Current Affairs

SPITTING IN AUSTRALIAN’S EYES

The daily list of atrocities from the Religion of Peace (pieces) continues to mount.

Now, we have some 40 young Australian Muslim women ‘rushing to the colours,’ to join the odious Da’ish. (You would not dignify these scumbags with the word State because the first duty of a State is to protect its citizens, not murder and brutalise them.) Another 140 are known to be active supporters.

Since its inception, in the 7^th century, Islam has been responsible for the death of at least 240 million people. To put that in perspective World War II, with modern weaponry, had a death toll of 60million; the Black Death caused the death of 50 million people in the mid  14^th century (about 60per cent of the world’s population); and the various communist regimes of the 20^th century account for 100 million deaths.

 Thus the followers of Islam have been the greatest of killers.

Da’ish follows the Islamic pattern of murder, rape,slavery, brutality, mayhem and utter intolerance towards others perfectly.

Sexual assault on primary school girls and training boys of the same age to be murderers is the Da’ish legacy.

The usual defence, by Muslims, is that these peoples are extremists and not representative of Muslims generally.

However, press these ‘moderates’ more closely and you see classical obfuscation at work.

At a recent public meeting in the suburbs of Perth, a Muslim cleric started by asking whether there were “any terrorists in the audience,” or whether there were “any present that eat Christian babies?”

Given that the Vatican is claiming that 100,000 Christians are being martyred each year for their faith the remarks by this individual were particularly offensive.

He did not need to apologise personally for these atrocities but he could not even bring himself to concede that there was a problem in the House of Islam in the way they treated others where Muslims are in the majority.

Instead, according to him, the media was responsible and then he asked what about the Allied bombing of Dresden? Well what about it?

Many people would agree that the Bombing of Dresden, on 13th February 1945 was a war crime and totally unnecessary. The European phase of the Second World War would finish on the 8th May, so was it really necessary to bomb the old German medieval city into a huge fireball  and ultimate ruin? (Answer: No)

But, what that had to do with today’s continued Muslim atrocities would only been known to him. Unlike Westerners, who critically analyse faults in their respective countries histories, there are never concessions, by Muslims, that aspects of their history were brutal and depraved.

 Perhaps this Muslim cleric should take up cricket because his sophistry in the art of deflection would surely equal that of great Ranji, the consummate Indian batsman, and the finest practitioner of the leg glance, in another more edifying arena and era.

This Imam, in his long rambling replies to questions also talked about the Ottoman Empire. You know the one that butchered over 1.5 million Christian Armenians during 1915-1922. Turkey still denies that such genocide happened but the only ‘infidel’ that believes the Turks denials is Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop!

Apparently not all turkeys are in Turkey.

So this is the problem we are confronted with in the West: it is never the fault of Muslims. The media, the greedy West wanting oil, the exploitive foreign policy of the Great Satan, America, and the Zionist plotters are all the real culprits.

In fact, the last words of that mad dog, Monis, in the Lindt Café, Sydney,( before the NSW police put some bullets in his head, after he had murdered the café manager), sum up the Muslim attitude, “look what you made me do.”

Muslims are never to blame.

 Just ask them.

 Horse Racing

POP CULTURE IN VICTORIA FOR FINAL CAMPAIGN 

Quality mare Pop Culture will finish her racing career in Victoria and will then be sold as a broodmare.

Breeder and part- owner Russell Clarke confirmed that the Blackfriars mare will have a final campaign for Mornington trainer Rob Blacker whose stable she has been in for the last six weeks.

Following her Victorian racing she will be sent to Queensland for the national broodmare sale from May 25-29.

If the mare does not meet her sale price there Clarke said she would return to Perth probably in foal.

Pop Culture, was previously trained by Colin Webster, and had 10 wins, four seconds and one third in her 37 WA starts. She also ran fourth in a Perth Cup and earned a career total of $642,675 in prize money.

Her wins included a WA Oaks, St Leger, two Ascot Gold Cups, and a Detonator Stakes for regular rider Troy Turner who rode her in all her victories.

Clarke, and his wife, Laura, currently have three more youngsters being prepared for racing, including a full sister to Pop Culture who should be with Webster in about six weeks.

Horse Racing

A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

Promising galloper She’s A Virtue won her fifth race from six starts providing  apprentice jockey, Jordan Turner, with  his first Saturday victory. Turner then turned it into a double with a win on Travinator.

Before today the son of senior jockey Troy Turner had ridden 18 winners this season on provincial and country tracks.

Trainer Vaughn Sigley said he was impressed with Turner’s performance. ‘He did everything right and followed instructions,” the trainer said after the Gong Xi Fa Cai Handicap (1200m).

