2000 Guineas discussion

I honestly think that the way ravens pass is actioned takes it out of him on more testing underfoot conditions, and I think after the way he ran the other day he could even be an eclipse horse if that came round and the ground was faster. Its very hard to do a horse for stamina on good-firm especially if that horse can see out a testing mile on worse conditions. Look at last year when the race was almost a second fast- dutch art was third and he was a sprinter.

The speed Ravens Pass showed at two wasnt just at 7f, it was at 7f on gd fm which is much quicker in terms of topspeed than the dewhurst for example would have been won in, and much faster than the craven would have been finished in.

For Ravens Pass to be done for stamina in the guineas (if the guineas were gd-fm) I think the race would have to be some 3 or 4 secs faster than standard, which is really unlikely to happen.

If the ground was gd-fm I would think:

New Approach will run from the front and try to see off all contenders, as he did in the national stakes.

Fast Company (unpleasing training reports aside) is unlikely to be suited to gd-fm and wont go as well on the surface, the key to him appears to be good ground. Not only that but looked a quirky sort last year and any mistakes would cost vital seconds.

Twice Over and Ibn Khaldun should both handle conditions and could possibly get into the place money but its hard to see either having the speed to win

Ravens Pass would be in his absolute element, he stays, hes fast, he does what hes asked when asked, and hes race fit.

We dont know for sure that the ground will be good to firm yet but if it is then I think he could be a ten point bet, and its not often you can say that about a guineas horse.

Both Ibn Khaldun and Twice Over have plenty of high quality speed in their paternal sireline, the both go back to Mr Prospector and Raise a Native, just like other Group 1 mile winners, Zafonic, and Hawk Wing to name a couple.

We will see what happens on the day, lets hope the ground isn’t soft, anything could happen then.

It has been pleasant to have a discussion without people getting wound up and slagging off Godolphin… or flat racing or each other or whatever, this evening !

I am hoping for Gd-Fm because on those conditions we have a near certainty in Ravens Pass, he’s fit and well and bang in form and if he gets the ground in his favour then I reckon he’ll be unstoppable.

Bulwark….With all due respect, have you checked the dosage, I’ll be looking for something else.

Both the Dewhurst and the Racing Post Trophy represented solid high-class form last year and it seems natural to think that the 2,000 Guineas winner will come from those races. However, how many people at this time last year were proposing Cockney Rebel as a Classic winner?

I feel that Raven’s Pass is capable of better than he showed in the Craven but, aside from fitness and training-on issues, why should he reverse the Dewhurst form with those who finished in front of him?

Re. the Godolphin issue, their latest purchases of horses in training seem ill-thought out; an almost scattergun approach that smacks of desperation. There’s certainly a lack of sporting ethos – although this is hardly unique in a sporting world where size (of your cheque book) is important – Premier League football, Indian Premier League cricket, Premiership Rugby Union, etc. Perhaps they’re taking some of the guesswork out of the process that comes from buying yearlings at auction but surely the grand old days of reliance upon home-bred horses for Classic success have long since gone anyway. More worrying to me is the fact that any Tom, Dick or Harry with a big fat wallet can seemingly set up a ‘festival’ that has the ability to impact negatively upon well-established patterns in racing. Whilst those in with a chance of grabbing some of the prize money may argue differently what will stick in your mind at the end of this season, an English Classic, the Arc or the Dubai ‘World Cup’?

Rightly or wrongly, I hold a suspicion that many of Godolphin’s purchases have been made on the back of a useful performance on the clock. (They surely didn’t buy Fast Company for his pedigree?) . On that basis, perhaps we can expect to see Bronze Cannon or Doctor Fremantle to appear in the blue silks sometime soon?

I’m not a big fan of the Godolphin operation but I’ve got to defend them on the right to move horses about. The 2 latest horses were Maktoum owned and Godolphin is a Maktoum family operation which has always run horses owned by all of the family and their associates and not just Sheikh Mohammed himself as some people seems to think. Yes its sad for the trainers who lose horses but a) they should be thankful for the patronage in the first place (for many of the trainers the Maktoums are far and away their best owners); b) they are usually recompensed with decent quality replacements the following season; c) are almost certainly aware of the situation when they initially take in Maktoum horses. Also remember David Loder was taken on to train Godolphin’s 2 year olds, he chose to give up as a public trainer and do it he wasn’t forced.
I agree with the comment about the whole idea of wintering in Dubai hasn’t really proved to be a good one and that maybe Saeed Bin Suroor and the other trainers may not be the greatest handlers of horses in the world, but the operation has been successful since its inception and succeeds in its main aim of highlighting Dubai.
Other owners, flat and over jumps move horses about from trainer to trainer and nobody seems to say too much, the Maktoums do it and are castigated, you can’t have one rule for one, I mean didn’t Peter Savill just do the same thing to Andre Fabre with Royal and Regal?

