Latest news with #DavidBrowne
News.com.au
06-06-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Queensland Derby delay to benefit Statuario but not so much Femminile
A week can be a long time in horse racing – just ask Femminile 's trainer Phillip Stokes. He wanted his talented filly to run on a heavy track in the Group 1 Queensland Derby (2400m) at Eagle Farm last weekend but unfortunately for him, persistent rain and poor visibility for jockeys meant the feature race was rescheduled to this Saturday. In stark contrast, fellow Pakenham trainers Emma-Lee and David Browne are delighted that Derby favourite Statuario will race on a good surface on Saturday in the $1m contest. And the husband-and-wife team has another ace up its sleeve in 'Derby King' John Allen, who is again booked to ride the grey gelding at Eagle Farm. The Irish jockey flew to Brisbane for just the one ride in the Derby last week but he didn't even get to jump on Statuario as the rain kept falling and the jockeys voted to call it a day after five races. He will be back in the River City on Saturday, hoping that his grey wizard can turn the tables on Femminile, who narrowly beat a late-charging Statuario in last month's South Australian Derby (2500m). Allen has won 20 Group 1s in Australia and, remarkably, nine of those have been in Derbies, including the 2019 Queensland edition for the Stokes-trained Mr Quickie. 'Yes, that definitely gives me a lot more confidence,' Emma-Lee Browne said of Allen's superb record in Derbies. 'He's a very patient rider and that comes from having a background as a jumps jockey with experience over the further distances. 'But the horses seem to settle really well for him which I think is crucial in these kind of races.' • It's in the blood: Front Page up for the fight in Moreton Cup Stokes, who organised the travel to the Gold Coast for both Statuario and rival Femminile, said the rescheduling of the Derby was 'not ideal'. 'We went up there hoping for a wet track but the races were called off,' he said. 'We would've loved to have run on a Heavy 10 because I know she likes it. 'Look, I still think she can run well (on Saturday) but is she on the up? No. 'Hopefully she can dig deep and pull one more out.' Statuario is the $6 favourite for the Queensland Derby ahead of three others in single-figures in the market – Belle Detelle ($7), King Of Thunder ($8) and Femminile ($9.50). Allen said it was 'frustrating' not getting to ride last Saturday but 'not too disappointing' given that Statuario had a far superior record (8: 3-2-0) on dry tracks. 'It's a very even race with no real standout,' Allen said of the Queensland Derby. 'I'm fairly confident Statuario is in as good form as anything in the race and he's trending the right way. 'I feel like he's the horse with the most upside at this stage.' Allen will be hoping to recapture his 2019 form in Queensland when he won Group 2 races The Roses (Etana) and The Q22 (Kenedna), which were the cherries on top of Group 1 victories in the Derby (Mr Quickie) and Doomben Cup (Kenedna). As for the nickname 'Derby King', Allen would love to win on Saturday to cement that reputation as the middle-distance magician. 'I haven't won a Derby in three years (2022 Australian Derby on Hitotsu) so it'll be good to top up the tally on Saturday,' he said.
News.com.au
17-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Basilinna books Melbourne Cup date with Andrew Ramsden victory
Emma-lee and David Browne could be the only ones praying for a wet Melbourne Cup after bonny mare Basilinna on Saturday qualified for the race that stops a nation. Basilinna, who placed third in the 2023 VRC Oaks, relished the soft track at Flemington to claim the Melbourne Cup -qualifying Listed Andrew Ramsden Stakes (2800m) from Glentaneous and Fernao. Favourites Berkshire Breeze and Athabascan finished midfield. 'I'm a little bit overwhelmed actually, a horse that means a lot to me, I can't believe she did it,' Emma-lee Browne said. 'When the rain came we were pretty confident but I thought 'she's a proper princess, might be too much rain', but she did it so well. 'To think, now we just wrap her in cotton wool and we're back here in November … it's massive for our whole stable, we've got a tiny stable and I can't believe it.' Basilinna travelled sweetly, just worse than midfield under jockey Dean Yendall, and emerged at the top of the straight as a major contender once past Berkshire Breeze at the 350m. 'Right from the start I thought she's handling this track great,' Browne said. 'I think I'll be the only one wanting rain in November, it's a little overwhelming actually.' See you in the Melbourne Cup! ðŸ�† Basilinna heads straight to a Melbourne Cup after winning the Andrew Ramsden! @Em_spartaracing â€' 7HorseRacing ðŸ�Ž (@7horseracing) May 17, 2025 The husband and wife Pakenham-based team, who moved from New Zealand in 2021, have enjoyed a stellar season, including success in the $1m The Showdown with smart two-year-old McGaw. Statuario won the Listed Galilee Series Final and ran second in the Group 1 South Australian Derby. 'We've had a great season but this (Melbourne Cup entry) has really topped it off,' Browne said. David Browne bought Basilinna's dam, Shinko King mare So Royal, for Emma-lee after she lost her favourite horse, Monarch Chimes, a son of the Japanese stallion. 'I laughed (at the time), I said you can't replace him (Monarch Chimes) but I think he's done a pretty good job,' Browne said. Basilinna was added into pre-nominations Melbourne Cup markets as a $51 chance. Yendall appreciated the opportunity to qualify Basilinna for the Browne team and connections. 'To get this horse into a big race is a great thrill for them and also for myself to secure another ride if it's there, she's been knocking on the door a while this mare,' Yendall said. 'Found some hard races there, probably unsuitable tracks for her, but relishes the soft ground. 'She had a great run in transit from the wide barrier, back to the fence, followed the field, niggled out (wide) when I needed to get out and found the line really easily.' Basilinna is the 16th mare to win the Andrew Ramsden and fifth in the past six years including three on the bounce to secure Melbourne Cup ballot exception through the winter Flemington feature.