Turner was content to throttle back after jumping to the lead at the start, letting Inok take up his customary role as leader before taking over in the home straight and comfortably accounting for Shooey and Our Brucie Bonus.

She’s A Virtue has certainly lived up to her name. Beaten by only a nose at her first start at Pinjarra, on December 14, the four year mare has won effortlessly at five subsequent starts with three quarters of a length being the closest margin the opposition has got to her.

Certainly Vaughn Sigley is proving to be a virtuoso as a trainer too with a winners -to-runners ratio of 23 per cent. Sigley has won quality victories with Black Heart Bart, Dawn Approach and He Or She as well as this latest rising star. 

Turner also provided trainer Daniel Pearce with a double victory, when Travinator, in the centre won in a tight three horse from Du Printemps (rails) and Flytego (outside), in the seventh race (1000m).

Turner ‘outpiked’ the champion rider, William Pike, on Du Printemps, as the photo showed the apprentice at full stretch, and virtually in a  horizontal  position, to get his horse to stretch out for victory.

It was an emotional win for Pearce who had won the first race with Pushin’ Shapes (Alan Kennedy).

“We have persevered with him because we love him so much and he showed today he still has what it takes. Jordan went forward with him into third place early and didn’t panic.”

Travinator had gone 308 days without a win and the former boom galloper has often been the despair of his trainer. “He’s certainly had fitness problems and it has been a long ride with him,” Pearce said.

Although a six year old Travinator has had only 17 starts for an impressive nine wins.

Trainer Neville Parnham also completed a double with Binky Toy, ridden by his oldest son, Steven, and Right Honourable (Jake Casey).

Parnham paid tribute to Casey and Shelby Bowtell for working hard for his stable with both apprentices being rewarded with victories in recent weeks.

Right Honourable with Casey claiming 3kg carried a featherweight of 51.5kg and was never headed. This was a key factor according to the trainer.

The galloper is owned by Parnham’s mother, Joan, and races in the original family colours of yellow with maroon crossed sashes and cap.

Like Travinator it was a ninth win for the seven year gelding –but in 46 starts not 17.

Current Affairs

RACING UNDER THREAT BY THE NEW PURITANS

One overheated facebook writer said that as greyhounds led “a life of slavery and servitude the whole industry should be shut down.”

That knee-jerk response is what passes for considered debate in the furore created by hidden film exposing greyhound trainers being cruel to small animals used as prey.  

Racing, including Greyhounds and the other two codes, Thoroughbred and Harness Racing, employs a quarter of a million people and is Australia’s third largest industry.

All three codes have been attacked by political and social zealots and no doubt will be again in the future.

After the 2014 Melbourne Cup, in which Admire Rakti subsequently died of a heart attack, Senator Scott Ludlum (Greens WA) tweeted: ‘We raced another horse to death. Hope there’s plenty of champagne.’ That gratuitous remark saw him labelled ‘a right tweet’ by the Executive Officer of the WA Racehorse Owners Association, Darren McAullay, also Perth Racing’s premier caller over the last 15 years.

Writing in Winners Circle (Summer 2014) McAullay asked whether Ludlum was serious in making that sort of remark.

Unfortunately the senator was serious, not that he should be taken seriously. In fact every time a horse or dog dies in racing there is this sort of outcry from those who have never thrown a leg over a horse’s back or trained a canine.

Animals, both active and inactive, do die of heart attacks, accidents and other causes –just like humans.

There would be no racing, show jumping, dressage and eventing sports if it was up to these new Cromwellians. The flow-on effect would see many of these animals end up as pet meat.

Why not ban Christmas festivities too, as Oliver Cromwell, and the Puritans in the English Parliament, in the 1650s did? That way we would save thousands of chooks, ducks and turkeys and we wouldn’t offend the two per cent of our population who are Muslim!

Greyhounds and racehorses simply enjoy running and they cannot be forced to do anything if they are opposed to the task. In 1980 this writer found that out when I took my grey show jumper, Dillinger, to Vern Brockman’s equine swimming pool. ‘Dilly’ simply refused to take the plunge and all the cajoling in the world made no difference and nor would any brutal treatment have changed his mind. You can take a horse to the water but you cannot make it drink or swim!

Certainly in the light of current revelations of cruelty in the greyhound Industry there has to be a tougher approach to policing greyhound racing in the Eastern States to ensure the revolting practice of ‘blooding,’ (where greyhounds are allowed to rip into live piglets, possums and rabbits, tied on a lure), is eradicated. Severe legal and industry penalties, with ensuing media publicity, would help in the process.

Zero tolerance in this area would work because it has overwhelming community support and clearly more rigorous policing is also desired.

It should not however result in the closure of greyhound racing because that is an overreaction.

