A vintage Cheltenham and a very successful one on the betting front. The absolute highlight was Brave Inca's performance in the Champion Hurdle. This was a win that went precisely according to forecast. We know this horse is indolent and talented in equal measure. Normally when a horse is being worked on by his jockey in the middle of a race you expect him not to figure in the finish. With Brave Inca you knew that McCoy (the greatest ever?) was only keeping his mind on the job. You also knew when he hit the front that nothing would pass him. You knew Macs Joy and Hardy Eustace would range up alongsides and you knew that as soon as they did he would find more and repel them. You also knew that the Cheltenham hill would suit his resolute nature. And all this came to pass exactly as you expected - if only all horse races were so predictable. Although he was a short priced favourite (7-4), I had backed him in December at 7-1 just before he won a trial race at Leopardstown. This horse has now won around 10 races and I've backed him in every one of them. He has never run a bad race.
My best betting day was Friday when I had Greenhope at 20-1 and Adamant Approach placed at 50-1. I also had place bets on Liberman at 20-1 and Strangely Brown at 28-1. So over all a good four figure profit.
My biggest disappointment was L'Ami in a sub-standard Gold Cup. He plainly wasn't good enough although the ground was against him also. I'm kicking myself for not backing War of Attrition. The doubts about which race he would run in put me off him.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Friday, February 24, 2006
A Messi Affair
Amid the infinite tedium and hype of modern football, the inflated egos and inflated salaries, the hyberbolic managers, and the pampered players, there is still, from time to time, some magic. The performance of young Massi for Barcelona against Chelsea last week was one such moment. Despite Chelsea's cynical ploy of providing a bog instead of a pitch to counteract Barcelona's superior skills, Massi put on a masterclass of attacking skills that suggested George Best in his pomp.
The fuss Mourhino made about del Horno's sending off has to be tongue in cheek. Or else Mourinho is less intelligent than I assumed. It was very clear that del Horno made no attempt to play the ball and just charged stright into Massi. You could see the look of fear on Massi's face as he saw del Horno bearing down on him. He was backing off when the charge hit him. The ball was elsewhere. And then del Horno had the cheek to clutch his neck theatrically as he rolled around on the ground. It was as clear a red card as I've ever seen.
The fuss Mourhino made about del Horno's sending off has to be tongue in cheek. Or else Mourinho is less intelligent than I assumed. It was very clear that del Horno made no attempt to play the ball and just charged stright into Massi. You could see the look of fear on Massi's face as he saw del Horno bearing down on him. He was backing off when the charge hit him. The ball was elsewhere. And then del Horno had the cheek to clutch his neck theatrically as he rolled around on the ground. It was as clear a red card as I've ever seen.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
VERBA VOLANT - SCRIPTA MANENT
The older Irish writers tended to ignore this dictum and leave their best work behind them in the pub. Behan is the most notorious example but Kavanagh and Flann O'Brien weren't far behind. Yeats famously avoided this trap after his single visit to Tomers.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Trouble at Mosque
This whole thing has been contrived of course. The axe-grinding Danes on the one hand deeming that bowing to multi-culturalism had gone too far and hoping these cartoons would provide welcome catharsis; and the Islamic militants on the other hand using this as a pretext to get the excitable masses wound up and visit violence on the despised West.
And of course the masses are ripe for it now that George Bush as pushed the vast majority of Moslems into an anti-Western lather. It's deeply ironic that a president whose term in office has been defined by the war on terror has in fact alienated the Islamic world to a degree that has rendered the world a far more dangerous place than it was before he took office. His exploits in Afghanistan and Iraq, and his indifference to the plight of Palestine has ensured that we now have a new Cold War between the West and the bulk of the Islamic world. It'll get really interesting when Iran get nuclear weapons.
And the cartoons themselves seem so bland - I did like the one about heaven running out of virgins though.
At least it won't affect Denmark's bacon exports.
And of course the masses are ripe for it now that George Bush as pushed the vast majority of Moslems into an anti-Western lather. It's deeply ironic that a president whose term in office has been defined by the war on terror has in fact alienated the Islamic world to a degree that has rendered the world a far more dangerous place than it was before he took office. His exploits in Afghanistan and Iraq, and his indifference to the plight of Palestine has ensured that we now have a new Cold War between the West and the bulk of the Islamic world. It'll get really interesting when Iran get nuclear weapons.
And the cartoons themselves seem so bland - I did like the one about heaven running out of virgins though.
At least it won't affect Denmark's bacon exports.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Warhol or Not Warhol
What a charmless and vapid creature Warhol was. And how cold and affectless is his art - the apotheosis of the graphic designer. And of course how little of it he even touched after he became successful - apart from taking the odd polaroid. Much of his work is flat and perfunctory, the result of what Robert Hughes described as a "Franklin Mint" approach to subject matter. Whatever life and originality was there (and I did find his "Electric Chair" a powerful piece) disappeared after he was shot.
Alan Yentob and the BBC did a superb programme last Tuesday (Warhol: Denied) on the machinations of the New York-based vetting committee set up by the Warhol foundation. This foundation tightly controls the release of Warhols onto the market and jealously guards (aided and abetted by the auction houses) the right to say what's real and what is not. An English owner of an early Warhol self-portrait submitted it for authentication prior to auction, confident that it would get the nod. But it was denied, and had a dirty great stamp put on the back of the canvas that effectively destroyed it - the right to do this being part of getting the commitee to vet your piece. Now his piece instead of being worth $2 million, has only "decorative value" in the words of his solicitor. The point of the programme was to demonstrate how difficult it actually was to say what an authentic Warhol is because of his extremely off-hand (and hands off) approach to his work. He frequently didn't sign them, he rarely chose the colours, and he never went near the silk screen sweat shops where the bulk of his later work was mass produced. So in fact the only way you can prove a Warhol is authentic is to have the vetting committee say so - and they refuse to give reasons if they deny you. Such power corrupts. John Richardson the art critic maintained that he would never put his Warhol pieces up for auction as he was afraid that the vetting committee would deny them even though he had received them directly from Warhol.
You can't help feeling that the vast stash of Warhols still held by his foundation are playing a part in this charade.
Alan Yentob and the BBC did a superb programme last Tuesday (Warhol: Denied) on the machinations of the New York-based vetting committee set up by the Warhol foundation. This foundation tightly controls the release of Warhols onto the market and jealously guards (aided and abetted by the auction houses) the right to say what's real and what is not. An English owner of an early Warhol self-portrait submitted it for authentication prior to auction, confident that it would get the nod. But it was denied, and had a dirty great stamp put on the back of the canvas that effectively destroyed it - the right to do this being part of getting the commitee to vet your piece. Now his piece instead of being worth $2 million, has only "decorative value" in the words of his solicitor. The point of the programme was to demonstrate how difficult it actually was to say what an authentic Warhol is because of his extremely off-hand (and hands off) approach to his work. He frequently didn't sign them, he rarely chose the colours, and he never went near the silk screen sweat shops where the bulk of his later work was mass produced. So in fact the only way you can prove a Warhol is authentic is to have the vetting committee say so - and they refuse to give reasons if they deny you. Such power corrupts. John Richardson the art critic maintained that he would never put his Warhol pieces up for auction as he was afraid that the vetting committee would deny them even though he had received them directly from Warhol.
You can't help feeling that the vast stash of Warhols still held by his foundation are playing a part in this charade.
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