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“Future Stars” it’s labelled – the concluding bumper at Leopardstown on Saturday.
A Dream To Share already is one, at least in this sphere, isn’t he?
Won a bumper on his debut in 2022 – yes, you read that right, 2022, the better part of TWO YEARS ago! – then another.
But it gets better – he won this race last year!
And better still – he then won the Champion Bumper at the Cheltenham Festival!
And after that the Punchestown version!
How – in the name of: Nathan’s favourite selfie, CAS’s hiked-up RUK subscription, Gladders’s cheese omelette and gamble’s comfiest strait jacket – the actual F is this beast still eligible to run in this race??!!
I had to laugh.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"A six year old “National Hunt” horse going for its fourth graded race without ever having left the ground. Farcical.
I hope he gets beaten.Reminds me of sports commentators , the best player who didn’t play for England , the best boxer never to win a world title ,the best tennis player never to win a grand slam event , now the the best jumps horse never to have jumped .
I have never understood the rules on bumpers. How many can a horse run in?
Isn’t it time to scrap these races? Most of the runners are from the point to point field and are already used to jumping.
Flat pedigree , the few jumpers in family went jumping as failed on flat . Half Bro Raise You 110 and got within 10 of Kyprios . Hardly what Bumpers were designed for really imho . V good horse though .
The owner has this years Supreme hurdle winner in Mystical Power so they will keep A Dream to Share back for next year…
But yes, how is this possible that last years Champion bumper winning running.
Charles Darwin to conquer the World
Basically he can run here as the race conditions allow it. There are penalties for previous wins in bumpers, but as long as the horse has never run on the flat or over hurdles, he’s qualified for this race, regardless of the grade of bumper won.
The second favourite, Redemption Day (W Mullins) won his first bumper in Dec 2021!
All these championship bumpers are a contradiction in terms, given that the usual reason given for the existence of N H Flat races is as an education for previously unraced horses.
In the UK, there is a limit of four runs, but the Graded and Listed races don’t count as part of the four. So even here a horse could run in four bumpers and go on to run at Cheltenham and Aintree. Older readers may recall a horse called Diamond Harry, who won a valuable sales restricted bumper at Newbury as a 4yo on his racecourse debut, and then didn’t run again until winning the same race again as a 5yo. He’d collected over £60k in prize money before he ever jumped a hurdle in public.
Sure I read a few weeks ago the horse wasn’t prepared in time for a jumps campaign and if I remember correctly hasn’t even been schooled over them.
The more I know the less I understand.
Obviously I get that the horse is eligible to run because the race conditions allow it, but for me the race conditions are a farce.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The race conditions are unquestionably a farce.
I think bumpers have a place in NH racing. However, I think there should be a limit on how many bumpers a horse can run in. I also think they shouldn’t be able to run in bumpers the following season, regardless of how many runs they had previous. I would also ban P2P winners from running in bumpers.
Agree – bumpers should be for horses who’ve never raced at all – and therefore have no experience. If they’ve gone down the PTP route, then it’s straight to novice hurdles….
The whole system is farcical; a 5yo store wins a PTP, spends a season in bumpers, then a season in novice hurdles, then a season in novice chases, before stepping up to open class chases…..Complete madness.
Re horses who have pointed already, is there still something to be said for giving them some initial racecourse experience without the added challenge of obstacles?
I imagine that the hustle and bustle of some of the bigger tracks in particular could be quite a different experience from an equine perspective.
Agree Andy, it is farcical. Just because it has been done this way for years does not mean it should continue forever.
The whole system needs a completely overhaul along the lines Kevin Blake has suggested: get rid of bumpers altogether and novice status after a specific cut off date for horses above a certain rating. Horses below that rating run in novices handicaps for the rest of the season and the best horses go into open company, strengthening the Grade 1 championship races.
Of course, it will never happen because it suits Cheltenham and Punchestown to have a bloated programme to make more money.
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