Latest news with #Fairhead
News.com.au
30-06-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Beaumont Newcastle preview: Muir motors on with promising filly
Trainer Matthew Smith is intent on ensuring the colours of one of the sport's living legends fly high at Beaumont on Tuesday and well into what he forecasts is a bright future for the flashy filly, Fairhead. Iconic owner/breeder and businessman John Muir has much to look forward to, Smith says, with Fairhead who was born and raised at Muir's boutique nursery, Milburn Creek, situated at Grose Vale on the banks of the Hawkesbury river. Fairhead is the first horse Smith has trained for Muir – for many years, the man behind the Muir Motors dealership at Ashfield – and he's glad to have them both on his team. • PUNT LIKE A PRO: Become a Racenet iQ member and get expert tips – with fully transparent return on investment statistics – from Racenet's team of professional punters at our Pro Tips section. SUBSCRIBE NOW! 'John is a top man,'' Smith said. 'He breeds some nice horses. He doesn't muck around. He's got good mares and they breed them well. 'I am bloody happy to have one for him and I think Fairhead will make the grade once she gets over a bit of ground next prep. 'I quite like her actually.' Fairhead, an aptly-named chestnut with three white feet and a baldy face, was bred to win a Golden Slipper being a half-sister to the Muir-designed Sizzling. And despite the fact she is also by the speed stallion Pariah, Smith has Fairhead pegged as a stayer in the making. 'She's got stayer written all over her, she'll go all day,'' he said. 'She ran well the other day. She stepped out of a Country Maiden to a Benchmark 64 and she wasn't beaten far.'' Fairhead storms home and wins on the line at Goulburn! @AlyshaCollett | @mcsmithracing — SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) May 30, 2025 Fairhead will have company in Tuesday's Horsepower feeds Class 1 & Maiden Plate (2100m) from her imported stablemate De Louviere. The son of German Derby winner Sea The Moon blotted an otherwise exemplary copybook when f ading to finish down the order at Wyong in what was a no-holds barred, energy-sapping war of attrition over 2000m. 'They just overdid it up front,'' Smith said. 'I wanted to go forward but not doing all the work. 'He's freshened-up nicely. I'm really happy with him. I can't see him running a bad race, his work has been great. 'He has got a stack of weight, we probably should have claimed on him, but he does handle wet tracks and he is fit and well.' Smith meanwhile couldn't have crafted a more favourable set of circumstances to aid the blue-blooded Tonkatsu Goddess post her second career win on Tuesday after a close-call at Newcastle on June 14. 'I think the winner of that race might be okay,'' Smith said. 'The margin was less than a length and they beat the others clearly. 'I thought she ran great, the other horse was just too good. 'She has drawn well and likes it wet and she's fit. She should be hard to beat. 'She's always around the money somewhere, she has just been a later maturer and has taken a bit of time that's all.' Tonkatsu Goddess races in the famous Francis and Christine Cook colours; the same worn by Smith's Toorak Handicap, Cantala Stakes and Makybe Diva Stakes triple Group 1 winner, Fierce Impact. And like him, Tonkatsu Goddess is of Japanese descent on her dam-side, boasting successful 2015 George Ryder Stakes raider Real Impact close up on her page. Smith's remaining runner on Tuesday's card is the lightly-raced Andhe's Brave who steps out for just the third time in his career in the Dailey Family Funerals Maiden Plate (1150m). 'He is a big, backward horse,' Smith said. 'He is doing a good job. Both runs have been good and now he has drawn a decent gate I think he will be right there.' â– â– â– â– â– Freedmans on a roll ahead of Tuesday's Beaumont meeting Richard and Will Freedman are hoping to start the month of July in the same way they ended June when the father and son training duo cart two of their young string to Newcastle for today's Beaumont meeting. The Rosehill-based partnership were credited with one of the shortest-priced winners of the entire 2024/25 season when Cold Brew lashed his rivals at Winx-like odds of $1.28. Fast forward three days to Saturday and the Freedmans collected another Midway, this time with the 2024 Four Pillars placegetter, Rolling Magic. 'It's been a good period,'' Will Freedman said. 'We have actually got quite a young team at the moment so it will be a busy winter into spring for us.' The Freedmans' first runner on Tuesday's card is the New Zealand-bred Sir Tua who looks a potentially cheap purchase after being secured at Karaka in 2024 for $35,000. That's despite the now gelded son of Tagaloa tracing back on a direct line to a mare named Imitation who will be forever remembered as the mother of Bonecrusher. While it is unlikely Sir Tua will ever 'race into equine immortality' himself, he does have a future as time goes by. 