I cant buy that for a second, looks like a sprinter?

Because in a testing 1mile race where the field were strung out all over the place, he goes down in a fight beaten a short head by one bred for further, and runs to a rating of 122? Im sorry but I very strongly believe that if he were a sprinter he would have been back pedalling at the 7f pole and would not have even mustered a rating anywhere close to 122. If there has been a sprinter to run to that sort of level at 1 mile (even on gd-fm, let alone the slow side of good?) I wouldnt mind knowing who it is because I cant think of one.

It would be good if all horses handled ground excatly the same, but unfortunately, and some may find this hard to believe, they dont. Some horses are actually brilliant on gd-fm and not so good on cut. Weird that…

Dosage trends, like any trends are only good when the winner matches that description, but I think that you have to be willing to throw trends out the window when one comes along who looks to go against the trends.

As far as the dewhurst form goes, on ground which about as far from his cup of tea as he was likely to get he goes down in third to two very good horses suited down the ground by conditions, beats home a 2.5l prix jean luc winner by 2.5 lengths, a 2.5l Goffs Million winner by 4 lengths a superlative stakes winner by 4 lengths, a 2.5l champagne stakes winner by 4 lengths. Theres nothing "blew up" about that or the Craven, and its just bad race analysis for anyone who thinks that was the case, as with the sprinting theory.

My honest opinion is that if ravens pass turns up in the same shape as the craven (not even any improvement necessary) and the ground is Gd-Fm, whatever beats him home will be a very good horse indeed.

You ask why we mistrust dosage theory, well having looked at it over a period of time there seems to me to be 2 flaws with it as regards top class racing in Europe.

The first is that new sires do not get given a value early enough, if you look at the guineas antepost market, sires like Galileo, Dubai Destination, Observatory, Nayef, Fantastic Light maybe some others have no value in Dr Romans system, yet they were all good Group 1 performers and some have already produced Group 1 winners. Where is Montjeu ? These are sires that are only 1 generation back, they are important influences.

The second reason is that some breeding lines are not represented, for example, Efisio, if you were to try to rely on Dosage theory you would never have backed Attraction to win anything at the age of 3, Would you have backed Ouija Board to win the Oaks?

Some French and German breeding lines also seem to be missing, ie Lando and what his Paternal Sireline goes back too.

Val Royal is not there, yet Cockney Rebel won the Guineas, Val Royal was an 8f Group 1 winner.

I have no problem with anybody trying to give a Quantitive value to Qualitive judgement, Its what all sorts of analysts in all walks of life do, indeed I have spent the last 2 years working on my own method relating to breeding, and maybe this flat season I will start to see results, but even with what I have attempted to do, I know from analysing the last ten years, Colts and Horses only Group 1’s between 8f and 12f in England and Ireland, that 17% of the races are won by colts and horses, sometimes fillies, that do not correlate with what I would expect to happen. Maybe I have made bad judgements, I accept that, I am still learning.

French races, with their tendancy to start slow and then turn into a sprint can have horses that you would think could not win at 12f, winning.

Another problem with dosage, particularly when looking at 8f G1 races, there is quite a difference in the CD ranges when comparing winners whose Paternal sirelines go back to Unbreakable or Nearco, (which most do when looking at 8f to 12f winners, approx 90% to Nearco and 9% to Unbreakable). The ranges are quite markedly different. At 10f its not such a problem and at 12f it has no relevence as "Unbreakables" rarely win.
You could think that a "Nearco with a high CD figure could win, but they don’t, whereas"Unbreakables do".

With my own research, I have found that soft ground can cause problems, horses that are not so well bred as others will then win.

Another problem is that as sires grow older, they can in some cases get offspring that will win at further distances than 1st thought, (read Tesio’s book on breeding, he explains it). Who would have ever thought that Kingmambo would sire a St Leger winner (Rule of Law), or a horse like Alkasaad which won at 12f ?, Danehills winning the Irish Derby recently.
These changes are not factored in.

No system is the be all and end all, remember the saying, there are lies, damned lies, statistics……and then there is horseracing.