Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

"Yet, the same horses seemed to do that Horse Diving 3 or 4 times per day with no apparent reluctance."


Before I comment further, can I just ask what you are basing this comment on?

I didn't see any footage of the same horses 'diving' from 60ft 3 or 4 times per day with no apparent reluctance.

I did see one horse 'diving' from ~ 10ft once, and it was too far away to see if it was reluctant or not.

Only the body of evidence I saw when I looked it up Tom.


"The horses sometimes dove four times a day, seven days a week"

If you look at the photo, the horse has to get up to the diving board via a long walkway. I know nothing of horses, but I've seen stalls handlers trying to get a reluctant racehorse into the starting stalls at a race, sometimes 6 or 7 burly blokes can't force the horse to move forward into the stalls if the horse decides "not today lads". So I don't know how they got a horse to walk up that lengthy gangway, if it did not fancy it, surely it would dig it's heels in? Hence "no apparent reluctance". Maybe they used electric probes or whatever, but I saw no evidence of it.

I'm like you, & any decent person, I'm repulsed by the whole thing. Not to say it did not strike me as interesting though, in a car crash sort of way.

[Marky147]

https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/thomas-cook-woes-deepen-payment-firm-holds-onto-132300742.html

Obviously not good, but how bad is this for them?

[booder]

Yahoo ?   Didn't realise that was still a thing. Bet you still have a hotmail account Marky.

[Marky147]

Yahoo ?   Didn't realise that was still a thing. Bet you still have a hotmail account Marky.

Ha! I've only got one for all my slots accounts.

Keep all the promo/offers stuff away from my gmail

[tikay]

Saw this on Twitter, from @stevenashphotos, who provides a lot of greyhound racing photos to the Racing Post.

This was taken at Great Yarmouth, & was headlined.....



Split second away from capturing all 24 paws being off the ground



I suppose it can't be that difficult to get a photo with all 24 paws off the ground, but a pretty impressive photo all the same.

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

You probably saw the story of the Model Railway Exhibition in Stamford, Lincolnshire, which was trashed by 4 kids overnight. No financial gain to the kids, who presumably get their kicks just by being mean. Can't help but wonder what sort of upbringing they had.

Many of the exhibits were hand-made & the result of a lifetime's work by their owners. They are irreplaceable.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-48326572

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

 

[tikay]

^^^^^

Well Giles Coren, (Victoria's errant bro) Tweeted this. Excuse the language, but he does make me laugh with his little outbursts.




"The little *unts should be tied to a real train track and ridden over by ancient steam locomotives until there is nothing left of them but 40 pints of shit flavoured jam."

[booder]

So pointless.Heartbreaking.

[RED-DOG]

"Yet, the same horses seemed to do that Horse Diving 3 or 4 times per day with no apparent reluctance."


Before I comment further, can I just ask what you are basing this comment on?

I didn't see any footage of the same horses 'diving' from 60ft 3 or 4 times per day with no apparent reluctance.

I did see one horse 'diving' from ~ 10ft once, and it was too far away to see if it was reluctant or not.

Only the body of evidence I saw when I looked it up Tom.


"The horses sometimes dove four times a day, seven days a week"

If you look at the photo, the horse has to get up to the diving board via a long walkway. I know nothing of horses, but I've seen stalls handlers trying to get a reluctant racehorse into the starting stalls at a race, sometimes 6 or 7 burly blokes can't force the horse to move forward into the stalls if the horse decides "not today lads". So I don't know how they got a horse to walk up that lengthy gangway, if it did not fancy it, surely it would dig it's heels in? Hence "no apparent reluctance". Maybe they used electric probes or whatever, but I saw no evidence of it.

I'm like you, & any decent person, I'm repulsed by the whole thing. Not to say it did not strike me as interesting though, in a car crash sort of way.

Yeah.. Sorry if my tone was a bit accusatory, I just baulked at the "No apparent reluctance" bit.

Bears show no apparent reluctance to dance in chains, pit bull terriers show no apparent reluctance to rip each other to shreds...

Anyway, sorry again. More thoughts on horse diving soon...

[tikay]

No probs Tom, & I'd be keen to hear more about Horse Diving, I did get the impression I had inadvertently touched a nerve, & I know how famously grumpy you can be some days. To be fair, I have a hunch you may know a tad more than I do about horses.

I just found the whole thing extraordinary, & I'm very surprised it still goes on, albeit from lower heights.

I'm not too demonstrative by nature, but I'd certainly baulk at the notion of paying to watch that sort of thing.

[RED-DOG]

Horse diving.

Lets take the 'racehorses into stalls' analogy. I have absolutely no experience of getting racehorses into stalls, but I do have a great deal of experience of getting horses to do things that they are unwilling or frightened to do.

It's very common to find a horse that doesn't want to go into a horse box for instance and before you can overcome the problem you have to find out why it doesn't want to go in.

The main reasons are fear or stubbornness.

Stubbornness is usually easy to spot, no eye rolling, ear swivelling, front feet dancing or sweaty panic stance, just a fairly calm, front feet planted, weight on haunches, "I'm not going and you can't make me" type of stance.

The stubborn refusal to go into a box is reasonably easy to overcome, either by
A- Coaxing with treats.
B- Cruelty.
C- Trumping their stubbornness with your own fiendishly stubborn stubbornness.

I'm not a big fan of the treats method, its just not reliable enough. It works fine, but the horse soon realises that if he drags his feet a bit he will get more treats, and eventually the day will come when you want to box the horse unexpectedly and you have no treats available... Believe me, a spoiled sulking child can't hold a candle to a spoiled sulking horse.

The Cruelty method works, after a fashion, but I'm not a fan of that either.

Many years ago I knew a man who bought a beautiful 5yo bay mare. She was ~13.5hh, sweet-natured and very willing. Her problem was, she wouldn't 'box'.

"I soon cured her" He told us. "I took her behind the hedge and laid into her with the hames, put lumps like duck eggs on her I did, now I only has to rattle a bit o chain behind her and she would go forward into Hell itself if she had to."

It was true. Ever after that the bay mare would bolt forward, into a box or anywhere else, to escape the fear of another beating with the hames. The trouble was, an accidental chain rattle would also make her liable to bolt. His cruelty turned a perfectly reliable little mare into a liability.

For those who don't know, hames are the pieces of curved iron or wood that are used to attach a horse-collar to the traces. One side usually has a length of chain attached. Stockmen, Gypsies and farmers etc usually kept this side by the bed at night to deter prowlers.

Many a fireside story has finished with something like, "Sure I gave him a little rap wid da, hames and he decided to leave us alone."

Click to see full-size image.

Next, I'll talk about my favourite method, the 'Who is more stubborn' method. (Although I like to think of it as who has more patience)

[RED-DOG]

Then again, perhaps not. Lol.

[tikay]

Then again, perhaps not. Lol.

Outrageous.

I was enjoying that. 

[booder]

 

[tikay]

 
We don't do politics on this Diary, but this outbreak of milk-shake throwing is not good, & whilst I have no time at all for Farage, I don't think chucking milkshakes at him or any other prominent Politician is a good thing at all. Gawd knows where it will all end. It'll be Mrs May or Boris next, & that's hardly the right way to oil the wheels of sensible debate. 

Having said that, it does give the newspapers an opportunity to indulge in their favourite hobby of punnage. I'm not sure what it is about puns, they are very Ryanair, we all pretend to despise them, but really we like them.

Today's headlines include;

Shaken, but not deterred.

Shaken & stirred

Politics is not all milk & honey.

Brexit Party shake-down.

Click to see full-size image.