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| Reports: Bills fire coaching staff The Buffalo Bills have released the team’s coaching staff, one day after completing another unsuccessful season, multiple reports stated Monday. bizjournals.com |
Claims Five: No racing? Our five-point guide to coping If life seems flat without jump racing, there's plenty of other ways to amuse yourself until we get some live actionCheer up! Yes, I know there's no racing on, what with the snow and all, but that's no reason to wander round the house, kicking the skirting boards. If life seems flat without jump racing, there's plenty of other ways to amuse yourself until we got some live action. Five ways, in fact:1) Get ready for CheltenhamHowever much you think you've been paying attention to the jumps season, the Cheltenham Festival always sneaks up on you. Before you know it, they're going down to the start for the Supreme Novice Hurdle and you haven't so much as run your eye down the entries.This year, there's no excuse for it. Take some time out now to study the form for the big races, so there's no last-minute scramble to choose which horse to bet on. Obviously, it's possible to enjoy the Festival without having a bet, or at least that's what they tell me, but I suspect that this particular assertion remains in the realm of theory for you as much as for me.You don't want to be the last one to take sides in the great Kauto v Denman debate, and then plump for Denman just because his odds are slightly bigger and there's only five minutes left to decide. Go through their form now, so you'll understand exactly why Denman really is the one to be with and you'll feel clever when he wins, instead of lucky.As you'll see here, there are well developed betting markets on 14 Festival races already, so it's not as though you don't know who the likely runners are. And you probably aren't going to get many more significant clues because hardly any of these horses are going to have more than one run before Cheltenham. Some, like Poquelin, favourite for the Ryanair Chase, will not be seen again until the big day.The great thing about betting on these races now is that you'll be full of hope for the next two months, or at least until the beast in question gets a tendon injury.There are free online form books here, here, here and here. What are you waiting for?2) Get ready for the FlatSo maybe jump racing isn't your cup of tea, or you think it's impossible to find a winner at the Festival. Fair enough, you still need entertainment when the all-weather lets you down.Your time may profitably be spent poring over the form for this year's Classics, for which the latest odds are here. Again, it's not as though you're jumping the gun, because the most important clues are probably in the public domain already, at least as far as the 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas are concerned. The trend these days is for horses to turn up at Newmarket without a prior outing. If they do have a prep run, it probably won't tell you much.Two-year-old form, race trends and pedigree are the key pieces of information you need to form a view about the first two Classics and they are all available now. Will St Nicholas Abbey be quick enough? Have we seen the best of Canford Cliffs? Can Criquette Head win the 1,000 for the fourth time? What do you mean, you don't know?3) Take pleasure in racing's historyIf, like me, you have sometimes bought copies of Chasers & Hurdlers, the enormous annual tribute to jump racing published by Timeform, well, this is your chance to actually read the damn thing. Alternatively, if your attention span won't quite stretch to that, there are masses of videos of the best races from years gone by, available on the website of the British Horseracing Authority and on YouTube.You can watch Arkle beat Mill House in the 1964 Cheltenham Gold Cup and then look back at Mill House winning the previous Gold Cup to understand how good Arkle must have been. The video will also make you thankful for modern standards of camerawork.You might also be thankful for modern standards of jockeyship after watching the 1977 Champion Hurdle.If you prefer the Flat, maybe you'll be impressed by this video of Nijinsky's Dewhurst, with narration by Orson Welles. Here you can watch Lester leaving it too late to make his challenge on the same horse in the Arc de Triomphe. If Paul Carberry had been on board, maybe he'd have said Nijinsky was ungenuine.Last year, many of you were impressed by Sea The Stars's victory in Paris, but if you want to see how a real horse wins the Arc, look no further than this ancient bit of tape. An ancient bit of tape is what they appear to have used to start the Derby in 1934. What a pity they didn't have in-running betting in those days.Just a few years later, Seabiscuit took on War Admiral in a match at Pimlico, near Baltimore. How funny that you can watch that race in full online but you can't see Denman's Gold Cup win from two years ago. Which brings me neatly to ...4) Do your bit for Racing For ChangeYou may have noticed a rather feeble list of initiatives announced this week by Racing For Change, following months of work, umpteen hours of committee discussion and the expenditure of a large sum of money. The idea was to come up with ways of improving the sport's popularity and we are told the good work continues, behind the scenes, which is just as well because the 10 ideas put forth don't amount to much of anything.The powers that be have not asked for your views and, for all I know, they may not welcome any input from the man on the Clapham omnibus. Still, it seems to me that they could do with your help because their own efforts seem somewhat lacking in inspiration.Never mind lobbing a few coins into some collector's bucket. Your charitable act this month should be to sit down and work out how racing can be improved. Answers on a postcard, please, to: 'Racing For Change', Racing Enterprises Ltd, 75 High Holborn, London WC1V 6LSIf you can't think of anything, feel free to borrow my hobby horse and tell them how idiotic it is that, while they flounder around looking for ways to promote the sport, it remains impossible to find a video anywhere online of Denman beating Kauto Star in the 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup. In just two months, we're all hoping that the rematch will provide one of the great races of all time. What's wrong with whetting people's appetites by showing them what happened the first time?5) There's more to life than horse racing, apparentlyAfter the Super Bowl each year, a journalist called Greg Easterbrook urges fans of American football to spend the next seven months sorting out their lives and becoming better people. That way, when the NFL season rolls around again in September, they'll be ready to give it their full attention.For fans of horse racing in Britain, there is no off-season, unless you count Good Friday or three days every Christmas. It's always there with its daily challenge of maidens and handicaps, chasers and hurdlers, a never-ending game of "guess who's fastest". As any punter who's ever been flush enough to take a holiday will tell you, you dare not stop paying attention, because then that horse you've been following for months will win at 33-1 while your back's turned.So make the most of this intermission. Read that book. Redecorate that room. Take the kids ice-skating. Get a poker habit. If it achieves nothing else, it should at least show you how boring are the things that other people do instead of betting on horses.Horse racingChris Cookguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Michael Essien ruled out of African Cup of Nations Michael Essien will miss the remainder of the Africa Cup of Nations after suffering a knee injury in training. feeds.timesonline.co.uk |
City, Paulson finalize PGE Park deal The city and Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson have reached a deal to renovate PGE Park in order to accommodate a Major League Soccer team. The deal will go to City Council next Wednesday. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Ospreys charged over fielding 16 players • Club and full-back Lee Byrne to face charges on Friday• Leicester lodged official complaint with European Rugby CupThe organisers of the Heineken Cup today charged the Ospreys, and their Wales full-back, Lee Byrne, with misconduct after Leicester complained that the Welsh regions had 16 players on the field for some 50 seconds during the match between the sides in Swansea last Saturday.Roger O'Connor, European Rugby Cup Ltd's disciplinary officer, filed the charge after spending two days gathering evidence from the two sides and the match officials on duty at the Liberty Stadium. He also viewed video footage of the incident which happened in the last quarter when the Ospreys were leading by five points.A three-man disciplinary panel will hear the case in Dublin on Friday.Leicester have asked for the match to be replayed, arguing that Byrne prevented a potential try from being scored by getting in the way of their scrum-half, Ben Youngs.England were fined for having an extra man on the field during their 2003 World Cup match against Samoa, but a misconduct charge carries an open-ended list of sanctions. It is what Harlequins and four individuals, including Dean Richards and Tom Williams, were hit with after the fake blood substitution in their Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster last April and Quins faced being thrown out of the tournament.Wales will wait for the outcome with concern. If Byrne is banned, he faces missing the opening Six Nations match against England at Twickenham.OspreysLeicester TigersRugby unionPaul Reesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |