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AOB; What happened Ryan.
RM; I don’t know boss.
AOB; He was done at the bushes.
RM; Bushes, what bushes?The things I want most in life are the things that I can't win.
Is it going to be Auguste Rodin part 2? He won’t take in a trial as it’ll be too close so presumably going to the Derby as Ryan Moore’s choice unless something really sticks out in the trials. But you couldn’t possibly back him after today, much like Auguste Rodin last year.
Well done to people on the winner and placed horses. Notable Speech was a big price for reason, not running at 2, only running at Kempton, not having run in any group races or beaten anything of note. Timeform clearly quite liked him. I’m not sure it’ll prove to be a vintage renewal but we’ll give it a chance, Rosallion didn’t really see it out.
He looks too fast to be getting 1m4f to me
I’d be willing to give task force another chance, he needs to mature and calm down
Perhaps the jersey at ascot would suit him well
Strongly run 7f
“Maybe so but he was somewhat rushed off his feet and never had chance to settle early on”
I can see why they wanted to lead, the horse is or at least was fancied for the Derby so you’d think they wanted to make use of him rather than play him for speed. Front runner bias apparently would be another reason and they probably genuinely thought he’d be too good for the others.
To finish so far behind and be beaten so soon you’d think something wasn’t right with him rather than it being just a settling issueBlackbeard to conquer the World
It can’t be that City Of Troy has not trained on. Or if it is then there must be something else as well. Not training on would’ve seen him beaten just a few lengths.
When so many of the AOB horses this season have needed their first run (even more than usual) it could be City Of Troy needed his. However, if so then what the propaganda machine said beforehand were pretty much lies about how well he’d been going at home.
…And when Cumani said to Aidan about COT being quite small, his response made me cringe. It was as if he was thinking – oh xxxx! Can’t have breeders thinking our prospective stallion is at all small, I paraphrase but, “it’s deceptive, because he’s so well built width and bulk-wise he doesn’t appear to be tall but he is”. The letters F and S (two of the former) come to mind.
City Of Troy has effectively led on all his starts. Disputed the running on debut, led his side of the track in the Superlative, front run in the Dewhurst. Led in the 2000 but when outpaced two out didn’t seem to want to know once headed. If true then Team Ballydoyle won’t admit that.
It is unusual for a top horse from this yard to be a front runner.
Does City Of Troy need to lead in order to show his form?
Value Is EverythingNot sure that not training on would mean he would only be beaten a few lengths
and if he needed the run and was beaten that far because of it then O’Brien has been negligent with his training of the horse and that wouldn’t be the case to me with a trainer of his experience.Could chalk it up to the horse just having an off day (as the saying goes they are not machines) but it looked like any of his other previous races in the way he travelled on the front up to the point where he was asked to go and instead of surging clear as he has done in all his other races, he pretty much went into reverse.
We might also have to factor into things that the advantage he clearly had over his contemporaries at 2 has now been bridged or maybe even surpassed by his rivals developing more from 2 to 3 than he has. Alyanaabi was over 3L behind him when 2nd in the Dewhurst but was 5th beaten just under 5L yesterday whilst Haatem was 6L behind COT in the Superlative Stake and 8L behind him in the Dewhurst (5L behind Alyanaabi) but was beaten just over 3L in 3rd.
At this stage though, I would be happy to just write it off as a bad day at the office but going straight to the Derby off of that would be a huge leap of faith and probably fool hardy if it weren’t for what happened with Auguste Rodin last year…..although to me COT doesn’t strike me as looking like he will be suited to a step up to 12F as AR was (remember AR had won twice over a mile in deep ground as a two year old and many felt the 2000g would be the harder race for him to win).
Watching this again the horse folded without the others really speeding up.
The things I want most in life are the things that I can't win.
Something clearly amiss with the horse. It happened before with St Nicholas Abbey and he took a season to come back. Until they run you’ve no idea what to expect. Fallen angel was clearly the form pickout today but ran terribly. I’d put it down to an issue/off day. Aidan has shown he can get them ready to come back so writing him off foolhardy. Surely Henry longfellow would have gone mighty close so they must have believed the horse was OK. Could be a wee bug in the yard same as Henderson.
