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I find this strange.
How can Nicky Henderson not know where Sprinter Sacre will run next, only 48 hours before Doncaster ?
The decision is not ground dependant, just that he has two horse entered but only one will run. Surely that one is Kid Cassidy, with Sprinter Sacre heading to Newbury ?
He’s a criminal (IMHO), what do you expect? Him to give us straight, honest answers? That would be expecting far too much of a trainer.
Comments like the one above are why I rarely contribute to this forum. My take on it is that the horse still has a problem and he desperatly wants to get a run into the horse prior to cheltenham. When it boils down to it first priorities are the horse and the owners.
Very strong words Zark and i don’t agree
However, it’s baffling that he can’t just say where the horse is running.
It’s not a few months or weeks. It’s not even a few days.
Also think his entries for Cheltenham on Saturday are very disappointing. Race management like this is why he won’t be champion trainer even though he has the horses.
Still love him though !
He’s a criminal (IMHO), what do you expect? Him to give us straight, honest answers? That would be expecting far too much of a trainer.
Of course comments like this are pretty libelous. Putting IMHO after doesn’t alter that. His first duty is to the owners and maybe he and the owners just haven’t decided yet. They don’t have to declare until 10am on Fridayt so have done nothing wrong.
Very strong words Zark and i don’t agree
About which bit?
He’s a criminal (IMHO), what do you expect? Him to give us straight, honest answers? That would be expecting far too much of a trainer.
Of course comments like this are pretty libelous. Putting IMHO after doesn’t alter that. His first duty is to the owners and maybe he and the owners just haven’t decided yet. They don’t have to declare until 10am on Fridayt so have done nothing wrong.
I’m not allowed to express an opinion? In this instance I couldn’t care less because there’s no ante-post market, but I find it disgusting that Nicky Henderson gets away with what he gets away with.
His first duty should be to the people that run the sport – the punters. Take away the punters and racing simply would not exist. Where do you think prize money comes from?
Very strong words Zark and i don’t agree
About which bit?
He’s a criminal (IMHO), what do you expect? Him to give us straight, honest answers? That would be expecting far too much of a trainer.
Of course comments like this are pretty libelous. Putting IMHO after doesn’t alter that. His first duty is to the owners and maybe he and the owners just haven’t decided yet. They don’t have to declare until 10am on Fridayt so have done nothing wrong.
I’m not allowed to express an opinion? In this instance I couldn’t care less because there’s no ante-post market, but I find it disgusting that Nicky Henderson gets away with what he gets away with.
His first duty should be to the people that run the sport – the punters. Take away the punters and racing simply would not exist. Where do you think prize money comes from?
Of course you can express an opinion. However, if it is libelous he can sue. As I said, if he decided to sue you, saying it is merely your opinion wouldn’t help you one iota.
His first duty is to the owners, they are his customers and pay the bills. Without owners there would be no racing and I’m pretty certain they put as much, if not more, into the sport than punters. Prize money is made up of many factors not just the levy. What exactly has Henderson got away with here ? He doesn’t have to declare who will run until 10am Friday. That is why there is a final declaration stage 24 hours before the race. Are you going to have a go at all the other trainers who don’t decide to whether to run or not until the final declaration stage ?
Racing wouldn’t survive without owners because there would be no horses to race. Racing wouldn’t survive without punters because there would be no money, but punters contribute a hell of a lot more to prize money than owners do through the levy.
Like I said, in this instance I have no issue, but look at David Pipe. On Monday he entered Grands Crus in the Argento and categorically stated that they were unsure whether he would run or not. He reiterated that statement on Wednesday. No problem, kept us all informed, punters knew where they stood. I would congratulate him on doing so but that should be the norm.
Nicky Henderson stated on January 3rd 2012 that Binocular would not be prepping at Sandown for the Champion Hurdle. On January 23rd he stated that Binocular would be prepping at Sandown for the Champion Hurdle. Almost a non-entity as there’s no ante-post betting, but still, doesn’t help his trustworthyness.
On Friday January 20th 2012, Spirit Son took part in a gallop with several other horses. His partner was Riverside Theatre, a 3 mile chaser, and he overtook Spirit Son. Despite this, Barry Geraghty wrote on his blog that Spirit Son did a good piece of work. At 8pm, Spirit Son drifted badly on the exchanges, being matched at 25.0.
Saturday morning, Nick Luck spoke to Spirit Son’s owner Michael Buckley and he was completely unaware of any problem. At 1.31pm, the RP broke the story about Spirit Son having had a setback. The news broke earlier than that, I think about 11am, but that’s 15-odd hours.
Nicky Henderson stated 2 years ago in February that Binocular would miss the Champion Hurdle. Everybody knows what happened there. Tom Taaffe did the same in 2005 with Kicking King.
