Our racing correspondent Sir George Paddock’s boast of winning £26,000 on a £17.00 bet came to nothing. His lucky 15, plus a £1 each-way accumulator, returned a very modest £9.49, a loss of £7.51 overall. No doubt he will say “That’s racing for you”. Over to you, Sir George…
Sir George Paddock writes
Yes indeed, that’s racing for you! We chalked up 1 winner and two places, which is not bad going in these highly competitive fields. However the odds were very slender and the each way returns negligible. Our star turn, Daarvik, in the 1.15 had a bad hair day and came 19th out of 23 Runners. Stewards’ Enquiry! But that’s enough of that. You got some money back.
I will publish my selections for Wednesday at around 8 o clock tomorrow morning.
Look out on the Blog and Facebook . You can find it here. Make sure you “like” and follow it. -Ed
Swinley Bottom, who takes over from Winterborne Longjohns in the summer months offers his thoughts on Royal Ascot – Not entirely different from our previous post from Sir George….
Difficult to get one,s head around this supposed RoyalAscot this year. Possibly following the ever reliable Frankie might be the best solution. Swinley s 1:1:2:2:4 La Boucherie Betting System in which one stops after each winner and returns to the original 1 point stake might provide both a live interest and a reasonable profit. Take note that so far in this extraordinary season Dettori has ridden 12 winners from 28 rides, a strike rate of just over 48 percent. Last weeks 9 rides brought him 5 winners and his followers an S.P. Profit of 9.25 points.
This same system if applied to the quite remarkably different son of that long term genius jockey Kieron Fallon , far better when on a horse than off it! Cieron (son) has over the last fortnight ridden 47 races and won 5 of them. He has now lost his 3lb apprentice allowance but a notional profit of over 400 points for any punter far sighted enough to have followed him with some rewarding S.P.s including his latest 200/1 winner at Newbury on Saturday. He has three rides at Ascot tomorrow.
So there is Frankie with live chances in all six Ascot races on Tuesday and a not to be overlooked Wesley Ward, once again over from America, with some 20 runners throughout the week.
Be Lucky and Bet Like a Man, as the Bookies would say !
It’s Royal Ascot! The Blog has a new, exclusive racing correspondent, millionaire racehorse owner and breeder Sir George Paddock, who will be sharing his knowledge of the turf and the sport of kings with you, our eager readers. What’s that smell, you ask? Possibly manure, but from a bull, not a horse. Over to you, Sir George…
Well I must say it’s a great honour to be asked to write for the famous Horsington Blog and follow in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessor for the jumping season, Winterborne Longjohns.
I’m normally in the background of that famous musical “The Arcadians”*, but this Spanish Flu lockdown thing has forced the closure of our theatre, and I relish the chance to offer my advice on prospects for Ascot.
As you know, Royal Ascot is the top meeting in the flat racing calendar, running from Tuesday to Saturday. The horses are keen and the jockeys keener, so off we go.
Sir George Paddock our racing correspondent, with two friends from his stable
For Day One we might consider the chances of that wonderful showman Frankie Dettori, who once famously rode six winners at an Ascot Meeting. I was there and I well remember the excitement as he clocked up winner after winner, and the joy of the punters who had the luck to bet on an accumulator, where the winnings of the first horse are put on the next, and so on in a fantastical multiplication game.
On Tuesday, Franke has 6 rides again, and several of them have more than a sporting chance.
1315 Daarik. All weather winner, but will he perform on turf? Currently 4/1 favourite.
1350 Terebellum, trained by in-form John Gosden. Stonking win at Newmarket last week. 10/3 second favourite
1425 Frankly Darling, another Gosden-trained Horse. 11/8 favourite
1500 Arthurs Kingdom, trained in Ireland by Aidan O’Brien, a horse on the make. 9/2
Not very good odds, I hear you say. But if you multiply them in an accumulator you can make a bomb. For example a 50p each way “lucky 15” will turn your £15 total stake into a mouth watering £376.00. And the horse doesn’t have to win, only come second or third, depending on the total number of runners in each race. And they don’t all have to perform, because each bet is separate. Not bad for a day’s work eh?
But he still has two more runners:
1610 Wasmya a French 3y-o currently 7/1
1640 Pianissimo Came a cropper at Chelmsford last week, but with Frankie on board, who knows? 10/1.
The odds for these last two suggest a bit of risk here, but hey, it’s Ascot!
So go for the 50p lucky 15 and then have a £1 each way accumulator on the lot- and win a staggering £25,923.44! Total outlay ? £17.00. But they all have to win or be placed. Get your money on fast as the odds may well shorten between now and the start.
Good luck everyone. Go Frankie!
Thank you Sir George, It’s an honour to have you on board. Ed.
