post 5: Secretariat - Famous racehorses

Secretariat

Secretariat was born on March 30, 1970 at The Meadow Stud in Doswell, Virginia. His owner was Penny Chenery and his trainer was Lucien Laurin. He was to become probably the greatest racehorse of the twentieth century.
His first race was a 5 and a half furlong race on July 4, 1972 and he finished in fourth place.

11 days after Secretariat's first race, he ran again, this time winning by 4 lengths.
his seventh race that he ran was the 1 mile long Champagne Stakes. He ran in last place in the 12 horse field, until the ½ mile mark, where he dug in, and started passing horses. While doing so, he unintentionally bumped into another horse, Stop The Music, but then went on to win the race by two lengths. After the race, the stewards at the track decided that the bump was hard enough to keep Stop The Music from winning, so they moved Secretariat to second place, having Stop The Music win the race.
he then went on to win many other races.
he won the kentucky derby in 1973, breaking the record for the fastest 1 1/2 mile run with 1:59 minutes. this record is stil unbeaten today.
As a stallion, Secretariat sired over 600 foals, though none was as great as he was. On October 4, 1989, when Secretariat was 19 years old, he was put down due to laminitis. Before he was buried, he was autopsied by Dr. Thomas Swerczek. Dr. Swerczek found that Secretariat's heart was extremely large at 21 pounds, where as a normal Thoroughbred heart is 9 pounds.ecretariat was then buried whole on Claiborne Farms, next to his sire, Bold Ruler. Only certain, special horses get buried whole and Secretariat was definitely one of them.

Post 4 : Arkle - Famous Racehorses

Arkle.

Arkle was one of the most famous racehorses in irish history.
he came from a family of winning racehorses.
His first victory at Cheltenham was in the Broadway Chase and it gave the first sight of what was to come as he won by a breathtaking twenty lengths. he then went on to win the Cheltnam gold cup three times, the kind georges VI chase, 4 other gold cup races, the grand national and many more important races.
He won the 1965 gallagher gold cup and broke the previous record by 17 seconds!
In December 1966 Arkle raced in the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park but struck the guard rail with a hoof when jumping the open ditch, he got a fractured pedal bone, despite this he completed the race and finished second. He was in plaster for 4 months and though he made a good enough recovery to go back into training he never ran again. He was retired and ridden as a hack by his owner and then succumbed to what has been variously described as advanced arthritis, or possibly brucellosis, and was put down at the early age of 13.

Arkle became a national legend in Ireland. His strength was jokingly claimed to come from drinking Guinness twice a day. At one point the slogan Arkle for President was written on a wall in Dublin.

post 3 : Corrida - famous racehorses

Corrida

Corrida was a French Thoroughbred racehorse born in 1932, who won races in France, Belgium and England and is regarded as one of the top fillies of the 20th Century worldwide.
Corrida won many many races in her lifetime and became the first female horse to ever win the 1½ mile Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris, twice.
Corrida in latin languages translates as bullfight, a name that well described this determined filly. At age two, she won the Prix Morny and was second by a head to 'Panpeiro' in the Grand Critérium. At age three, her owner shipped Corrida to England where she was prepared at Newmarket Racecourse. Entered in the1,000 Guineas and the Epsom Oaks, Corrida performed poorly, and after a third failing effort was returned to France. There, Corrida began to respond. She won the Grand Prix de Marsseille at Hippodrome de Marseille Borely and had three good placings in major races including a third place in the 1935 Prix de l'arc de Triomphe.

She was retired after a long career in racing in a stud in normandy. Following the D-Day landing at Normandy, Corrida disappeared from the pasture at the stud during the Battle of the Falaise Gap. No trace of her was ever found.

Post 2 : Franfreluche..Famous Racehorses.

Franfreluche was a Canadian-bred Champion Thoroughbred racehorse.
she was owned and bred by J. Louis Lévesque and trained by Yonnie Starr.

