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Would have been a silly move to run him on heavy ground over a distance he hasn’t ran at before on his first run back from a long absence in a high class competitive field, only 3 weeks away from Cheltenham.
Its actually astounding that anyone thought he was going to run given all that
“We just felt we could prepare him better at home.”
Why enter him up then….?
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
FWIW – Douvan is 2/1 with BetVictor to run in any race at the festival.
We don’t think he’ll turn up. Happy to be proved wrong..
I doubt it myself with another year off. He’ll be 9 when he’s back, having had nearly two whole seasons off. What a shame, he looked an absolute superstar not so long ago.
I think you’re right. Think his big chance at the CC was this season just past and it’s a pity he ended up on the floor. Fab horse just too hard to keep sound.
No, sadly I think that ship has sailed for him now – this new injury is on the same leg and whilst they might get him back you would have to think he is well and truly in the fragile category now and you could easily see the same thing happening a year down the line with him again.
It was a real shame he hit the deck in the CC last year as he looked to be going like the Douvan of old and I was thinking that we just might get a similar performance from him to the one that Faugheen did first time out when winning last year’s Morgiana Hurdle.
I think they got him absolutely trained to the minute for the CC run and he didn’t look visually the same horse when UDS thumped him at Punchestown.
Unfortunately, for all those wins (14 out of 18 runs) he has racked up I think at the end of the day he will still go down as a ‘what could have been’ type of horse.
Agree with LD- the way the yard talked about him, it looks like he’ll never reach the heights they had hoped.
I also agree i think he was trained to the minute for the CC, and whilst it’s very possible Altior would’ve still thumped him, it’s sad we didn’t get to see a proper race of it. I do think that first injury will probably have meant we wouldn’t have seen the real Douvan anyway.
Hopefully Great Field and co can be kept right + give Altior a challenge..
Twitter: Jackh1092
Hindsight is 20/20 so make the most of it!Sad to say no; as a novice hurdler/novice chaser he was supreme, never out of 3rd gear. But that injury at the festival changed everything, suspect he wouldn’t have troubled Altior even if staying up.
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