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Do you actually own a hat, FF?
Having to buy one in order to keep your promise would just be adding insult to injury.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"What type of hat to ….one of those big cowboy hats might take a bit of munching , LBB has potential but also 2 questions to ask …I’ll leave him and go with the most solid form
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Think Chaldean will be seen to better effect if getting a strong pace to run at rather than having to do his own donkey work – he is not the typical Frankel 2yr old as this was his 5th race so it will be interesting to see how he develops from 2 to 3.
Chaldean posted the second fastest time of the day (one of only 3 races that broke standard) which was only bettered by the year older Alflaila in the last race who was carrying only 1lb more
The runner up on breeding may find a mile stretching him as all his other siblings have been 6-7F horses (although one did win over 1m in Hong Kong but was unplaced in 2 other attempts at the trip) so I could see him being more of a Commonwealth Cup horse over a stiff 6F as he clocked back to back sub 11s furlongs for the 5th & 6th furlong so he is not short of speed.
Nostrum would likely be the one to improve most from 2-3 given his size but I would doubt he will be quick enough for a 2000g and I do think he was hype over substance as his Tattersalls Stakes win did not really work out as the runner up Holloway Boy was firmly put in his place in the earlier Autumn Stakes by Silver Nott who was giving him 3lbs – the same Silver Note who Chaldean beat off level weights by 5.25L at Doncaster.
Personally I felt Nostrum may have been better served going up to 1m and running in the Futurity at Doncaster instead – time will tell but I think his future may be over 10F.
Not expecting Chaldean to stay a mile. Looks like a 7F performer to me.
Nostrum for 10F glory
“Chaldean posted the second fastest time of the day (one of only 3 races that broke standard) which was only bettered by the year older Alflaila in the last race who was carrying only 1lb more”
When I compared the Dewhurst time with the nursery later in the card, given the close finish in the latter contest, OR going into the contest of the winner and weight carried, I concluded the overall Dewhurst time was nothing to write home about.
That doesn’t mean Chaldean can’t clock good overall times, it just means I don’t think he clocked one yesterday.
The Dewhurst form looks alright, but very much the second-best on offer in Europe this season.
Persian Force – length and a half Coventry runner up, July Stakes winner, half length Prix Morny second, three and a quarter length Middle Park third.
Shartash – Railway Stakes winner, length and three quarter National Stakes third, two and a half lengths Jean-Luc Lagadere fourth.
Both PULVERISED by Little Big Bear at The Curragh.
Decent three-figure rating 2yos made to look like selling platers.
Little Big Bear is the juvenile top dog – and by some margin.
But will he be as good at a mile?
And will he find as much weight-for-age improvement as his peers?
These are the questions.
I think Chaldean is a moral certainty to get the extra furlong, but I don’t think Little Big Bear is a similarly tub-thumping certainty to get the extra two.
I was there when El Gran Senor won the 1984 2,000 Guineas.
Some colt – quickened twice to win it and still back on the bit at the line in a really good renewal.
But he was a lazy juvenile who always did the bare minimum and had won a Dewhurst.
Zafonic had a ridiculous turn of foot and had won a Prix de La Salamandre at 7f as well as a Dewhurst.
And Frankel was this even more stunning 2yo whose jockey could stupidly sit last in a slowly-run Royal Lodge, realise he was being a muppet halfway and go from the sublime to the ridiculous and move from last to first and Frankel was so brilliant it didn’t matter, none of this inept tactical heavy handedness bothered him and he still drew away to win by TEN before winning his Dewhurst.
Three Dewhurst winners with no qualms about the extra furlong.
Little Big Bear isn’t even a Dewhurst winner.
So, for me, unlike the admirably intrepid Gladders, the doubts will linger over the winter.
Hope he’s right, though – got 14s!
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“And will he find as much weight-for-age improvement as his peers?”
The key point.
Unless his “peers” sprout wings, they’re screwed. Even if LBB stands still, the rest need to improve a stone to beat him.
Two cautionary tales:
Godolphin’s Pinatubo, a country mile clear of his contemporaries as a juvenile (the 128 rating was even higher than Frankel’s rating) but subsequently never got anywhere near that rating as a 3yr old managing to win once in four starts when scrambling home in the Prix Jean Prat by 3/4L from 117 rated Lope Y Fernandez
Coolmore’s Air Force Blue, reeled off three straight G1 wins at 2 ending with the Dewhurst and the top rating of 124, ran four times at 3 managing two 7th & two 12th placed efforts beaten a total of 59.5L
Lets also not forget that Dewhurst winners have (at best) a very spotty record in the 2000g with only Dawn Approach & Churchill doing the double since Frankel in 2010/2011 with Pinatubo and Native Trail being the only other winners to even make the frame.
How horses develop (or don’t) from 2 to 3 can make mugs out of all of us and until they actually back up those 2 yr old performances at 3, all scenarios are possible.
In my opinion there are two types of precocious 2yo.
There are the compact, pint-sized ones like Pinatubo, well put together but already the finished article at two with little scope for even average weight-for-age improvement.
Then there’s a tank of a juvenile, who looks like a 3yo at two – go back even further and Gorytus was an example of this, he looked like he was a 3yo in the paddock at Doncaster before the 1982 Champagne Stakes.
The weight-for-age scale says that at Newmarket yesterday a 2yo would receive 23lb from a 4yo over 7f.
By the start of May next year a 3yo would receive 13lb from a 4yo.
They will all make a mean average 10lb improvement from now until then.
But there will be fluctuations within the mean – some will improve more, maybe a lot more, some less, maybe a lot less, or even not at all.
Btw I’d say you can add Native Trail to the list – he simply hasn’t been as good a 3yo as he was a 2yo.
It will be fascinating to see how Little Big Bear does over the winter in relation to the rest.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Speaking of Gorytus, Diesis who won that infamous 1982 Dewhurst was another monster of a horse that (being a full brother to Kris you would have thought would have been certain to be a much better 3 yr old) shockingly never trained and was never sighted in the following seasons 2000g.
Diesis suffered an injury over the winter, LD, and didn’t recover his best form. I was at Kempton for his last appearance, when beaten by The Noble Player in the Heron Stakes.
Richard Baerlein of The Guardian was convinced Gorytus was “got at” before the 1982 Dewhurst.
He was certainly never the same again – I saw him disappoint in both the 1983 2,000 Guineas and at York.
Diesis, also easy winner of the Middle Park back in the days when that race was at the Cambridgeshire meeting, had a facile, but hollow, Dewhurst victory.
He beat Gordian (“Who?” “Exactly”) by eight lengths IIRC.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“Unless his “peers” sprout wings, they’re screwed. Even if LBB stands still, the rest need to improve a stone to beat him.”
Not if he runs out of gas in the final furlong
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Lbb is an exceptional 2yo. I really hope he becomes as exceptional 3yo. You can never predict these things and things can go wrong with any horse. Its clear the rest are well behind him but a winter and spring maturing can make a big difference.Roll on the first saturday in may 2023.
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