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This thread has turned into a bit of a ‘Denman this and Denman that’ thread, totally ignoring the fact that Madison Du Berlais ran and jumped his field silly. I would doubt that he would do the same at Cheltenham, it’s totally different matter from a three mile spin around Kempton, but he should be given credit for an excellent performance.
I really hope we see Denman defend his title, but I have to agree with Himself; think it is odds-on a no show. It was not just the actual form of the 2nd place but the way he carried himself. You could clearly see early in the race his ears were flat back. There was something he was not liking. Hope they find a minor thing wrong, but it could be heart or some other injury. If he does turn up at Cheltenham I will be a little worried about the outcome.
As others have said, there were excuses for all the other horses in the race. But Madison still did it so well that I would not be surprised if he put up another improved performance in those all important cheek pieces. Do wonder whether 10/1 is a little generous. Did see David Pipe mention Kempton may have been his track (flat). Though let’s not forget he was 3rd in Greenhope’s Grand Annual over what looks now an inadequate 2 miles.
Kauto Star has never been at his best at Cheltenham, even when winning the Gold Cup. I am already on Neptunes Collonges but might back Madison and Exotic too, nearer the time; if I think they remain value.
Mark
Value Is EverythingAlthough, as I have said before I don’t think the Denman that I saw today was the Denman of last season, could a lot of his attitude today be due to the fact that he wasn’t, for various reasons allowed to front run and he was sulking? Also agree with Rob that this shouldn’t be the race that Denman lost but a race that was won by another brave and talented horse….
Would MdB have won the King George ? I doubt it personally. The performances today of Alberta’s Run and Denman put question marks against the whole race for me.
Denman is a big heavy horse and although soft ground suits he would surely not have been fully fit today.You try lugging that frame around in tacky ground that he blatently was struggling to jump out of.
I’ll ignore todays performance but will obviously tread carefully come March.
Lee
And the point I was making, Equitrack, is that while you have interpreted "he doesn’t win from behind" as "Denman wasn’t ideally placed" (i.e. by his jockey), I have interpreted it as PFN describing his realisation that Denman being "behind" and therefore not going to win was not a matter of riding tactics that didn’t work, but because Madison du Berlais was going faster.
After the fifth or sixth fence there was no suggestion that Ruby was holding Denman up with a view to coming from behind and as stated, that’s not what I think Nicholls was saying. I think he was saying once MdB had gone on he knew the writing was on the wall precisely because Denman tends not to get headed in his races. Your interpretation suggests Ruby had a choice in the matter and I didn’t get a suggestion of that from either watching the race itself or listening to PFN’s post-race comments.
I thought Nicholls was putting on a brave face. He looked slightly despondent to me. As I said previously, I will be surprised if Denman runs in this year’s Gold Cup.
Paul Nicholls said that Denman would improve, but "not by much."
If that’s the case, then they may as well keep the horse at home.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
I will be surprised if Denman runs in this year’s Gold Cup.
I agree. The implication seems to be that it was the hard race Denman had in last year’s GC, which was deemed necessary to run the finish out of KS, which may have caused or at least contributed to his heart problem. He obviously hasn’t bounced back 100% if today’s race is anything to go by, so how do connections justify potentially subjecting him to a similarly tough race at Cheltenham, against a fresher Kauto who – touching wood – won’t have had any niggles or interruptions this time around? Are they prepared to risk bottoming him forever, bringing on a recurrence of the heart murmur, or worse?
Well on the one hand you can say that Denman will come on for the run but after watching the race live i thought after the first two fences that something did not seem right.
MdB has improved without doubt but the Aintree Bowl would suite him a lot better but why not have a go in the Gold Cup as it only comes round once a year.
Albertas Run was easily flattered by his run in the King George and will be right down the field in the Gold Cup, Could be worth a chance in the Ryanair Chase.
So what will happen to Denman, will be retain his crown or could he end up struggling at the back not being able to pick up.
Myself i want him to retain his crown but he will need to work a lot more than he did today.
I will be surprised if Denman runs in this year’s Gold Cup.
I agree. The implication seems to be that it was the hard race Denman had in last year’s GC, which was deemed necessary to run the finish out of KS, which may have caused or at least contributed to his heart problem. He obviously hasn’t bounced back 100% if today’s race is anything to go by, so how do connections justify potentially subjecting him to a similarly tough race at Cheltenham, against a fresher Kauto who – touching wood – won’t have had any niggles or interruptions this time around? Are they prepared to risk bottoming him forever, bringing on a recurrence of the heart murmur, or worse?
I agree with you Cruella. I was mulling the performance driving back from Lingfield.
I was very perplexed immediately after the race. Indeed when I was asked after the race what I made of it I really did not know what to make of it – the performance really was that bad.
It crossed my mind it may have been a "public schooling" run but that isn’t really Nicholls style and the reactions afterwards seemed genuine – they were clearly expecting more than was shown today.
This evening I have watched a re-run of the Gold Cup and I don’t think I had fully appreciated, in the heat of the event, just how hard the race was on him. It is very similar to the Grand National effect – how many Grand Natioinal winners go onto further glory?
He is a "clever" horse and I wonder,being back on the course again, if he remembered what happened last time he raced.
I also wonder if the hard race at Cheltenham precipitated his heart condition?
The question is, what next for him?
I cannot see either the Gold Cup or the National being on the agenda for him this season.
I must say though that Denmans poor show should not take anything away from the winner, that was a good performance, although I think the cut in his price for teh Gold Cup is perhaps too big.
Maybe it was Denman’s obesity that caused his heart problem. I remember a forumite describing him as "elephantine" when seeing him at the Nicholls Open Day.