'He is doing things a bit wrong at the moment,'' Freedman reported. 'His racing manners aren't exactly where we would like them to be. He is trying to do things a little bit aggressively but we have taken the view that you don't learn a lot in the paddock. 'He is just learning his racecraft and when he puts it all together, he has got the ability to be well and truly out of maiden grade.' Tricolours' easily recognisable silks will be on show at Beaumont on Tuesday, worn by in-form jockey Alysha Collett aboard the handsome debutante Hell Island. The son of Hellbent's latest trial reads as 'last of nine' at Rosehill but with excuses. 'We just got caught behind horses going very comfortably and he didn't have anywhere to go,'' Freedman said 'He is probably the odds you would expect for a horse that hasn't been overly competitive in metropolitan trials but I think in both of his sets of trials, he has been under pretty hard holds.' Hell Island was bred by prominent owner/breeder Richard Pegum of Amelia's Dream (et al) fame. Tricolours' gelding was offered by Cressfield as agent at the Magic Millions Yearling sale in 2024, knocked down for the not insignificant sum of $135,000.
Business Insider
05-06-2025
- General
- Business Insider
The new 'one-room schoolhouse': Millions of kids are joining America's microschool movement
Mary Jo Fairhead felt that something was missing at the South Dakota public schools where she taught for over a decade, so she quit and started one in her home. The main challenge she's working to solve at her school, Onward Learning, which launched in 2022, is individual attention. She said each teacher has about 10 students. Schools nationally, by contrast, have an average of 15 students per instructor. "We know every one of our kids on a very personal basis," Fairhead said. "I know when they walk through the door if something's off, and I need to check in with them." Onward Learning is part of the growing "microschool" movement in the US. These schools have fewer than 20 students total on average and tend to employ an alternative learning environment that focuses on personalized lessons for each student. Demand for them is growing due to parents' desires to have a greater say in their kids' educations and have more options beyond the public schools in their district. Their popularity comes as the Trump administration is seeking to expand school voucher programs and has proposed redirecting federal funds from public schools to private schools, which could boost microschools' resources. Critics worry that the category is poorly defined — it could encompass a homeschool or a group facilitated by a teacher in a church, allowing for minimal state and federal regulation. Microschool advocates said kids learn best when education is tailored to best suit their needs. "It's my opinion that this type of learning could be beneficial for any child, but especially those kids that just need a little more space, either space to learn, space to run, and just a little less pressure," Fairhead said. "If you're the type of parent who wants a very structured day, lots of testing, and all of that, then my type of school is probably not the right fit." 'A new version of a one-room schoolhouse' Given the lack of definition, it's difficult to predict the number of students enrolled in a microschool at any given time. The RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan research organization, said in a March report that "the best currently available estimate" for the number of kids enrolled in a microschool full-time is between 1 million and 2 million, with "many more" enrolled part-time. Some microschools partner with religious institutions for funding and other resources. Fairhead said that her school enrolled 12 kids in its first year, and she just finished the third school year with 37 students from kindergarten through 8th grade and a "pretty long" waitlist. The days are typically structured with a few hours of learning core subjects in the morning, like science and math, and the rest of the day is focused on "experiential learning," like art, music, and outdoor activities. She also incorporates Lakota language — the indigenous language of the reservation near the school — into the students' curriculum. "If a child's struggling and they need something more personalized, we find it for them," Fairhead said. "Or if they're excelling and they need something that's going to challenge them more, we find that for