Inquisitor 1545: Up by Schadenfreude

13 comments on “Inquisitor 1545: Up by Schadenfreude”

1. Great stuff-forgot about the trainers.

2. I enjoyed this but — having no interest in racing, though I guessed the peculiar medley of names might be horses — felt a bit guilty at having to Google for the Piggott connection. At least I’d heard of him! It was fun doing a little spreadsheet for the letter addition, but vaguely deflating that the trainers’ names made no actual difference.

   Tried to persuade myself, without success, that the seven knight-move cells might form a low-res outline of the course at Epsom.

   All thanks to Schadenfreude (impressive construction as usual) and duncanshiell.

3. Felt similarly guilty at getting the names of two of the horses after quite a struggle, and then googling what might link them. From that point onward the grid fill was slightly less of a struggle. 😉 Fell quite pleased at the close when all those trainer names appeared based on arithmetic I was never quite convinced I’d get right.

4. I was also surprised my maths didn’t go horribly wrong. But I wouldn’t want this technique to catch on, as it feels quite like work. I suppose it helps disguise the redundant word. Googling Teenoso, which offered itself quite quickly, immediately spun the puzzle from near-impossible to very solveable.

   Thanks to Schadenfreude and duncanshiell. I don’t see a horse or a course.

5. An enjoyable solve – thanks to S & B.

   I had similar experiences to some of the above – right down to using a spreadsheet to tackle the letter addition…and then realising it was of no practical use to the completion/submission of the puzzle (unless one needed to reverse engineer the first letter of an answer?…)

   I learned a bit more pub quiz trivia along the way – didn’t know his middle name was KEITH! Nijinsky was my way in to the theme…

   A sense of déja vu led me to EV 1194, published around Derby time three years ago…a totally different treatment of a similar theme…

6. I got a fair way with this without using google, but even with several undefined answers I was almost sure of, I still didn’t have the faintest inkling what the link was and when I did turn to the internet I realised why – there are few topics that interest me less than horse-racing, so there seemed little point in trying to work out what the remaining missing random names were from the clues as knowing they were horses wasn’t going to help one iota. Slight deflation at the theme aside, an enjoyable puzzle with some novel features – and yes, I did reverse engineer at least one clue to find which the redundant words was to make sense of it.

7. Having caught the Inquisitor bug (being a relative newby), I gave this a go and solved several clues – but not enough to give me any inkling of a theme. Having read the blog, I can see how a couple more answers would probably have given me the break I needed. I can also see how cleverly the puzzle was put together.
   The one relief for me was that by stopping when I did I didn’t have to look up anything to do with horse-racing, in which I have no interest at all.
   I intend to try a Schadenfreude puzzle when I see his name again, as it will surely have a different theme!

8. Recipe for a perfect Saturday: 1. Open the i to find that Schadenfreude has set the Inquisitor. 2. Solve 1 across straight away. 3. Deduce the theme from answer to said clue, realising that it relates to something in which I have been interested for over 50 years.

   Knowing who rode Crepello, it initially crossed my mind that the setter might have tried to include all Piggott’s winning mounts, but that seemed too much to ask and I assumed there would simply be nine assorted Derby winners in the grid. But then I looked for Never Say Die and Sir Ivor, which were easily found, and it was clear that they were all going to be there. Finding them all enabled me to fill a sizeable chunk of the grid and the rest was pretty straightforward, with the unclued almost certain to be jumbles of the jockey’s name.

   It’s a shame that there was no need to work out the five other names in order to complete the puzzle. As the subject interested me and I wanted to check whether my assumption that they would be the trainers was correct, I worked through all the maths, but it was a bit of a chore and I would not normally have bothered.

   Judging from above comments I am in a small minority on this forum as a racing fan and I even detect a hint of disdain for the Sport of Kings, but younger readers may be interested to know that Derby Day was a much bigger deal until about 30 years ago, even though it was traditionally a Wednesday (the first in June). It was moved to Saturday in 1995 in an attempt to revive public interest, but I don’t think this has been very successful. When Piggott was in his heyday, there would be much discussion in the press in the month before the race about which horse he would ride. If the trainer who employed him did not have a strong contender, it was not unusual for the owner of a more fancied horse to secure Lester’s services and instruct that horse’s trainer to “jock off” the unfortunate stable jockey, who might have ridden the horse in all its previous races but would then miss out on a cut of the biggest prize of the season.

   Thanks and please keep them coming, Schadenfreude.

9. I’d started to reach a bit of a dead end with about 50% entered (but no thematics). 1a looked like it had to be CREPELLO but that meant nothing to me. Internet searching revealed it to be a Derby winner (and clarified an earlier comment from Terrier that he had got the theme immediately) and I was away. I very quickly learned that LKP had ridden 9 winners and after seeing that NEVER SAY DIE would fit 10d it seemed clear that the rest would be his winners. Most of the remaining grid went in rapidly after that as it was clear where the horses would fit. I enjoyed working through the method of identifying the trainers, and this proved helpful with the last few answers in clarifying initial letters.

   Thanks Duncan for the blog. I was baffled by the wordplay for ST PADDY so good to have that explained.

   And thank you to Schadenfreude. Once again the wealth of thematic content contained here was deeply impressive. In the 6 years I’ve been attempting IQs I had convinced myself that his puzzles were beyond me, probably by finding them too tough when I was just starting out. But over the last year or so I’ve come to realise that they are rarely as taxing as I had feared. And the sheer number of high-quality puzzles he produces, and the variety of topics/techniques, is a real feat (the GB Olympic gold medallists one stands out).

   AlanB@7: I doubt that you will have to wait long for another Schadenfreude puzzle!

10. I wasn’t totally enthused by this puzzle, but was more than moderately engaged by it. I think it was because when I hit on CREPELLO rather early on it rang a bell – I had blogged a puzzle 5 years back, #1284 … set by Schadenfreude, Derby Day, culminatjng in a knight’s tour that ended in the central cell.

    So, while not that novel, the puzzle was OK, and thanks to Duncan too – though I’m not convinced that “Peruvian” in 8d refers to a particular Incan prince, but simply confirms that ATOC comes from Quechua.

11. I enjoyed this but wouldn’t have got anywhere without resorting to Google fairly early on.  I know that the Derby is a horse race and isn’t actually in Derby, but that’s about it as far as my racing knowledge goes.  Like some others I used a spreadsheet to do the calculations, I don’t think I would have had the patience to work it all out by hand, especially as I didn’t know a single one of the names and the exercise didn’t lead anywhere.  I enjoyed reading about the history of the Derby in the course of solving the puzzle so that was a bonus.

    Thanks to both Schadenfreude and Duncan.

12. I thoroughly enjoyed this – it’s the first one I’ve completed in a while. Not much of a horseracing fan, but mentioned a couple of the answers to my husband and things fell into place!

    I just used pencil and paper to calculate the letters btw, but a spreadsheet sounds like a great idea 😉

13. Like some others here, I have little interest in horse racing (in fact I disapprove strongly of the activity on the basis of animal welfare) but I solved the puzzle (although I didn’t bother to find “THE DERBY” at the end).
    I’ve also come across Derby (and Grand National themed crosswords before) and so, several years ago and with the help of Wikipedia, I’ve compiled lists of winners in word length order for both races – which makes it considerably easier to find horses (although I don’t have a list of associated jockeys and trainers).
    Overall I enjoyed it – apart from the theme – but didn’t get RETINA (though I suspected butI couldn’t be sure of it) as I’d not considered the eye to be a water pump.
    Thanks to Schadenfreude for the crossie and to Duncan for the breakdown.

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