Sport is made for betting

I've waited until now to comment since his appeal is currently being heard. For those outside UK racing, this is the case where the biggest punter in the UK, one who trades, nearly every race, every day, was penalised for laying his own horse twice on Betfair. Harry owns (or at least did, until the initial ruling was made) a string of horses with various trainers around the country, and most notably is involved in Denman, the champion jumper. Nobody will disagree that laying your own horse for profit is a bad thing which needs to be heavily punished. However that was not the case here. Both times Findlay had already backed his horse heavily and was reducing his risk by laying some of his outlay back. In both cases, he still wanted the horse to win overall. Mark Davies has commented about the case today - here . There are two camps of thought here - 1. that all betting against your own horse is evil and must be struck out, and 2. that one should only be punished if the owner/punter ...

The supposedly sacred day of Good Friday to me just means an extra day to do the form for Saturday, and for Australian racing, this year it's the Golden Slipper, the richest 2yo race in the world. Worth $3.5m in total (equates to £2.11m or US$3.2m), it is open to all-comers, the best of this two-year-old crop. To put that in perspective, the entire Cheltenham festival was worth £3.4m in 2010. Held at Rosehill Gardens in western Sydney, the race suits Sydney's impatient 'I want it now' and 'News today, fish and chips wrapping tomorrow' style of living. Allowing a horse to develop for a career as a mature racehorse, perhaps over distance, rarely happens. So the Australian breeding industry has changed significantly. Everything is now about juvenile racing, but specifically up to a mile, rather than a Derby distance which is more than norm north of the equator. I'm not against sprinting, although I do prefer longer races, it's the heavy workload placed on 2...

Went to the races as a paying punter today for the first time in ages. UK racing isn't cheap at the best of times, flat racing doesn't have the excitement most of the year and it's rather cold during jumps season. TV coverage is decent enough if you can't get to the track as often as you'd like. The two main races today at Newbury, the Long Distance Hurdle and the Hennessy showed just why National Hunt racing is miles ahead of flat racing in popularity in the UK & Ireland. Big Buck's is the best staying hurdler in training, he won the top races at Cheltenham and Aintree in his class, and is going around again to repeat the feat. He faced a small, but quality field at level weights and won very, very easily. Special thanks to the bookies who put up 1/2. It is very rare I bet at those odds, but this horse should have been 1/3 at best, so the value had to be taken. The Hennessy is the best handicap chase of the season. Note that key word which some purists dete...

No great surprise there, but racing really needs to do something about keeping its superstars in the game for longer. One season is not enough to class him as a true champion - you have to come back and defend your crowns to earn that. As a 2yo, he showed potential, at 3 he was the best by far and at 4 and beyond he'll be shagging his life away making his shareholders very rich, and hopefully throwing some talented progeny. So what can flat racing do to prolong the racing careers of its stars? Jumping tops the popularity stakes in Britain mostly because Kauto Star, Denman, Hardy Eustace, Istabraq and other stars come back year after year. The public feel a connection with these horses built up over more than a few months. Here's an idea - create a jackpot pool so that any horse who wins a feature, open age Group I race two years in a row gets a bonus on top of the winner's cheques. So if Sea The Stars collected £1m for winning the Arc, next year he would be racing for an ex...

Cheltenham is over and a couple of new superstars at the top of the game have emerged. We already knew Denman was good, but he simply brained them, including even money favourite and defending champ Kauto Star in the Gold Cup. And trainer Paul Nicholls has another star in two-mile chaser Master Minded who looked like he ws still in the third gear when obliterating the field in the Champion Chase. Good links from last week : The Independent ran a great article on Britain's most outspoken punter, and co-owner of Gold Cup winner Denman - Mr Harry Findlay The Gold Cup replay Queen Mother Champion Chase replay