UK Horse Racing Tips

In the wild, the horse is a prey animal, whose survival strategy is based on a fear response, a.k.a. ‘fight or flight’. As such, horses are blessed with keen hearing and a 275º field of vision, which allows them to see everything bar two ‘blind spots’, one directly in front and one directly behind. Remarkably acute senses may be essential to survival in the wild but, on the racecourse, can distract horses and prevent them from running to the best of their ability. To prevent, or at least minimise, such distractions, trainers often employ different types of headgear to help horses focus on the task in hand.

Blinkers

Blinkers consist of a cloth hood in which the eye openings are fitted with cowls, or cups, that limit the field of vision and encourage a horse to look forwards, rather than backwards or sideways. In addition to enjoying a wide, panoramic view, horses also have what is known as ‘monocular’ vision, which means that they can use each eye independently. Cutting off some, or all, vision to the rear forces horses that are otherwise reluctant to use their ‘binocular’ vision to do so and, hence, be less distracted or intimidated by what is going on around them. Some blinkers include a small hole or slit in the back or side of the cup, so that a horse can catch a glimpse of anything moving alongside or behind and respond accordingly.

Cheek Pieces

Unlike blinkers, hood and visors, which have had to be declared, overnight, by trainers for decades, cheekpieces, a.k.a. ‘French blinkers’, are a relatively recent development. Typically, they consist of two strips of sheepskin, or similar material, attached to the cheek pieces of the bridle. They work on the same principle as blinkers, but are less restrictive in terms of limiting the field of vision.

Visor

A visor is not dissimilar to blinkers, but may have only half-cups around the eyes and have a hole or slit cut in one or both of them, to permit a limited amount of peripheral and rear vision. A visor can sometimes be a useful alternative to blinkers on horses that have a tendency to start slowly.

Hood

A hood is a garment similar to blinkers, but includes ear covers rather than eye cowls, or cups, and does the same for hearing as blinkers do for vision. The purpose of a hood is to reduce extraneous noise, which can startle anxious or nervous horses.

Not without just cause is Steve Smith-Eccles’ autobiography entitled ‘Last of the Cavaliers’ but, while the former National Hunt jockey enjoyed and, to some extent, still enjoys, highlighting the hedonistic aspects of his life, he was, nonetheless, a highly accomplished horseman. He retired in 1994 after a 23-year career during which he rode 876 winners.

Smith-Eccles began his riding career with Newmarket trainer Harry Thomson ‘Tom’ Jones and, although he never rode as an amateur, was initially listed as ‘Mr. S. Smith-Eccles’ purely because of his double-barrelled surname. In any event, he rode his first winner, Ballysilly, in a novices’ hurdle at Market Rasen, early in the 1974/75 season, but it was his association with Jones’ stable star, Tingle Creek, that really brought him to the attention of the racing public. Deputising for stable jockey Ian Watkinson, Smith-Eccles won the Sandown Pattern Chase on his first ride on the spectacular steeplechaser in 1977, breaking the two-mile course record in the process, and won the same race on him again in 1978, breaking the course record again.

By that time, Smith-Eccles had already ridden the first of his eight winners at the Cheltenham Festival, Sweet Joe, trained by Jones, in the Sun Alliance Chase. It would be eight years before he rode another but, in 1985, he replaced the injured John Francome on See You Then, trained by Nicky Henderson, and steered the five-year-old to a comfortable, 7-length success. Two further victories, on First Bout, also trained by Henderson, in the Triumph Hurdle, and Kathies Lad, trained by Alan Jarvis, in the Grand Annual Chase, were enough to make Smith-Eccles leading jockey at the Festival that year.

John Francome retired from race riding in April, 1985, so Smith-Eccles retained the ride on the fragile, ill-tempered, but undeniably talented See You Then in the Champion Hurdle in 1986 and, again, won by 7 lengths. The following year, despite missing work and being distinctly ‘undercooked’, See You Then was still sent off 11/10 favourite to become the first horse since Persian War, in 1970, to win the Champion Hurdle three years running. Smith-Eccles had to work a little harder than in previous years but, while the aptly-named Flatterer briefly flattered to deceive on the run-in, See You Then never really looked like being beaten, eventually winning by 1½ lengths.

Social Media giant, Facebook has recently announced that they started cracking down on ‘fake news’ across their platform. Other than spammy links and click-bait posts that were used to spread untrue information on Facebook, digitally edited images and videos on Instagram, Facebook’s subsidiary, have also been caught up in the crossfire. Owing to their recent spread, and how believable they appear, these digitally altered videos and images are now dubbed “deep fakes.”

To deal with the issue head-on, Instagram went ahead and updated its user policy with a new set of terms and conditions. While most of us hardly read the fine print before using these social media platforms given that they rarely affect our usage and interaction, the new terms of use could affect what you post on Instagram.

Thus, before you post your photoshoot pics or a screenshot of your juicy payouts after playing your favorite Casino Vulkan games on Facebook or Instagram, you better take a closer look at the updated user policy. Here’s a highlight of what the updated terms and conditions of use are all about, in relation to deep fakes.