When she was 2 she raced in Canada, at age three Fanfreluche's performances in both Canada and the United States earned her the Eclipse Award for Outstanding 3-Year-Old Filly and the Sovereign Award for Canadian Horse of the Year. After winning many other races and earning over $238,688 in winnings she was sold as a broodmare(mare used to breed foals only)to American horseman Bertram R. Firestone for a then world-record price of $1.3 million. Bred to the famous stallion stallion Buckpasser, in 1972 she produced the two-time Canadian Horse of the Year L'Enjoleur.
While carrying one of her foals while staying in claiborn farm, Kentucky in 1977, she was abducted.
In December. five months after her disappearance, the FBI found her 158 miles south near the small town of Tompkinsville. Fanfreluche was being kept by a family who said they had found her wandering along the country road.She was Returned safely to Claiborne Farm, in the spring of 1978. this abduction happened only a few years before shergars.

The Old Man and the Sea - Book Review.

This is a book written by Ernest Hemingway and was first published in 1952 in England. the book tells the story of a Cuban Fisherman who is devoted to fishing and has spent all his life out in the sea.
In the story the man had been going through a spell of 84 bad days fishing. until one day he goes out in his boat and hooks the biggest marlon he had ever seen. the fish tows him many miles out to sea, further than the man has gone before while fishing. he endures a 3 day battle with the large fish, during those days he reflects on his life and questions his ability to catch the fish.
i was surprised at the beginning of the book as i had read the blurb before starting and i had been wondering how could ernest hemingway have made a whole book out of this storyline? but after reading the first 2 pages i was caught in the story and couldnt put the book down 'til i was finished.
the story is written from a 'fly on the wall' point of view, and basically follows the man on his journey watching how he cares for himself and how he steadys his mind while at sea and while dealing with the battle with the fish. throughout thte story the reader becomes very close to the man in a way. we can almost predict his actions and feel for him as we share his emotional stress. he is a very lonely man, his wife had died a few years earlier and his only real friend is a young boy who used to go out fishing with him. the boy was no longer alowwed go with the old man though as the boys father saw the man as unlucky as he hadnt caught a fish in over 80 days.
so during his battle he wishes on numerous occasions that the boy had come with him on this trip to help him with the big catch.
after reading this book i would definatly reccomend it to anybody looking for a book to read. the story is great for someone looking for an easy read but delivers the same amount of enjoyment as a much longer novel. i will definately be reading this book again or other books from this author again.

Post 1 Geography of Famous Racehorses :)

Shergar!

For my first point on my map i traveled to the birthplace of the famous irish racehorse, Shergar. this meant going to the Gilltown stud in killcullen.
Shergar was a Stallion owned and bred by Prince Karim Aga Khan IV in 1978.

Shergar's first race as a racehorse at the 1981 Guardian Classic Trial, which he won by 10 lengths. He would follow this up with another great win when he won well at the Chester Vase race by 12 lengths.
Although he only raced eight times, Shergar won six of those races and left an major mark on the racing world, which he dominated in 1981. Aside from the Epsom Derby, Shergar also won two other premiere events that year: Irish Derby Stakes and the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes. For his first year, Shergar was honored as Europe's Horse of the Year in 1981.

With those wins, Shergar headed to the Epsom as the favorite to win. The odds makers proved to be right as Shergar grabbed the lead early and never looked back in winning the Epsom Derby. In his next race, the Irish Derby Stakes, Shergar won the race so easily that one commentator noted that Shergar was merely in an exercise canter. Shergar was hailed as an Irish national hero after that.

As a businessman, his owner Aga Khan offered 34 shares in Shergar for sale at £250,000 each and kept six shares for himself. Shergar's valuation soared to £10 million, a record at that time.

Unfortunately, Shergar's great value may have led to his kidnapping in 1983 from ballymany stud near Curragh in Ireland. He had only spent one season at stud before the kidnapping had happened. most people believe thatit was the IRA who were behind the kidnapping. A ransom demand of £2 million was made later. But when negotiations fell through, the kidnappers cut off all communication and Shergar was never seen again.

sylvia plath in english :)

in english for the past couiple of classes we have been watchin the film all about sylvia. Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at smith college and newnham college, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956 and they lived together first in the United States and then England, having two children together. After a long struggle with depression and a marital separation, Plath committed suicide in 1963. the film we are watching is basically a reenactment of her life and we are watching it in order to understand her poems more for our studies that we will be doing in 5th year. she wrote some poems such as: http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/dday.html.. this is a poem called doomsday. her poems were mostly quite depressing. i really like doing the study on sylvia plath :) its really interesting :)