An absolute blinder of a puzzle from WANDERER which had me completely outfoxed. Had to use the dictionary to get across the line and do believe some parsings could be improved.
Apologies for the late post.
FF: 10 DD : 10+
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | BIG HORSE |
Cheyenne, one in Great Britain backing H (3,5)
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[ I (one) in BG ( Great Britain = GB. reversed ) ] HORSE ( H ) |
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| 5 | MASCOT |
RC has maiden coming first? That could be lucky! (6)
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M ( Maiden ) ASCOT ( RC – Race Course ) |
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| 10 | ZAMBEZI |
Last letter a doctor’s given to simple- sounding banker (7)
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Z ( last letter ) A MB ( doctor ) EZI ( sounds like easy – simple ) |
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| 11 | OAK TREE |
Symbol of strength after not finishing HR, H’s first loss in 3 (3,4)
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OAKs ( HR – Horse Race, not finishing i.e. no last letter ) ThREE ( 3, without H – first letter of Horse ) |
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| 12 | WYANDOTTE |
Chicken with variable and over-the-top energy (9)
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W ( with ) Y ( variable ) AND OTT ( Over The Top ) E ( Energy ) |
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| 13 | EIDER |
Extremely irate jockey after losing by a head? Duck! (5)
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E ( iratE , extremely ) rIDER ( jockey, without starting letter ) |
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| 15, 16 | GRAND NATIONAL |
Doctor daring to learn periodically about an HR (5,8)
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[ DARING TO LeArN ( periodically ) ]* around AN |
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| 19, 20 | KENTUCKY DERBY |
State of grass on UK HR or US one (8,5)
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KENTUCKY ( state of grass ) DERBY ( UK HR ) |
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| 21 | CHASE |
Maybe R after HR? (5)
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cryptic def? |
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| 23 | ORCHESTRA |
New RH briefly needs time in stalls in US (9)
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[ RACE HORSe ( RH ) ]* containing T ( time ) |
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| 25 | BARISTA |
Coffee maker’s ace, except it’s gone wrong before (7)
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BAR ( except ) [ IT'S ]* A ( ace ) |
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| 27 | RHONCHI |
Rattling noises from catarrh on chill’s appearance (7)
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hidden in "..catarRH ON CHIll.." |
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| 28 | DODOMA |
Party repeatedly with old woman in African capital (6)
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DO DO ( party = DO, repeatedly ) MA ( old woman ) |
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| 29 | PLATELET |
Allowed to go after HR trophy? It’s in the blood! (8)
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PLATE ( HR trophy ) LET ( allowed ) |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | BUZZWIGS |
Unreal amounts of bushy hair: one feature of beehives on former politicians, say (8)
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BUZZ ( feature of beehives ) WIGS ( sounds like WHIGS – former politicians ) |
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| 2 | GAMMA CAMERA |
One taking body images of third Greek character at R, cycling round in the morning (5,6)
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GAMMA ( third greek character ) [ RACE ( R ) cycling around AM ( morning ) ] |
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| 3 | OVERDID IT |
Went too far? Wanderer had got mounted twice in public (7,2)
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DIDI ( wanderer had = I'D, reversed, twice) in OVERT ( public ) |
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| 4, 16 | SAINT NICHOLAS |
Santa Anita Handicap’s lost sadly, one ending up a tad short (5,8)
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[ ANIta HANdICap'S LOST ( without ending of uP A TAD )]* |
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| 6 | ARKLE |
RH version of King Lear (5)
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[ K ( king ) LEAR ]* |
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| 7 |
See 26
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| 8 | TWEER |
More affected by somewhat short wee romance (5)
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hidden in "..shorT WEE Romance" |
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| 9, 24 | COVENTRY CAROL |
Seasonal number from UK city girl? (8,5)
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COVENTRY ( uk city ) CAROL ( girl ) |
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| 14 | DIACRITICAL |
Grave, say? Grave as grave could be! (11)
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DIA ( sounds like DIRE – grave ) CRITICAL ( grave ) |
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| 16 |
See 4
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| 17 | ODD MEN OUT |
Outsiders, including English mount perhaps (3,3,3)
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reverse anagram with ODD being anagrind for [ E ( english ) MOUNT ] |
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| 18 | DYNAMIST |
Unknown male over in half-distance is one with forceful personality? (8)
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[ Y ( unknown ) NAM ( male = MAN, reversed ) in DISTance ( half of ) ] |
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| 21 | CUBED |
Young reporter supported by boss, as 2 is in 8 (5)
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CUB ( young reporter ) ED ( editor , boss of a reporter ) ; 2^3 = 8 |
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| 22 | EPSOM |
RC visited during sleep, somnambulistically (5)
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hidden in "..sleEP SOMnambulistically" |
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| 24 |
See 9
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| 26, 7 | REDCAR |
First of runners and riders raced around RC (6)
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R ( first of Runners and Riders ) [ RACED ]* |
It could be the wine, but 4D … what?
Even having worked out R, C & H pretty quickly, there were a few I had to resort to “cheating” on, and even then, a couple didn’t seem to correlate to my dictionary definition of the word.
Thanks for parsing 4,16 which defeated me. The “one” in the clue seems a bit strange for the cryptic reading. For 21a, I had “chase” = “race after” and “chase” = “horse race”, presumably short for steeplechase but I didn’t check.
Thanks for the blog, Turbolegs but I got to Gaufrid’s first!
I parsed 21a the same way as Hovis@3. And I was just as puzzled as Mark A@1 about 4d. Even Turbolegs’ explanation was a challenge, although I’m sure it’s right. I’m sure his explanation of 13a is right too, but to me “extremely irate” should indicate “ie”, not just “e”, both the first and last letters being the extremes.
The odds didn’t look promising at first, but there were enough clues without the mysterious C H and R for us to get a foothold, a tentative EIDER and a more confident BARISTA being our first ones in, then we confirmed DODOMA in the index of our atlas and were able to guess REDCAR after which the going was (fairly) good and we made it to the winning post without falling at any of the fences. Favourite was DIACRITICAL.
Thanks, Wanderer and Turbolegs (and Gaufrid for the alternative blog).
One of those where the cluing was so precise that following the instructions lead to correct answers for unknown words
WYANDOTTE Why indeed not.
I love horses but dont follow races or bet but its not necessary in such a great puzzle
I loved Saint Nicholas
Thanks er Wanderer
was getting almost annoyed when ARKLE gave 2 out 3 of code letters, which was the first one in… after that I was slightly embarassed to find the hidden knowledge of horse racing which must have been gleaned from the only Saturday afternoon TV fodder available in 1967 before the Monkees… luckily I stopped at Santa for 4d otherwise I’d still be there..
thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
Finished at the second sitting this afternoon. Seemed impenetrable at first although R H and C fell quickly. Several new words, although I did know the chicken!
Parsing of several clues flummoxed me so thanks for explaining these.
Thanks Wanderer and Turbolegs
A surprise theme that I wasn’t expecting, but in an area that I have followed since a young boy and even having a part ownership in several over the course of time. Was able to resolve the R and C parts with MASCOT, my first clue in. Still it took longer than average time to complete the grid.
Missed the ‘DIRE’ homophone at 14d (going with an unconvincing ‘DIE A’ sound alike) and didn’t fully unpick the subtraction anagram at 6d.
Couldn’t find any reference that matched BIG HORSE (my last one in) with ‘Cheyenne’ – assumed that it was the name of a well-known Native American but could not verify it.
A few new terms with BUZZWIGS, GAMMA CAMERA, COVENTRY CAROL and only vaguely heard of the later Tanzanian capital – get caught with still thinking that it is Dar es Salaam.