There was a bit of a fracas this week with Victorian Racing expressing its unhappiness with the proposed timing of Sydney’s new Golden Eagle horse race.
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The Golden Eagle will just pip the Melbourne Cup for prize-money ($7.5 million as against the Cup’s $7.3m) and is set for the Saturday before the Cup. In other words, it will sit squarely in the middle of Melbourne’s spring carnival.
The Victorians are arguing that such timing is disrespectful of the heritage of the Melbourne Cup and that such competition is extremely unhealthy for the sport as a whole.
And they do, I believe, have a point.
Is this a case of the old Sydney-Melbourne rivalry working as a negative factor in a sporting area when they should ideally be working towards promoting for mutual benefit?
As many have noted, competition is not necessarily a bad thing, but is choosing such a prestigious date more akin to interstate sabotage?
TIGER TIME
Tiger Woods was in Melbourne this week promoting next December’s President’s Cup golf tournament at Royal Melbourne.
The timing should be fortuitous for Australian golf given that the week preceding the President’s Cup belongs to the Australian Open, meaning the world’s best should, theoretically, be available for both events.
The problem arises because Tiger Woods, at this stage, is planning to host his annual ‘Hero’ tournament in the Bahamas in the same week as the Australian Open.
Surely it would be better for ‘golf’ if the various organisations running these events could co-ordinate somewhat in order to make the top players being able to play in these tournaments a logistical possibility.
It’s a lot like the aforementioned NSW and Victorian Racing stoush.
What’s so hard about talking to each other?.
BIG O HIMSELF
Maitland Leagues Club closed this week. There’ll be tributes and memories from many.
I have too many beautiful recollections to even begin, but to indulge in one: I’ll never forget the night Peg and I, then married but still underage (drinking age in those days was 21), were smuggled into the club by the president, David Patrick Moreland, for a show by an American singer you may, perhaps, have heard of.
He appeared in sunglasses and a white suit. He said ‘good evening,’ sang all his hits flawlessly, said ‘thank you,’ and walked off. ‘
It was Roy Orbison. The Big ‘O’ himself, at Maitland Leagues Club.
Very happy days.
Not a ball tamperer in sight ...
Last month the Australian Women’s cricket team won the T20 World Cup in the West Indies, beating England by eight wickets.
Australia’s Alyssa Healy was named the player of the tournament. Surfer Stephanie Gilmore has just won her seventh world surfing title.
Ranked 15 in the world, Ashleigh Barty was awarded the John Newcombe award this year for being Australia’s most outstanding elite tennis player, and Western Australian Minjee Lee is currently ranked number 6 in the world on the women’s golf circuit.
A lot of stunning achievements, but what I find most astounding about this bunch of high achieving sports-women is that none of them appear to be before the courts charged with varying levels of drug and alcohol related anti-social behaviours (There’s not even any ‘ball-tampering’...).
How do they do it I wonder?
Such restraint would seem to be entirely beyond the male footballers I’ve been having to read about in this week’s papers which detail ‘eight allegations of assault involving women by four rugby league players.’
Whatever it is the NRL is doing to deal with this stuff it is clearly not enough.