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Cape Blanco has already beat a more select field than Harbinger and looks to have progressed past him now.
Of course
Alas we’ll never know for sure, but for my money the Cape Blanco that cruised into the straight today was a different animal to the Cape Blanco who was hard off the bridle turning in at Ascot. 10f is the distance that his two best performances have come at. As AOB said, it was courage that got him home in the Irish Derby.
Some will argue that Rip Van Winkle and Twice Over give a solid look to the form. I would argue the opposite. The proximity of Sea Lord and Beethoven raise serious question marks for me anyway, and O’Brien said post race that Rip didn’t really appreciate the softening of the ground. He has to come up with some excuse of course. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if for some reason Twice Over also ran below his best.
However, Cape Blanco is evidently a very high class colt who has undoubtedly done no harm to Harbinger’s form.
I would be tempted to take Beethoven out of the equation personally, as he has been known to throw in the odd great performance when he is right
Having raced the Derby winner into the ground Cape Blanco was a sitting duck for Harbinger last time. Today was a different story.
On the RPR scale I’d give him a 133. Very likeable horse with a great attitude, given a very good ride from Heffernan today.
I didn’t have a penny on this race but in my opinion O’Brien deliberately gave Cape Blanco ‘his day’, why was Rip ridden so far off the pace?
Just my thoughts.
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Very impressed by Cape Blanco today. Just completely destroyed a field of top notch proven group one horses.
Very interested to see where they go with him although that might be it for this season considering he has already mixed it twice with the older horses this year.
As for RIP, well I dont know what they will do with him next. Looks fairly certain they want to go to America with him but hes definitely not good enough for the mile and I doubt if hes even up to lining up in the Classic but best of luck to them if they believe.
all of this hype about "how good does this make harbinger look"! i think people overrate harbinger abit too much. the king george wasn’t that of a strong field, Workforce being a big flop, 3 outsiders which you know wont win. some people dont realise that irish track and ground is different to english. as r.hughes said in an interview once. rvw obv should win at odds on, but the horse has never won beyond 8f. and with abit of ease, cape blanco gallops all day, as he did today. i just cant understand why johnny let an irish derby winner get a lead like that, he obv was hoping of rvw picking up very well and cb dying down.
To be fair to Johnny Murtagh, the field for a momemnt seemed to have Cape Blanco and gained on him, but as soon as Seamie heard them he asked the question of Cape Blanco and he found plenty. Reckon Cape Blanco has enough speed about him to win at 1m, always think 1m4f is asking too much of him he is versatile no doubt but not to the extent of a Dylan Thomas I say but Aidan mentioned the Arc with him. But I reckon he has replaced Rip Van Winkle as their BC Classic hope.
Well done Cape Blanco, fantastic win.
The most important thing to know about a horse is "the going".What is his preferred ground? Simply put at Leopardstown today the horses were digging up sods from the turf. The watering plus the heavy rain in the morning made it absolutely certain that RVW would not be a factor and so it proved.Firm to hard is his going.
Rip Van Winkle won at York, but did not travel the way you’d expect a top class miler running over 10 furlongs. Same as today, difference being he didn’t pick up this time. Talk about him not being a true 10f horse is wide of the mark,. Eclipse 2nd just as good as Sussex win. Suspect both RVW and Twice Over weren’t over their hard races on the knavesmire (more than a going problem). Must be a doubt whether RVW has / will recapture last years form.
Cape Blanco possibly a little flattered by the run of the race, but improved quite a bit from Ascot nevertheless. Franling Harbinger’s King George. Beethoven keeps the form down too, highly unlikely Coolmoore’s third string improved enough to be in a photo with top form International principles. Race can probably be rated around him, with the two favourites below form.
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