Whose buying the drinks and whose frying the horse burgers.

Remember the days as a kid when pa would give you all a 5 or 10p bet on a horse and you would watch with great expectations and laugh or commiserate when your brother or sisters horse fell and how gutted you were when yours tumbled. Or how excited to get 1s 6d for your horse getting placed. Simple pleasures.

Wondering as a kid what the green tent was for! 4 so far this year. Agh but they died doing what they loved. Becoming a bit of a bloodsport...

I do not like the grand national at all and never have.
Its all about Gambling and the money.
Many horses get badly injured and some get put to sleep.
Its cruel.

All horses were ok this year.

2 horses died on the first day of the meeting & that was after they finished the race.Anyway I had last samuri I had to have that one & my son got 3rd.

I had last samuri placed as well. The rest of the nags ran the other way

Mrs Exco. was too late to place her annual bet. Just as well too. It went down at the second, saving her £10.

I never gamble. It does nothing for me at all, and it's a trivial piece of mathematics to prove all gamblers are losers. The only winners are the bookies.

I only do 50p each way,& it's only the nationalI have a bet on but find it's anyones race

As cruel as fox hunting,just for human entertainment. Animals die for this entertainment,how can that be right ?

I bet about three times a year, the rest of the time I don't gamble - I do risk free betting.

You don't have to gamble to take money from the bookies and it pleases me no end that many people are causing the bookies no end of problems.

Most of the big bookmakers lost loads at the Cheltenham festival this year, they call it abuse, I call it retribution.

I remember as a nipper having a sixpence each way bet on a
outsider named Oxo. I forget if it won or placed and I was
over the moon. Funny how some things stay with you forever!

Was that a 'shiny sixpence' Snowshoes ? Many people referred to a sixpence as a 'shiny sixpence' , do you remember that ?

We could do a lot with a sixpence. A bag of chips, a swap for a tooth, (tooth fairy), 6d block of Cadbury's Dairy Milk or 2 x 3d blocks or 6 x 1d ones, 2 x bags of Golden Wonder Crips, or 2d change on a bag of Smith's crisps, a bottle of Coca-Cola, and 2 loose cigarettes (Park Drive).

For those who don't know ,work it out.
2 x 6d = 12d = 1 shilling = today's 5p.

No fatalities yesterday, which is pleasing to know.

I got a Saturday tanner ( six penny piece ), equal of course to two thrupenny bits.

...and halfpennies. 4 halfpennies to a 1 penny. What could we buy with one of those ?

We could probably have backed 'Foinavon' .

Correction to 12p = 1 shilling.. 1 shilling = todays 10p (before Chris gives me a ticking off !

Two half pennies to a penny Granny, four farthings to a penny.

Good Lord, getting muddled beyond belief. Yes, Lud, thanks for the update.

A half crown felt like a £50 note does these days.

Carpets and a few other things were always sold in guineas (21/-) which was also useful in betting odds.

Talking of money reminds me of times long gone by
when playing in those 2 big spaces on the prom by
Portland Court (maybe what you call The Dips now).
I came across which to me was alot of money lying
on the grass, no notes just half crowns, 2 bob pieces,
shillings etc. Took it all home and my Mum and Dad
said I must turn it in police, which I did. After
1 month nobody had claimed it so I was the owner.
Good times.

Oops, just realised, gone way off topic. Apologies

I remember when I was a young boy, my mum would send me down to the local corner shop with £1. I'd stagger back with a bag loaded with shopping. You can't do that nowadays, too many security cameras.

Agree with you Snowy and Dilly - maybe not the worse kind of animal cruelty, but its unecessary cruelty that can lose lives.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...ar-after-mid-race-injuries-a6976496.html

Even though my Dad was a horse racing devotee , (and like Snowshoes I remember as a kid winning a tanner or so on OXO winning one year) -- as soon as I was living away from home I began to realize how unecessarily cruel it could be. Its just the overly risky fences I object to ,and I think whips should be banned entirely .I saw the end of the race on a news flash, and obviously exhausted horses were still under whip pressure right up to the end. Wrong. Very wrong.

The rules on the use of whips is very strict and its not all bad. It is compulsory for a jockey to carry a whip and this is partly on grounds of safety.

A lot of whip use these days is against the jockey's boot not the horse. The whip is an energy absorbing device and only allowed to be used back hand and a maximum of 8 times over the sticks.

If they want to reduce the number of occasions the whip is used then perhaps deduct a second for every time the whip is used.

Its funny that the Grand National is the only horse race that many people go out the way to see and yet it is one of the most dangerous races, yet these same people decry the "cruelty" of the race. Why don't they choose a safer race to watch?

Before I get shot down - I haven't stated my opinion on whips nor horse racing.

O.K. Granny, here I come: 1 shilling (1/-) = today's 5p.

12d. = 1 shilling = 5p

In case you thought racehorses only get killed in the Grand National or only at Aintree, it's not the case at all.
100s of thoroughbred horses die every year.

Have a look here (you might be shocked):

Click me

A death rate of about 0.1% per year, probably less than the number that die from injuries in the wild?

Chris and DD,

That's what I said first time. What went horribly wrong ? Lud and his thrupenny bit...I suspect.