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Spelling, punctuation and grammar are all too good for this to be Fists.
The style is unmistakable however.Spelling, punctuation and grammar are all too good for this to be Fists.
Was never anything wrong with my grammer…cheeky bastid
Katchit a moderate winner? Sure he was.
Is this some kind of joke
I thought he won the Triumph out the park. Then hacked up in the John Smith’s at Aintree and became the first 5 year old to win the CH for years.
Three time he has beaten Punjabi who defeated Sublimity fair and he square and he himslef left Sublimty in his wake in last season race.Katchit’s form this season has no reflection at all on what he has done in the past. He has been trained for this as he was last season.
Katchit on form is in a different league to Sublimity as he showed last year and Binocular is a league above him. IMO Sublimity is one of the poorest CH I have ever seen.
Sentry Duty is a decent handicapper who in an ordinary year would have a remote chance of a place but against this lot?
You can’t be serious. The horse he has beaten into second have both let the form down badly for a start and the difference between travelling well in a handicap and traveling well in the Ch is like a mini trying to keep tabs on a Ferrari. Another also ran IMO
Sublimity on form is in a different league to Katchit. If you want to make excuses for Katchit this season on the basis that he hasn’t been ‘on form’ then you need to extend the same generosity to Sublimity’s run last year when he had an awful preparation.
I’m interested in people’s thoughts on the comparative times of Sentry Duty and Binocular last time out on the same card at Ascot. Sentry Duty carried 11-9 and won his race in 3m47s. Binocular carried 5lbs less and won his race in 3m46.2s. Obviously Binocular wasn’t hard pressed but by the same token you could hardly say Sentry Duty was all out either. I know that time only tells you how bad a horse isn’t rather than how good he is but that run was Binocular’s second best on the clock after his run at Aintree so it’s difficult to point to other performances to show how much quicker he could have run if pressed.
Why resort to meaningless times Tuffers. Unless two races are run in identical way from the start they have no place in judging one horse against the other.
In one race we had CH going along at his own pace in the other you have half a dozen horses up with the pace and everything is racing. Of course it would be a relatively fast time and is something that happens everyday.
So many other factors come into time like the ground being unraced on or vise versa to make it an accurate guide.
Apart from the fact he would have been 1/4 what would Binocular have done to that lot carrying the same weight as Sentry Duty?.
Apart from the fact he would have been 1/4 what would Binocular have done to that lot carrying the same weight as Sentry Duty?.
That’s kind of my question.
I wouldnt pay much head to the times tuffers, I think with both Binocular and sentry duty, good ground on a sharp track like ascot is what they are both most effective on. Cheltenham will probably be nothing like the conditions they won on that day and so if it is good-soft the actual comparisons would probably be better taken from last years supreme novice, which show that binocular’s versatility on ground would give him clear superiority on good-sft or worse.
Personally I think for anyone to have a preference for Sentry Duty it would be based mostly on the fact that he was won a few handicaps for them this season at reasonable prices, I think the bookies realise this and that is probably why they have priced him up shorter than horses with better form.
On actual form and prices I think Won In The Dark smokes sentry duty hands down as an e/w steal. He’s consistent as you like and has never ran a howler over hurdles, won 2 group 1s as a juvenile novice, has never failed to place on good-sft or better, ran in form previous winner sublimty extremely close at christmas on Sublimity’s ideal conditions, came up the hill last year extremely well in the triumph, and on ratings is nearly ten points clear of sentry duty. Up until yesterday he was 40-1 and sentry duty was 33-1 now they are the same price. WITD looks the value e/w shot in the field.
EDIT Ladbrokes still have Won In The Dark at 40-1.
Personally speaking, I hope Binocular turns out to be as good as we think he is – with a fully convincing victory, maybe even spectacular. With no offense intended to the last few winners – they’ve all shown guts and courage, which are admirable traits in a racehorse, however, it would be nice to see a horse with a bit of class win the Champion.
I wouldnt pay much head to the times tuffers, I think with both Binocular and sentry duty, good ground on a sharp track like ascot is what they are both most effective on
I’m not sure I’d agree with the sharp track requirement, Bulwark. Ascot’s never been a sharp track in my book and both horses have won easily there this season. Both horses have also made Celestial Halo look slow and considering he’s currently a best priced 11/1, I would expect Sentry Duty to be around the 6/1 mark.
Come to think of it, I think I can smell a reverse exacta coming…….
But then if you were to look at celestial halo’s time from last years triumph compared to sentry duty and binoculars in the supreme novice then Celestial Halo would make the other pair look slow.
Its easy to make a stayer look slow on good ground on a speed track, but its just as easy for that stayer to make them look like non stayers on more testing ground on a more testing track.
Celestial Halo made the running at ascot, but even he couldnt run it fast enough to run Binocular out of it on those conditions, probably the exact same in stamina and speed terms as a 1m6f horse trying to run a horse out of the eclipse. IMO Binocular has yet to prove he truly gets the trip around cheltenham on gd-sft, and Sentry duty has yet to prove he can win (or even run well) on gd-sft or worse ground. After last years triumph, if its the same ground again this year, celestial halo only has to prove that he can hold off a higher grade of opponent up the hill.
I dont know if celestial halo can win the triumph, as if he has to make the running, there could be a few resting out the back with more running in them up the hill, but he does look certian to be thereabouts at the finish.
If the ground is good then I’ll consider Binocular an easy winner with Sublimity, Sentry Duty, Won In The Dark, Harchibald and Punjabi possibilities for the tricast.
Some heavy rain forecast in the run up to the first day with rain possible on Tuesday itself.
Plus the watering as well.