Irish Examiner
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Book review: The New York neighbourhood that changed the music world
How does an artistic 'scene' come about? What factors need to coalesce? What turns a spark into a long-lasting flame? When it came to the legendary Greenwich Village music scene in 1960s New York, a lot seemed to hinge on a singular, magnetising place and event: the outdoor jams held every Sunday in summer in Washington Square Park. These happenings drew towards them, from far and wide, from the various crannies where they had been hiding, all those with a secret and unusual passion for folk music. The sessions formed what someone called 'the incubation ground for the revival of folk singing'. It was a case of come one, come all: Arlo Guthrie, who would have been around 10 years old, was dropped off by his mother Marjorie to wander around with his guitar until he found a group he could join in with. From here sprang friendships, encouragement, collaborations, and perhaps the most precious commodity of all: momentum. All would be tested — though ultimately strengthened — by run-ins with the police and the city authorities about timings, crowd size, and the proper filling out of permit applications. Indeed, the freedom to make music in the park would become the subject of a famously chaotic riot in 1961. David Browne thoroughly examines those early outdoor sessions as well all that happened indoors in countless coffee houses, music stores, apartments and sundry dives over the course of close to five decades — from 1957 to 2004 — with a heavy focus on the tumultuous '60s. As a result, Talkin' Greenwich Village is the kind of book you hope to walk away from with illuminating anecdotes and factoids to entertain and illuminate your friends. It doesn't disappoint. For instance, I hadn't known that Strange Fruit, which was debuted by Billie Holiday in a Greenwich Village club in 1939, was written by a Jewish teacher from the Bronx called Abel Meeropel. (A whole book could be written about the enormous Jewish contribution to the Village scene, whether in the form of artists, enthusiasts, or impresarios.) Later, we read about a duo called Kane and Carr, opening for Tom Ashley and the Irish Ramblers at Folk City in 1963. They had previously had a hit called Hey, Schoolgirl, using the moniker Tom and Jerry, but eventually found fame under their true names: Simon and Garfunkel. In a book like this, one also hopes to meet some memorable characters. They turn up in their droves. There is Israel Young, for example, a pre-med student who ended up ditching that career after he was introduced to square dancing by a friend at his college astronomy club. 'Izzy' went on to set up the Folklore Center, an eccentric Village institution selling books and sheet music. About square dancing, he once said: 'It would be like, you know, masturbation. After you do it, you say you'll never do it again, and then another'. David Browne, a senior writer at 'Rolling Stone' and the author of several music biographies. The Clancy brothers and Tommy Makem, meanwhile, make an entrance on page 42. And, again, I learn things I should have known but didn't; that Paddy and Tom both served in the RAF during the Second World War, for instance, or that music was originally intended as a means of raising money to pursue their first passion, acting. Hearing them sing became a rite of passage for American 'folkniks' who occupied the Village alongside the beatniks (and the 'stareniks' who came to gawp at the beatniks). Jazz, though, was still the dominant Village musical genre in the late '50s and remained a big part of the delights on offer. In the summer of 1965 alone, Charlie Mingus, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins, and many others were all to be heard live somewhere in the area between, roughly speaking, Fourth Avenue and the Hudson (going east to west) and between Fourteenth Street and Houston (going north to south). Bob Dylan edges his way into the story at the beginning of chapter three and Judy Collins' reaction to hearing him for the first time is priceless: 'He was singing old Woody songs, and I thought, 'Badly chosen and badly sung'. I was so bored.' Tom Paxton said: 'We were very friendly, but we didn't get to know him. He was not to be known.' From the outset, some of Dylan's songs didn't quite fit the established, beloved paradigms, whether hillbilly laments, or noble protest songs, or something bluesy. Bob Dylan performs at The Bitter End folk club in Greenwich Village in 1961 in New York City. File picture: Sigmund Goode/MichaelIndeed, the early covers of Blowin' in the Wind seem to show other Village musicians trying to drag Dylan's classic back into more familiar shapes. And whereas experiments when they came — the transition to electric instruments, for instance — were usually the production of conscious deliberation under the influence of external pressures — 'The Beatles scuttled all of us,' said Sylvia Tyson — Dylan was perhaps always running off internal, invisible, idiosyncratic forces, entirely his own. It was a scene riven with contradictions. The folkies themselves were swarming over someone else's neighbourhood: in the case of Greenwich Village, Italian Americans. 