Welcome to the
GRUMBLE PAGE
Please feel free to leave any comments you might have about my grumbles, in my guest book. If you are one of the owners or trainers of the dogs I mention or even the racing manager, I would love to hear your views.
Even I can't find something to grumble about every day, but if anything is bugging me I will put it here.
The type of comments you can expect to find on this page will be on subjects such as dogs that find a lot of time, dogs that have been heavily backed, win or lose or dogs that seem to be harshly treated by the grader, for example, at last they have dropped Limited Time a grade to A2 after 19 weeks, that's 4 1/2 months and 14 races without a win in A1, some dogs are dropped back down a grade after just one defeat. I wish the owner of Limited Time, all the best of luck in the race on Wednesday.
Other subjects are likely to be, the condition of the track, Prize Money, and the weather, lol.
25th August 2008
God, they make me laugh sometimes. I just read in the racing post, am I quote, ( Both Lenson Joker and Select Stakes champ Barnfield On Air had attracted plenty of money ante-post, but those that had plunged on Sam Poots's dog will be hoping the dog goes in for a stamina transplant before Wednesday's semis. He patently failed to stay the 575m trip, ) Sam Poots dog being Barnfield On Air.
Now don't get me wrong, as my selection to win the competition was and still is Lenson Joker, who is absolutely flying at the moment, and was a short 11/4 Fav anti post when I looked on Friday morning, but to say that a dog that clocks 35.46 over 575m at Romford is in need of a stamina transplant is ridiculous, as that time would be good enough to win an open every Friday at Romford. It's true that Barfield On Air was coming back to the field rounding the last bend and did get beat by 2 lengths, but that's not the whole story.
Firstly, Barfield On Air is a dog with bags of early, and I mean very fast early and if he had lead he surly would of won.
Secondly, this was his first look at the track, I don't think he even had a trial before hand.
Also the paper said that he missed his break, but the truth is that he had two very fast early paced dogs either side of him, both of which had no chance of qualifying, having SP's of 40/1 and 25/1 but did have a good chance of leading, which they did, and Barfield On Air trapped half a length behind them, and this is were the problem occurred as he was sandwiched between traps 3 and 5 all the way up to the first bend, which stopped him from going 6 lengths clear, as expected.
If he had got his early lead, I feel that he would of managed to hold on and win the race by 4 lengths, clocking a time nearer 35.00 and his sectional time would of been nearer 13.40 and not the 13.68 he did the other night.
Would they of still said he needed a stamina transplant if he had clocked 35.00, I don't think so.
I look forward to Wednesdays semi Finals, where I believe this time he will lead all the way and not get caught and will qualify for the final live on Sky, but whether he can beat Lenson Joker or not, we will have to wait and see.
Stamina Transplant -- ha,ha,ha, LMAO.
22nd May
Someone told me the other day, that they read in the news papers, that all Sainsburys workers will be getting a nice £400 bonus this year, in recognition for all their hard work in helping to improve Sainsburys profits, so I thought wow, nice one, I must write to Justin and say a big thank you.
The next night, while I was at work, I was told that there had been a meeting concerning are bonus and that the news papers had made a slight mistake about the amount we are going to get, we believe that they accidentally put an extra 0 on the figure and that the actual amount will be nearer to £40 per colleague, lol, that works out to be a 0.05 per cent bonus, but at least the tax man will get about £12 of that, I worked mine out to be about £57 before tax and insurance.
13th May
what does SP stand for ?, I thought it was the starting price.
Last night I went to watch my friends dog ( Fourteen Blue ) run at Romford, and I was hoping to have my last £10 on her, but I was not going to take less than 2/1.
Well it opened up 7/4 with every single bookie, I am not sure if there was 5 or 6 bookies but they all had 7/4 marked up, so I waited and waited and waited, fell asleep, woke up and still waited, there was only seconds left as the greyhounds were being put into the starting traps, then one of the bookies went 2/1, so off I trot to put my £10 on, as I am walking down to the bookie, the one beside him also goes 2/1, my friend and his brother get their bets on and I am next, but NO, a voice from behind me shouts at the bookie, he wants £800 on Fourteen Blue, ( no it wasn't Jim, lol ) the bookie acknowledges the bet and then rubs the price off, Nice, as far as I was concerned, the person shouting, who was half way up the stands had managed to push in, and if there is one thing I hate, it is people who push in, it really pisses me off.
So the two bookies replaced the 2/1 with 6/4 and 7/4 and the hare was now on the move, and I didn't get my bet on, ok, so maybe I should off stood closer to the bookie at the time, like my friend did and I might of got on, but then I would not of been able to see all the bookies and if the one at the other end had gone 2/1 first I wouldn't know.
Anyway back to the grumble, which is not about who got their money on and who didn't, but it's about the SP.
now, lets say there was 5 bookies all pricing 7/4, then two of them go 2/1 within seconds the 2/1 has gone, and we now have four bookies with 7/4 and one with 6/4, and now the hare is on the move and no more bets are being taken, so how did the SP return at 2/1.
OK the only losers here are bookies at the track, and the betting shops who have to pay out at the 2/1 SP, I know there's not a great difference between the two prices, but the fact is, somebody is not doing their job properly and that always annoys me, as far as I am concerned, if there is no 2/1 marked up, then you can't return an SP of 2/1 and the SP should of been 7/4.
