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Quote: from ClintM on 10:26 pm on April 4, 2007[br]
Quote: from Aragorn on 10:38 am on April 4, 2007[br]Maybe he just isn’t good enough? <br>
Unbelievable.
Perhaps your ignornance stems from the fact that race analysis is still in the dark ages in UK.
(Edited by ClintM at 10:28 pm on April 4, 2007)<br>
Not really, my analysis of the race was that the horse got properly stuffed. Enlighten me with your wisdom Clint?
Why is it that every time a fancied horse runs poorly in a Grade 1 race, some pathetic excuse is churned out everytime. Get their well paid vets to churn out some post race abnormality ( who is there to prove the vet is telling the truth or not ?, nobody of course !), so as to have an excuse for its poor performance, so as to save face for the said horses future at stud, instead of turning around and saying the bloody horse simply was’nt good enough.<br>
Here here madman.. He either wasn’t good enough, hadn’t trained on or his trainer isn’t good enough…
"to save face for the said horses future at stud"
If that was their prime concern they’d never have run him on Saturday.
"instead of turning around and saying the bloody horse simply was’nt good enough."
Are you another who thinks Discreet Cat is not good enough to beat Kandidate?
"hadn’t trained on"
How is that any less of an excuse?!?<br>
(Edited by Gareth Flynn at 11:00 am on April 5, 2007)
I am not just on about Discreet Cat, just watch all the Group 1 races this year and see how many of the beaten horses have an excuse after the race for being simply not good enough. Do you not agree Gareth that it is pretty convenient to have a post race excuse as it certainly helps in the Stud stakes, if connections can explain away his/her poor performance. Of course some horses do have geniune excuses. but there churned out so frequently after Group 1’s that I dont know wether to believe it or not.
Before the World Cup no horse had got within 3¼ lengths of Discreet Cat, including in Grade 1 company. The fact that he couldn’t lay up with the pace surely indicates the horse was not right.
He had missed his intended prep after a setback and was found to have an abcess in his throat afterwards. Are these excuses, or facts?
These things do happen! To try and rate the horse on the basis of that performance is foolish in my opinion… my own view before the race was that he wouldn’t stay the trip, but I can’t say if i’ve been proved right or wrong, we just have to wait and see.<br>
I agree that you have to take a lot of excuses with a large pinch of salt, but regardless of the specific reasons given by Godolphin in this case surely you can see that, taking into account all known form, something must have been wrong with Discreet Cat on Saturday for him to run so badly? And that this ailment so hampered him that it is impossible to use the performance to judge his actual ability?
We’re not talking about a fancied horse who runs respectably but finishes fourth beaten a couple of lengths and then gets a list of things that went wrong for him trotted out – in those cases you have my complete agreement.
Maybe Aragorn is right, Saeed Bin Suroor is just a poor trainer, all the Godolphin blue bloods ran deplorably virtually for the entire carnival. They should sack bin suroor and employ Ismail Mohammed instead.
- Total Posts 17716
Quote: from Librettist on 12:15 pm on April 5, 2007[br]Before the World Cup no horse had got within 3¼ lengths of Discreet Cat, including in Grade 1 company. The fact that he couldn’t lay up with the pace surely indicates the horse was not right.
He had missed his intended prep after a setback and was found to have an abcess in his throat afterwards. Are these excuses, or facts?
Librettist
The fact? that he couldn’t lay up with the pace is nothing of the sort. It is quite clear the horse was deliberately held up off the pace, exactly as his trainer instructed.
Gareth
On all known form Discreet Cat had never been ridden in this manner. so who is to say it wouldn’t have happened if he had?<br>As for Discreet Cat not being good enough to beat Kandidate, that is completely risible; is every horse that finishes behind another not good enough to beat it? Form isn’t linear,  horses without infections run bad races every day, for any number of reasons, it is just in this case that Sheikh Maktoum was astute enough to see what would happen in this case, and it did.
For those who’ve convinced themselves it was an infection and nothing else, here’s a bet for you.<br>I will lay as many as hold that view an even pony that the horse is never ridden in that manner again.  <br>
"On all known form Discreet Cat had never been ridden in this manner"
Not quite true – he was held up when winning very easily in his UAE Derby prep. It’s not as if he’s a one-dimensional front-runner.
If he had been pulling like crazy I’d probably agree with you, but that wasn’t the case – he was flat as a pancake and just couldn’t make a move when Frankie asked him to.
"As for Discreet Cat not being good enough to beat Kandidate, that is completely risible; is every horse that finishes behind another not good enough to beat it?"
Either I’m completely misunderstanding your point there, or we completely agree.
"For those who’ve convinced themselves it was an infection and nothing else"
It’s not just the throat abscess, it’s the missed prep, the "temperature", the rumours of him being "skin and bones" when he arrived in Dubai, the use of a breast girth suggesting that he was underweight etc. etc.
(Edited by Gareth Flynn at 3:02 pm on April 5, 2007)
Quote: from Gareth Flynn on 3:01 pm on April 5, 2007[br]<br>It’s not just the throat abscess, it’s the missed prep, the "temperature", the rumours of him being "skin and bones" when he arrived in Dubai, the use of a breast girth suggesting that he was underweight etc. etc.
<br>
<br>Quite easy to predict the horses fate if you know the rumours above are indeed facts
(Edited by empty wallet at 3:58 pm on April 5, 2007)
I mean no one Gareth, but say, if you knew the horse had a problem, that was serious enough for it to miss a prep race, you knew that because of this problem the horse had missed work, not been eating, was not anywhere near optimum racing weight etc
<br>How hard would it be to predict a poor run?
Or what you could do, is just look at the way the other Godolphin horses have been running and think, there is a problem of some kind and there’s a high probability of Discreet Cat running similar to his stable mates, ie: travel ok, but when asked for a proper effort find zilch
<br>If your in the front and find zilch, you get passed by other horses and finish down the feild, if your last and find zilch, you don’t pas any horses and finish last
(Edited by empty wallet at 4:24 pm on April 5, 2007)
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