Winner Winx

The four year old mare, Winx, won today's W.S. Cox Plate at Moonee Valley in Melbourne, Australia - and she won it in track record time.

Winx

You see, it's not responsible for someone to suggest before the race that a young mare will win a race like this, against older horses, against male horses, and against the best other horses in the world over the particular distance in question. But that was the case that I believed she could win - yesterday I was 'champing at the bit,' as they say, to say she would win, though at the same time I don't like to feel as if I am 'adding to the burden' by 'declaring' a horse before a race such as the Cox.

But let's look at this - as I hinted at yesterday - another way...  Let's look at it in terms of the cultural and ideological approach that marks the difference between European racehorse owners and trainers - and the Australian approach.

Now European racing people will say different, but my strong impression is that they are really only interested in the money factor, and not in the horses as such.

Yesterday, in the pre-race parade, a thirty year-old past champion of the race - Better Loosen Up - took the field in front of the crowd once more. In 'horse-to-human' years this is about 210 years of age in human years... You have to look after a living thing pretty well to get it to this kind of comparative lifespan.

Better Loosen Up and the great trainer,
David Hayes, whose father Colin Hayes, was
also a great racehorse trainer

The American situation is a little different again, in that they have a much broader-minded approach to medical preparations and treatments that will allow a racehorse to fulfill an athletic and competitive racing career - and so I'm not going to make direct comparisons to the American situation.

It is a reality that there is far greater money involved in the thoroughbred racing scene in England and in Europe than there is, generally, in Australia. Of course there is massive investment in racing in Hong Kong and Singapore and Macau too, but overall, England and Europe possess the wealthiest owners and other participants.

Yet there's many a horse expert, not just myself, who opine that Australian horses are faster, more streamlined in their running and galloping action, and much more intelligently and subtly educated to run and to race. 

So which is best - going for the money in a brute force fashion, or doing it with elegance and 'poetry in motion' so to speak?

There's no contest. Making money - or 'winning' if I may use that analogy - has to include some process that satisfies the mind on the intellectual level and not just on the enumerative monetary basis alone.

Hot air balloon over the Yarra Valley

It's late Spring now in Australia, and the horse-racing scene is filled with events and parties and functions. Alongside the Moonee Valley W.S. Cox Plate day on the same day, the country club at Yarra Valley - where a lot of cooler climate wines are produced - also has its carnival race day, which ends with a party and hot air balloons flying in and fireworks and food and wine, of course.

If you're smart, there are no losers in Australian horse racing, and you can enjoy yourself exceedingly well.

Winners

Tomorrow is the $3 million W.S. Cox Plate run at Moonee Valley in Melbourne, Victoria. A difficulty with considering the chances in this race is how one might 'line up' the form of foreign horses - that is, horses from overseas, including from the Northern Hemisphere - with the form of the local horses competing in the race.

The public wins! Daryl Braithwaite returns by
poplar demand to sing at the Cox Plate tomorrow

This year, the foreign horses' form is what is called 'unexposed,' which is a way of saying they haven't done much or any racing here in Australia. And even though the Cox Plate is a race for only the best horses at their peak ages for racing at Weight-For-Age, and even though the horses from overseas racing tomorrow are the best horses in their regions, the reality of horse racing is that you might get one crop in a particular year for the particular hemisphere (Northern/Southern) that are all outstanding and so the best indeed represent exceedingly good horses, or you may get a year in which all the horses are just average and in this case 'the best' for that year only means the one or ones better than the others of that year.

And so, it may be that the foreign horses are ten lengths better than the best local horses - or, it may mean they are ten lengths less good - and we will not know until after the race is over tomorrow. So I will not be making any predictions this year.

The Cox is a race for middle distance, classic, race horses. Horses that can 'get' a derby distance of 2400 metres, or a very very strong 2000 metres (a mile and a quarter). The Cox itself is over 2040 metres, but they are strongly contested metres all the way!

The situation, however, of assessing Northern versus Southern Hemisphere horses with regard to the fast sprinters, is totally different. It is quite clear that the Southern Hemisphere horses over the last two or even three years are head and shoulders above the Northern Hemisphere horses, and this year in particular, the group of peak age horses (3+ to say 5) is outstanding across the board.