Saturday 12th March 2011, Nicky Henderson’s Racing Post column states that Bob’s Worth will be running in the Neptune Hurdle. Doesn’t say a single thing about Binocular. That very morning, an owner who has horses with Nicky Henderson came into the betting shop where I worked and told me that he had spoken with Nicky Henderson the afternoon before (the Friday) and Henderson stated in no uncertain terms that Bob’s Worth would be running in the Albert Bartlett. During the time my owner acquaintance was there, something happened to one of the horses which attracted the attention of several stable staff apparently. When he asked Henderson what was going on, Henderson said simply ‘you’ll read about it’. 36 hours later, Sunday morning, boom, Binocular has an allergy & is on a course of banned substances that won’t clear his system in time for the Champion. Not a single word between his prep at Sandown and 2 days before the Champion Hurdle.
I won’t go into the Moonlit Path scandal because it was just so embarrassing that Nicky Henderson knew absolutely none of the rules about prohibited substances. Showed himself to be a total wally quite frankly.
January 13th, news breaks that Bob’s Worth & Binocular have had wind operations. The Binocular wind operation, no problem, but EVERYBODY on twitter knew about Bob’s Worth’s wind op 7 days earlier when an insider tweeted about it.
On the 29th December 2011, Bob’s Worth was a 8-10/1 shot across the board. On 1st January 2012, his price was cut by 6 bookmakers to between 7 & 8/1. Every single day his price shortened with at least 1 bookmaker until the 13th January, by which point he was 9/2 or 5/1.
It’s not just Nicky.
Monday, Shark Hanlon says there is a possibility of Hidden Cyclone not running at the Cheltenham Festival.
"The most suitable race for him I suppose is the RSA but I will have to have a chat with the owners because if the ground came up quick at Cheltenham I don’t know if I would run him."
Makes absolutely no mention of not entering the horse on Tuesday for any race. Simply states if the ground is quick then he’d be a doubtful runner.
Entries published on Thursday, boom, not in there. The owners want to skip the Festival. Fine, no problem. Why didn’t you say that 3 days earlier or even on Tuesday when the declarations were made?
What about Willie Mullins and that whole Hurricane Fly fiasco at Christmas? No mention in his RP column that Hurricane Fly is a doubtful runner, despite Thousand Stars’ price collapsing with several heavy bets being placed on him. Then he withdraws the horse and says he’s behind on work.
And what about Nicholls? November 2010, Denman runs in the Hennessy. Says he’ll be off until the Gold Cup. Then writes in his Betfair column on the 20th February 2011 that Denman has had a wind op.
"So we had that done a week after the Hennessy, and I just hope that it will improve him slightly and allow him to finish off his races a little better."
So it took him near enough 3 months to tell us about the operation.
And people are surprised that trainers don’t give us any information…
punters contribute a hell of a lot more to prize money than owners do through the levy.
Not true. Rachel Hood recently took Paul Bittar to task for making the same mistake.
Or it might be wise to say that if a punter is contributing that much to racing via the levy, it would be cheaper to give up betting, simply buy a horse and pay for its training!
punters contribute a hell of a lot more to prize money than owners do through the levy.
Not true. Rachel Hood recently took Paul Bittar to task for making the same mistake.
I’d love to see the statistics on that.
A PMU monopoly would at least mean more money was pumped back into racing & it’d also completely clean our sport completely from corruption.
Before anyone even suggest I am protecting Nicky Henderson forget it because this is what any trainer worth his salt would do.
His preference would probably be to run Kid Cassidy, he’s already hinted at that but most likely they’d probably both do a serious bit of work on Tuesday, very little on Wednesday canter on Thursday and then he’d make sure they had eaten up most likely check there blood count then if both well he’d run the one he was leaning towards in the first place. If not then the other would run.
Nothing crooked about it the guy is simply doing his job properly.
Maybe next time someone wants to ask why they’ll remember there’s more important things to worry about than checking in with the racing post every 5 mins. There’s no AP betting so why would he have to plus a lotta people would be disappointed if he said he was likely to run SS and he never.
Sometimes it’s better to say nothing in these matters.
Not true. Rachel Hood recently took Paul Bittar to task for making the same mistake.
Correct but that shouldn’t be the case, whose fault is it that racing gets so little of the punters money and we are sill running races for an absolute pittance despite the popularity of the sport?
The problem here is that trainers think outloud.What they say is always one side of the story,not the whole story.They have to go through their options before making a decision.They do that outloud.
thank God we don’t have ‘reserves’ like they do in ireland……….that keeps you guessing up to the last minute
I love how punters think they know racing and how it works better than the trainers, (even if they do not and have never worked in the sport)
Saying that i do agree that trainers should state their plans on where to take horses (not giving a 100% answer) because hey! things happen and plans change due to how horses are leading upto a race, A horse could be targeted to a race 100%.. then a few days before withdrawn, if its a problem dont back antepost?! the horse could then be withdrawn and entered 3 days later after the problem is sorted…for example if a horse has not performed well, he may have won, but the jockey could express problems with the horse during the race…
I dont bet anyway so i really couldnt care less!
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