Re: Celestial vs Sentry Duty – I’d take course, distance and previous festival form over anything else.
they did say that sometimes the geography of the course means that these weather fronts do pass over it, so it’s difficult to call beforehand. They also said don’t listen to the jockeys or what the course say but check the time of the first race..if it’s [don’t quote me on this please] @ 4 minutes then the going is pretty soft. Everyone probably knows this already but it’s all a bit new to me.
But then if you were to look at celestial halo’s time from last years triumph compared to sentry duty and binoculars in the supreme novice then Celestial Halo would make the other pair look slow.
Its easy to make a stayer look slow on good ground on a speed track, but its just as easy for that stayer to make them look like non stayers on more testing ground on a more testing track.
Celestial Halo made the running at ascot, but even he couldnt run it fast enough to run Binocular out of it on those conditions, probably the exact same in stamina and speed terms as a 1m6f horse trying to run a horse out of the eclipse. IMO Binocular has yet to prove he truly gets the trip around cheltenham on gd-sft, and Sentry duty has yet to prove he can win (or even run well) on gd-sft or worse ground. After last years triumph, if its the same ground again this year, celestial halo only has to prove that he can hold off a higher grade of opponent up the hill.
I dont know if celestial halo can win the triumph, as if he has to make the running, there could be a few resting out the back with more running in them up the hill, but he does look certian to be thereabouts at the finish.
If the ground is good then I’ll consider Binocular an easy winner with Sublimity, Sentry Duty, Won In The Dark, Harchibald and Punjabi possibilities for the tricast.
I think that is a very good summary, Bulwark, and it is a very interesting line of discussion that Tuffers opened up earlier. Sentry Duty does have it to prove in terms of handling ground conditions on the soft side of gd-sf or worse and he lacks a record of running well on undulating tracks. At the same time, he is still relatively unexposed and some of his poorer form might be excused in terms of the point his trainer makes that the horse is best fresh and needs long breaks.
In Sentry Duty’s favour for the CH is the fact they went a fair old pace early in the Ladbroke and much faster than the dawdle they went early on in the Boylesports. Horses that can withstand a fast early pace in a competitive field in good company and go on to win the race, have achieved something that is useful at least in terms of proving their credentials for the CH where the early pace is very often quite fierce. But then again, they didn’t come home particularly fast in the Ladbroke and, to my mind, that leaves open the question of just how much Sentry Duty will find on a stiff track in the CH where the pace of the race in the final third is likely to be quite intense in relation to what the horse has experienced previously. He is also a small horse who won’t find the gaps opening up quite as easily as he did in the Ladbroke where much of the opposition faded away in the final part of the race. He may have to endure a bit more fighting for position and barging for longer and at greater speed than he faced in the Ladbroke and physically perhaps won’t be the best placed horse to cope with potential traffic problems in what looks a very competitive CH (regardless of views about the possible superiority of the favourite).
With Binocular, the big test he is likely to encounter in the CH that he hasn’t really had to deal with before, is a very demanding early pace on an undulating track. By comparison with the early pace Osana set in the CH last year, the early pace in the Supreme Novices last year was less demanding. I think the fact that the pace in the SN was built up more gradually, is perhaps the main factor that accounts for why the times of the SN and CH were similar last year. Had the novices in the SN had to cope with such a strong early pace set in the CH (in very windy conditions for both races), I doubt they would have been finishing the race anything like as strongly as they did or recording times that compare quite so favourably with those achieved in the CH.
Again, in the Boylesports, Binocular didn’t have a strong early pace to contend with and while Celestial Halo made an effort to take them on, that horse never really piled on enough pressure to make the race a real test of stamina akin to the lung bursting type of race you usually get in the CH. So I feel there is a big issue about how well Binocular will cope with a fast early pace in terms of how it affects his performance in the final third of the race in the CH. It will take the horse into unchartered territory in terms of what he has experienced previously. He got up the hill well enough in the SN, but not spectacularly well, and that was off a relatively modest early pace. I know that a fast pace will play to Binocular’s strengths in terms of the fact that he travels and hurdles so well, but he still has to show he has the stamina and resilience to sustain that effort against the pressures of a likely fast early pace and a very long and demanding drive to the line from at least two out. At Ascot, Binocular could burn the opposition off with a sprint to the line, easily enough. If he is to make good use of his acceleration up the hill in the CH, though, he is going to need to have a lot of lung power and stamina too and which in his case has not yet been fully tested.
If Binocular can pull it off, that would be fantastic. To have a young horse that can win so impressively over two miles on speed tracks and also beat a very good field to win a truly run CH, would be something to rival what we are lucky to have with Master Minded i.e. a horse of outstanding class. Let’s hope the rain doesn’t spoil it on Tuesday and we get a fair test on good racing ground that doesn’t unduly disadvantage any of the horses with true class.
Great post, riverman. The only thing I would add is that I don’t believe the early pace will be a problem for either of them (although I take the point about Sentry Duty’s size – Nicky Henderson has made similar comments). As for lasting out the race, Sentry Duty has already proven he stays two and a half miles and stayed 1m7f on the flat so I would expect him to come up the hill pretty well.
The great thing about races like this is that you can make good arguments against quite a few of the horses. My aim is to find horses which I think are overpriced and at 33/1 I thought Sentry Duty was quite simply far too big a price. He’s been cut to 20s and 25s this morning with a few of the bookies so it may be the 33s won’t last much longer.
AP has learnt now how to handle Binocular now and will have the pace of the race worked out to perfection. Nothing else in the race is remotely as good a hurdler as Bin and that gives him 16l. Make no mistake,this is a class champion hurdler. You can try and get him beat as much as you like,he will prevail
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