October
NovemberWhere have all the horses gone?
Surely it wasn’t possible. Could Channel Seven’s Cup coverage be worse than Derby day?
Of course it could. We only saw one abbreviated glimpse of the Cup field prior to the big race (no other mounting-yard coverages), and even then our view was obscured by Francesca and Simon running around in the mounting yard, where even the owners aren’t allowed, giving their expert views. Hang on. We wanted to see the horses ourselves and make up our own minds.
We wanted to see if Glass Harmonium was out of his brain, not have Simon tell us he’s more like a dressage horse. (No self-respecting dressage horse would behave like that.)
We needed to have a look at horses from overseas none of us had barely sighted before, and try to work out why Americain is running like a cat on a hot tin roof, or a cheetah, or a grasshopper, or whatever. Finally got it — a glimpse, front view, coming out of the chute.
He’s got no chest! The poor fellow’s so jarred up in his shoulders, his toes are now too long and he’s doing all his work behind. He’s running purely on heart and sheer ability. I hope they call in a good masseur, who really knows what they’re doing, to help him before it’s too late.
Instead, we now have "racing expert" Richard Freedman, who doesn’t know the difference between a skewbald and a piebald, telling us to look for over-developed hindquarter muscles so tight that they stand out and create what is known as a "poverty line".
Got that right, Richard, but that’s the semi-tendinous muscle, and if that’s tight, the horses can’t bring their hind legs as far forward as usual, so they don’t perform as well.
It’s also the principal cause of pressure on the sciatic nerve — remember Holy Roller?
It wasn’t enough to have a half-hour fashion show after Derby day (I didn’t watch it). We still had to endure fashions on the field; dozens of self-styled "celebrities" talking rubbish; endless re-runs of races from the archives and endless betting updates.
Even the one or two horses we occasionally saw in the mounting yard were obscured by more betting details taking up half the screen. We’re not all vision-impaired.
And we had to endure yet another awful soloist. The one bright spot on Cup day were the 10 tenors. 10 out of 10 for that one. It must be 20 years now since we had a similar standard performance from Marina Prior on Derby day.
But hang on, wasn’t it supposed to be about the horses? Anyone can watch a field of horses running around, with the camera bobbing about all over the place.
Where were the real, live horses? Message to management — bring back the horses please.
(name and address supplied)