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The rain’s already here, ‘down the road'(Bristol), from Cheltenham.
Poss could make ground going different by race times.
Very windy now, as well. Could that cause bigger issues at Cheltenham today?Depends also on how fast they go early on as to whether the front runners can still win, I doubt that whatever rain is falling currently will get into the ground that quickly given how strong the wind is blowing as well.
Fact To File’s connections I think might be over egging the pudding with the ground as the only time he has run on good was in the King George and I think it was more a case of the horse not turning up that day rather than the quicker ground.
Last year’s Ryanair was run on good to soft but the time was 1.39s fast which would indicate it was probably not to different to today’s ground.
Looks very loose on top and they also didn’t appear to go too fast early on so with the time being 6.59s slow we probably need to see how other races are run but we are also on the stiffer new course so times may not be as quick as the first two days on the old course..
In any case I don’t see there now being an issue with running FTF as you would say that the ground is likely now proper good to soft and possibly trending towards the softer end.
Mullins on RTV now whining about the ground, saying good ground is not suitable for the horses he buys and he won’t bring them over unless there is soft in the going.
A blatant attempt to intimidate the Clerk of the Course into watering.
As Nick Luck has just as good as said, a trainer who has just had five Grade 1 winners whining about the ground..
Yeah not impressed by that Cork. They did water, enough to keep it safe. They could get a fair soaking tonight and I’m sure that was in the CoC’s mind. Why not have supplemented Fact to File for the Gold Cup and then they could have looked at the forecast and run tomorrow. The Ryanair might be a more interesting race without him.
“Good ground is not good enough” has got to be a contender for most ridiculous statement of the season.
It does seem stupid not to have supplemented him , is JP down to his last Billion or something …
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
From “The Guardian”: “Mullins was strongly critical of the ground, which was officially described as good, good-to-soft in places, in a subsequent interview with Racing TV. ‘If the ground is going to be like this, we’re not going to bring them,’ Mullins said. ‘We were promised watering, and I’m not sure the watering we were promised has been done. I’m a little bit annoyed about that…for the majority of the good, big, National Hunt horses, we’d like it a little softer.'”
Since when did he get to dictate what the ground should be like? If he doesn’t want to bring his horses, that is his business.
Reading between the lines, “promised watering” implies he has been in conversation with the clerk and trying to influence the state of the ground for his horses.
Guess what, he will still bring them despite his grumbling. He has still won five Grade 1s this week.
I think Mullins is a great trainer, but he has lost his marbles. Cheltenham has a duty to provide safe ground, which is what they did. Provided the ground is safe, no racecourse should water to suit a particular trainer. There are plenty of horses who want good or good to soft ground and they should be given a chance if that’s the way the weather falls. It was clear that an interviewer put JP McManus under pressure and he felt obliged to support his trainer. But there was no conviction there.
Hopefully, in the light of day, Mullins will apologise for his outburst, Otherwise, he will have done a lot of damage to his reputation.
Well he did it with Leopardstown at the DRF a few years back when they happened to be quicker than soft and he got them to water for the next day – I guess good ground is the new good to firm.
The other trainers should come out and say we hope for the ground to be like this as often as the weather allows it because if Willie isn’t going to be sending his horses over it will give us all more of a chance to win the big races.
Personally, if you have a NH horse that can’t race on good ground then they either shouldn’t be in training or you should head to France where it is nearly always soft and the prize money also happens to be better.
To be honest connection have absolutely no clue whether FTF would or wouldn’t have gone on that good ground, the amount of times horses surprise trainers in doing something the trainer thought beforehand that they couldn’t do is numerous.
Good ground is not a welfare issue – if you consider the ground too fast for your horse(s) then follow what trainers do with horses that don’t want soft ground………don’t enter or run them.
“I think Mullins is a great trainer”
Management is often about delegation. I would refer all the Mullins disciples to his ITV and RTV interviews immediately after Poniros won the 2025 Triumph Hurdle: he clearly had no idea who Poniros was.
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