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“That race has been won by the likes of National Spirit, Lanzarote, Sea Pigeon, Bird’s Nest, Desert Orchid, See You Then, Rooster Booster and Buveur d’Air, amongst others. Hardly “Micky Mouse”.”
Lots of those ran in lots of other races as well apart from the likes of glass legged See You Then.
Last time the race was run it wasn’t even worth 20 grand to the winner, regularly had 5 runners or less with a long odds on Nicky Henderson horse, 1/16, 1/5, 1/4, 4/6 in the last 5 runnings and there is a perfectly good alternative at that time, worth nearly 100 grand more. No wonder they cancelled it.The ground was officially “Heavy” with a stick reading of 4.5 when the horse won the Tolworth over CD.
I will be interested to see if they issue a reading today and if it’s lower than that.
Artificial watering all year round on terrain shared between Flat and Jumps racing doesn’t help – it means tracks can’t take as much natural rainfall.
I’m pretty sure they lost Classic Trial Day there in April for that reason.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The most exciting horse in National Hunt racing but we are only going to see him once before The Only Day That Matters.
I suppose Henderson has got a racecourse gallop at Newbury in February booked in, just in case the ground at Kempton in the middle of winter is too heavy.
“Constitution Hill non runner. Paint me shocked.”
Just recycling Cork’s post from earlier in the thread. It’s no surprise but I do wish the trainer wouldn’t wang on so much about welfare. He could have just stated the real reason “Deep ground will be too much of an effort close to Kempton and the Christmas race is worth more and fits better into our Only Race That Matters schedule, so we’re going for that”.
Instead he did talk about the proximity to Kempton but couldn’t help himself adding “It would simply not be fair to race him under such extreme conditions on his first run of the season”.
Does that mean that Harry Fry is cruel to start Love Envoi here?I’m not saying don’t run the horse but to hokey cokey all week then waffle on about welfare is just annoying.
If this was the ground in march he’d be running, just stupidity saying words attributed to a welfare issue with the ground, the grounds fine, just ridiculous, i have always loved cheltenham and have for years been on the side that leans towards being fine horses are prepped specifically for it, but its getting annoying now.
Boothill
Non runner due to the going
Has already had a run this season so its not as if he is being asked to run on the going first time out
Does his season revolve around Cheltenham or something?
Horses of his calibre used to run 20 times a season
Henderson is running Jonbon on it so why no Boothill
Can’t even remember Harry Fry pre warning us earlier in the weekGaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Tellhimlisten had as many runs in four days over jumps in March as CH has in a year .
At least on flat the horses race .It seems to be every season; Nicky pulling his horses out if the ground ins’t perfect. However, looking at the racing yesterday, it’s ground fit for slow mudlarks…..I actually don’t blame him this time.
But, if you really need to get a run in before Kempton, there’s this thing called the AW, there must be a maiden over 1m4-1m6f to run in somewhere? Or could that be too competitive?
And as a few have already commented; there used to be lots of 2m hurdles before Christmas…..and they’ve gone – another reason for the horror show that is 2m hurdling……
Agree with Ham and Green.
Henderson could do with someone to manage his communications and PR. By making his comments about the ground and safety, he has once again handed the anti-racing mob some great ammunition to fire at the sport.
Why can’t the horse run between Kempton and Cheltenham? What is wrong with Leopardstown or Wincanton?
It’s becoming boring and very predictable …. Fair dos to Nicholls who does run his bloody horses
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Henderson just gets too much attention during the week. Every single day you have at least 1-2 articles about Nicky telling us “he will run” or “he won’t run”. There isn’t half as much crap written about Nicholls’ horses.
Stick was 4.5 when it won the Tolworth, 3.9 today.
Blame the 0.6 – tbf the trainer is correct in saying the ground is even worse today than it was then.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"It’s becoming very tedious in the will he won’t he run. Utterly bored by it all. I’d rather concentrate on the horses running than those not running. I’ve got him in my ten to follow so there more points dumped. Get it sorted, Henderson.
Over-watering all year around can probably cause the ground to be worse at this time of year at least at the times we have a lot of rain… But the drainage at a lot of courses has improved over the years too. Not sure how much drainage work Sandown has had. In the 1980’s I seem to remember even more abandonments.
Those saying Constitution Hill would turn up in a heavy ground Champion Hurdle or even Christmas Hurdle are surely missing the point. Vast majority of horses take longer (some much longer) to recover from a strongly run race on heavy ground.
Heavy ground means there’s just not enough time between today and the Christmas Hurdle.
It’s one of those things.
Had just one of Newcastle being abandoned or Sandown been heavy ground not happened, we would have seen Constitution Hill. But unfortunately the double we didn’t want to come up, has.
Just accept it.
Value Is EverythingFitzy just said Henderson’s horses don’t go on deep ground
The more I know the less I understand.
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