Thursday, November 03, 2005

The Melbourne Cup post....

The first Tuesday of November has come and gone. What a lot of build up for the "Race that stops a nation", well most of the nation I guess, coz I missed it. In past years I would have planted myself in front of the tube and made sure I saw all the build up, the race and the post race gumph. This year was different, I found myself at a house with no TV. I was out in the garden, pottering around, putting up a fence and spraying weeds. By the time I looked at my watch, it was 3:20pm. Hmmm, I guess the race is over. I wonder who won? Care factor, very little. I used my mobile to get the results, "look at that, Makybe Diva won, good on her". That was it, no more thoughts about the cup. Really and truly, no horse was going to beat her, all the challengers were back in the UK or Dubai but they weren't here. Therefore, if she stood up, she would win and did so. Well Done to all concerned.
I just find horse racing in general to be a slightly less random form of Tattslotto, it only exists for the gamblers. Nothing else, that's the only reason they have it. If the gambling wasn't tied to the sport, would there still be horse racing. You'd like to think so, would it still have the huge prize money? Probably not.
The AFL has signed some sort of deal with Betfair and TAB Sportsbet to "control" gambling on AFL matches. Not sure how you can control betting other than to not allow betting. They say that players are not allowed to bet on matches as the players code prevents them from doing so. Yeah Right!
OK, so my fine slimy blog frog pal Bevis tagged me for "20 things about me". I'll start working on that, I don't think I know 20 things about me but I'll give it a go.

PS: Connan O'Brien did his own look-a-like session on his show tonight. As usual, people had to look like him. Here is a Stamp from Finland compared to Connan. Which is which?

3 comments:

BEVIS said...

I agree with your overall view on horse racing / gambling. Would the former exist without the latter? It wouldn't be a quarter of what it is now without the gambling.

I had little interest in it as well, but I stopped work to listen to the race on the radio with everyone else here. It was a reasonable excuse to stop work for five minutes, so I embraced the moment.

Don't hardly care none, though.

Looking forward to your 20 Things!

Roguemaze Central said...

I didn't watch it either. Didn't really care this year for some reason.

I think when the media shove things down my throat and things are built up and hyped I tend to switch off. Not angrily - It just takes all the excitement out of it for me if media has taken it on.

That's why I still haven't seen 'The Office'.

I hate hype. And word verification

PiesFan90 said...

Thanks for the input RM. I agree, it was over hyped and while I'm happy for the connections etc, it's great for a horse to win the race 3 times, but that was about the limit for me. Hoorah, now back on with life.
As for the Office, it really is the best show ever written (since Fawlty Towers). It does have a couple of weak episodes (unlike FT) but it just resonates with me coz of it's "office scenario".

Bevis, I couldn't even remember what time the race was on. I am normally a bit of a spring racing "expert" but there is just too much else going on at the moment so there was little time to be interested this year. I was more interested in the Cox Plate run.

In keeping with the twitter theme.

Are You a Twitter Ninja?