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Hurdy: I agree both Grandouet and Spirit Son have improved with an extra year BUT who is to say Zarkandar has not also? The yard are extremely bullish about him also. What we can say without fear of contradiction is that this race looks very good indeed and quite easily far better than the last 2!
KF: Are you not worried that Messrs Nicholls and Hales are strongly considering the QM Champion Chase for AL FEROF?
Got nothing to do with weight or at least very little.
You obviously haven’t read his post or mine properly. Spirit Son placing in and Al Ferof winning last years Champion Hurdle because of the time.
If Hurricane Fly had run in the Supreme Gordon are you trying to tell us a bunch off novices would have beat him? Me thinks not!!!
My point Hurdy is that
Al Ferof
carrying 11-7 clocked a time 1.6 secs faster than
Hurricane fly
carrying 11-10 over the same course and distance on the same day,now that equates to just over 4 lengths on the clock minus just 2 lengths at the weights on good ground and thats allowing for the fact that ‘Overturn’ set a very solid pace,paricularly the first mile.I take the view that
Al Ferof
is a bit special,he’ll eat your
Sprinter sacre
again and if he’s that good (Good enough to be considered Champion chase material already GDC eh!) then the lightly raced and year younger
Spirit Son
sure aint far behind him,i’m quietly confident!
Think your maths is still off
MarkTT,my Maths is pretty Sh*te at the best of times but when it comes to the Cheltenham festival,i dodge away nicely,everyone has their own way of interpreting form and weights and ratings and going and so on,mark my words if
Spirit Son
and
Hurricane Fly
turn up in tip top shape there’s only one winner.I have said it before and i’ll say it again,last seasons ‘Supreme’ was exceptional.Perhaps you being a man of few words would like to elaborate a bit more?
Think your maths is still off
MarkTT,my Maths is pretty Sh*te at the best of times but when it comes to the Cheltenham festival,i dodge away nicely,everyone has their own way of interpreting form and weights and ratings and going and so on,mark my words if
Spirit Son
and
Hurricane Fly
turn up in tip top shape there’s only one winner.I have said it before and i’ll say it again,last seasons ‘Supreme’ was exceptional.Perhaps you being a man of few words would like to elaborate a bit more?
I think last years Supreme was a beauty, helped by the Irish mare Magens Star taking on Dunravens Storm for the lead on the first circuit – they finished second last and pulled up respectively. Horses with stamina and ability came to the fore and off such a pace, Sprinter Sacre made one mistake at the last which cost him, and some concluded he hadn’t got up the hill. Spirit Son did well considering Al Ferof more experience.
Would have been nice to have seen Buckleys horse but he’s obviously had problems.
Sprinter Sacre is a quality. Yes, he’s impressive over fences, but having run only twice over the larger obstacles in public, his natural corrective abilities are clear and in that regard he reminds me of Moscow Flyer
Can’t see anything touching him in the Arkle.
If Hurricane Fly had run in the Supreme Gordon are you trying to tell us a bunch off novices would have beat him? Me thinks not!!!
My point Hurdy is that
Al Ferof
carrying 11-7 clocked a time 1.6 secs faster than
Hurricane fly
carrying 11-10 over the same course and distance on the same day,now that equates to just over 4 lengths on the clock minus just 2 lengths at the weights on good ground and thats allowing for the fact that ‘Overturn’ set a very solid pace,paricularly the first mile.I take the view that
Al Ferof
is a bit special,he’ll eat your
Sprinter sacre
again and if he’s that good (Good enough to be considered Champion chase material already GDC eh!) then the lightly raced and year younger
Spirit Son
sure aint far behind him,i’m quietly confident!
Sacrebleu!!! You completely missed the obvious mate and you got things a$$ for elbow.
PN knows a budding champion when he sees one and if ever a horse was one it’s Sprinter Sacre.
He is using his noddle and it’s not because he thinks he’s got a superstar in his yard.
He knows he’s got next to no chance of beating Sprinter Sacre barring accidents and that there’s 40k of a difference if he can finish 2nd to Sizing Europe and even if he gets 3rd he’ll be 15k or so better off than he would be finishing 2nd to Sprinter Sacre.
Hurdy old bean,watch the race again,your horse
Sprinter sacre
showed bags of speed,always a good length ahead of my horse
Al Ferof
until they jump the 3rd last when yours quickens up and puts a good 6-7 lengths on mine,turning for home yours trades odds-on in running and doesn’t look like stopping but when Ruby gets at Al Ferof the response is impressive and he flys past everything up the hill and gives the impression he’s only just getting going,your horse ran a cracker but the mistake at the last never changed a thing and when they meet again in the Arkle you will see the same result.
