Something is amiss in the life of Kneesup. I have been trying to become enthused by The Ryder Cup, and the probable massacre by the USA of our plucky European brethren. Nope – Nada. Am I enthused by The Cambridgeshire? No, not really. The County Championship? Warwick? Oh good. Probably. Formula 1 and The Russian…
A tricky day’s racing, in a week full of tosh.
I just spent two hours writing a preamble that was just another tired rant and I realised that it was pointless. There are simply too many people out there who think The Duchess of LaLa Land is a good egg; that no one is to blame when newbuilds on floodplains collapse and leave families destitute;…
Gant Biggles – a name to conjure with?
The mail box started to receive the first of the yankee tip sheets today. These advised me that the conundrums presented by the approaching Breeders Cup Festival, could all be solved by taking out a $40 subscription here and a $20 subscription there. Like my regular Nigerian correspondent Mrs “Darling” Nkeje – she calls everyone…
Massively under-exercised
Dear old Mark Twain, who could be something of a dark cove when it came to amusing, intelligent writing, once said: “I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.” That about sums up the current Kneesup predicament, as untroubled sleep has been evading me of late and knackeration can be a grinding thing….
St Leger Meeting Day 3
I read this morning of The Commonwealth Secretariat, which provided employment to a chisel-jawed Australian-Canadian lawyer, (several boxes ticked there in terms of Commonwealth), called Joshua Brien. I only read it because reporting of his trial was banned by Judge Martin Griffith, but the order was lifted yesterday after an application by the Evening Standard….
Time for a good kip – A post about NH horse ratings
As I mentioned briefly the other day, the BHA has – after some dedicated “doing Bugger All” – held a review, had a consultation and discovered that the Irish know how to beat the British handicapping system. With a tiny hint of knee-jerk, the BHA strode into action after the Irish horses smashed up English-trained…
My loyalty has been discarded – along with the Gold Card.
Despite empty shelves, nobody apparently working, the collapse of Kabul, the changes to the NH handicapping system, the sale of the house, and a 15-week-old puppy whose teeth are incredibly sharp, life meanders along much as before. Silly chores, however, do seem to take forever but this is, I suspect because Homo Sapiens has decided…
Who Cares – Cha Cha Cha
Yesterday I went to London. It was exactly 77 weeks to the Friday in March 2020, and once again I was lunching in a London club and once again, the Saturday morning following my exertions was surrounded by the miasma of the unkempt and a large dollop of Hors de Combat. It is the price…
The Ebor, York and TV racing
I wondered last night over a pint, whether there were wise old men in Sodom and Gomorrah, who, as the great fire rained down and their entire world was turned to dust, stood on the Citadel walls and with their last few scorched breathes said: “There. I told you God existed and Lumme can he…
The Ebor Festival – York Racecourse Day 3
Apologies for the sudden departure yesterday, but our time is not always our own. It was good racing on the second day, although quite why the Galtres isn’t televised is strange. I have mentioned the AP doldrums recently, and some commentators made the point that if the rest of the Coolmore string is underperforming, then…
The Ebor Festival – York Racecourse – Day 2
Yesterday was one for bursting reputational bubbles, and sadly for my wallet, some of them went without much of a pop, more the raspberry of a flabby balloon. Yibir will go to Belmont for The Jockey Club Stakes and the ground and new riding tactics of just keeping him “buried” as Charlie described it, and…
The Ebor Festival. York Races Day 1
There are days when you might think Huzzah, York races and the Ebor will soon be upon us. Your spirits are lifted because the wind is moderate, and all the clouds are louring over someone else’s house and are buried in someone else’s bosomy ocean. True there may not be much sun, but it will…
It was ghastly and mawkish and I miss it
I saw most of the Olympics through the eyes of the BBC and mostly with Clare Balding and former-professional International footballer Alex Scott. Clare is so consistently, irritatingly good that it becomes something of a sport in itself, desperately focussing on whether she’ll commit some Private-Eye-worthy ColemanBalls. Given the 70+ hours of presenting that she…
Frictionless Interaction with The Rewilding Elite
In the old days, being a solo-drinker meant you either sat on a barstool and engaged conversationally with the barkeep – or not. In the former case, you told your soon-to-be-new-best-friend what a bitch life was, what a bitch your girlfriend was, what a bitch the greyhound was. Later you declared your undying love for…
Glorious Goodwood – creating work for Hepatologists everywhere.
If some deadly enemy had sent over tiny drones to film the British and Irish at summer play, they would have immense insight into our national stamina, fortitude and determination, by simply going to a racing festival, Their cameras, cunningly disguised perhaps as Wasps, might also have led them to ponder about the rather strange…
Glorious Goodwood
The first day of Glorious Goodwood with the tips for every race.
A pretty classy day’s racing
If Magners, aka Bulmers, is successful in its bid to avoid paying the sponsorship fees for Cheltenham March 2020, is it possible that I and my fellow travellers in The Sweeping Virgin Public House in Cheltenham, might also have a case for damages? Might we not demand [a] our entrance money back and [b] recompense…
Avoiding the weather puns about Snowfall.
