A warning of a possible Doomsday scenario in relation to AI came just last week from an unlikely source.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, Geoffrey Hinton won a Nobel Prize for Physics for his pioneering work on \u2018learning machines to think\u2019. Indeed, many regard Hinton as the real \u2018founder\u2019 of AI. But lately he has come out basically regretting the \u2018monster he has created\u2019.<\/p>\n
\n Well, whatever about the pros and cons of Artificial Intelligence, I can make one very definitive judgement and that is AI is fecking useless when it come to forecasting the results of horseracing!\n <\/p>\n
I know because after a recent day\u2019s racing \u2018guided\u2019 by AI tips, I am \u20ac60 worse off!<\/p>\n
Six races I backed – \u20ac2.50 each way on two horses in every race – so a nice even \u20ac10 a race, and absolutely nothing in return!<\/p>\n
In fairness, I had a wonderful day out enjoying \u2018the sport of kings\u2019 in the company of the plain people of Ireland. My recent venture at a National Hunt meeting was in the picturesque setting of Kilbeggan in Co. Westmeath.<\/p>\n
It all began long, long away from the little town where they started making whiskey in 1757 and started racing horses in 1840. What, you may well ask, have Kilbeggan races and Lourdes in common? The answer is one man – Dr Jerry O\u2019Flynn.<\/p>\n
A Kilworth native, Jerry was in school in Fermoy but a few years behind me. He followed in his father Sean\u2019s footsteps in becoming a Medical Doctor – and a good one too.<\/p>\n
I only met \u2018The Doc\u2019, Dr Sean O\u2019Flynn, a few times but the stories I\u2019ve heard about him are legendary. Back in the 1950s, he was one of the founders of the Cloyne Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes. Thereafter, he travelled annually with the pilgrimage, serving the medical needs of the assisted pilgrims. For decades he excelled in this vital work – indeed, many would claim it was the vision and foresight of Dr Sean that made the pilgrimage the outstanding success it has become.<\/p>\n
\n Dr Jerry, again treading the well-worn path of his father, has kept up that unbroken link tween the O\u2019Flynn family and the Cloyne pilgrimage and is now our head \u2018Medical\/Medicine man\u2019.\n <\/p>\n
His own practise is based in that lovely Westmeath town of Kilbeggan – where, apparently, in ancient times St Beacan had his little \u2018Cill\u2019 or Church – Cill Beacan.<\/p>\n
A very ecumenical sportsman, Dr Jerry has served for years as the Westmeath GAA doctor with the Lake County\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n
This year, when we were in Lourdes, the Westmeath team-Leinster champions – were playing an All Ireland series game. Dr Jerry travelled with us but was so nervous on the day of the big game – good job I didn\u2019t need an injection that day!<\/p>\n
Dr Jerry has been Honorary Medical Officer for the Kilbeggan races with years, and on several occasions has invited me to a day\u2019s racing at his local track. Kilbeggan stages around ten meetings each year – from the end of April until early September.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a huge race-goer. but love the atmosphere and craic at meetings like Listowel, the Junction, or Thurles, and of course Mallow.<\/p>\n
Well, about two weeks ago, Denis Burns, retired muinteoir and former Cork and St Finbarr\u2019s hurler, rang and said would I travel to Kilbeggan with him! \u2018Yes\u2019, says I immediately, delighted at such a prospect.<\/p>\n
\n A great GAA man, Denis also loves his racing. There are 26 racecourses on the island of Ireland. Denis had been to 19 and the trip to Kilbeggan would take his tally to 20.\n <\/p>\n
He told me that at the Friday meeting in early September, a horse he had \u2018an interest in\u2019, Adaliz, was running. The first race wasn\u2019t off \u2019til after 4pm but we headed off from Rathcormac at 11am.<\/p>\n
Travelling to somewhere on time with good conversation shortens the journey. We were parked in the Midlands town by 1pm.<\/p>\n