Getting Ahead of the Age of Misinformation

Since the beginning of the social media age, misinformation or “fake news” as others may call it, has been one of the biggest nuisances that people have had to deal with. Subsequently, Instagram is trying to solve this problem using a new feature that can detect forged or digitally altered pictures. It is a cutting-edge system which should be able to block the said deepfakes from misleading people every time they go viral. Indeed, it is very noble of Instagram for the initiative that they have taken to get ahead of this 21st-century problem.

Collateral Damage for Social Media Artists

The new initiative is, however, affecting the work of tons of artists and photographers active on Instagram and Facebook. Nowadays, people use various software like Adobe Photoshop to fine-tune their images and artworks. Unfortunately, from how the detection system works, a lot of artwork and photography material has been detected as fake and therefore blocked from being viewed. For the moment, however, all the artists’ accounts haven’t been blocked. But, all their digitally altered images still appear to be blocked by the state-of-the-art AI software.

As a result, lots of impressionist artworks have fallen victims of circumstance. Come to think of it, even Picasso, one of the greatest impressionist artists who have ever lived, was not trying to spread false information when he transposed facial features to where they weren’t supposed to be. In short, even though these images may appear altered, it still does not mean that you don’t want to see them in your Instagram feed.

Toby Harriman, a San Francisco based photographer, pointed out the issue after he posted a photo of a man staring at a vibrant colored mountain and got blocked. Although this was a pretty amazing digitally-altered picture, it was flagged as “fake information”, and the warning that showed on the image boldly stated, “The primary claims in this information are factually inaccurate.”

The Detection System is a Combination of AI and User Feedback

On the flip side, according to the social media giant, its alleged fake news detector system claims to use both feedback from the users’ community as well technology to find out which photos should be taken to independent third-party examiners for fact-checking. If the examiners decide that a photo is fake, it will be blurred out behind a warning message before anyone can view it. This blocks the image from being seen without explicit permission from the owner, who in turn has to jump through hurdles of warnings to get to the image.

To make things worse for the users, photos that are deemed to be “fake” are wiped out from the Explore tab. On top of that, if the “fake images” are tied with a specific hashtag, they will not appear on the hashtag search results. Furthermore, posts that recreate the image will also be automatically blocked.

A Work in Progress

If only it worked correctly, without affecting artists or photographers, it would have made Instagram much more efficient at dealing with the spread of misinformation on the internet. But that can only happen if Instagram itself manages to sort the apparent glitches in the system.

After the issue, Toby Harriman posted on Facebook talking about the war on misinformation that Instagram had launched. He stated that Instagram has taken it a little bit too far, adding that he has a profound respect for digital art in as much as he’d want to differentiate real images from fake ones.

This news comes after Instagram also added various video editing tools to its Boomerang app, which, ironically, is designed to make video footages much impressionistic and less lifelike.

Several racecourses in Britain have a five-furlong course that is described as ‘one of the fastest in the country’ but, by definition, the fastest course must be the one that has covered in the fastest time. That honour goes to Epsom Downs, whose five-furlong course is downhill virtually throughout and was covered, on June 2, 2012, by Stone Of Folca, trained by John Best, in a time of 53.69 seconds.

The 4-year-old, who carried 8st 12lb to victory, averaged just shy of 42 miles per hour and beat the previous record, set by Spark Chief – another 4-year-old, but carrying just 7st 12lb – on August 30, 1983, by 0.01 seconds. That said, the fastest time ever over the five-furlong course at Epsom Downs was 53.60 seconds, recorded by Indigenous on June 2, 1960, 52 years to the day before Stone Of Folca. However, Indigenous was hand-timed and therefore considered to have been flattered, by several tenths of a second, when compared with the later, electronically-timed records.

So, Epsom Downs is officially the fastest five-furlong course in Britain, but how do the other ‘fastest’ courses compare, in terms of record times? The five-furlong course at Goodwood is, like Epsom Downs, downhill most of the way and the venue for the Group Two King George Stakes in July or early August each year. Indeed, it was in that race the Rudi’s Pet, a 5-year-old trained by the late David ‘Dandy’ Nicholls – aptly known as ‘The Sprint King’ – set the current course record, of 56.01 seconds, on July 27, 1999.

North of the border, the five-furlong course at Musselburgh is flat, with slight undulations and even a gentle rise throughout the final furlong or so, but is, nonetheless, the venue for the Scottish Sprint Cup, run in June each year. Billed as ‘Scotland’s Fastest Race’ and worth £100,000 in prize money, the Scottish Sprint Cup regularly attracts some of the fastest horses in Britain, a fact reflected by the fact that the course record, of 56.77 seconds, was set by Caspian Prince, a 9-year-old trained by Michael Appleby, as recently as June 9, 2018. Ironically, Caspian Prince has won the ‘Epsom Dash’ – the race in which Stone Of Folca set the world record for five furlongs in 2012 – three times, in 2014, 2016 and 2017, but his fastest winning time was 54.75 seconds, in 2014.

Staying in the north, in North Yorkshire in fact, Catterick is an exceedingly sharp track, with a five-furlong course that starts quite steeply downhill and continues downhill throughout. However, the most valuable race of the season, the ‘Catterick Dash’, is run in October each year, when going conditions are rarely, if ever, conducive to lightening-fast times. That may account for the fact that the course record, of 57.10 seconds, set by Kabcast, a 4-year-old trained by the late David Chapman – who made all under 9st 8lb – on July 6, 1989, still stands nearly three decades later.