Nicholls and Homer Simpson have in common?

No marks to anyone who suggests that the champion jumps trainer and the legendary cartoon character share a fondness for Duff beer and pies. But full marks to those who answer that it appears they have both flatly refused when asked to stop a horse winning a race.

Nicholls refused to agree to pull a selling plater called Carflax at Taunton in 1983 according an excerpt from his autobiography published in Wednesday's Racing Post.

And, while watching The Simpsons on the very same evening, the great Homer refused to comply when a posse of murderous jockeys told him they would eat his brain if his family pet Furious D won the Springfield Derby with a promising young apprentice called Bart aboard.

Hats off to both portly legends for playing it straight under severe pressure, but there is a serious point to be made here. It relates to the notion that so many racing personalities seem to think the public are dolts when it comes to horses being ridden with another day in mind.

Every racing book you read seems to involve the subject being asked to stop a horse once and only once in his career, invariably by a little known owner or trainer who has conveniently been lying dead in the clay for a good decade or more.

Perhaps I am being overly cynical, but reports suggest Nicholls has been his usual blunt self in the rest of the book - and the chapter entitled "Why The Hot Tub had To Go" promises to be a particularly intriguing one.

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Wetherby woe means questions must be asked......and answered

Returning to jumping action for the first time in a new season always lifts the mood, but my trip across the Pennines for Wetherby's first meeting of the season on Wednesday turned very sour indeed with four equine fatalities and several other horses returning injured.

Anyone who supports jumping has to accept the risks involved and the knowledge that horses will pay the heaviest price on a fairly frequent basis.

However, when four horses are killed on a card featuring just 61 runners in total then something is plainly very wrong.

I don't know what the answer is to Wetherby's problems, but I do know that since part of the track was restructured to make way for road development it has been no place for racegoers of a nervous disposition.

The situation needs sorting - and thinking very hard indeed about staging meetings where the ground is deemed to be genuinely fast would be a fair starting point.

Tags: Graham Cunningham, Homer Simpson, Horseracing betting, horseracing betting on Betfair, Horseracing odds, horseracing tips, Lucky Break by Paul Nichols, Paul Nichols, The Simpsons