Chautauqua winning the Manikato Stakes
at the night meeting at Moonee Valley this evening

And this makes the horse I told you about late last year - Chautauqua - a very special horse indeed. In fact, he has not lost a race since I confirmed here, my early view that I considered he was a very good horse, and tonight, he displayed, in the words of one Melbourne Racing journalist: 'a mind-blowing performance that demolished a field of other very good horses...'

And you should wonder how I could have picked out this horse especially to showcase in this blog well before he demonstrated his dominant abilities on the track.

Let's keep that a mystery for a while. 

I will make one open observation though, about a specific difference between Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere horse racing, namely that I view many if not most Northern Hemisphere owners and trainers as both brutal and cynical towards their horses, and especially since most of the Winter tracks in England in particular are easily cut up and present tripping hazards with large, raised, sods all over the final furlongs, the agricultural manner in which the horses are intentionally ridden leaves a lot to be desired as far as a true 'Sport of Kings' goes. Kings don't need money so badly.

Australian and New Zealand horses are not 'soft' horses by implication, though. Far from it. 

The Cox is a genuinely 'big-money' type of race, with the breeding value of well-performing runners increasing by millions afterwards. And so, one expectation I have for tomorrow, is the possibility of a 'horse war' brought on by the overseas runners. I expect it to be a rough race. Horses that don't perform well will not go down in my estimation - and horses that do perform well can be viewed as genuinely 'robust' for your future breeding book notes...

The Dark Years

Today, on Max Keiser's television show, Egon von Greyerz made the following rather humorous observation:

"There are some small residential properties in the heart of London that have a $250 million dollar price tag.... And, what, we saw a painting, the other day, a Gauguin or Picasso or something like that go for more than $200 million. So you see, the rich people, what they can do for half a billion dollars - well, they can live in a small empty apartment in London, with nothing inside... and one painting on the wall..."

Egon von Greyerz - he wrote something
called 'The Dark Years Are Here.'

Max went on to say something about The Fed lending into some parallel Universe.

It was all quite droll.

It was really quite funny. I laughed. They went to a break in which we saw a couple of children crying in a war zone or refugee camp or somewhere, in a 'news slice.'

And then we returned to Egon saying to Max that there was no way governments would actually stop money printing now from here on, One, because that was all they knew how to do, and Two, because they spent the money on buying votes. Oh it was cruel.

He was such a nice looking rather mature and timid, if blond, old gentleman. And clearly very wealthy himself.

If I were Julius Caesar - which I am not, thankfully - I would make a bold statement right now that no one would credit.

Anyway. Let's look at our friend Julius. I make it a rule these days never to seriously debate anyone who hasn't read the following books, and been tested by an independent person to indicate that they HAVE actually read them rather then just claiming to have read them (which a lot of facile people, including many modern University professors, do):

The Complete Works of Julius Caesar

The Complete Works of C.G. Jung

Anaximander

The Early Works of Plato (at minimum)

Xenophon

Stuart Hollingdale (if they haven't studied Euclid in detail)

Marsilio Ficino (at minimum, for the Venetian/Florentine Renaissance)

Now have a look at what this advertisement says about the books of Caesar, by Caesar - it says 'forgotten books...' Why forgotten? Are they forgotten, because, as, in the words of the famed Clinton Richard Dawkins, the people of that time were 'ignorant and primitive,' and thus any works by them may not be necessary reading for intellectuals and intelligent modern people generally? 

At some point, the intelligent
person must read this

I can assure you that Mr. Dawkins has NEVER read The Complete Works of Julius Caesar.

And it doesn't matter what he says to you, if you ever get the chance to ask him about it, he has never read it.

Now I know that I may easily turn off some of those who read here, by saying these kinds of things, but they simply must be said - One, because they are a most accurate truth about the modern world and the experts and authorities who take the stage here, and Two, because even the most ardent and committed supporter of any of the several wunderkind examples of today's intellectuals, will have it somewhere in the back of their mind now that all is not necessarily as it seems to be, every time they listen anew to the 'approved thinkers.' 

I mean why, do you suppose, 'the forgotten...?' Forgotten by whom? Encouraged to be forgotten by whom? 

What is actually, forgettable, about them?

The government of Singapore spends atrocious sums of money promoting 'the smart society.'

