- This topic has 90 replies, 29 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 5 months ago by
.
- Posts
Could not agree more Mike, poor Elliot is going to say nothing, that does not correlate to what the boss has said up till that race. Minutes after he got beat… Poor Elliot does not know, it’s not really his decision. He might have a say, but ultimately, it’s up to some one else. The Ryan Air boss could be sitting somewhere saying ‘chasing’, at the exact moment Elliot is on air on TV.
Different class the winner
I think he has been a much maligned double CH winner!!
On that performance he might well be a triple winner !!If they insist on the Champion Hurdle for Samcro, then he must be showing something at home he’s not showing on the track. That was a bold gamble today and I can’t believe the yard weren’t behind it.
Kennedy erred, I thought, in riding him for speed though a good judge on twitter says he thinks Buveur D’Air would have won farther off a hot pace. I’m not sure about that. On looks, Samcro should be a sky’s the limit horse, an unusually good mover for an NH horse and he seems free of quirks.
My first impression wnen he hit the front at the Cheltenham Festival was that he was taking a bit of time to get into a proper gear. Then I told myself not to crab the performance. Worth repeating my earlier theory that he must have schooled terribly over fences for them to be so insistent on resisting a chase career.
Kennedy is on a horse who won over 2m5f on soft ground at the festival and as soon as they set off and he just let him amble along I thought to myself why are you riding him for speed, you have a clear fitness advantage so why are you not using it.
In all honesty it probably made not a jot of difference to the result but at least ride the race that will best suit your own horse and not play into the hands of a rival that has clearly got more basic speed than you do………if they are going the Champion route they will have to hope BVD misses the race.
Steep – your theory about maybe him not schooling well enough at home to go chasing could be a good call, don’t recall whether that particular question has even been asked of connections before. He is a half brother to a 2m4f-3m hurdle winner and he himself did hurdle very well through the race so who knows.
I was there today. Dreadful weather, but with a race of this quality on your doorstep and the opportunity to see them all in the flesh, this was not to be missed.
I spent a fair bit of time looking them over in the pre-parade ring. Samcro and Buveur were in well ahead of the rest of the field, so there was plenty of opportunity to compare the two. Samcro is a tall, long and leggy, imposing, fluid-moving horse, although he is not as big as I thought he would be. He is all over a stayer to look at. He was also fit. Buveur, by contrast, is smaller and more compact, powerful athlete – and he was nowhere near as fit as his main rival. One is a hurdler in type, the other you would guess would be a staying chaser. There was a distinct sense that Samcro was here to smash up Buveur, and the Buveur team certainly looked worried ahead of the race. The race though told an entirely different story. After watching it, I cannot see Samcro ever getting anywhere near Buveur – he was just in a different county. Electric.
I have long been in the ‘Buveur d’Air is not getting the recognition he deserves’ camp. It’s interesting to speculate, but take Buveur out of the race and out of the picture and folk would be singing the praises of Samcro for stuffing Summerville Boy (the Supreme winner) and Vision des Flos out of sight, and it would have been on to the CH as a firm favourite. So, either the novice hurdlers from last year are not top drawer (possible) or Buveur is a much better Champion than he has been given the credit for. I tend to the latter view. Today is the hard evidence – but then it’s salutary to think back to the reason he went back over hurdles. Whilst it was the case that he is a very, very slick hurdler, it probably had more to do with a future that would have involved continually having to run against Altior …
As for Samcro. Well he looks like an RSA horse to me, and – having seen him – I’m even more surprised about the decision to go the CH route. I suspect that he is not a fluent (enough) jumper of a fence. It’s hard to know which way connections will go. They’ve just about got time to divert to fences but if he stays over hurdles, well realistically it’s the Stayers if he’s going to have a chance of winning anything at Cheltenham … After all, as well as having Buveur to contend with in the CH there’s Laurina in there with the mares’ allowance. The Stayers’ could get really interesting. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we’ll see the two sons of Germany here, plus Thistlecrack.
Very, very impressive by Buveur d´Air. He made Samcro look very slow, but in the end Samcro did beat Summerville Boy en Vision des Flos (two top novices) easily. I think it is now safe to assume that Buveur d’Air indeed was not at his best last Cheltenham.
Henderson horse is certainly a supremely fast and accurate jumper of hurdles. Not surprising Samcro started favourite with supposedly a fitness advantage and conditions likely to suit the stamina of Samcro. But Kennedy gave that advantage away by going a slow pace and Buveur D’Air pretty much immediately rightly became the in-running favourite because of it. Time poor in comparisson to what you could expect. Even so, the Irish horse disappointed and the other good horse Summerville Boy also well below his best (running even worse). Therefore not sure it’s any better form than BD’s Champion Hurdle victories. True, Samcro has looked lacking in speed this season and that may or may not be to do with needing further. Given connections words afterwards could be he’s just not in as good shape as last term and that may or may not continue at any trip.