Looking for a coffee, we enquired in a drapery shop. The lady behind the counter, hearing our accents, declared she had two brothers-in-law \u2018down South\u2019 – both live only a few miles from me.<\/p>\n
After imbibing the required sustenance in JuliMay\u2019s, we headed the mile out to the racecourse. Talk about rural tranquillity and far from the madding crowd and all that – well, truly this was it.<\/p>\n
Set virtually \u2018in the middle of nowhere\u2019, Kilbeggan racecourse has a lovely and apt motto, \u2018The Heart of Ireland – The Soul of Racing\u2019.<\/p>\n
Dr Jerry\u2019s generosity meant we didn\u2019t have to put our hands in our pockets – except for the Tote and the bookies! Yes, on our day at Kilbeggan we were \u2018fed and found\u2019.<\/p>\n
\n The course itself is a right-handed, undulating circuit of approximately one mile and one furlong, with sharp turns and an uphill finish, which presents a unique challenge for both horses and jockeys.\n <\/p>\n
There was a fine crowd present with a kind of carnival atmosphere – a bit like a Munster Final, All Ireland Ploughing and a country meitheail.<\/p>\n
Not long inside the course, I had a brief chaat \u2018as Gaeilge\u2019 with the TV traveller Hector \u00d3 hEochag\u00e1in. My son Brian, working on the broadcasting on Kilbeggan, told me Hector might have a runner.<\/p>\n
Fool that I was, I never latched onto the \u2018We Win Farming Syndicate\u2019 (Hector\u2019s group). Their Minella Cyclone won the first race at a whopping 16-1.<\/p>\n
My friend Denis had fed all the different newspapers\u2019 tipsters, \u2018Best Bets\u2019 and \u2018Should Win Today\u2019 horses into the aforementioned AI. The new thinking brain of the world issued a list of \u2018Most Likely To Win in Kilbeggan\u2019 nags.<\/p>\n
Being of a very scientific and calculating type, I followed this list assiduously for the six races we saw. My \u20ac60 investment on the Tote yielded a total of zilch.<\/p>\n
\n Having failed to back Hector\u2019s horse in the first race, foolish me repeated the same unforgiveable sin for the fourth race! The \u2018We Win Farming\u2019s\u2019 Smallcraftwarning romped in at 18-1!\n <\/p>\n
I met heaps of lovely people – mad anxious to chat – and all were loud in praise of the way Kilbeggan has been continuously improving and upgrading its facilities.<\/p>\n
I spotted former Agriculture Minister turned bookmaker turned radio presenter Ivan Yates. I had a chat with Colman Sweeney \u2013 my fourth cousin, who twice won the Cheltenham Foxhunter\u2019s Chase on Salsify in 2012 and 2013. Colman now works with the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board.<\/p>\n
Dr Jerry gave us a quick history of Kilbeggan and plans to utilise the facilities all year round. Denis\u2019s horse Aldiz, trained by Henry de Bromhead, ran a superb race in the Sean Hughes Memorial Handicap Hurdle.<\/p>\n
Leading over the last, Darragh O\u2019Keeffe was brilliant in the saddle but in a tight finish Aldiz came in fourth.<\/p>\n
A \u2018pot\u2019 of \u20ac1,250 for fourth is better than the prize money for winning a lot of races in England.<\/p>\n
\n Michael Kenneally, grandson of Dungourney GAA referee Dan, was on God World in the same race but finished down the field.\n <\/p>\n
From my home parish, Eileen O\u2019Connor\u2019s Cappa Hill ran in the sixth race.<\/p>\n
We had a really enjoyable day in Kilbeggan and as we headed southwards and Denis prepares for his 21st outing, I vowed I\u2019d be back in the heart of Ireland again to experience the true soul of Irish racing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ye all know that I know very little about this new AI (Artificial Intelligence) thing, but apparently it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,243294,61,60,31970,80],"class_list":["post-627446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-cork-racing","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-arnold","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}