them." Interest in microschools started to grow during the pandemic as families looked for ways to keep students together while schools were closed, Paige Shoemaker DeMio, a senior analyst for K-12 education policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, told BI. She called it "a new version of a one-room schoolhouse." The National Microschooling Center — a nonprofit that works to advance the microschool movement — released an analysis of the sector in May. Using data from interviews and online questionnaires with 800 microschools across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the analysis said that 74% of microschools have annual tuition and fees at or below $10,000. It also said that 41% of microschools rely on state-provided school choice funds to operate. Fairhead said that she partners with the local tribe for funding. She also received a $200,000 grant as a semifinalist of the Yass Prize, founded by billionaire Jeff Yass to award high-impact education initiatives. Don Soifer, CEO of the National Microschooling Center, told BI that the majority of microschool founders and teachers also have certified teaching experience. "Microschool leaders come from a background as experienced educators themselves who are excited at the opportunity for professional growth in no longer being bound by the requirements of the rigidities of a public school system," Soifer said. Soifer added that the goal of microschools is not to replace the public school system. Rather, it's to give families another option where their kids can be in a much smaller setting, and parents can be more clued into what their child is doing on a day-to-day basis. "We all have friends who are working in the public schools, making important progress on improving them, and more power to them for having the patience to do that," Soifer said, adding that he spent years doing the same. "But there are families that can't wait 20 years, 25 years for the public schools to make the improvements that are going to be able to help our kids who are in school right now." Different regulations from state to state Regulations for microschools vary by state. An analysis by the National Microschooling Center found that over half of microschools follow their state's homeschooling requirements, while the rest either follow their state's nonpublic school guidelines or operate in a state with a defined microschool statute. West Virginia, for example, codified the legal definition of a microschool in 2022, which says that one or more teachers can create a school that charges tuition and is an alternative to public, private, and homeschool enrollment. Georgia codified the legal definition of a learning pod one year prior, which could include a microschool structure. Having those legal definitions allows regulators to ensure microschools are meeting the necessary requirements, Shoemaker DeMio said — and the lack of definitions from other states raises concerns on how to best hold those schools accountable. Lack of accountability could give rise to misuse of funds and inability to track whether kids are effectively learning the curriculum, she said. "If we have a way that we can categorize certain schools as microschools, then we're able to actually break down the data and we're able to better understand who these students are serving and what quality of education they're receiving or how they're achieving," she said. Some microschools have been investigated for accusations of misusing funds. Arizona's attorney general launched an investigation in 2021 into a microschool company, accusing it of collecting charter school funding from the state without actually providing any curriculum. In West Virginia, the state's treasurer included a microschool in an investigation following complaints from parents that their tuition was not being used to teach their children. Fairhead said that she doesn't think more regulations are necessary and that they could diminish teachers' passion. She said that parents hold her accountable: "They ask questions. They want to know what we're teaching and what our kids are learning. And I prefer them to be my accountability over somebody who doesn't know my kids, doesn't know our area, and doesn't know me." Shoemaker DeMio said that absent clear guidelines, data on microschools and student outcomes will remain minimal. "If we can get specific regulations and guidance at the state level, that would be really helpful. It can provide us with data so that we could better track the schools," she said. "But at the same time, it would also be helpful for people interested in starting microschools if they have a better understanding, if they have better guidance from the state on how to go about this."