He takes a lot of work, so the sudden inactivity of the summer conceivably puts a lot of weight on him.
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I didn’t think he looked particularly straight today, but Steve Mellish seemed fairly certain that he wouldn’t fail through a lack of fitness – I’m prepared to take his seasoned eye, with an ‘in the flesh’ perspective, over mine on this occasion.
There is approx 6 weeks until the Gold cup, if Denman was seriously
short of fitness today, then there is a glimmer of hope for his supporters,
however i doubt very much P.Nicholls has any intention of running him again before the big one and i would suspect that Denman was 95% fit for today, if that is the case then on todays performance he has No chance
of retaining his crown! I am writing off Denman and yet Albertas run was a
further 25l behind running like a drain, but i can see him still running a big race around his favourite track on March 13th ground permitting! It tells me that the race today cant be taken too literally!Hmm, interesting reading all this.
After the race I thought MDB was impressive but Denman was very stuffy and a bit off-colour – is that just down to lack of fitness?
He did not jump with his usual flair and was always looking like he was having to do too much early on. Once MDB took it up the writing seemed on the wall…
So difficult to be dogmatic about the performances of the first 2 home.
Bottom line is, the Gold Cup is still over over 5 weeks away and Denman can come on a lot for that….but is he the same horse as last year?
Confooooosing!
I do think MDB was very impressive today…though a time scout earlier in this thread did say it was not a good time. I’d love to be on KS at an E/W price, but then, who wouldn’t?
I’ve got a feeling it could still be a thrilling finish between the top 2 protagonists come March…with KS gaining revenge.
Geez – it’s quite difficult this racing lark.
Zip
i have to say i was saddened to watch denman 2day as i am a big fan of his( although naturally bigger on nipper lol) however he wasent the big glowin ball of muscle we saw gallopin on to win the goldcup last year………..! also however durin trainin lastweek its reported nipper psd all over him…
n although im glad 4 nipper im sad 4 denman…;-( as 2day reminded me of the azza well cheif finalrace @ sandown a few years ago hope they sort denmans problems as much as ide like to see nipper win the english and irish goldcup……… xxxi have to say i was saddened to watch denman 2day as i am a big fan of his( although naturally bigger on nipper lol) however he wasent the big glowin ball of muscle we saw gallopin on to win the goldcup last year………..! also however durin trainin lastweek its reported nipper psd all over him…
n although im glad 4 nipper im sad 4 denman…;-( as 2day reminded me of the azza well cheif finalrace @ sandown a few years ago hope they sort denmans problems as much as ide like to see nipper win the english and irish goldcup……… xxxQuite a puzzling race today in many respects and one that will probably take some picking over. I enjoyed MDB’s performance enormously. The horse looked in fantastic condition and the trainer had clearly got a lot of work into him. Not surprised to hear David Pipe say that this race might just be MDB’s Gold Cup. He is a trainer who will know better than most how much work it takes to get a horse firing as well as MDB was today and how difficult it is to repeat the trick to order on another day and another track. Not sure how good MDB is now. On the back of his last two runs, you probably could make a strong case for saying that he has bridged the gap with the top three milers around today. Then again, he started the season losing by a country mile to Roll Along, so perhaps some reason for scepticism about just how much of a leap forward he has made.
There were things I felt were concerning about Denman’s run, but he has had a long time off the track for a horse that reportedly doesn’t do as much as some at home and needs his races to maintain peak fitness. Wouldn’t be surprising if he was very stuffy today. He does go well on soft ground, but on soft it is particularly important to have the muscle condition spot on to handle the ground well and the more so for a heavy horse like Denman. That factor too may have been against him shining today.
Also, although you can’t explain his defeat solely in terms of going right handed on a sharp track, the course certainly wouldn’t have helped him today. Note how much ground MDB was taking away from Denman around the bends in the second half of the race and how the distance between the two, if anything, contracted slightly on the straighter sections of the course. Kempton is utterly the wrong type of track for a big, ring rusty horse that relies on getting into a good rhythm/stride to be seen at his best. By contrast, MDB clearly has the speed to benefit from a track like Kempton, having won five times in chases over 16-18f and being an unlucky third in the Grand Annual over 17f.
None of those points are meant to imply that everything is fine and dandy with Denman at present. As many others have said, he didn’t look a happy horse today and there was something that seemed not quite sparkling with him. But then again a lot of people said more or less the same thing about Kauto Star when he came back for the first time after a long break following his win in the Gold Cup and put in what some saw as a lacklustre performance, going down to Monet’s Garden at Aintree. A lot of commentators were saying then that Kauto looked flat and subdued and only a shadow of the horse that had won the Gold Cup seven months earlier. At the time, my view was that Kauto simply looked like a horse that had been in a very hard race last time out (i.e. in the 2007 Gold Cup) and, after a long summer break, didn’t look that pleased to find himself back on the race track. Obviously, we don’t know that much about how psychology works with horses, but perhaps it is not unreasonable to think that a horse will remember a hard race where they have been pretty much emptied out and that memory can affect the attitude shown in future races, particularly the first race back after a break.
If Denman is genuinely over his heart problem, I would be optimistic that with this first race back out the way, he will come on considerably in his next race on a more suitable track. Whether he is back to full health, of course, we don’t really know based on the evidence of today’s race. Presumably, he will have some veterinary tests now over the next few days that may reveal more.
I have just seen a clip of Silver Sedge’s win at Ayr today. Long time since I have seen three greys filling the places in a NH race. Thought I was seeing treble for a moment.
n although im glad 4 nipper im sad 4 denman…;-( as 2day reminded me of the azza well cheif finalrace @ sandown a few years ago hope they sort denmans problems as much as ide like to see nipper win the english and irish goldcup……… 
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