Cue card
gives a solid feel to the form including his impressive Bumper win over
Al Ferof
but the latter has improved beyond his old adversary since.
http://horses.sportinglife.com/Video/Ra … 47,00.html
Just watched it again for the umpteenth time myself!
If Hurricane Fly had run in the Supreme Gordon are you trying to tell us a bunch off novices would have beat him? Me thinks not!!!
My point Hurdy is that
Al Ferof
carrying 11-7 clocked a time 1.6 secs faster than
Hurricane fly
carrying 11-10 over the same course and distance on the same day,now that equates to just over 4 lengths on the clock minus just 2 lengths at the weights on good ground and thats allowing for the fact that ‘Overturn’ set a very solid pace,paricularly the first mile.I take the view that
Al Ferof
is a bit special,he’ll eat your
Sprinter sacre
again and if he’s that good (Good enough to be considered Champion chase material already GDC eh!) then the lightly raced and year younger
Spirit Son
sure aint far behind him,i’m quietly confident!
Sacrebleu!!! You completely missed the obvious mate and you got things a$$ for elbow.
PN knows a budding champion when he sees one and if ever a horse was one it’s Sprinter Sacre.
He is using his noddle and it’s not because he thinks he’s got a superstar in his yard.
He knows he’s got next to no chance of beating Sprinter Sacre barring accidents and that there’s 40k of a difference if he can finish 2nd to Sizing Europe and even if he gets 3rd he’ll be 15k or so better off than he would be finishing 2nd to Sprinter Sacre.
He said he wanted Menorah to go chasing with as well…
Hurdy old bean,watch the race again,your horse
Sprinter sacre
showed bags of speed,always a good length ahead of my horse
Al Ferof
until they jump the 3rd last when yours quickens up and puts a good 6-7 lengths on mine,turning for home yours trades odds-on in running and doesn’t look like stopping but when Ruby gets at Al Ferof the response is impressive and he flys past everything up the hill and gives the impression he’s only just getting going,your horse ran a cracker but the mistake at the last never changed a thing and when they meet again in the Arkle you will see the same result.
Cue card
gives a solid feel to the form including his impressive Bumper win over
Al Ferof
but the latter has improved beyond his old adversary since.
http://horses.sportinglife.com/Video/Ra … 47,00.html
Just watched it again for the umpteenth time myself!
Yep he beat For Non Stop a neck and Cue Card beat the same horse an easy 4 lengths giving him 7lbs
Sprinter Sacre would beat For Non Stop by a fence even if he had to run sideways and roll over the fences.. 
You should buy a flute and change your name to Jethro Tull, you’re living in the past.
Collateral form is it? You love simple maths try Menorah beat Cue card 4 1/2 lengths. Menorah finished 8 lengths behind Peddlers, Peddlers was beaten 16 lengths by Sprinter Sacre. Add is all up; A pound for a length you have 4 1/4 + 7+ 4 1/2+ 8 + 16 = 39 plus Lengths between SS and AF. That’s a lotta improvement by Sprinter Sacre which is far from accurate but gives the impression he might be slightly better that his run in the Supreme on bare figures may have indicated.
Sprinter Sacre will sorta go wooosh!! and boing! boing! boing! boing!!over the first 4 fences in the Arkle then disappears over the horizon while the rest blinded by his phenomenal jumping and blistering pace drop off one by one and resign themselves to having their own little private battle for second.
This is not the Supreme Hurdle this is a year on. We have a different horse at a different game who is head and shoulders above every novice who ran in that race, maybe even every 2 miler in the country.
Sprinter Sacre is the name, The Arkle is the game..live it and learn Old Bean!!!!!
Just noticed this is the Champion Hurdle thread how the hell did the Arkle get in here?
Seems like Wullie Mullins had Hurricane Fly back in song and ready for a spring campaign as expected. Spirit Son is doing great and due to run soon and Zarkava is…what? Where? anyone got an update?
Mullins V Henderson V Nichols should make for a first class Champion Hurdle albeit a very complicated one as there is barely a form line to on you can 100% trust..
None have met Hurricane Fly bar Binocular who was out of sorts.
Al Ferof beat Spirit Son. Al Ferof has gone chasing Nicky claims Spirit Son was still pretty weak and could be a very special horse.
Binocular: Nicky said we have lots to do yet and we still have time get him back to his best.
Grandouet: Finished behind Zarkava but Nicky said he was very immature and is a different horse this year. He does not see the course as a problem.
Nicky when asked which was best said I honestly haven’t got a clue and Barry at this time hasn’t either.
Not a bad trio to be going to war with.