Los Angeles Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
7 newbie tips to the L.A. County Fair
I'm not much of a fair guy — I never win at carnival games, I get dizzy as a passenger in a car, and fair food is as overrated as In-N-Out. But last week, I attended the Los Angeles County Fair for the first time ever because why not? Besides, if Miguel Santana can be a Fairhead, so can I. He's one of the most influential people in Southern California: longtime confidante of the late Gloria Molina, former chief administrative officer for Los Angeles and current president of the California Community Foundation. But I think he had the most fun as head of the L.A. County Fair from 2017 to 2020, a stint immortalized by his appearance on the cover of the 2022 book '100 Years of the Los Angeles County Fair' riding a gondola lift alongside the book's author, legendary Inland Valley Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen. 'Who's there says a lot about us as Southern California,' Santana said of the L.A. County Fair's audience as I exited the 10 Freeway toward the Fairplex. 'It's a sense of Americana and proof we can be diverse and American at the same time.' I asked if this fair was as big as the Orange County Fair. He laughed the way all Angelenos do when presented with a comparison to Orange County. 'It's enormous. You're gonna get your 10,000 steps.' Behold, then, this newbie's L.A. County Fair tips: Fair parking is an ungodly $22.50, and don't you dare try to leave your jalopy at nearby Ganesha Park unless you want to spend a couple hundred dollars fishing it out of some random tow truck yard. My Pomona parking hookup was faithful reader Fernando Iniguez — gracias, Fern Iggy! I owe you a Jerez sweatshirt. $21.50 on the internet. At the gate? $32. Um, yeah. But one big complaint, Fair lords: It took me three attempts to buy my tickets online. Ever heard of Zelle? 'There's going to be so much music,' Santana told me, and he was right. Between live bands, Spotify playlists, DJs and radio stations, it was like walking through a wholesome Coachella. Bachata smoothly transitioned to Go Country went to KCRW became Taylor Swift switched over to a super-chirpy cover of the O'Jays' 'Love Train' at the Disco Chicken stand. And though Pharell Williams' 'Happy' played at least five times while I visited, the atmosphere was so cheerful that I didn't have to scream to drown out his ode to optimism. There's nothing like seeing suburbanites who probably think meat comes from Erewhon fairies stand with terror in their eyes as bleating sheep and goats swarm them asking for pellets. How much did fairgoers live in the moment? I saw next to no one use their smartphone other than for photos. And I also noticed a middle-age white guy in a MAGA cap standing a few feet away from a Muslim family with nary a negative look at each other. They were too busy staring ahead like the rest of us at an octet of magnificent Clydesdale horses ready to pull a Budweiser wagon. I loved all the vegetables and livestock at the Farm & Gardens, enjoyed the trippy art at the Flower & Garden Pavilion and appreciated the juxtaposition of a lowrider show next to the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum near the Millard Sheets Art Center. But the best part of the fair was the area labeled 'America's Great Outdoors' — and I say this as someone who thinks camping and hiking are for the (literal) birds! Volunteers sawed logs with kids, taught them how to pan for gold, showed off desert reptiles and even hosted an environmental magic show. Throw in a replica of a Tongva hut and a U.S. Forest Service fire lookout tower and the nearby sound of the RailGiants Train Museum, and this is what Knott's Berry Farm used to be before it became whatever the hell it is now. I had to rush back to Orange County for a columna the day I visited, so I only spent an hour and a half at the fair. I had to skip the tablescape competition, didn't go through the exhibit halls and was only able to eat at Hot Dog on a Stick because they make the best lemonade on Earth. But it was wonderful to leave the problems of the world mostly at bay for a few hours to enjoy the living, breathing Wikipedia that is a county fair at its finest — and the L.A. County Fair is definitely that. Huge Snorlax plush toy: Next year, you're mine. Alan says: 'Your Man by Josh Turner.'C Price says: 'The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell.' Email us at essentialcalifornia@ and your response might appear in the newsletter this week. Today's great photo is from Times photographer Robert Gauthier at Dodger Stadium where the 2-year-old son of Dodgers infielder Mookie Betts runs away with the ceremonial first pitch ball. Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editorAndrew Campa, Sunday writerKarim Doumar, head of newsletters How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@ Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on