You will not find them promoting the intellectual society.

So can you make money inside a world that prints paper money endlessly and gives it to a parallel Universe borrower, or to some 'rich person' who buys an empty flat and a painting? And then Mark Toner comes onto your television to give you latest truth from Washington while this is all happening...

Can you make money in such a world?

After Caesar was murdered, Rome carried on, donkeys attended the Senate - although at least they were made to wear the SPQR cloak - and fires and poems and music and insurgencies from slaves and so on attended every Caesar since Julius. And does anyone really much know exactly when the Empire of Rome actually collapsed?

Senatus Populusque Romanus
'for the Senate, and the people of Rome'

When you set out to invest your money, or to attempt to make money, did you start at any of those above books? Or did you jump-cut to The Revised Edition of The Money Masters?

Now there were rich people in ancient Rome post-Caesar, who yet were not at the very top, not actually among the so-called 'elite.' And they thrived. Who were they? What did they do? What did they know?

This question is not semantics. Upon the right answers, depends any possible chance a person has of economic and financial advancement, in today's world.

The Beast From The Pit

In spite of my best attempts to try and avoid talking about the 'immediate present' of world politics and global finance dominated by insane people in the US Federal Reserve System, one would nonetheless be negligent in failing to make some passing comment about the outlandish status of these matters.

God, in the Mighty Council

So much of the media briefings currently being issued by the White House is just transparently false 'information.' It's transparently false because of the access nowadays to alternative perspectives, as well as original sources - and when one compares the White House versions with so much of the original source material and the independent objective facts, there is only one conclusion possible.

Yet at the same time there has been a prevailing theme presented to the public virtually everywhere, that in any case 'the deception is the reality.' Originally, of course, this snide phrase was: 'the perception is the reality.' Which in turn is some kind of twist on Marshall Mcluhan's famous: 'the medium is the message.' Or the 'massage,' as he himself said.

So a large and apparently powerful government can do anything it wants, including tell any kind of egregious lie, and due to the fact that there is no physical or brute force that can stop it, it may go on doing whatever it wants, regardless of the ethics or morals or even legality of what it does.

I don't think 'the deception is the reality.' I think that's what a murderer wants to have be the case.

I think the psychological weight of this depth of deceit is so great, that inevitably changes begin to take shape in the intellectual judgments such governments and rulers make, and changes in the actual brain recognition of even simple facts - begin to happen. And that's when these sorts of governments are apt to make catastrophic errors. They look at one thing, decide it's meaning is such-and-such, and then take actions based on the meaning they have unilaterally and pathologically assigned - which is quite separated from a true objective reality or assessment of the reality.

Now I'm going to show you why I'm so certain about the outcome of current affairs:

Humans look 'up' at the stars.

Think about the way humans have looked at the night sky. They look at the stars and they see what the can see, from the position that they occupy. Perspective, Position, Perception.

Now commonsense will tell you, that someone looking at the Universe from some 'overall' position, on the other hand, is not going to place a priority on the 'image' of a lion, or a bear, or dipper, or some 'mighty hunter' and so on, in order to discern which particular spot they are looking at.

No. Very likely questions of physics and measurement, will come into play, rather than human optical image.

Now coming events, they say, cast their long shadows beforehand. So watch, and keep your eyes open. All is not as it seems on the world stage.

We are at an EXTREMELY dangerous moment.

But I am very confident that I can make it out alive. Even materially well-off actually. I believe I'm prepared.

I think the danger is for others to be concerned about. I think anyone who doesn't believe there is danger, is the sort of person who will likely be affected most.

The Universe detests Chaos

Those who think there is no danger to them, are probably relying on things that are unreliable... And I don't mean 'god.' I mean some human institution or other that makes out it is in control or takes the position of being the controller. I'm not sure how chaos can be controlled. And I think it's very foolish of governments to think they can control the chaos they've created.

What the Greeks means when they say - 'releasing the serpent from the pit' - what they mean is Chaos.

You see a lot of religious people and End Of The World-ers on YouTube and so on talking about 'the Beast' and 'the Anti-Christ.'  

Chaos is not a mythical force or being. It is quite real.

Greeks wrote the New Testament. 'The Beast From The Pit' is Chaos.

Can you see it anywhere? Is it here yet?




