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Iirc correctly alleged was at the time the highest rated horse and timeform have said that generous was their highest rated derby winner.Generous was a fantastic horse at 12f as he showed in the irish derby and the king george.I doubt you ever get people to agree who the best derby winner is.Nijinsky must be up there and troy was brilliant on the day.My fav derby winner is teenoso but i know he wasnt the best but still came back the following year and beat a top class field in the king george in the days when the king george was the all age race to win over 12f.
100% agree with Himself on this. You cannot describe a horse who comfortably beats a subsequent Arc winner (albeit won in the stewards room – and a renowned influence for stamina in his offspring) in the Irish Derby as a non-stayer. Dancing Brave and El Gran Señor were both denied Epsom Derby success because their jockeys did not ride them with the confidence they would get the trip. Also, O’Brien always maintained Eddery unbalanced the horse when he looked around for dangers, and the horse was never able to regain an even stride on the Epsom camber. Compare his finish at the Curragh (against a top class stamina laden rival) with that at Epsom and there is little evidence to suggest the distance rather than the track and jockey error beat him at Epsom.
I think if he had remained sound he would have followed a similar path to Dancing Brave taking in the King George and then the Arc.
O’Brien is to be commended for sending a doubtful stayer to Epsom, and it is obvious John Magnier wanted to do the same with Gleneagles. Sadly the modern view, which seems to say only dour stayers should be allowed to line up at Epsom, is increasing in popularity but as Anthony Oppenheimer found on Saturday, there is only one chance to win the Derby. If only Frankel had been allowed to line up!
Also the latest trend is for horses to be bred to win over 6to 10 f and coolmore are more interested in having a champion miler out of Galileo at stud. Gleneagles only entered briefly into the Derby reckoning due to all the ballydoyle candidates for the derby being not up to winning it. Sad that breeding is going that way but maybe 12f will come back into fashion if we get a Derby winner who goes onto become a superstar. I hope that’s what happens.
I don’t think Elgransenor had a stone in hand over Secreto, not on the day anyway. If he had he would have won.
Can’t believe some of this – Frankel third best miler?
El Gran Señor stayed 1m 4f?
He was a SHADOW of the horse he was at 1m!
In the Guineas he beat Chief Singer (subsequent 8l winner of the St James’s Palace Stakes and Lear Fan (subsequent easy Prix Jacques le Marois winner) by two and a half lengths and four.
At Epsom, he had Mighty Flutter (beaten in a handicap next time out!) just 3l behind him!
The Derby form was as rubbish as the Guineas form was brilliant that year!
Yes, be beat Rainbow Quest over a funereal early pace at The Curragh, but Rainbow Quest improved loads subsequently and was better with cut in the ground.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"i think it is a harsh to stay a horse dont stay when you are only just ‘touched off’.I believe he stayed,just not as well as Secreto.Was he better at a mile,YES,but imo that does not mean he did not stay
Hard to judge the ride,if Eddery kicks on over one out,Secreto then comes and does him,alot would be crying out,why did eddery not sit and wait a bit longer?
Well thats my tuppence worth anyway,i can see both sides of the debate(god i love fence sitting lol)
People forget that pat eddery was one of the top jockeys we’ve ever had and that was around the time of lester and willie Carson,yves Saint Martin etc. he got the ride on dancing brave as he was like ryan Moore today,would put the horse in a race with the best chance to win. They didn’t know if he would stay so he didn’t know what was there till he went for it. Still the best miler I’ve seen,including Frankel,and had he been kept to 8 to 10f God knows what rating time form would have given him.
There was also a recent virtual Derby . I don’t know who makes these ( Qipco/Timeform ? ) videos
– but they are just for fun – obviously, if you watch the virtual Derby. Based on timeform figures
prior to each runners pre Derby form. No pre 7Os Derby winner was included . Nijinsky was their 7/4 fav , Mill Reef at 14/1 ! Indeed laughable. I would have chewed anyone’s arm off to take that price.Anyhow, they had Shergar winning the race at 2/1 , ahead of Nijinsky in 2nd and Troy in third. I know…
Surely Secreto had to be in the shake up after beating one of the all time great 12fs horses at Epsom, one who was poised to follow Dancing Brave by winning the King George & Arc if injury hadn’t intervened?
