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“Henderson’s obsession about those 1s next to a horses name.”
Not sure about that
if it was an obsession he’d be running in the egg and spoon races and skip the Supreme, Champion hurdle etc
also ran Jonbon in the supreme who had a string of 1s…. Spirit Son and Sprinter Sacre in their yearIf the has a bad scope they are doing the right thing? or is Henderson telling porkies?
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Henderson has made clear that Cheltenham is the be all and end all to him, and he’s doing exactly what he thinks necessary to get his elite horses there in the best possible shape. Similar is true of other trainers such as Willie Mullins and Henrietta Knight. As a fan of the sport, I find the lack of appearances of our equine stars frustrating, but I am not going to criticise trainers for doing exactly what they think necessary to achieve their aims.
The only way that this “softly, softly” approach is likely to change now is if there is some form of compulsion involved to make horses run more frequently before they are eligible to compete in championship events. However, designing a workable scheme would be very tricky.
“He’s not seeing the big picture here.”
He rarely does, there’s no better example of that, than him being in favour of a 5 day Cheltenham.
“If the has a bad scope they are doing the right thing? or is Henderson telling porkies?”
It is impossible to say. However, on last week’s “Road To Cheltenham” Lydia Hislop read out some statements from Henderson in which he sounded less than enthusiastic about running Constitution Hill on Trials Day. Then all of a sudden the horse has a “bad scope”.
It is hardly surprising some people have jumped to a conclusion.
Is it up to Henderson – or any trainer – to see a “big picture” here?
There seems to be this myth running through racing that, because it’s a niche sport (relative to football) and under threat from “antis” (racing and gambling) literally everyone in the game should pull together and be some sort of ambassador for the sport as their default.
I find this notion somewhat naive as it is totally at variance with the manifest facts.
Everyone in racing is out for themselves – we see this every day of the week.
Henderson might be a particularly bad case, but he’s hardly an isolated one.
All Henderson clearly cares about is his Cheltenham Festival winners haul legacy and his record with Grade 1 horses.
One thing is for sure, as I said last year when clutching my 3/1 ante-post, Constitution Hill couldn’t be in better hands in terms of myopically getting him to the Champion Hurdle in one piece.
This is just more of the same this season.
I guess I’m fortunate – I’m enjoying this Jumps season and I don’t need to see the horse who destroyed Jonbon and broke the clock in the Supreme and made a really good hurdler in State Man look moderate in the Champuon appear over and over again (or even at all) in order to enjoy this season.
Henderson is simply doing what Henderson does – no one should be remotely surprised.
Minimum qualifying runs would open up racing to accusations of pressurising trainers to get runs into horses when they weren’t entirely happy with them and could result in quality horses bypassing big races with those qualifying criteria altogether, thus having the opposite outcome to their intended effect.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"You have to run so many times to qualify for a handicap mark. There are entry conditions for the National where some trainers have to run their horse to qualify. As a suggestion in order to run in the Champion Hurdle you need to run in 3 condition hurdle races (unless entered and abandoned) or in 2 handicaps that season. Perhaps Henderson and a few others might get their horses out a bit earlier and we might see some competitive racing away from the Festival.
Isn’t racing trying to sell itself with Premier Racing etc? Having your highest rated horse standing in a stable during most of the jump season is not a great selling point. At this rate you’re more likely to see Kate Bush in concert than seeing Constitution Hill on a racetrack.
In Handicaps it does not particularly matter if a handicapper does not run (eg Pertemps)… And there’s less incentive to run because there is always another handicap. Where as there is only one Champion Hurdle.
Forcing Henderson to run an unsound Constitution Hill in a minor event so that he can run in the Champion Hurdle is madness. An unsound racehorse could end up getting a career ending injury…
Or
If in winning the 2024 Champion Hurdle Constitution Hill proves himself THE Best hurdler we’ve ever seen, yet gets an injury which keeps him out for 11 months. You’d be actively preventing THE Best Hurdler ever from running in the Champion Hurdle.