      

The Pavlova

So, 21st September we talked here about Carlos Brito, the CEO of AB-Inbev. Brito just succeeded in his bid for SABMiller, making them now the world's largest beer company.

He doesn't own Westvleteren, of course, the world's best beer - this is owned by some Trappist monks! And this morning, Sir Christopher Passarides on Bloomberg was asked by the ever-stylish Tom Keene what his favourite beer was, to which the 2010 Nobel Laureate for Economics replied: 'something Mid-European, something with a bit more punch than the American brands.'

AB-Inbev is in fact one of these genuinely global corporations - for although it largely owns American beer brands, it is also the owner of a lot of beers made just about everywhere else, and, the company itself is headquartered in Belgium.

Does Brito drink Westvleteren...?

It's not particularly expensive so maybe he doesn't. That's often what happens to people with vast personal sums of disposable money, they buy up to what they can afford, because this seems a logical place (the expensive place) to go to get 'the best.'

The Pavlova

This morning I also had to listen to some 'nuther history researcher tell me on National Radio where the iconic Australian race-track, afternoon tea dessert - the Pavlova - came from originally. It wouldn't have mattered to her that my grandfather (his cousins owned it before, and after he did, and still do now) for a while owned the Florian Cafe... THE Florian in Venice, mind you. And so it would not be worthwhile me getting onto the radio station and apprising them of any single thing about this dessert. They already know it all.

A few hours earlier, the same Australian National Broadcaster opened the phones on the subject of a visa having been granted to Geert Wilders. On this subject of course, I would certainly not have phoned in under any circumstances to expand on the few Wiki entries here and there about how Wilders had once been in the Israeli 'voluntary brigades.' That's of course, not the whole nor even the real and accurate story of who Wilders is and where he really comes from. But to cut a story short that involves privileged information... Anyway, put it this way, Wilders is not exactly a Dutch Right Wing politician like the way he presents and like the way the media and many captive Western governments say that he is. After all, Jorg Haider, a supposedly similar political figure, strangely enough, died, after he said the sorts of things he said, as a genuine Right Wing politician.

Also a Pavlova too, but
this one is in the Restaurant Tchaikovsky
in Tallinn, Estonia

Ah the Dutch! They are about to produce today, some report about what took down MH17. I think, several years from now, you could easily read in the Wiki, that that particular plane was a long way from home, on an out-of-the-way and lonely track, and with very very drunk pilots in charge - a bit like the driver of Di's car, as a matter of fact - who had been making most indiscreet conversation on unsecure phones to um, Mel Gibson about er, certain people of a particular ethnic origin, and then... WHAM! BAM! Just as luck would have it, god struck the plane down via a missile from that old Uncle Vanya again, who just does these things in order, particularly to earn the wrath of the Western media about how baa-a-a-a-ad they are.

What a confused tale.

Anyway, this person on the National Radio, actually managed to say, that lost in time somewhere - but that however she was nevertheless able to locate the actual 'evidence' and 'proof' about it - the Pavlova, was invented by an Austrian Jew in New York, and that it is in fact a torte cake, called various other things that Jewish people, in particular, have been making for years. Oh my ******g god.

What is the idea of all of this current era iconoclasm over living folklore, even if does happen to be untrue in some cases? The folklore is what people actually believe right now. Why are there people seeking to upturn current folklore as if merely by them saying so, somehow everyone is going to change their folkloric opinions?

I mean seriously, I was waiting for the part where she was going to say that Anne Frank invented the ******g Pavlova up in the ******g Dutch attic!

Herbert Sachse from the Esplanade Hotel in Perth, Western Australia, invented the Pavlova, and there is no torte cake in it at all. The very wealthy Paxton Family, hoteliers and racehorse owners, employed chefs from all over Europe back in the 20's and 30's, and I think one of the things that need to be added, is that the Moscow Circus from way back even then, had connections to Western Australia and one of the daughters of the owner of the circus married into the other extremely wealthy, Edgley Family, who were one half of Eric Edgley and Dawe, the international theatrical agents. Anna Pavlova was brought on tour around the world by Eric Edgley and Dawe, and all of these people are known to each other. To this day, the Kremlin maintains relations with these people - Edgley's is one of the largest commercial gold traders in the Southern Hemisphere.