Newmarket Nights
We had a great time at Newmarket Races on Friday night. Racing with drinks and a salad followed by music, from Lemar, Estelle and Alisha Dixon. There was something for everyone, even if the horse we supported didn’t run as well as expected.
Go! You might enjoy it.
Remember though, that many race meetings allow kids under 16 in free. Not Newmarket Nights though! So over the summer, when you’re at a loss about what to do, give it a go.
Truly Great British Sportsmen
Andy Murray yesterday showed patches of brilliance to show that he might end up as one of the great British sportsmen and women, who in addition to all that talent, have that killer instinct, where they never give the opposition an even break.
How very un-British!
Tim Henman had a lot of the talent, but you know he could have an upset and never impose himself like he should have done. He would have beaten Ivanisovitch if he’d just a bit of killer instinct.
In my view there are very few, who had both talent and killer instinct.
The first I saw was David Hemery, who most will have forgotten. He turned the 400 metres hurdles in Mexico into a precession and won by an enormous margin. But he was unable to repeat it in 1972.
Seb Coe had both too and for many years he was the greatest middle-distance runner in the world. He won two Olympic gold medals and set eight world records. His 800 metre record lasted 16 years. But perhaps he greatest achievement was winning the 2012 Olympics for London. My late wife, who was a barrister, said it was the best closing speech she’d ever heard. And she’s heard many.
You have to include two jockeys, Lester Piggott and Tony McCoy. We will never see the like of them again.
I won’t include such as Steve Redgrave, good sportsman that he was, as he competed in a sport against a limited number of teams.
But the last of my list will be a surprise to many. Just as Seb Coe honed every skill in his life, so Sir Alf Ramsey honed every skill of what he did. He was a very good Spurs and England full-back in his playing days, but it was as a manager for Ipswich and England, that he showed how he was the greatest British football manager of all time. Others have done better than Sir Alf, but no-one has done it with so little talent and so loved by his players.
It was good to see that his widow has finally been given a winner’s medal for the 1966 World Cup in Sir Alf’s name. Why did she and all the others who didn’t actually play in the Final have to wait so long?
Will Murray join those greats?
Where Have the Birds Gone?
I was on Newmarket Heath yesterday, with a racehorse trainer, who like me is a countryman.
Newmarket Heath has not changed much environmentally in centuries. The link gives a history on the racecourse website. The grass is mown fairly short and it is not fertilised with anything artificial. The wildflowers are of a bigger variety than normal and there are hares (big bunnies) in abundance. It’s importance as a wild life area is recognised in that it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
We wondered, if when everything is so constant, have a lot of the birds and especially the songbirds disappeared in recent years.
As someone, who has been on the Heath for over twenty years and knows it well, the trainer put it down to one thing – sparrowhawks.
Now the site of birds of prey is wonderful. But so is the site of all the smaller birds that sing and give us so much pleasure! It’s a tricky dilemma, but then if they’ve gone on Newmarket Heath, where conditions haven’t changed in centuries, it can’t be down to bad farming practices in that instance.
In my garden, I used to have lots of yellow hammers, swallows and pied wagtails. They have become a lot less common in recent years.
Richard Dunwoody
I was in Newmarket yesterday and saw him walking along the Bury Road in his thousand miles in a thousand hours challenge.
Good luck to him!
And donate as it’s all in a good cause.
Setanta
Setanta has gone bust and as a widower living mostly alone, I’m not particularly pleased as I like my football and it also gave me RacingUK at an affordable price. For that now, I’ll need to shell out £20 a month, as opposed to the £12 for Setanta, that included it. Daft!
But there was this in PopBitch about Setanta.
RIP Setanta. A victim of global financial meltdown? A brave underdog bringing choice to the TV football fans? Or a profligate company which had arse-elbow knowledge issues? One Premier League club told us that to screen a live game Sky Sports asked for two car park places and 22 stadium passes, to accommodate crew, pundits and guests. Setanta – 66 car park places, and 120 stadium passes.
If you want to be a success, you must control the expenses in a company.
And very hard!
The Anonymous Widower 