Personally doubt he’ll go chasing until next season. As Titus rightly implies, there is only just enough time to fit in a minimum couple of chases before Cheltenham. And as Joe implies, for Samcro to remain over hurdles this term (even from the start) I doubt he’s been a natural in schooling over fences. As Nausered said, I’ve backed Samcro for the Champion Hurdle, so hope he remains on that trajectory. Have also taken 7/2 Buveur D’Air so don’t feel too sorry for me (will still have a combined good bet even if only the English horse turns up)… But if another target is found for Samcro I think it’s far more likely to be sticking to the smaller obsticles in the Stayers Hurdle. Might be tempted to take the 10/1 for the longer distance; depending on where Apples Jade is aimed (Stayers or Mares?) and what Samcro’s next entry will be. But if backing a horse for two Cheltenham races without NRNB it’s effectively halved the price taken for both (won’t run in both)… Gigginstown by and large buy staying types and Samcro is still their best chance yet of winning the Champion Hurdle.
Evens Buveur D’Air is imo a crazy price now. If I hadn’t already got bets on the Champion then Melon is imo by far the best Champion Hurdle value bet at this point – considering how close he got. Take it he remains hurdling?
But slowly run trials don’t suit a hard puller like him and therefore almost certain to disappoint at some stage between now and March. Stable companion Laurina has the scope for further improvement, but needs to find it to be a Champion Hurdler – bit short imo. Others don’t look up to the job.Value Is EverythingIt was ridiculous connections plotting a Champion Hurdle bid before the season started, let alone now.
The horse needs 3 miles and plenty of fences put in front of him. Samcro could well be a Gold Cup winner in waiting, but they’ll be waiting an extra year due to this awful campaign. How they thought he had the speed to defeat a dual Champion Hurdler is beyond me.
Tom George must be disappointed that Summerville Boy couldn’t even get 3rd there, a shadow of the horse we saw at Cheltenham.
They did this with Death Duty – made a mistake as regards his best distance and trained him poorly.
That looked like a chaser racing against a hurdler and the tactics were questionable
In my opinion, the only reason they’ve sent Samcro down the Champion Hurdle route is because they have massively under-estimated how good Buveur D’air is. The vides from Ireland – and by that I mean what David Jennings was saying on the RP podcast – is that they believe Samcro to be at least a stone better than Mick Jazz, who got within 3.5 lengths of BD in the CH. I suspect they’ve taken BD’s 2nd CH win too literally, when it turns out he was possibly sick at the time and not at his best. They probably thought they had the beating of BD based on that, which otherwise looks a weak division.
It’s another error in judgement with a Gigginstown horse, possibly due to their hierarchy and why they no longer have horses with Mullins
Oleary backing up elliots statement yesterday, definitely staying hurdling this season
Going by the way Apples Jade just made a few good horses look like platers, Giggi are sending the wrong horse to the Champion
Yeah i agree joe, she probably ran a ch hurdle pace up the front with wicklow and was not slowing down
Apples Jade being beaten by Irving in this race a few years ago put pay to any Champion Hurdle aspirations she had – she falls into the not quite good/quick enough for 2m and not a stout enough stayers at 3m, plus the mares race is her ideal Cheltenham race so no incentive to run in the others.
We too readily assume that big imposing looking hurdlers that win over further than 2m on softer ground have their future over fences and over further (regardless of whether they actually have any aptitude to jump fences, which we simply don’t know in this case). For a horse of his size Samcro was very slick over his hurdles yesterday and that doesn’t always translate to fences, just ask Big Bucks and even moreso BVD himself.
Look at the Champion Hurdle betting as it is now and then take out BVD for just a minute and you are left with…..not a whole lot really. No guarantees that BVD makes it to the race and even if he does anything can happen and the only thing that is for certain is that you can’t win a Champion Hurdle if you are not entered in it.
Do I think he can beat BVD, in a word no and that is even assuming that conditions would put an emphasis more on stamina over speed but you can’t ever run scared of one horse especially over jumps.
But slowly run trials don’t suit a hard puller like him and therefore almost certain to disappoint at some stage between now and March. Stable companion Laurina has the scope for further improvement, but needs to find it to be a Champion Hurdler – bit short imo. Others don’t look up to the job.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.