I’m off to chester next week so will watch and not back aidans horses.LD,
I have heard it said by better punters than me that for a horse to maintain its rating from two years old to the start of its three year old campaign… the amount of natural physical progression is 7 lbs. ie City Of Troy’s Timeform rating at the end of his 2 year old campaign was 125. So if making the usual 7 lbs progression he’d still be capable of running to 125. If not making any physical progression City Of Troy should still be capable of 119 (125 – 7)… And 119 would still have been good enough to finish 3rd in the 2000 Guineas. But he was 9th, beaten almost 17 lengths… Even allowing for Ryan looking after him once beaten, the distance beaten is too far to be only not training on. It is of course possible he hasn’t trained on – particularly with his size – appears not to have grown much (whatever AOB says). However, what I am saying is – with the distance beaten – there must be more to it than that.No, if COT was not fit enough it is not necessarily “negligent”. Some horses come to hand earlier than others, indeed some yards will come to hand earlier than others. Weather and other factors I don’t understand. The vast majority of AOB’s yard this season have needed their first run of the season even more so than previously.
imo AOB is not in the form he is usually at this time of year either. I have his current form as no more than average (not good and not bad form just average) and was surprised when some normally good judges described him as being a “hot trainer” going into Newmarket. So COT could have been below form because the trainer is not in as good form. However, I do expect this to change soon, so don’t shoot me if he has a good Chester.
Value Is Everything. Imho sadly COT got looks of horse who will win a uncompetitive Group 3 this year somewhere late on at best .
As for AR , my gut feeling is he will live up to expectations this year , just in and out performer but he has the runs on the board .Churchill is the last horse to top the ratings as a 2yo and win the 2000 Guineas incidentally. A few of them didn’t make it to the race and a few of them didn’t fully train on as 3yos. Considering that the 2000 Guineas winner this year wasn’t seen at 2 and the 1000 Guineas winner was only seen once at the end of November, we may have to start to discard 2yo form entirely when looking at 3yos if this pattern continues.
Ginge – not sure you can assume that they will either stay the same or make the natural 7lb progression from 2 to 3 as there will always be outliers that buck the norm.
Take Air Force Blue as an example, won the Dewhurst (his 3rd straight G1 win) beating Massaat 3L and was rated 124 as a 2yr old. He was hailed as the second coming by connections (shocker for them to say that I know
) and started 4/5F for 2000g but beat just 1 home trailing in 15L behind Galileo Gold – incidentally the runner up (beaten 1.5L) that day was a certain…Massaat.AFB followed that up by again beating just one home in the Irish 2000g (beaten 19L this time), then was 12th of 18 in the July Cup (beaten just 7L so some progress there) but then rounded out his racing career by finishing a dismal last of 7 beaten 18L in a 6F G3.
He simply never got anywhere remotely near that lofty 2 yr old 124 rating as a 3yr old and you could assume that he simply didn’t train on but connections ran him 3 more times after the 2000g so they must have thought he had trained on but his case clearly shows a precedent that COT could just as easily end up following in AFB’s hoofprints but then again he could also be another in the mould of AR……..his next run may shed further light on that.
Re fitness – I would hate to think that COT simply wasn’t fit enough but I would have been more inclined to believe that theory if he had say finished 5th or 6th after getting tired in the final furlong – I did also state in the City Of Troy thread in the Horse Racing section that maybe they need to start giving them a prep run.
It will be interesting to see what path COT ends up down over the coming months but connections commenting that COT is their Frankel (at this stage) seem to have left a lot of egg of their faces.
Ridiculous thing to say “their Frankel” to say that is a lofty hope is an understatement. Frankel was phenomenal and whilst his feats may be achieved again I like to think he was unique and regularly watch his Guineas win, still sends shivers.
The things I want most in life are the things that I can't win.
RTB – Same here, that race to me still beggars belief to this very day – that a horse could take off like that at sprinting speed and keep going for a mile……….and the crowd appaulding him before he had even finished the race.
I just simply don’t think I will ever see a performance of that like again in my lifetime and the fact that it wasn’t even his best performance………
I notice that AOB has said today that maybe he had COT too fresh. This is quite an admission if he really thinks it! COT was an odds on favourite in a classic, a horse he himself described last year as a possible Triple Crown winner and that one of the owners said could be “our Frankel”. Surely after all that hype he owed it to the owners, the horse and, not unimportantly, to punters to have him spot on, first run or not.
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