JACKADORE.........There should be an investigation into...................

Given the No.2 draw and with the No.1 draw occupied by Formation who has little gate speed, how did jockey Strydom or Jackodore fail to take up the running from the handy gate, a massive advantage on the day ?:S

mikesack Wrote:

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> Given the No.2 draw and with the No.1 draw
> occupied by Formation who has little gate speed,
> how did jockey Strydom or Jackodore fail to take
> up the running from the handy gate, a massive
> advantage on the day ?:S


And not so long ago, he had an altercation with K Zechner, for screwing up the pace from a good draw.

Is Strykers ex wife in the bookie business?

Threads like these really make ABC unpleasant for me, simply because of the absolute stupidity of some rocket scientists who post here. The facts are irrelevant. The hysteria and the need to find someone guilty when a favourite loses is far more important than looking at the basics, using common sense and simple facts.

1)for the record, I had a treble on the day, which I can substantiate - Across the Ice onto Trip Tease onto Jackodore. I am as dissappointed with Jackodore's run as anyone. I accept that there is no such thing as a racing certainty.......
2)The facts as I see them
2.1 Jackodore was not striding off fore. Thats the leading leg around the turn.
2.2 When the leading leg is short you arent going to have pace from the start, as it is a short run tonthe turn.
2.3 When a horse is lame, it will not run to its true potential.
2.4 When Jackodore has run on the turf, she has been scratchy, feeling her legs. 3 runs back, she was riden by Richard Fourie on the Turff Inner course. When she went to the start, I immediately picked up on TT that she was not happy. We won the race with Moggytwoshoes. This was on thursday 20th March. A few days later, on Tuesday 25th March, we bumped her again with Negev, but on Vaal Sand. I specifically watched her go down, because of what I had seen a few days back. Amazingly, she went down perfectly. We ran second...
2.5 Her next run was on the Turff. She went down scratchy and ran accordingly. Striker was up and he obviously felt this and true to form, he advised caution, because of this soundness concern.

So, now Striker is a crook and pulled the horse up.

So, what do you want, then?
After 4900 winners do want dumb comments from Striker? Where are all the punters that praise his riding? Where are the posters here, who praise him for not abusing the whip, for his kindness to horses? Are they now mute? What did you want him to do in the race? Beat the hell out of the horse who is in trouble, just to please you, to " look good" ? Well, get stuffed, because he wont do that to any horse.

Striker aggravates me, often, with his very rigid and straight approach and talk. But, he has earned my respect over and over again, due to his consistency. And he will not stop telling the truth, as he sees it.

Did any of you clowns not stop, just once, to think that by advising you about his chances, he actually cares about you doing your money in cold blood. Just remember that the only time he knows for sure that a horse is not striding on the day, is on the way to the start or in the race. Before that, he is speculating, but his vast experience lets him know the difference between a slight niggle and something more serious, which he felt the time before. After that, it is up to the Trainer to treat or to scratch etc.

Louis,I agree with everything you say,and as I pointed out the other day ,disappointing runs are far more likely to be the fault of the horse than of the Jock!
That does however lead to a question, which you as a trainer hopefully will be able to inform us on: You pointed out that the horse is often "scratchy" ..................and this trait is true of a lot of horses that race daily ...........is it normal practice generally to merely exercise a horse ,then enter in a race and just hope it will be sound and fit on the day?

.....and now Stryker refuses to give the poor punters the graft.....:S

I would tend to agree with Strydom

LG,nice post

agreed....(tu)

Muhtiman Wrote:

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> .....and now Stryker refuses to give the poor
> punters the graft.....:S

Happens about 3 times a year ......................never taken any notice anyway...................I respect Strikers riding but what is the value if he isn't riding work?

Rob, we all have scratchy horses. The percentage in the string, the severity and the approach to treating and working with the horse will differ from Trainer to Trainer.
I cannot talk for other Trainers.

The bottom line is that the jockey doesn't call the shots come race time. That is the job of the course vet. I have heard that some Trainers believe that the course vet up here " has it in for them" or only sees what he wants to. I cannot comment on this.
But, we are keeping a very tidy list on many things. ... things such as how ours and other runners go to post and the subsequent race reports etc.

Because, we were concerned to see the vet trot up Play Play after his race, three runs ago. Deon had ridden him and he was very happy with him, said he was 100%. We were flabbergasted thereafter, when he was declared to be " not striding out off fore". Deon just laughed and advised me to stop fighting about EHV vaccines.... I ended up laughing because THAT is the ONLY leg that has NEVER worried this horse. He has had stifle problems behind, in the past and has had an issue with his near fore joint. Even the next morning, his legs were ice cold. But..... what do I know, anyway....All that I did was grow up in a yard in PE where we were sent horses to "fix" and when I started Training, all I could afford to buy were the problem ones, to fix and then win with....

Maybe Striker wasn't to blame..... And maybe someone else should pick up that tab.....

Informative words as usual Louis thanks (tu)

I have no issue with Striker getting the hump, he tried to assist and punters have turned it around.

However, just a couple of points from this know nothing about horses just love a punt gambler...

Mike's main point seemed to me to centre around why the horse was not taken to the front as usual. The main explanation seems to be that the horse was found to be not striding. Fair enough we say. And then we read LG's comments on a vet saying Play Play was not striding out. Ziets was the same a week or two back with one of his horses. Both clearly thinking a vet might be wrong. So, just what and who are we meant to believe? This to me is the crux of the matter and why I will so often come out on the side of the punter... if you create uncertainty in our minds we don't know what information we are given is accurate. And if Striker had not been interviewed and expressed reservations about Jackadore how would we have known he had reservations, I can see the horse would have started odds-on without his comments. Like Louis Jack cost me an accumulator, but I had my doubts about Jack after hearing PS and would have excluded if someone had said what PS said before I did my bets. The point to me is SA needs somewhere where such info is given to us early enough to be useful.

I have said it a million times and try to do so less these days because it does my general mood no good! lol... unless you have competent people in all aspects of the job feeding constant and up to date and accurate (early) information to the punter then they will always have suspicions and this "bad taste" that seems to be permanently be associated with SA racing will never go away.

Apologies to PS if he was offended but please try to look at the bigger picture us punters face sometimes, its not easy out here!

Louis ,thanks for that ....................a very common denominator in the "problem" threads is the uninformed opinions that range from presumptious to completely irresponsible but you often detect a lot of frustration in them due to questions without answers.

Surely the establishment need to take some responsibility for failing to inform customers adequately.I realise all the "reasons" as to why they will not interact with the forum,but surely they also realise that the forum is also an indicator of what their customer's frustrations are likely to be.
Why not improve the communication on issues ,especially the trust issues................(eg.regulation and efficacy of tote dividends)
I think that scolding forumites for uninformed opinions is fine, but you guys close to the establishment needs to be pressuring them to be doing more informing!

On the point of scratchy horses for instance ,is there not a better way for horses to be checked for pre-race problems............it's one thing for a horse to develop a problem in the race but it's another if the horse enters the stalls with no chance of running to it's ability!

There must be more that can be done to improve the understanding of punters to the nuances of horses and horse racing!