Carlos Martins, the Chief Greyhound Steward in WA, is the longest ‘chief stipe’ in the nation. Early in his career the ex-Zimbabwean acted promptly to close down the sort of activity bedevilling the sport in the Eastern States.

In 1990, Martins carried out surveillance on the Bushmead track, and acting in concert with WA police, got the same sort of result that the ABC Four Corners team achieved, recently.

Some thought, at the time, he was too tough and that he should have warned the offenders off by informing them that they were being watched. That is as mad a suggestion as the police should tip off drug dealers before a raid!

Martins tough approach has paid off in WA and it is time the Eastern States stewards followed suit. They have been left with egg on their faces and one integrity officer is patently corrupt and a disgrace to his former office.

However, people who wish to ban things, because they do not approve of them, should look at what harm that can do to a situation.  

The US was a prime example of that when Prohibition became the law of the land (1920-33) and that policy has since been deemed by historians as an abject failure. It failed because vast numbers of people did not support government policy on what was seen as draconian social control that had been imposed on them by a highly active ‘wowser’ element.

The lessons of history are clear: not only does it not work, that is, people do not stop imbibing, but more importantly it creates greater evils in society such as the rise of crime and gangsters caused by the demands for an illegal booze industry.

Unfortunately the new, so-called, social media has spawned a veritable wave of characters like Wayne Bidwell Wheeler (1869-1927). His zealotry, in helping to make America ‘dry’ for 13 years,  is matched by those extreme animal rights activists of today that see evil everywhere when it comes to racing animals.

Those who challenge the new purists are deemed to be lacking in compassion and out of touch. If it all sounds familiar the same tactics are used by the homosexual lobby, Islamic fundamentalists, and other strident minorities. These groups use nonsensical words like homophobia, Islamophobia, etc in an attempt to belittle and close down debate and commentary from those who hold alternate, traditional views.

Just like the Prohibition era, if any, or all, racing codes were banned then illegal meetings would be held with no control by stewards or vets and animal exploitation would be far worse.

Emotive words, by various ‘Facebookers and Twitterers,’ that the greyhound industry is ‘unlawful and inhumane,’ are patently absurd and belong in the fantasy world of Scott Ludlum.

 The racing codes are both lawful and conducted ethically to ensure animals are fit to run but reality loses out to the critics ‘feelings.’ These feelings assume primary importance in their manic desire to ban a whole industry and consign people to the unemployment scrapheap.

In contrast to critics cheap talk, the rogue elements, rightly exposed by Four Corners, are in the process of being dealt with, their careers finished and whatever reputation they had in tatters.

Horse Racing

PIKE TIMING AGAIN ON SHOW 

“What is wrong with William Pike?”  was a question one punter asked after the second race.

When asked to explain what he meant by that comment the impish reply was that Pike had not ridden a winner at that stage!

The words spoken in jest were all premature.

In both the Magic Millions 3YO Trophy (1200m) on Red Ora, and the following race, the Challenge Stakes (1500m), on Neverland, the champion rider managed his customary double, seemingly common place.

Red Ora has now won all five of his starts and passed his biggest test with flying colours, finishing too powerfully for Fire Born and Rommel.

The result was a great one for Mt Barker breeder Gray Williamson who is one of the owners of the first two horses.

Trainer Dan Morton said that he was worried about his rising star's position on the turn.

“He needed to get out from the fence and when he did he got over them,” Morton said.

Pike confessed that he was “absolutely worried,” at that stage but could not resist the quip, “one day he will really win something when he matures.” Red Ora was sixth on the turn before being extricated by his jockey for a succesful dash at the leaders.

Pike is not the only one enjoying a great ride on Red Ora as the horse has a legion of owners and followers with connections to the Leavers class of 1975 at Aquinas College. More than a few of them were sporting bright red jackets with Red Ora caps.

Many of them are first time owners and as Gray Williamson said, “Red Ora was supposed to be a fun horse around which the group would go to tracks like Albany and Geraldton to have social functions. They are now complaining that they haven’t got further than Ascot!”

Morton said the son of Due Sasso would now be heading for a spell.

Pike’s double came in a stirring finish to the Challenge Stakes when he landed the Grant Williams trained Neverland a narrow winner over Palace Intruder (Joseph Azzopardi). The winners stablemate, Delicacy (Peter Hall), was also in the tight battle, finishing third.

Pike was pushed out on the home turn by Azzopardi but nevertheless he kept Neverland balanced for the run home. Hall looked set to win on Delicacy, when he  skipped his charge clear in the home straight, but he was caught by the other pair right on the post.

Neverland is not a robust filly and Williams, and owners Bob and Sandra Peters, have not pushed her in her races.

 By the Kentucky Derby winner, Big Brown, she remains undefeated after three races.