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Flat racing does seem to be gripped by owners who have their eyes on the next great stallion whereas jumps owners are in it more for sheer enjoyment. Interesting that coolmore are selling a few horses to jpmcmanus for jumping. Should Australia and taghrooda be rushed off to stud it would be a big loss to the industry. Presumably kingman will be too so we will start next season with very few stars to look forward too unless the likes of highland reel an diva wood turn out to be superstars. Great pity.
Recorded the racing yesterday and quite happy fast forwarding just to watch the races.
Still haven’t changed my mind that Clare and Rishi shouldn’t present horse racing. They just don’t blend into the programme and the horses should take centre stage.The recorded sound effect crowd noises at Haydock on Saturday were farcical.
Just listen to them in Havana Cooler’s race, it was hard to concentrate on the actual race with the annoying din in the background.What hope is there with nonsense like this and hardly a horse shown in the paddock. The producers are on a different wavelength to most of the viewers.
More terrific insight from the team today. Mick Fitzgerald asked James Doyle how he was going to manage to get to Leopardstown in time for the Irish Champion meeting after riding at Doncaster. Somewhat unsurprisingly James Doyle informed an audience waiting with bated breath that he would be flying, elaborating that it would be by a helicopter.
Later on Rishi cornered Paul Hanagan for the umpteenth time of the afternoon and put the exact same question to him. By an amazing coincidence Paul Hanagan was also flying over and also via helicopter.
I had had visions of the pair of them, with an oar each, going hammer and tongs in a rowing boat headed across the Irish Sea towards the Emerald Isle.
The big question, which was never answered, was if they were travelling in the same helicopter? Does anyone know?
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I thought that Mick Fitz was getting a rough ride here. However after his interview with Graham Lee seconds after he had lost his ride in the last classic of the season I have lost all sympathy for him.
"So you’ve got an unexpected break then". Yeeeesh!!
"So you’ve got an unexpected break then". Yeeeesh!!
*CRINGE* Some real ‘accidental Partridge’ from Mick Fitz there. The five seconds of awkward silence between them as they waited for the camera to cut away was quite painful too!
Tanya surely took today’s prize with her ‘greatly disparaging quotes for the Derby’
The first piece Tanya did on TML yesterday was excruciating. If anything she appears to be getting less confident by the week. Felt sorry (a wee bit) for Fitz having to talk to Graham Lee at the start.
And once again Clare Balding cherry picks a big race. She didn’t bother with the earlier part of the meeting … only St Leger day. Not that she wanted to be top dog again and show everyone just how inflated her ego is
Just as a footnote to this point I was making:-
Your closing statement that the horse’s rating made no difference to the horse’s performance is absolutely correct. It also has nothing to do with the point I was making.
Frankie selected the horse
because
it was top rated and, therefore, the rating is key to the point being raised.
We were asked to believe that Somewhat had suddenly recaptured something close to his 2yo peak performance when he ran in the Eclipse and I had to disagree with the handicapper raising him to 115, based on the way the race was run with several horses being unsuited by it and others being given mind-numbingly bad rides in the circumstances.
You stated you thought Somewhat ran a good race behind Snow Sky and were surprised that I didn’t agree with that sentiment. It is not that I thought the horse didn’t run a good enough race, what I was saying was that Somewhat hadn’t run like a horse rated 115. The overall point I was making was whether Frankie would have ridden him if he had still been on the same rating he was
before
The Eclipse.
Somewhat was dropped 5lbs in the ratings after his run behind Snow Sky, so my thinking that he hadn’t run to 115 was agreed with by the handicapper. He then went on to run in an unappealing looking Geoffrey Freer where Pether’s Moon seemed to go off fav by default before running poorly (bounced back in Turkey since) The handicapper dropped Somewhat another pound for that run and went into the St Leger, apparently tipped by Big Mac at 40/1 (perhaps because he finished in front of Kingston Hill in the Eclipse), off a rating of 109. If Somewhat had been left on the mark of 115 he would have been running off the same mark as Romsdal and joint second top rated behind the ultimate winner who was on 120. Somewhat cut no ice in the Leger and four horses who were rated lower than his 109 finished ahead of him on the day.
Looking back to the Eclipse now, the only horse to win from the race so far is the St Leger winner. Somewhat was a 100/1 shot on the day of the race and finished third. The crux of what I am saying is, rather than just accept that it might be a freak result on really fast ground, where several jockeys seemed to be asleep, the handicapper trawls back to a race run last year, over 3 furlongs shorter, and tries to convince us that a horse has suddenly and miraculously run to just about his best ever.
Somewhat is now on a losing streak of nine. I was surprised Frankie nominated him as the horse he would have picked in the Gordon Stakes and would be even more shocked if he was queuing up to throw a leg over him next time.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I find it strange that they’ve had features in the middle of quality Saturday afternoon flat racing, on jumps stables O’Neill & Henderson in recent weeks.
These would be ideal items for the Morning Line.
I find it strange that they’ve had features in the middle of quality Saturday afternoon flat racing, on jumps stables O’Neill & Henderson in recent weeks.
These would be ideal items for the Morning Line.
They’d be ideal in the jumps season not now.
Ch4 didn’t show any of the Cheltenham races yesterday but they still didn’t show any paddock shots,in most cases only picking up the horses at the start!
How on earth did the manage that??
It worse than the grandstand days, but trouble was it was no better on ruk due to them wasting time on gaff meetingsWas that the gaff meeting with the £25k sprint or the one with a £16k chase? RUK should be showing all available meetings whilst C4 cover a premier meeting uninterrupted.
If C4 didn’t show any paddock shots then it’s a poor show by them.
They’re a waste of time, if they’re not going to show the horses in the paddock and going to post for a day like yesterday, with all the time between the races they never will, obviously they prefer people talking
Ch4 didn’t show any of the Cheltenham races yesterday but they still didn’t show any paddock shots,in most cases only picking up the horses at the start!
How on earth did the manage that??
It worse than the grandstand days, but trouble was it was no better on ruk due to them wasting time on gaff meetingsRUK needs a red button. Covering other meetings inevitably detracts from the quality of the principal meeting.
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