'It was an Italian neighbourhood,' said Terri Thal. 'People lived there. And we came in, and we destroyed it, and they hated us.' By the mid-60s, when folk was taking its strong pop and rock turn, there were crowds, crime, drugs, knives, guns. No wonder the locals were upset. The people's music didn't always turn out good for, well, the people. Paradoxes multiplied. Rootless urban drifters singing roots music. Artists who couldn't hold down a job, sticking up for the working man. Sizeable egos singing about self-sacrifice and humility. Experimenters messing with tradition, decrying capitalism while chasing record contracts, singing of austerity, penury, and starvation and hard times, but with cash to blow on drugs and booze. These tensions largely remain between the lines of Talkin' Greenwich Village, with the author preferring to tell a fascinating story in a fairly celebratory fashion, rather than detour too far into analysis. By 1967, the original Village folk scene was running out of steam and talent with many of the best-known names heading for other parts of Manhattan — 'loft jazz' in The Bowery, anyone? — bigger venues, the West coast, or even Europe — as well as heading, musically speaking, for the more lucrative and fashionable fields of rock and pop. As a larger-than-life Village legend who stayed at his post right to the end — he died in 2002 — Dave Van Ronk, the Mayor of McDougall Street himself, acts as a kind of fulcrum for the whole story Browne is attempting to tell. Van Ronk's durability meant that, though not homosexual himself, he was around to get caught up in, and arrested during, the 1969 Stonewall Riots. On the story wends, from the likes of Loudon Wainwright III (Van Ronk tells him Plane Too was either the best song he'd ever heard or the worst) through to Suzanne Vega. By the end, the Village is more of a 'musical ghost town', its spirits fled to a thousand different places and the same number of different fates. David Browne is a genial storyteller who wears his immense knowledge lightly. If he were a folk singer, he'd be the type who performs in the service of the song, not himself, which helps to make Talkin' Greenwich Village a very fine read indeed.
CBC
12-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
How changes to U.S. bird protections law could impact N.W.T. species
The U.S. government recently signalled it will be narrowing its interpretation of the U.S. law protecting migratory birds, and Canadian advocates are concerned the effects could be felt on both sides of the border. It comes at a time when many migratory bird species, including some which spend time in N.W.T. and in other territories, are in decline. David Browne is the head of policy for conservation and advocacy organization Birds Canada. He spoke with Hilary Bird, host of CBC's Trailbreaker, about why he is concerned about what he is seeing in the U.S. right now. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What is happening to the legislation that protects migratory birds right now? The act prevents the killing of birds, and what the president has indicated is that they don't intend to enforce this prohibition on the killing of birds for things that are unintentional. So that's things like buildings that kill birds, wind turbines, tailings ponds, these types of activities that aren't intended to kill birds that do. They are signalling they're not going to enforce the act on those things, so that leaves a huge gap in protection obviously. Why does the U.S. want to make that change? The motivation that was given in the notice was for economic development, and to unleash the U.S. economy and grow primarily resource development in oil and gas. They see it as a barrier, and they want to get that barrier out of the way. Do we know how often birds are unintentionally killed by things like oil and gas development in the U.S.? I want to just mention a bit of the history here — and in N.W.T. you would know about this from management of caribou — a lot of animals move between our borders. They don't stop at the border, they keep going. So we have treaties for things like salmon fisheries, Great Lakes fisheries, caribou, whales. Birds are actually the first thing that we had a treaty for in North America, and in fact in the world. That was initially to prevent commercial hunting, but now one of the main things killing birds is not hunting. It's actually buildings, vehicles, wind turbines, these kinds of things. And the numbers are huge. So buildings in the US alone are estimated to kill about 600 million birds a year. Vehicles kill about 200 million, power lines about 28 million. And we're not going to start taking down buildings, that's not what the law is intended to do, but it's the backstop. Really what happens with that law is people put in place best practices for buildings, for power lines, for wind turbines. But without the law, there's not that incentive to get the best practice in place and to make it work. Okay, so it's not exactly that they're handing out all these fines or anything like that. It's more that it's an incentive for companies to try and protect birds? In some cases, what