The focus tends to be on the expensive ones that flop
Posted in General on 22. Oct, 2010
“The focus tends to be on the expensive ones that flop,” he said, “but people tend to forget the ones on the other side of the coin, like Classified, who cost me £30,000 and couldn’t be bought for £400,000 now.”Tony McCoy, on duty at Haydock yesterday, will be in the saddle next time for Londoner, who, with huge Cheltenham liabilities, remains market leader for the juvenile championship, with Coral going 12-1 from 7-1. The winner, the Paul Webber-trained Burning Impulse,is 20-1.But there are twin imposters and twin imposters. The worrying news, though, for other trainers who might hope to win the Royal and SunAlliance Chase, the novice stayers’ title, is that Macaire has a better one at home in Biarritz, Japhet, whom he will unleash over English fences at Newbury three weeks hence.Jair du Cochet, last year’s leading juvenile, retrieved a reputation that had been dented here in the autumn with a comprehensive defeat of a representative field of long-distance specialists and now has the Stayers’ Hurdle, rather than the Champion Hurdle, as his target.Rodock’s effortless victory in the Grade Two race at Haydock that was a Champion Hurdle Trial in name only caused barely a flicker in the big-race market. It was confirmed yesterday that the reigning king, Istabraq, such a narrow winner on his seasonal debut, would not run again before his tilt at an unprecedented fourth title in March.Also at Haydock, Red Striker, a full-brother to Grand National hero Red Marauder, staked his own claim for glory as he outstayed Robbo and gallant top-weight Banker Count in a muddy slog for the Peter Marsh Chase. The Racing Post Chase here is next on the agenda for Norman Mason’s eight-year-old, and Richard Guest, the owner’s assistant and jockey, said: “I know a horse rated 137 has a lot of improving to do to go for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, but if it came up a bog, we would have a go this year.”. As a troubleshooter, Sir Rodney Walker is in the Clint Eastwood class. The former Yorkshire shot put champion turned business tycoon already has enough chairs to fill a furniture shop – UK Sport, Wembley, Rugby League, Brands Hatch and Leicester City plc, as well as his own numerous enterprises.
Now, it seems, he is being wooed to take over as head honcho of snooker And you couldn’t get a more troubled sport than that. Sir Rodney is poised to become their fifth chairman, although he tells me he hasn’t yet made up his mind. One would have thought he had enough on his plate, with Wembley in still in a state of flux, the RFL debt-ridden and Leicester at the foot of the Premiership But he has always insisted he thrives on fighting battles. He says that so far any advice he has given on snooker’s internal problems has been in his capacity as chairm
As a troubleshooter, Sir Rodney Walker is in the Clint Eastwood class. The diverse tribulations of snooker are well chronicled and too long to list here, but he admits surprise on learning that the organisation is heading for a £2m loss, which is even more than the RFL will lose as a result of a disastrous World Cup. Sir Rodney promises that impending reorganisation will leave that sport in a healthier state when he steps down in April, a move which creates space in his diary for the snooker role. It is also likely that the Premier League chairman Dave Richards and Ipswich’s David Sheepshanks will become £20,000-a-year board members.
Stop preaching, start punching, Naz toldNaseem Hamed’s recent narcissistic TV documentary doesn’t seem to have won him many friends in the boxing business.
Moreover, it seems to have caused some concern among the sport’s officials. I understand that several stewards of the British Boxing Board of Control are perturbed over the Islamic outpourings which preceded the loss of his world featherweight title to Marco Antonio Barrera in Las Vegas last April. Should Hamed return to the ring, as mooted, at London’s Olympia on 23 March it is likely that the Board will have a quiet word in his ear, suggesting that a repeat performance would be inappropriate in the present post-11 September climate. It is a move that Hamed’s former promoter, Frank Warren, endorses. Last week he claimed that Hamed was “a monster out of control” and he warns: “He will make himself even more unpopular if he persists with this religious ranting The audience won’t stand for all that chanting and wailing I go to boxing to see fights. If people want religion they’ll go to a church, a synagogue or a mosque.” The opponent for Hamed’s cut-price comeback is likely to be Spain’s Manuel Calvo.Could Milton Keynes be a new York?Whether or not Wimbledon FC up sticks and move to the sticks (though Milton Keynes, soon to be the second largest city in the South-east, would resist the term) will be decided by an FA arbitration panel this week.