As Open tipping short-lists go, the one that ended my last posting was pretty good. “I was torn for my 5th selection to pick from a shortlist of KOEPKA, LEISHMAN, OOSTHUIZEN and SPIETH and it was easy for me to swerve the favourite. So I didn’t back any of them and will wait until later…
A Himalayan Sandwich? Or is it a Sand Wedge in the Himalayas?
One of the nicest links courses in England, Royal St Georges, beckons Darren Clarke’s inheritors back to its comfort and largesse, ten years after the Ulsterman won the 139th Open. Won at Portrush in 2019 by Shane Lowery, the Sandwich links course has traditionally proven tough to score on, and of the last five Champion…
Newmarket Day 3 and the ITV races.
Not the most sparkling Friday, and I apologise. I think there are days when one is simply trying to over-deliver – certainly I overthought it. There was nothing among the winners that really surprised me, but I never even discussed them, and indeed I dismissed a number on the grounds of price rather than ability. …
Newmarket July Meeting Day 2
Yesterday’s Raceweb advisory was a tale of two halves. On the real and considered side of the equation, we were +4pts with a win and two decent places. Then in the second half I also referenced an amusing possible Ryan Moore Across the card “fun” bet, by which, I hope you understand, I mean very,…
Newmarket July Meeting Day 1. Raceweb Year 3
Last Saturday saw another decent performance for Raceweb with an overall 14.97 pts profit to start the month of July with. The weekend also gave me the chance to catch up with an analysis of recent results, allowing me to remember that we showed an overall profit for Royal Ascot – but had four losing…
24th in line to becoming French
We are rapidly approaching a moment in time when it really will be statistically more likely that you will be killed by your toaster than by Covid. Did you know that in May, COVID-19 (and please assume you, mealy-mouthed, statistical apparatchiks, that we precisely understand your deliberate vagueness when using the words “of”, “by”, and…
Up the Amazon, without a cooker.
All in all a pretty good week, certainly in terms of my sitting for a few moments of respite on The Moral High Ground. This week’s MHG is the Amazon Basin which, it turns out, has a large plughole at the bottom, through which the Dunfermline workers hurl perfectly good bits of kit. As their…
Sunday Brunch
I owe you all a huge apology. I was so wrapped up in the whole stick-in-tonsils-swizzle-test thing that I forgot myself. The Drowning and the huge reversal of fortunes between Thursday midday and eight pm on Saturday didn’t help, but still and all I should have mentioned backing The Lib Dems to win Chesham. There…
Ascot Day Sank
How went your day at the bio-secure experiment that was Ascot’s Day 4? I hear you ask. Well, my dears, there was horrendous traffic thanks to a collapsed road which cut off the M4 J14. The road closure resulted in our late arrival at a very delicious breakfast at The Royal Foresters, a highly recommended…
Ascot Day 4
It was a day when the Shortlist produced 3 winners and the final selections looked like after-thoughts. Mark you, much of the day was lost to trying to decipher a set of NHS instructions in order to take two tests, in order to gain access to Ascot. What is it about all Government communications that…
Ascot Day 3
Work raises its ugly head and delays matters, while winking at me from the sideboard are the 227 tests I have to take before Friday’s big adventure. But first, we must continue our labours against the bookies and, as labours go, yesterday went pretty well. We’re showing a 30pt profit for the meeting so far,…
Ascot Day 2
Sometimes you have days when God leaps out of bed and says “Here I am – and because you have recently been less of an arse than normal, I have decided you shall have a good day.” So you go for lunch with old friends and see a chum you haven’t seen for five years…
For a brief moment we all became Christians
Thanks to the Welsh, the first score draw arrived on Saturday, while I travelled back from Newmarket, having spent the morning with William Knight and the boys from Kennet Valley Thoroughbreds. We were taking pictures of their new branded racing kit, KVT having secured a decent sponsorship deal with the fast-growing pub company, Oakman Group…
A weekend off perhaps with some Turkish Delight
I find myself heading to Newmarket on business, and on the instructions of the Plantagenet Herald, I am obliged to leave at such a time and in such a manner as will get us to three very important shops en route that sell things I didn’t know we needed. My day is thus curtailed and…
Euro 2021 – Free Interactive spreadsheet
The entire Derby news flow seemed to judgementally focus on the “jocking off” of Adam Kirby from John Leeper and his reinstatement on Adayar, forgetting in turn that Kirby had jocked off Oisin. Regardless of the speed with which the silks were changing hands in the changing room, Adayar ran a blinder and looked to…
The Derby
While that wretched Liberal-wet, Green-belt-destroying PM has failed to make 4th June a National Holiday, (he’s always looked like he’d have been happier at Harrow), I cannot hold him responsible for the slow start to my Feast Day. No man can start such a day with no brekker, a mug of tea and a dash…
The denuded antepost list and how to pull Elle Macpherson
Endless numbers of “stars” and “celebrity doctors” keep insisting that for me to be well, I must be happy. For me to be happy I must… and there then follows on TV, a horrific list of things one must buy, achieve or obtain, depending on the time of day. Much of it appears to have…
The Pharaoh of Galway’s Birthday – A sort of Celebration!
