Winter Sports
The Australian ski season starts today. And leaving aside the very real possibility that that I may well be a wanker for all kinds of other reasons, the point here is that I am not automatically a wanker because I choose to indulge in snow sports.
Nor are at least one million other Australians who visit our snowfields annually. Yet we’re all tarred with the same brush of the wealthy Toorak and Vaucluse minority who flit and flounce about in poncy overseas resorts like Aspen each year.
Many people don’t know that snow sports have been practised in Australia by ordinary Australians for 150 years. In 1861, a bunch of gold miners in Kiandra, NSW, formed what is widely believed to be the world’s first ski club. The above pic shows The Kiandra Snowshoe club, as they were quaintly called, at the turn of the 20th century.
The biggest donkey-licking of the weekend wasn’t in New South Wales politics. It was at Melbourne’s Moonee Valley racecourse, where unbeaten mare Black Caviar went so fast it would have outpaced Mark Webber’s Red Bull. Actually, Melbourne trams go faster than Webber’s Red Bull. Anyway, you get the point.
Horse racing doesn’t get much of a run in the sports pages outside of Melbourne’s spring carnival, but with 11 wins from 11 starts, Black Caviar is already fit to graze in Phar Lap and Makybe Diva’s paddock, and has probably even earned the right to eat the nice green grass in the shady corner. Check her performance a few weeks back in the time-honoured Newmarket Handicap. Wow. She never got out of second gear.
Ratings experts, who produce a formula which no one seriously pretends to understand, upgraded Black Caviar to 135 after that win, which is a statistical way of saying she deserves a speeding ticket. Rival trainers know this, and are now avoiding her. That’s why racing authorities offered prize money of $10,000 down to eighth place on Friday night, in a desperate attempt to attract a decent-sized field.
Continue reading "Sports wrap: The fast black horse, the great white hopes" »
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fairsfair says:
I am as surprised as you are TimB - it is only temporary - fairsfair will come crashing down at some point - just like the doggies…. I can feel an off-field scandal coming on. Read more »
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Tim says:
Lockyer has been past it the last couple of years. The only thing saving him has been the players around him allowing him to get away with mistakes. He was one of the greatest but it definitely is time for him to go. Read more »
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