Rock On Ruby keeps getting better and better he could improve again and run a blinder. If Ruby chooses to ride Zarkava over him on the day then you’d have to see that as a huge compliment to the horse.
Be interesting should he class with one of Nicky’s trio before Cheltenham as all of his have one race to come apiece before Cheltenham.
So Al Ferof is inferior to the 3 horses he beat into 2nd, 3rd & 4th in the Supreme.
You’ve stated in multiple posts that For Non Stop is an inconsistent monkey who could win a race by 15 one day & get beaten by 45 another. You’ve also stated that you think Al Ferof was bored sh**less at Sandown.
Your credibility right now is non-existent. Nothing but cringeworthy, contradictory posts all the time.
Corm, can we get a ‘Block posts’ feature put in a la Betfair. Hurdy’s last 2 posts are just so pathetic it can’t possibly be true.
Mordin seems keen on the chances of oscar whisky, while practically dismissing those of grandouet:
OSCAR WHISKY THE TOP HURDLER
I suggested after his last start that trainer Nicky Henderson’s statement from last season about OSCAR WHISKY (43) perhaps proving better over two miles when he’d strengthened up and matured might well prove to be true this season.
Last Saturday Oscar Whisky went a long way towards confirming this idea when taking the Relkeel Hurdle at Cheltenham.
The official distance of the race was half a furlong longer than two and a half miles. But a moderate early pace and a sprint finish made it ride much more like a two mile contest.
The most remarkable aspect of Oscar Whisky’s performance was the speed he showed over the last half mile or so from the second last. He ran this final part of the race 3.8 seconds faster than stablemate Grandouet managed over a shorter trip in the preceding International Hurdle.
Despite the slow early pace, the time that Oscar Whisky made up in the last half mile meant they clocked just 4.6 seconds slower for the final two miles of his race than in Grandouet’s contest. When I invoke my normally reliable sectional timing formula this suggests that Oscar Whisky would have buried his stablemate if he’d faced him in the International Hurdle.
I now rate Oscar Whisky the best hurdler in training following this run. The 20-1 that some bookies are offering about him for the Champion Hurdle looks barking mad to me. Given the pace he showed here there’s surely no way Oscar Whisky’s connections are going to consider taking on Big Buck’s in the World Hurdle. The Champion Hurdle just has to be his target, and I reckon he has a big chance of winning it this time around.
Runner up GET ME OUT OF HERE (42) is a smart hurdler in his own right and looked set to make a fight of it briefly before the winner just kept powering away and he himself began to hang. He still pulled well clear of the rest in his efforts to go with Oscar Whisky and remains capable of taking a Grade 1.
The problem with Get Me Out Of Here is clearly his breathing. Despite having a soft palate operation he choked on the run in when losing the County Hurdle in a photo last season.
If I was going to risk money on Get Me Out Of Here it would be on fast ground over two miles, preferably following a break. In other circumstances he’s always going to be at high risk of having breathing problems. Most likely he was having them here and that’s why he hung.
GRANDOUET NO CHAMPION HURDLER
I recognise that most people see the race very differently, but for me GRANDOUET (39) receded to a distant blip on my Champion Hurdle radar following his win in the International Hurdle at Cheltenham. Despite a strong early gallop and being driven out all the way to the line he failed to clock a time that would give him a serious chance of winning the big race.
Previously I’d made the heinous error of rating Grandouet on what he might have done had he stood up when falling in the Elite Hurdle at Wincanton. Now I’m going to treat the speculative rating of 41 I gave him there as an error and rate him on this performance which tags him as a Grade 2 performer.
Even if he’d run a whole lot faster and won more impressively I would not be interested in Grandouet as a Champion Hurdle prospect. He’s just too darned narrow, light-framed and immature for me to believe he can fight his way through the big field that always lines up for Britain’s top hurdle race. Bigger rivals are surely going to get in his way and force him to lose ground because he lacks the bulk needed to force his way though gaps between them.
Indeed, even in this eight runner contest jockey Barry Geraghty reported that this very thing happened. He said "I got trapped wider than I’d ideally want and had to switch in."
Grandouet is tough to beat in small fields. But for falling at Wincanton and getting brought down when going well in a Grade 1 at Aintree he would probably have won all eight times he’s run in single figure fields. However he’s yet to win in a race with ten or more runners in five tries.
I hardly think the Champion Hurdle will be the race where Grandouet finally manages to beat a big field. The stats say it’s very difficult for a horse as young as Grandouet to be competitive in that race. Since See You Then won the Champion Hurdle back in 1985 only one horse as young as Grandouet has taken the big race even though 77 have tried. This was Katchit in 2008.
