Expression "It's good to GET a winner"

[Guinevere]

[Yankee]

Hi Guinevere

I understand it the same way you do. McCoy was happy that he had/obtained a winning horse to ride.

By the way, you can tell those others that, grammatically speaking, it would be basically impossible to use the verb 'get' to mean 'become' in that sentence. When the verb 'get' is used to mean 'become', it is generally not followed by a noun.

* Special note to my British friends here in the forum:
I'm starting to get used to this British usage of the word 'gutted'.
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[Guinevere]

Thanks Yankee! I appreciate your help alot!

[Lost_Soul]

Hi, Amy

Isn't it wrong to use would have had after if ? ...if that would have happened it would have killed me... ?
Maybe, it should read if that had happened it would have killed me ?

[Yankee]

Hi Alex

I noticed that too and found it interesting that apparently some Brits make exactly the same sort of IF-sentence error that some Americans do. This usage seems to have increased in informal English here in the US. The non-standard use of would in the IF half of an IF-sentence seems to happen primarily in type 3 conditionals, and only in informal language.

You're right, of course. To make that sentence grammatically impeccable and standard, it should be changed to "if that had happened".
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[Lost_Soul]

Hi, Amy

I think I know where it comes from - from russian. In russian people use particle "бы" (sounds like bi) in both "if" and "then" clauses. So, they are likely to associate "would" with "бы" and use "would" in both English clauses too.

But we won't let them change English, won't we?!

[Yankee]

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I don't think we can "blame" the Russians for this. (But you never know... )

By the way:

[Guinevere]

Thank you for help, Yankee! And lost_soul, I welcome your active participation!
I know what lost_soul's thinking about.
In German, it' the same as Russian. There's no distintinction in form between if-clause and main-clause.
But I think many British people don't think it's an error to say like that. It may be more acceptable than in American English.