they're proposing to do is against the law and they get fined. But in most cases, they try to avoid these impacts. And for Northwest Territories, which is really like a nursery ground for many of our migratory birds, millions of them, it affects those birds when they move down South to their overwinter ground. So right now, everybody in N.W.T. is excited about the birds coming back, but what happens there is as those birds go South again in the fall, they run this gauntlet of sources of mortality, of ways of dying on their way South, and they don't come back. David, can can you tell us, how does the impact of industry on migratory birds compare to other pressures the population is facing such as climate change? It's hard to pick apart which thing is causing declines. We know that many types of birds are in steep decline, and so many of our long distance migrants are in decline. Our grassland birds, our birds that eat insects, are in decline. And so some of the other big, big threats are climate change, loss of habitat down in South and Central America, loss of habitat in Canada, and other things. Poisoning through pesticides can be a threat to particular birds. So there's sort of a suite of threats to these animals, in particular loss of habitat and the changing climate that they're trying to adapt to. And this is an additional cause of concern, these accidental, unintentional killing of hundreds of millions of birds through these different means. David, we've recently heard politicians here in this country talking about building up, you know, domestic energy sectors, fast tracking the process. Is there a risk at all of our legislation following suit? I don't see people moving to change our Migratory Bird Convention Act. In fact, I see the opposite, where Canada's law is pretty clear, it's well enforced, it works fairly well and we're not right now looking to change it. The concern here is, what are the Americans going to do? We have a treaty that talks about protecting these birds together. And when the U.S. changes its interpretation of the law and says it's not going to enforce this accidental killing, it makes us wonder, OK, what are the Americans going to do? How are they going to meet their commitment under this treaty to protect birds together? David, if the U.S. doesn't bring back these protections, bird watchers here in the Northwest Territories and throughout the North, what do you think they could expect to see? Well, there's a few things. We could see industry move to not taking into account the death of birds on what they're doing. There's other pressure on industry to not be killing birds so, you know, maybe some [companies] would just take it upon themselves. But, you know, ultimately, I would be concerned that it's not going to be addressed. Birds will continue to be killed. Best practices won't be put in place, and we're going to have more deaths and more declines, particularly of these wonderful birds and the songbirds that are coming back to N.W.T. right now.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Battery storage site plans for solar farm
A battery storage site the size of almost nine football pitches could be built on farmland near a Kent hamlet. Sky UK Development has submitted a planning application for a battery energy storage system (Bess) by Canterbury Road, 0.5km (0.3 miles) from Calcott, near Sturry. The 227.5 megawatt facility is planned to be "temporary and reversible," with a lifespan of 40 years after which all the facilities will be removed. Any development which would generate more than 50MW needs permission directly from the government to be built. Bosses for Sky UK Development argue the 10.6 acre plot is ideal for the project because it is close to "an available and viable point of grid connection" and located in an area with some existing industrial elements. The project would require a long underground cable to connect to the grid at the Canterbury North substation about 4km south. Battery storage systems hold power from renewables, including solar and wind, and then release it when needed. The batteries are usually housed in shipping containers. David Browne, of Canterbury-based solar firm Convert Energy, said the Bess was needed to "make the best use of" renewable energy projects in the area such as the Woodlands Farm solar development in Sturry Hill. The project will involve building infrastructure, access tracks, underground cabling, perimeter and access gates as well as fencing with CCTV cameras, Sky UK Development says. In February 2024, Swale Borough Council rejected safety plans for the Bess at Cleve Hill Solar Park near Faversham over fire concerns. Their rejection was later ruled unlawful by the government and overturned. The systems usually use lithium batteries, which cannot be directly extinguished with water, but most systems in the country have run without issue, the Local Democracy Reporting Service says. Follow BBC Kent on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@ or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250. Battery storage plan at solar farm is refused Plans for battery energy storage site on airfield Local Democracy Reporting Service Canterbury City Council