(*“The Arcadians” is the current musical production by the Milborne Port opera. sadly postponed .Sir George is the posh bloke in the trailer. seehttps://youtu.be/NKg1PeyztDc
South Somerset District council’s Area East planning committee has unanimously rejected a plan to build 210 houses on West Hill, Wincanton. This is the same council which has allowed at least 289 houses to be built in Templecombe.
In Wincanton, the Council’s planning officials also backed rejection, arguing that the development would have caused serious and permanent harm to the environment.
But in Templecombe the SSDC’s Council’s controversial decision last week to allow 49 houses to be built on farmland , despite rejection TWICE by the Area East Committee and the Regulation Committee (see Blog Story), has outraged residents. Councillors were forced to hold a third regulation committee meeting to approve the plans in order to comply with complex and arcane planning law. This was despite many protests and objections from Templecombe residents.
In both cases public opposition was vocal and unanimous. But only the Templecombe developments are going ahead.
At the present time Templecombe is due to have 289 new houses (and there may be more)
Horsington and the Cheritons are small communities sandwiched between Wincanton and Templecombe. The last thing we want is an “A357 corridor” stretching between the two, littered with speculative developments of boxy houses with poor facilities. Our villages could be completely overwhelmed. And SSDC appear to be terrified of planning appeals. But what will it take to make them listen and do something to protect our communities from unwanted development?
It’s not about the dog! It’s about you.! Training your dog in agility classes results in a slimmer, fitter, more agile YOU.
Now you can train in South Cheriton with Sandra and Craig, who have over 25 years experience of agility training and competitions
They have started a new business, Jump and Go, which is at Cheriton Manor Farm in Marsh Lane (near Spencer’s chicken farm).
They have a new 2-acre sight with new, modern equipment. During the lock down they are offering one- to- one sessions, and then classes of four when things settle down. Either way, you will get plenty of personal attention.
Agility classes are available Monday to Friday (10am to 3pm Winter months | 10am to 6pm Summer months), and are priced at £10 per person per hour.
Later this year they will offer doggy day care from £18 per dog, per day.
We hope you took the trouble to read Peter Munro’s article on setting younger people free from the Corona-virus lock down. His claim that schoolchildren were unlikely to catch or pass on Corona virus has been fully vindicated in Today’s “Daily Telegraph. Another scoop for your Blog!
Go on, admit it! You haven’t clicked on the link to the Fine Times Recorder in our “Blogroll”of useful links.
By not doing so, you have missed out on a wealth of top quality theatre and opera beamed to your home via the Internet. All free, though some providers ask for a donation if you can spare it. This works, even in the far reaches of the broadband-starved Horsington Marsh.
Let the under 60’s get back to work and restrict the elderly, says guest writer Peter Munro, after analysing some statistics.
Peter Munro is retired and lives in Stoke Trister. He tries to lead an active life sailing, golfing, ski-ing and travelling. He is also the Chair of Wincanton Live at Home, which supports the elderly to live active lives at home.
At last the Government taken a few tentative steps towards easing the lockdown and the response of the public is mixed to say the least. On the one hand people are heading in their tens or hundreds of thousands for beaches, parks and beauty spots caring little for the social distancing rules. On the other hand less than 40% of those who could have turned up for work did so and the limited but vital re-opening of primary schools has been frustrated by the teachers unions and many labour councils. It is a fair bet that many of those who headed for the beaches failed to turn up for work and failed to send their children to school. The risk of catching Covid 19 has been used as the excuse for such absenteeism whilst the Government has used the risk of a second spike as its excuse for not getting the country moving.
Are these risks real? The Government has continually claimed that it is “following the science”. There are two problems here. First, none of the decision making cabinet members are even remotely scientifically trained and so have no idea what questions to ask the scientific advisers. Second, the scientists themselves have their own axes to grind – witness the spats between Oxford and Imperial – and are busy bombarding each other with their own view of the science. It is thus impossible for the scientifically ignorant to get sane and cohesive advice.
It is often claimed that we know so little about the virus that it is bound to be the case that the Government gets things wrong. This may be true at the detailed entomological level and may explain why, despite the vast numbers of scientists working on the problem worldwide, we have neither a vaccine nor a treatment. At any other level though we know lots about it – we have after all in the UK alone tens of thousands of case studies available. We know that the factor most affecting the severity of the disease is age. We know that in very many cases of death, possibly most them, patients had other problems and that Covid 19 was the straw which broke the camel’s back. We know that the most efficient disease factories in the country are hospitals and care homes and that it is these institutions which drive R, the incidence of new cases in the community being quite small- 0.1% according to the ONS.
