In National Hunt racing, horses line up in whatever order they fancy since there are no starting stalls. The starter signals the start of the race when the horses are in a 'reasonable' line. Starts don't need to be perfect in National Hunt racing. Even if a horse gains a few lengths advantage at the start of a race, it makes little difference to the outcome, given the race distances involved.

In 1971, yes, it is that long ago, Memorex launched their "Is it live or is it Memorex?" Ad. campaign on national TV. The advertisement launched their new music cassette tape, remember them?. Their cassette tape was coated with their, then revolutionary product, MRX3 Oxide, whatever that was. The MRX3 Oxide coating, it was claimed, made it almost impossible to differentiate between live music and music recorded and then played back on one of their MRX3 Oxide-coated cassette tapes. At the end of the advert, we were shown a wine glass being shattered by the voice of Ella Fitzgerald, the great American jazz singer, as she hit one of her top notes. We weren't shown whether it was Ella Fitzgerald's voice or a recording of her voice that was responsible for the shattering of the glass, however. Whoever was doing the voice-over then asked, "Is it live or is it Memorex?" Just for the record, Ella Fitzgeral's live voice was known to be able to shatter wine glasses.

The phrase 'Horses for courses' is an idiom. An idiom is a phrase whose meaning cannot be made sense of if it is taken literally. An Idiom has a figurative meaning that is known only through common use. Not a lot of people know that. Michael Caine never actually said 'Not a lot of people know that'. It was actually Peter Sellers who said it when he once mimicked Michael Caine on the Michael Parkinson show some years ago.

In a previous article, I wrote about, what I considered to be, the greatest flat horses ever to have grace a race track. Believe me, it wasn’t easy. I could not only think of a few good reasons for including certain horses in my list, I could also think of reasons for not including those very same horses. At times, it was a real nightmare. Should I include so-and-so? If so, why? If not, why not? If I included so-and-so, then I have to include what's-his-name because he beat him in a top race by several lengths. So-and-so broke the track record that day, but, there again, the conditions were ideal.

The final race of Man O' War's career was at Windsor, Ontario, Canada in the 1¼ mile Kenilworth Park Gold Cup. Man O' War's only opposition was the great Sir Barton. Man O' War easily drew away in the first furlong and then slowed to win by 7 lengths.

Once a horse has been rated/re-rated, the horse's connections (owner and trainer) are able to determine which races the horse is qualified to run in. Note that some races have restrictions regarding a horse's handicap rating.

Conventional wisdom dictates that if a horse has given its all in a race, which every jockey, according to the rules of racing, should ensure, then it would be good for nothing else, except horse meat, for at least a couple of weeks or so. Therefore, if a horse returns to the race track and runs in another race soon after its previous race (before it has had a reasonable time to recover), then it is likely to lose.

With the current credit crunch, it is proving even more difficult for the 'Scamsters' to get hold of your money, because those with money are getting fewer and further between. However, those who are seeking to improve the current state of their finances are also growing in number.

I derive much pleasure when I read articles on the topic horse racing. I derive even more pleasure when the articles relate to betting on horses. When the article discusses the merits of statistics and betting on horses, I am over the moon, for it is one of my pet subjects. However, the writers make me want to scream when they use the tossing of a coin as an analogy in their articles. In some ways, I understand why the authors use the tossing of a coin to illustrate a particular point. It is easy for the writer to describe and easy for a reader to understand. But, there are a number of issues with this mode of illustration which I will now discuss.

Although some so called ‘Old Wives’ tales are complete and utter rubbish, there are many which have a lot of truth in them, even the most obscure ones. By way of an example, I once came across one old wives' tale which suggested that a piece of bacon is nailed over the top of a door if there is someone in the house who is ill. You may scoff at this one. However, there is a lot of merit in this one as we shall see. The bacon attracts air-borne fungal spores which then feed upon the bacon.