Value Is EverythingGinger, in your first example Constitution Hill should not be run and then misses the big race. There is perhaps also something to be said for ensuring horses that are sound and can withstand more than one or two races a season are those that become champions.
But I think you have touched upon the reason why having a minimum number of qualifying runs is so tricky. Welfare concerns, both sincere and disingenuous, are likely to be raised to prevent it becoming a reality.
Ginger, in your first example Constitution Hill should not be run and then misses the big race. There is perhaps also something to be said for ensuring horses that are sound and can withstand more than one or two races a season are those that become champions.
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No, Marlingford.
There may be a case for unsound Flat horses not being a “Champion”, because the majority of Flat horses are colts and entires… and future racehorses will be bred from them. ie For the benefit of the sport’s future we don’t really want unsound sires to breed unsound racehorses.The vast majority of Jump horses are geldings. So with hurdlers it should only be a matter of the Top hurdlers running in the “Champion” Hurdle.
Also… At any point in time a basically “sound” racehorse who’s had “one or two races” in the first part of the season can become “unsound” for a while before once again becoming sound. You’d be stopping such horses from running.
Value Is EverythingGinger, I’m aware that champion Jumps horses will scarcely ever get to visit the breeding shed, at least on this side of the Channel. But if the conditions of the championship races encouraged robustness and soundness, it would eventually feed through to the stallions used to breed jumpers and help promote these qualities.
If would be a slow process though, and I think there’s minimal chance of it happening as per my previous comments.
“The vast majority of Jump horses are geldings. So with hurdlers it should only be a matter of the Top hurdlers running in the “Champion” Hurdle.”
The geldings do definitely influence breeding fashions and buying patterns. Is the interest interest in Mirazur West because he was leading when he fell in the only P2P start? Of course not. His full brother is a talented crock but the crock bit gets ignored when cash is changing hands.
I don’t mind if he doesn’t run on trials day as I’ve always hated that meeting.
However, he really should be taken to Leopardstown if well. It’s a brilliant meeting and the Irish should get to witness him in his prime also.
Agree with you, GM23. Constitution Hill should run in the Irish Champion Hurdle, for two reasons: so that Irish fans can see the horse in action, and to slam State Man in his own back yard and silence those eejits who still believe that the Mullins horse has some sort of chance against the champ.
Constitution Hill is renowned for his laidback attitude, so I hardly think the journey over will be a problem. And, given his effortless win in bottomless ground in the Tolworth Hurdle two years ago, the ground shouldn’t be an issue either.
Get that horse to Leopardstown!
I don’t have a problem with qualifying for top races at the spring festivals. You have to qualify for the Olympics, in a lot of sports. If you don’t meet the criteria, or are injured at the trials, tough.
The sport needs its top horses running more, and not stuck in a stable. The whole point of a season is so we see head to heads throughout that season……not a ‘one off’ in March.
So you want the best horses to run?
But if they get injured at the start of the season you don’t want to let them run in the biggest race of the season
That makes absolutely zero sense as far as I can tell
The best horse should help define the best races, as in football e.g if Man City/Liverpool met in the carabao cup final it would be a headliner, if Fulham/Notts Forest nobody would care. Frankel didn’t contest the Derby or the Breeders Cup or the Arc
Oh be fair befair.
The Derby, Breeeders Cup and Arc are not always “the best races”.
The best horse is sometimes a miler, sometimes a 10 furlong, sometimes 12 furongs, occasionally a sprinter and very occasionally a stayer. Likewise, the best jumper can be 2 miler, intermediate or stayer, over fences or hurdles.Horses are not football teams.
If wanting to compare a racing with a human sport then surely it should be athletics. Usain Bolt did not need to prove himself at 800 metres. Nor did Seb Coe need to prove himself at 100 metres.The way Frankel was at the time (as the Americans would say) “rank” in the 2000 Guineas – going off far too fast for his own good even at a mile – meant the Derby would have been a stupid race / decision for him. Travelling such an excitable horse to France, let alone the USA would also have been daft… And then there was Frankel’s exceptional trainer, who would not have been able to travel with his beloved equine either.
Value Is Everything
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