We know that in April the percentage of deaths which occurred to those of working age was only 3.3% (ONS report Deaths Involving Covid 19 dated 15.05.2020) many of whom will have had another co-morbidity. We know that less than 9 people of school age have died with Covid 19. We know that it is actually quite difficult to catch the virus hence the track and trace limit of less that 2m from and infected person for more than 15 minutes.
In a nutshell the risk to those below 65, and we might stretch this to 70, is very small and certainly not high enough to justify the continuing damage which the lockdown policy is now causing to our country. The country is stacking up enormous debts for future generations and clearly a mindset is taking hold which leads many to prefer to remain supported by the state rather than to get back to work. Perhaps more serious though is the damage to our physical and mental health.
Increased poverty will inexorably lead to worse health outcomes, mental health problems, domestic abuse and divorce are on the rise and the interruption to education will, if it goes on for too long, damage the life prospects of this generation of children. We in rural South Somerset are extraordinarily fortunate – imagine how awful life must be for those on meagre incomes living in tower blocks in cities.
We must get the country moving and the first step is to understand that the population is not a homogeneous mass. We can treat people differently and indeed do so as regards the 2.5 million shielded. Whilst the under 65s must get back to work secure in the knowledge that the risks to them are minimal and certainly less than those they face in normal life the over 65s must accept some restrictions. For example they should not travel on public transport and they should not use the inside areas of pubs and restaurants. In this way we can begin to salvage the economy whilst continuing to protect the section of the population in which 96.7% of deaths occurred in April. Standing in the way is the refusal of politicians and scientists to accept that they may have got some things wrong. One only has to watch the daily No 10 briefing to see heads in the sand. We just need the most responsible politicians to summon the courage to abort the lockdown and get on with it.
Too busy on the beach to go to work
Thank you for taking the trouble to write for us Peter. If anyone else has something to say on the subject, please comment, or submit something to editor@idnet.com.-Ed
What happened? 33 quiz question envelopes were collected from the half Moon for the Bank Holiday Quiz, but only 3 contestants managed to submit their scores. Was this because the Blog posted the wrong email address (quickly corrected), or was it because of the sheer creativity of the quiz itself?
The winners were . . (Long pause and trumpet fanfare…) CLODS 55, captained Chris Bailward.
Joint second were The Horsington Martians (Richard and libby Gaunt), and Shirley and Roger Price.
Thank everyone for entering and thanks also to Philppa Tarling for the Quiz, the questions and THE PRIZE!
Neighbouring Templecombe is set to increase dramatically in size thanks to a controversial SSDC meeting on Tuesday 2nd June. Is Horsington next in line to receive unwanted housing developments?
Pity the poor members of South Somerset District Council’s Regulation Committee, the body which makes the final decision on planning applications referred by Area committees.
At their meeting on Tuesday 2nd June, they had to wade through a 39-page closely-worded bureaucratic maze of argument, counter argument and a plethora of planning policies which will require a doctorate in planning law to understand. We will try and summarise the position simply.
The decision in question is an application to build 49 houses on Coombe Farm, to the west of Templecombe, at the end of West Street.
This brings the total of potential new dwellings to be built in Templecombe to 289, including the 70 dwellings currently being built at Slades Hill, a significant increase. (There may be further applications -Ed)
The local citizenry do not want it. The Parish Council does not want it. The elected councillors (both Conservative) are against it. The SSDC Area East Committee voted on February 12th to refuse the application by 7 votes to five, a clear majority.Update -The Area East planning vote was against by 10 votes to 2 , . William Wallace.
The Regulation Committee, in its overseeing capacity, also voted to reject the proposal by 7 votes to 5 at a “virtual meeting” on April 21st. (“Virtual”, i.e. by phone, because of the lockdown rules).
But wait! According to the Council, This was apparently a so-called “consultative” meeting, not a full meeting, and so the Regulation Committee were summoned to meet again on June 2nd and vote for a THIRD time on this planning application.
In other words, “Go away and come back to vote in favour.” And so they did. The meeting is packed with Lib Dem councillors (who mainly represent urban wards), who outvoted the two local Blackmore Vale councillors. The majority in favour was reversed to 8-6 against.
The arguments against the development are clear, fair, and common sense. The arguments for it are arcane, obtuse and confusing. Who can blame some of the poor Lib Dems for shrugging their shoulders, and going back to their lockdown gardening? Well, the Blog can, for a start.
The politicians who claim to be both liberal and democratic should be ashamed. And the legality is questionable.
Councillor William Wallace, who represents the Blackmore Vale Ward on the SSDC said “I am disappointed that local opinion and advice, along with that of the two ward members, was not taken. The Parish , the committee of twelve district councillors, and the virtual Regulation meeting refused permission and this was not accepted until the latest Regulation Committee, where it was passed .This is not impressive for our public”