Are there people really naive enough to believe whether a horse wins or loses a race by 4 inches decides whether it stays?
Hawk Wing ran 12fs at Epsom faster than every other horse apart from High Chaparral but didn’t stay. Some sprinters would have run faster than some 12 furlong horses if they had run in the Derby.
Ian Davies is spot on in his last post.Any unbalancing caused by Eddery looking around was minimal if any and made no difference.
I think he would have still probably won with a more restrained ride, he was too near the pace but if he had stayed well the ride would have been more than competent and he would have hacked all over Secreto.Yeats , your veiled sarcasm isn’t lost on me – but had you read my post correctly
you would have learned that Secreto – and also Sharastani (conqueror of the “mighty” Dancing brave ) as it happens,
were not included in the virtual Derby line-up because the runners chosen to take part had the best Timeform
figures prior to their Derby wins.I think it goes without saying that El Gran Senor and Dancing Brave were vastly superior to the two horses
who defeated them at Epsom.As for Eddery unbalancing the horse – I took that view while watching the race at the time ,
and I called Eddery ( luckily he didn’t hear me ) a few choice words into the bargain . If Vincent
O’Brien said Eddery’s exaggerrated antics ( eg looking over his shoulder )
caused the horse to become unbalanced , then who are we to disagree . I thought the horse not only became unbalanced
but lost momentum because of Eddery’s showboating – something Eddery was not renowned for.As I said before : Pat Eddery has said that the ride he gave El Gran Senor that day
was not one one of his finest , and in retrospect should have ridden the colt
differently . We all have our own views on what happened that day.
Like Dancing Brave 2 years later , El Gran Senor stayed the mile and a half.
That’s my view and I’m sticking to it .Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
I thought the horse not only became unbalanced
but lost momentum because of Eddery’s showboating – something Eddery was not renowned for.Eddery showboated over course and distance a year later in the Coronation Cup on none other than Rainbow quest when beating ‘Old Country’..It was up there with Brad on ‘Morley St’ for taking the P*ss.
Eddery showboated over course and distance a year later in the Coronation Cup on none other than Rainbow quest when beating ‘Old Country’..It was up there with Brad on ‘Morley St’ for taking the P*ss.
I remember that well, had a good bet on him, was odds on but was a good price on the rain softened ground.
I seem to remember Eddery getting criticised after the race, may have been Brough Scott, not for showboating but for pulling up sharply after the post.
Think he had a plane to catch.As for him showboating on El Gran Senor, only saw him look behind once, to see if anything was coming from behind Secreto, which seems perfectly reasonable and quite commonplace. Secreto drifted over to the rails and of course El Gran did as well as he was on his inside.
A mile and a half was at the limit of El Gran Senor’s stamina. The relatively level course at the Curragh wasn’t a problem, but Epsom’s steep inclines and descents just found him out.
You couldn’t claim he didn’t stay, but just found one too good on the day. Cruising approaching the furlong pole, it was only then that Pat Eddery went for him. He just didn’t find as much as expected and was just caught in the final five strides.
Very easy to say it wasn’t the best ride in hindsight, but I don’t think it was a bad ride at all. If Pat had let Secreto go for home first, or sat further back in the field, would El Gran Senor have found the reserves to overhaul the winner? I don’t believe the result would have been any different.
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
Rainbow Quest, as I remember was a really good horse too.
Remind me, was he a horse that no other jockey won a race on, and Eddery , never lost on, allowing for the French overturning the Sagace Arc result ?
I may be mistaken ?I seem to remember Eddery mentioning that he was expecting the Dante winner Claude Monet (whom he tracked down the hill & turning for home) to lead him a lot further up the straight than he actually did – also by the time Eddery asked him to go, they were so tight together he wasn’t really able to administering his trade mark right hand drive with the whip until the very last few strides when it was too late.
That being said, I still think that it was more a result of El Gran Senor being outstayed by Secreto rather than getting a bad ride & had they both met again in the Irish Derby, imho I think the result would probably have been the same.
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