Katchit had massively more experience than most five year old hurdlers. He’d started racing at two and had racked up 28 lifetime starts before winning the Champion Hurdle. Katchit had run in a dozen hurdle races before taking the Champion Hurdle too, just one less than the record for a five year old in the last sixteen years. Grandouet will have only had fourteen runs when he lines up for the Champion Hurdle.
This was a tough race for Grandouet, so I was looking forward to betting against him if he’d turned out again for the Christmas Hurdle on the grounds that he wouldn’t recover in time. But trainer Nicky Henderson is too smart for that. He told reporters right after the race "we’ll give him a bit of time off now, bring him back and give him one run before the Champion."
Runner up OVERTURN (37) is easy to understand. He’s an admirably keen front runner that needs fast ground. However, as we saw in last year’s Champion Hurdle, he’s not ideally suited to the prolonged uphill finish at Cheltenham.
I imagine Overturn will now be rested till the Spring to avoid unsuitably soft Winter ground. When he comes back he’ll be a very interesting contender for the Aintree Hurdle if the going is fast enough.
Third placed BRAMPOUR (37) didn’t show quite the same level of form as he had winning the Greatwood Hurdle on his previous start. Trainer Paul Nicholls was reluctant to blame an interrupted preparation caused by puss in a foot. And I found it interesting that he said after the race than he now planned on giving the horse a break.
A lot of horses, especially jumpers are best on their first two starts of the season and then need breaks of five or six weeks between their runs. Since losing on his hurdling debut (as most horses do) Brampour has won three out of three when he’s been fresh but lost all three times he hasn’t had a break of six weeks plus following his first two starts of the season.
Brampour, like the winner, is only four, so this season he’ll almost certainly be too young to have a decent shot in the Champion Hurdle. But next year I can see him being a threat to the top hurdlers.
Fourth placed MENORAH (33) went well for a long way before looking to blow up through lack of fitness in the closing stages – something confirmed later by his trainer. I’m still a little dubious whether he has the size or scope to produce his best over fences. But I’ve seen far too many below average size chasers excel in novice events to adopt that position with much confidence. And I have to say I like the way trainer Philip Hobbs seems to be gearing his entire campaign around a bid for the Arkle. That’s the way you win the really big races.
The fifth horse home SANCTUAIRE (31) travelled really well all the way to the second last. He’s a good looking, classy sort but has two obvious problems. One is that the pulls too hard for his own good when seeing too much daylight in small fields like this (he’s lost all four times he’s run in fields of eight or less). The other is that he had a breathing operation in January and may now have trouble getting home on tracks with steep uphill finishes or quite possibly on soft ground.
Right now I’m actually inclined to think that Sanctuaire can handle stiff tracks and simply needs fields of nine or less and good ground to produce his best. That does make him rather hard to place though. The only races where he’s going to encounter big enough fields regularly are handicaps where he’ll be lumbered with huge weights. So far the only handicap he’s won in five tries was the Scottish Champion Hurdle where he had nearly a stone less on his back than in his four handicap losses.
That said, Sanctuaire clearly has a lot of talent. If he can be found a conditions race with nine or more runners on fast ground I’ll be interested in his chances.
btw that was from the nick mordin website http://www.nickmordin.com and I don’t own the rights to that article, in case copywright should be an issue.
btw that was from the nick mordin website http://www.nickmordin.com and I don’t own the rights to that article, in case copywright should be an issue.
I wouldn’t worry about copyright with NM though how he continually gets away with presenting baffling theories as fact astounds me: a wealth warning should be published alongside any quote from Nick.
I’ve no doubt he’s sincere and honest, but he is racing’s nutty professor.
Yep he beat For Non Stop a neck and Cue Card beat the same horse an easy 4 lengths giving him 7lbs
Sprinter Sacre would beat For Non Stop by a fence even if he had to run sideways and roll over the fences.. You should buy a flute and change your name to Jethro Tull, you’re living in the past.
This is not the Supreme Hurdle this is a year on. We have a different horse at a different game who is head and shoulders above every novice who ran in that race, maybe even every 2 miler in the country.
Sprinter Sacre is the name, The Arkle is the game..live it and learn Old Bean!!!!!
Like i said me old Sausage,we haven’t seen the real
Al Ferof
yet this term,he’s being primed for Cheltenham.Where do you think team Nicholls got the idea of running in the Champion chase from? The ‘Supreme’ of course! You can dress this
Sprinter Sacre
up all you like with Tinsels and Bells but
Al Ferof
eat him last year and will do so again this,Cheltenham form is the best there is and its irrelevant that the race was over hurdles as the ‘Supreme’ throws up Top Chasers too! I can hear a bubble pop!
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