Burrough Hill Lad

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Owned by Stan Riley and trained by Jenny Pitman, in Lambourn, Berkshire, Burrough Hill Lad is probably best remembered for winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1984 with all the enthusiasm of a successful www.usrealmoney-casinos.com gambler. However, despite a career blighted by injury – he was a late withdrawal from the Cheltenham Gold in 1985 and 1986, when ante-post favourite – the Richboy gelding won seventeen of his twenty-seven steeplechases and nearly £200,000 in prize money. Indeed, Burrough Hill Lad was awarded a Timeform Annual Rating of 184, placing him co-eighth, alongside Moscow Flyer and Long Run, in the list of highest-rated steeplechasers since the early Sixties.

Named after Burrough-on-the-Hill, near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, where his owner was born and raised, Burrough Hill Lad first rose to prominence when winning the Grade One Mildmay Novices’ Chase at Aintree, as a six-year-old, in April, 1982. In December, 1983, despite being ridden at 3lb overweight by John Francome, he won the Welsh National at Chepstow in impressive fashion. Further success, under Francome, in the Anthony Mildmay, Peter Cazalet Memorial Chase and the Gainsborough Chase, both at Sandown, confirmed his status as a bona fide contender for the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

However, in the Cheltenham Gold Cup itself, Francome was retained to ride Brown Chamberlin, owned by Sheikh Ali Abu Khamsin and trained by Fred Winter, so Burrough Hill Lad was reunited with his former jockey Phil Tuck, or as the French might put it meilleur casino en ligne francais. Nevertheless, Burrough Hill Lad beat Brown Chamberlin by three lengths, making Jenny Pitman the first woman to train the winner of the ‘Blue Riband’ event.

The following autumn, Burrough Hill Lad returned to action in the form of his life. He beat Wayward Lad by ten lengths in the Grade Two Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby and Canny Danny, who was receiving 21lb, by four lengths in the Hennessy Gold Cup – now the Ladbrokes Trophy – at Newbury, before scraping home by a short head from Combs Ditch in the King George VI at Kempton. Burrough Hill Lad won the Gainsborough Chase at Sandown twice more, in 1985 and 1986, but never ran in the Cheltenham Gold Cup again.

Generous

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Owned by Prince Fahd Salman, in whose distinctive dark green silks he raced, and trained by Paul Cole at Whatcombe Estate, on the Berkshire Downs, Generous is best remembered for winning the Derby at Epsom in 1991. However, the son of Caerleon won six of his eleven races between 1990 and 1991 and over £1.1 million in total prize money; he was awarded a Timeform Annual Rating of 139, placing him co-fourteenth on the all-time list, alongside Arrogate, Pappa Fourway and Reference Point.

Generous won three of his six starts as a juvenile, like someone with beginners luck on usa casino online, most notably when springing a 50/1 surprise in the Group One Dewhurst Stakes, over seven furlongs, at Newmarket in October, 1990. After an interrupted preparation, due to a self-inflicted overreach injury, Generous reappeared in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, without a preparatory race. Sent off at 11/1 joint-fourth choice in the betting market, Generous was outpaced just after halfway, but stayed on well in the closing stages to finish fourth, a respectful eight-and-a-half lengths behind the winner, Mystiko.

Generous was immediately stepped up to a mile-and-a-half, in the Derby at Epsom, and his regular partner Richard Quinn was replaced, at the insistence of Fahd Salman, by Alan Munro. At Epsom, Generous showed vastly improved form, demonstrating the old adage ‘fourth in the Guineas, first in the Derby’ by spreadeagling the field, which again included Mystiko, to win by five lengths and seven lengths at odds of 9/1.

Less than a month later, Generous headed to the Curragh for the Irish Derby, in which he made short work of the Prix du Jockey Club-winner Suave Dancer, taking the lead a mile from home and running on well to win by three lengths, with the confidence of someone winning big on real money online poker. Consequently, back on home soil, for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot a month later, he was sent off at odds-on for his first attempt against his elders. He justified favouritism with consummate ease, quickening clear in the closing stages to beat the dual Group One-winning four-year-old Sanglamore by a record seven lengths. Generous’ racing career ended on a low note, when pulling too hard for his own good and finishing well beaten in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, but his earlier exploits made him British Horse of the Year for 1991.

All-Weather Racing

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Nowadays, so-called all-weather racing – that is, horse racing on synthetic surfaces – is an everyday occurrence in Britain. However, younger more online geered readers clambering to play best online slots, may not realise that just over three decades ago racecourses such as Kempton, Lingfield, Newcastle, Southwell, and Wolverhampton raced exclusively on turf and Chelmsford City did not even exist.

All-weather racing in Britain was first mooted following the very cold, snowy winter of 1984/85, which led to the abandonment of dozens of National Hunt fixtures. However, it was not until four or five years later that first Lingfield, and then Southwell, were granted permission to install synthetic surfaces. Lingfield opted for Equitrack – graded sand particles encapsulated in a mixture of oil and polymers – on the inside of the existing turf track, while Southwell opted for Fibresand – a deeper, slower surface, composed of sand particles and polypropylene fibres – on the outside.

Lingfield staged its first all-weather fixture on October 30, 1989 and was followed by Southwell, just nine days later. Four years later, in 1993, Wolverhampton went a stage further by completely replacing its turf course with Fibresand. Two years later still, in 1995, Dunstall Park was also the venue for the first Listed race run on a synthetic surface in Britain, the Wulfrun Stakes.

The twenty-first century brought many changes to the all-weather landscape, much in the same way that kiwicasinos casino online changed the casino landscape. In 2001, Lingfield switched to Polytrack – a more advanced, wax-coated mixture of sand, recycled synthetic fibres and recycled rubber – and, in 2004, Wolverhampton followed suit. The first Pattern race run on the all-weather, the Group Three Silver Trophy Stakes, was staged at Lingfield in the summer of 2005. The following spring, Kempton joined the all-weather roster and would be joined, albeit briefly, by the ill-fated Great Leighs – which would be resurrected, as Chelmsford City, seven years later – in 2008.

The inaugural All-Weather Championships, culminating in All-Weather Championships Finals Day, worth £1 million in prize money, at Lingfield on Good Friday commenced in October, 2013, and continues to go from strength to strength. In 2014, Wolverhampton switched again, to Tapeta – effectively an advanced, more forgiving version of Polytrack – and, in 2016, Newcastle also hosted its first fixture on a new Tapeta track.