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“What makes things worse is that the Lads never seem to be satisfied when winning a big one like the Derby. It’s just like another day at the office for them.”
That is the main problem. More often than not they stand around in the winners enclosure and look like they are at a funeral.
O’Brien is never less than polite with the media but he makes librarians look charismatic.
Coolmore are obviously good at what they do. But this was another year when they didn’t really have a star and just threw a few darts at the board and hoped they hit the bullseye.
Whelan joins McNamara and Beggy as a Ballydoyle work rider who has ridden a Derby winner.
I don’t mean to rain on the parade of anyone who backed the winner but if you didn’t, it is difficult to feel inspired by today’s race.
I do feel sorry for Epsom, however. They really needed it to go well this year and the weather didn’t play ball. The race and the occasion could do with a lucky break.
It was just very unfortunate that the weather played such a massive part in the outcome of this race, as I think given good ground we are talking about a totally difference result and a much more positive outlook on the meeting itself as a whole.
Lets also not forget that today’s ground was in some part also dictated by all the artificial watering that was done to the course, to get it ready not only for the meeting itself but also for Breakfast with the Stars event so the water table would have been higher than it naturally would have been before all the rain fell on the course. Had they left it alone there is a good chance that even with all the rain today that the ground would have been a lot less testing than it ended up being.
At the end of the season I am not sure that Christmas Day’s rating will be much higher than the 123p he has been given as I wouldn’t see him cutting much ice say in a King George (on decent ground of course) and whilst a soft ground Arc would favour him, as previous posters have said they will also be other horses (higher rated) that will also be just as suited by it too.
I believe he might end up as another Lambourn.
So a horse puts its leg down a hole through no fault of its own and it’s tough.
One lifts it up in the stalls and its a nr
I doubt the public care about the lack of charisma of “the lads”. Problem is the horses. Last great Derby winner was Sea The Stars. There have always been odd substandard winners but now it’s the norm and I’m afraid the worst are from Coolmore. Christmas Day has a season to prove me wrong but I suspect he’ll be included in the worst list. This isn’t Coolmore’s fault. They target the race. Others don’t. Some say nobody is interested in mile and a half races now but the Arc still attracts international superstars. Why aren’t Japanese owners (for example) keen to win the Derby?
On their live broadcast ITV had an overhead shot of Benvenuto Cellini in the stalls. He was buffeting but clearly had all feet on the ground at that stage. It was less than 12 seconds before the start.
If the horse has created its own misfortune in that short time surely it should be deemed an unlucky turn of events and written off as such. Precedent or not it should have been ignored. Neither should they have taken Moore’s supposed race plan into account.Bad luck for Epsom to have to contend with rotten weather when making a fist of reinvigorating the day.
If anyone thinks the Derby was underwhelming, spare a thought for the Greyhound Derby (which has just been run on the undistinguished track in the middle of the defunct Towcester racecourse).
A five runner race with a vacant Trap 6 after one of the qualifiers was injured after the semi final. All five runners were trained in Ireland. And the coverage I watched was on a buffering At The Races livestream – which went split screen to a race at Romford as the runners were rounding the home turn.
And the complete rag pinged out and won.
I’m afraid greyhound racing in the UK is doomed. What with condemnation, not just from extremists but also organisations like the RSPCA, plus nonsense like this. Horse racing needs to take note and take care.
homersimpson – agree its a idiotically crazy rule but the comparisons you used are not the same as one horse’s incident happen at the end of a race and the other was happening mere seconds before the race had technically started.
BC’s incident whilst hampering him did not (given it was ground conditions he hates) ultimately affect where he would have finished either way. Personally, it should have been chalked up as an unfortunate racing incident (similar to if a horse had missed the break) but I guess for the boys at least his record shows that he remains unbeaten this season for whatever that is worth.
Unfortunately winning punters have been shafted (well assuming they didn’t get paid out before the decision was officially made) which is the worst thing to happen from the fallout of this whole sorry affair.
I agree the situation with the favourite is highly unsatisfactory. I feel very sorry for punters who have been hit with a hefty Rule 4 deduction.
I must admit that whenever I back a winner in cash on track, I always head straight to the bookie to get paid out asap. Just in case some nonsensical rabbit gets pulled out of the hat. Well done to any punters who did get paid in full.
Whelan joins McNamara and Beggy as a Ballydoyle work rider who has ridden a Derby winner.
Back in 1997 we laughed at Willie Ryan being a Derby winning jockey.
Coolmore are obviously good at what they do. But this was another year when they didn’t really have a star and just threw a few darts at the board and hoped they hit the bullseye.
With their darts the bullseye becomes bigger every year. But, you have to give them credit for winning it even with lesser horses. I wonder what the Godolphin operation is thinking right now.
p (lower case) denotes capable of better
P (capital) means capable of a lot betterThanks for the explanation, Gladders. I hope you enjoyed your day out at the track.
Cheers, Ruby. 👍
‘Twas wet and windy – and they were strung out like three mile chasers in several races – but Derby Day is still special to me, as a (relatively) local lad.
It does get boring that Coolmore win it every year, though, and not always with their supposed number one.
‘‘Twas wet and windy – and they were strung out like three mile chasers in several races – but Derby Day is still special to me, as a (relatively) local lad.
Nice to hear that. A pity that even the Coronation Cup had such underwhelming result. Francis-Henri Graffard was quite upset about himself after letting Calandagan run after all.
A Derby without Aga Khan, Godolphin or John Gosden owned/trained runners just doesn’t feel the same. I also miss Sir Michael Stoute in this race, he had more winners than Godolphin in the past 26 years.
Good old days….. long gone.Same as everything these days, sadly: the rich get richer, while the rest are left to fight over scraps.
I’ve made this point in the past, but I think it bears repeating: in the good old days, a stable would consider themselves lucky to have just one Derby horse. Coolmore have them falling out of their ears.
If we could get some quality in return. Maybe I’m just too naive, but racing was much more fun when you had to guess which horse would be a proper Derby candidate. Nowadays it’s like CAS and other pointed out, the Lads get their share of darts and once every 2-3 years they hit the bullseye.
But ask them about the 3-yo hierarchy within the stable and they’ll get wrong almost every single time.
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