Protect The Punter – Protect The Industry
Horseracing regulation is all about protection of the punter. As a sport inextricably linked to gambling that earns every dollar of revenue from punters betting on races, there can be no …
Oh, just because they can! – The idea of “Might is Right”
There was a time when corporal punishment was part and parcel of our Jamaican school system. It was, perhaps, a holdover from the old British colonial era. It was often abused …
Pupil To Outstrip The Master?
Horse racing’s survival despite eighteen months of pandemic buffeting has been a sports success story. It’s true that it has been the beneficiary of government ‘’see-and-blind” discrimination (some might say “hypocrisy”) …
Recruiting COVID Suicide Bombers?
The continued operations of small, crowded, unsanitary Off Track Betting Parlours (OTBs) during the third wave of a pandemic that has caused oxygen supplies to run out and the near collapse …
Satirical Corner
New IOC Rule could help Shericka Jackson The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to consider an amendment to its by-laws which would have seen the inclusion of Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson in …
Backing Favourites Is A Mug’s Game!
If I had a dollar for every punter I’ve seen leaving the race track broke after cheering home more than one-half the day’s winners I’d be a billionaire. These bettors are …
Pace Makes Race
I first learned the fundamental mantra “Pace makes every race” in 1969 when I read a book titled “How to win Money at the races” by American professional horseplayer Nate Perlmutter. …
What About The Welfare Of The Horse?
On Saturday, July 10, a shadow was cast over the entire horseracing world. It was thrown by news that Galileo [(b.h. Sadler’s Wells-Urban Sea (Miswaki)], acknowledged as the best sire of …
Whipping Up Interest In The St. Leger
By The Terrible Tout A few months ago iconic broadcaster Fae Ellington, who began in a Bamboo Lounge (look it up if you’re too young for the COVID vaccine), asked me …
Bent as a nine-bob note? Or misunderstood as a Guineas?
In a decision establishing rule of law over rule by rich and famous, Bob Baffert was suspended for two years by Churchill Downs after Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit’s positive finding …
Two-for-one Guineas
Out of evil cometh good! The pandemic not only forced SVREL to pause the nonsensical running of the 2,000 Guineas on a Sunday, it has (temporarily?) required the running of both …