Peter O’Tool celebrates his 60th birthday today and his feast day has bought out the sun, at a time and temperature that made breakfasting on the Terraza or “Yard” as the Americans call it, an absolute must. The rest of this post was originally going to be about Peter, aka The Pharaoh of Galway, and…
A glance through the news and a no-brainer punt
I glance through today’s papers and I find myself in despair at being the only sane person on the planet. Does that make me a bad person, or just mad? Naomi Osaka won’t win. A broader debate will follow. Somebody will use the words “white”, “middle-aged”, and “male” out of context and irrelevantly. Prince Harry…
Lord Tissue of Reputation in Tattersalls offers an apology…
Recently it has become obvious that our reputation here at Raceweb Towers for providing honest and scrupulously researched racing tips, political opinions, and other racing-related material has been tainted by a series of corporate failures. Unbeknownst to me as the Chief Executive in the days before my much-deserved ennoblement, it transpires that we did not…
Why we should be worried about both Boris and my tipping?
This week, somebody mentioned Prorogation on the radio and I started to reflect on the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2019, which found that BJ’s decision to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament was unlawful, because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of parliament to carry out its constitutional functions. Therefore the…
USPGA
The first round gets underway in about an hour, and you would have had this sooner, but I fell into bad company yesterday at that very splendid pub The Queen’s Arms in East Garston run by the inestimable Freddie Tulloch. Whilst I started lunch with a head nod to the current calorie-conscious diet, it transpired…
If it’s BBC4 – it must be Eurovision?
Well, there’s unusual. BBC4 now regards The ESC as Art and I am wholly in admiration of Graham Norton, whose contracts seems to allow him to cover the Eurovision Song Contest for any and everyone. BBC, Virgin, Bratislavan WNK1 – anyone. He makes McEnroe at Wimbledon look like a sloth on Ketamine. Anyway, the money…
The Results To Date (July’19 – May ’21)
It’s been a while since I did this exercise, but like everyone else, I’m blaming galloping inertia, the absence of incentives, my parents who failed to disassociate their pain, and a sense of predestined failure. Taking advantage of the downtime of site maintenance, I have entered every outcome as accurately as possible, and I am…
Chips with everything. Huzzah!
This diet malarkey is doing my head in. I am obsessed with the numbers of Kcals (what was wrong with Cals?), and the difference between Carbs and Protein, (not a clue), and whether Dopamine or Thiamine are the same things. All I know is that every meal has to be recorded religiously, nay zealously on…
The Dante Meeting Day 2
Yesterday – I discovered appropriately today – was National Diary Day. In that vein, yesterday’s selections weren’t so appalling, but still, we were down a point for the day and all of it the 3l difference between the winner and Raymond Tusk at 40/1. I take no comfort in the words of one of my…
York’s Day 1 and welcome to the new Chairman
Stand by for another guff-fest from Ed “Woke” Chamberlain, where he waxes lyrical about the fact that A WOMAN is the Chairman of York Racecourse – the first in the history of The Knavesmire. “Extraordinary”. “What A Moment”. “The Glass Ceiling….” “Another step forward in equalising blah blah blah.” I am not such a royalist…
UPDATED: Rain-impacted selections revisited for Saturday
When I finally stepped down last night/this AM, I was soaked between office and bed. This morning, the going has changed and Lingfield is now as of 12:00 Soft – GS in places. The rain has only just stopped, and unless they have new drainage in, Lingfield tends to hold its water. Ascot is also…
It’s been a strange week. I tried to get involved at Chester but several working challenges presented themselves, so I didn’t. Obs, I kept up with the trials, but I have struggled to get excited about what I have seen so far, in terms of Derby contenders and even my ante-post High Definition started to…
The 1000 Guineas – and a Thank You
I know, I know. I was going to take a day off. But lying abed, feeling sorry for oneself, only works for so long, and besides, I also sensed the Raceform and Timeform race readers were gathering over the video reruns of my life. I could feel them polishing off the racing suffixes to be…
The 2000 Guineas – Punchestown Day 5 – Jab 2
For those of you eagerly anticipating the tips for Day 4 of Punchestown, I’m afraid I was laid low by Jab 2 and am not much better today. I won’t bore you with the details, but I am “cream-crackered”. Every one of my joints feels as though it has actually been to the glue factory…
Punchestown Day 3 Pfizer Vaccine 2
Another day, another jab, so far so good. However, as days go this has so far been relentless. Over an hour to get to the Jab centre, thanks to enormous traffic works that could not have been done when no traffic was on the road. The Jab centre was hugely efficient and a big well…
Punchestown Day 2 and the race that never was.
At the risk of sounding like a trainer, this is a difficult time of the year to get things right. Old stock is replaced with new, as muttering owners send their horses off in the truck to their new yard, (often sporting but not always racing), and the seasons change. Rare, because a tough and…