My other grumble today, is that Diesel now cost £1.20p per litre, that's £6 per gallon, but apparently I could make my own Bio Diesel out of old vegetable oil for only 0.20p per litre that's £1 per gallon, now that's more like it, lol.
5th January
Well, here we go again, another year to try and struggle through, I was not earning enough last year to pay all the bills and now I read that the Council tax will go up by £140, Gas and Electric by £100 each a year, Diesel is up to £1.06p a Litre, that's £5.30p a gallon, that's a 106 shillings in old money, lol,
We are so lucky where I work, because we are given a 10% discount card, but in December it goes up to 15%, unfortunately everything on sale in the shop went up by about 20 per cent, lol, So I did not buy anything until after Xmas, when all the xmas stuff went down by 75%, lol. they are sooooooooo greedy the Sainsburys company.
Oh well, as the Labour party told us when they were elected about 10 years ago, Things can only get better.
27thAugust 2007
The benefits of being an RGOA member. Well for me it looks like there are none at all.
I remember the very first day, 23rd May 06, when I went to see Sid have his first trial at Romford Stadium. The first thing I did on arrival at the stadium was to go into reception and ask for an RGOA members application form. and this is before it was made compulsory to join, then I went up into the stands an while waiting for Sids trial, I filled in the form.
Sid had his trial and clocks 25.36 and although I was not going to race Sid over 400m I was still confident that he would have no problems grading in over 575m.
On my way out of the stadium, I popped back into reception and gave them my completed form and cash for the remainder of the year, and the very nice lady behind the desk said she would make sure that the person who runs the RGOA will get it next time they are there.
well here we are 27th August 2007 and to my knowledge, Sid has never been in one of their races. I had always thought it was because the races were too soon after Sids last race. But this can not be the case, as there is another BGOA meeting on Wednesday with two S1 races, but no Sid, there is however FISIO FLASH, THATCHERS BOY & BLACK MIST BOY, all of whom raced on Saturday night the first mentioned being the winner of Sids race.
There is always the 3 in a row trophy, which is possible if you are working your way up through the grades but very unlikely when you are a top heat dog.
And then there is Greyhound of the month, and again lots of wins needed for those trophies.
Then it comes to the help with the re homing, and as Sid is coming home with me that's of no use to me either. I wonder if they will assist me with a grant towards a secondhand settee for Sid too sleep on, lol.
Soon it will be time to renew the RGOA membership and since becoming compulsory it is now put on your kennel bill by the trainer. Should I have to pay for a whole years membership, when Sid has not got a whole year left in him ?. and for what ?.
I was all for this RGOA before, but now it looks like my money just goes towards the greyhounds of people who have lots of dogs, and who don't keep them when them retire, and those owners usually have more money than I will ever have in a my life time.
After looking through all my programs, I found that Sid did run in one of the RGOA races on 25th April this year. So I suppose I shouldn't grumble, but too late cos I did, lol.
25thAugust 2007
Is Romford stadium the only track that pay less prize money for a win in an S1 race than it dose for an A1 ?.
For example
S2 win = £122 ----- A2 win = £116
S1 win = £131 ----- A1 win = £135
Have they got the S1 and the A1 prize money the wrong way around ?.
16thAugust 2007
Well here we go with my first grumble on this new page.
What a bloody shame that the connections of Faking a rumble were unfortunate enough to have had to have its first ever race in its life against another Ernie Gaskin runner that improved on its best ever time by over 40 spots and clocking the fastest time of the night, and don't forget it was running in an A6, yet still went faster than the A2, which was the highest grade on the card. Even after adjusting the times for the going, it was only 2 spots slower than the A2 race.
And also how lucky can the trainer be, as the first 6 races were allocated a going of 30 spots slow, keeping the time for the winner just under the allowed 1/2 second improvement barrier, while the very next race, just 15 minutes later was 40 spots slow, which would of took Mr. gaskins runner over the 1/2 second naughty naughty barrier and then I believe there would of been an enquiry and probably would of gone to the NGRC.
But I will have to check my NGRC rule book for that one because it was a long, long, long time ago since I was head lad for Terry Duggan, who was contracted to Romford Stadium. But I have heard all the bull shit that the trainers come out with, for example, oh dear puppies, so unpredictable but now it has settled in to the kennels it is flying, lol.
It's true puppies can run a bit green or miss the the break, BUT a good pup that has shown good signs on the schooling track, will, in my opinion, always beat an average pup in a race, so long as you can get it into a low enough grade to start with, which Mr. Gaskin seems to find very easy at the moment.
Now please don't think that I have anything against Mr. Gaskin, He is a nice man, a good trainer and he looks after the dogs in his kennel very well. and my old governor would of been proud of the way he manages to get his runners to win so easily. lol
There was a dog tranied by Mr wiley a few days back that was very heavily backed, I think it opened up at 6/1 and ended up 9/4 Fav and it flew round clocking 24.40 something, but unfortunately for Mr. Wiley, Mr. Gaskins runner in the race also flew round clocking 24.24 I believe, so you see they don't always get it right.