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This horse is always a late starter in the season
Did he not win first time out in September last season?
He will win easily on Tuesday. He will reappear on Thursday and get turned over at odds on.
He will then go to the Cheltenham Festival.
You can have 20s with me him turning out twice in 3 days no matter what happens today. I expect he’ll win today but won’t be laying the odds.
EDIT: Available at 1.79 on BF currently. As much as the markets is still forming at this stage, I get the feeling I’m missing something!
Anyone who thinks a horse of his calibre has been plotted up to win a 3 grand race didn’t really ought to be allowed real money.
It goes without saying that the result isn’t particularly important for connections, but surely at nigh on 4 stone below his chase mark he will have to be practically stopped in order to not win today!
I never subscribe to the old "well in" therory when horses switch from one code to another. A hurdle rating is based on hurdle form and vice versa, but most horses are better at one or the other and thus deserve to be rated differently. Obviously some horses are unexposed over one or the other, maybe because they’ve only had a handful of runs, but too often when a horse switches to run in a big handicap they get beat. That said I think Another Promise was off a long time and maybe he’s not the horse he was or the ground was too soft etc, but the way he was ridden didn’t give him a great chance.
Story in the Post today that the BHA are acting to close the hurdles/chase rating loophole: They are introducing a "Use it or lose it" rule where if a rating is not used for a year the horse will be reassessed. I can see the logic but I think it’s all a bit PC and sad…
Another Promise’s run at Newcastle might have been the only time an odds on poke lined up in a 16 runner handicap last season BUT it was one time too many for the lizards.
Such races will no longer be tolerated.
The only issue I have with ratings over jumps is when a hurdler can run off his hurdle rating in a handicap chase if he’s not yet earned a chase rating. Surely they should be disqualified from handicap chases until they have run 3 times or won a chase. You can’t run a horse in a handicap hurdle off his flat rating.
I can understand them not keeping rating forever, but hurdler form and chase form are not the same and many horses run to different levels over one or the other. For example My Way de Solzen is clearly a better hurdler than a chaser, the same was true of Iris’s Gift. Other horses improve dramatically for switching to the bigger obstacle, surely thats why there are 2 figures. Yes occasionally a horse will switch and be at an advantage, but the amount of times a so called handicap good thing has been turned over is far more than actually win.For example My Way de Solzen is clearly a better hurdler than a chaser…….
Dunno fi that’s exactly the case, Stan – the horse has clearly had a problem this season (be it mental or physical) and it’s too early to draw that kind of conclusion, imo.
Maybe, but there are plenty of good hurdlers who don’t run as well over fences. Take Noland for example, people are saying his last 2 runs were below par, but in reality that may be the level of his chasing ability, just because he won a Supreme Novice (the form of which may not be that hot anyway), everybody expected him to be a world beater over fences, when in reality his chase form should be taken on face value on what he’s done over fences.
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Stan
I wouldn’t take Noland’s chase form at face value at all, in fact I think he will be first class punting material when he steps up in trip, as so many of his trainer’s are.
Wonder what happens if a good chaser doesn’t run over fences for a year, during which time he runs 3 moderate races over hurdles- will they drop his chase mark? Seems to be no hard and fast rule, will be interesting to see how it’s interpreted.
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