- This topic has 68 replies, 25 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
The mystery for me is how you interpret ‘optimum’. GG might not be 100% effective over 12 at Epsom, but he might be 99%, which still qualifies for the ‘not optimum’ badge
Like Paco Boy it’s hard to believe a horse by Tagula such as Humphrey Bogart would come up with 12fs as his optimum distance with a test, neither would the breeding experts prior to it occurring of course.
As I posted above, Humphrey Bogart has two older full siblings who stayed a minimum of 12f, and got further than 16f over hurdles, so I’d think that any breeding expert would think that he’d be cast in a similar mould.
After all this crap Harry Herbert is now saying Galileo Gold may yet run in the Derby.
I am not a big fan of Harry Herbert to be honest with you and this helps demonstrate why.
TT, CC, CT?
There are only two letters you really need to know and they are BS
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
You’d have to be sceptical without a lot more evidence. What went wrong with Dawn Approach? did the test get him wrong or did Jim Bolger ignore the test?
Despite Jim Bolger’s claim of “Pressure from where?, there’s no pressure” when asked about running Dawn Approach in The Derby, you can be sure Sheikh Mohammed made the call about running in the race.
We are always being reminded how knowledgeable the Sheikh is and I would think he believes that to be the case himself. Jim probably knew the horse didn’t have a prayer of lasting.
As Joe says, Equinome must be fearful of Galileo Gold now running in, and winning the Derby.
That would blow their test out of the water, if not their testes as well.
Would they then admit to making a CT of it?
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
Before they’d gone 2 furlongs, Dawn Approach had blitzed his chances of demonstrating what a CC would do in The Derby, so that can’t be counted a test.
Kevin Blake’s most recent piece is interesting. He looks at the 11 Guineas winners since 1991 who’ve run at Epsom ( 2 wins, 1 placed). http://www.attheraces.com/blogs/kevin-blake
Two wins and a second from last five runs isn’t a bad return (Guineas winners in the Derby).
My own view would be that it is the perceived relative weakness of the Derby that may sway things in favour of Galileo Gold competing.
Hugo Palmer looks like he’s learning a lesson learned by plenty trainers in the past, that you seldom improve your position by opening your mouth.
Two wins and a second from last five runs isn’t a bad return (Guineas winners in the Derby).
My own view would be that it is the perceived relative weakness of the Derby that may sway things in favour of Galileo Gold competing.
Hugo Palmer looks like he’s learning a lesson learned by plenty trainers in the past, that you seldom improve your position by opening your mouth.
Five renewals is a spurious sample size. Horses and their genetics have been around for an awful lot longer than that.
The overwhelming statistics show that not many horses win the Guineas and The Derby.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I’ll la Galileo Gold until Christmas if he shows up. I don’t think it was a good Guineas. The favourite flopped and I feel Ribchester and Massaat didn’t get home that well on the day.
I am surprised Richard Fahey is thinking of going for another Guineas, because Ribchester looked an ideal Jersey candidate to me but he won’t be the first colt persevered with without success at a mile.
I don’t think Massaat will get home, to me, he looked even less likely than Galileo Gold to get the trip in the Derby.
Galileo Gold looks to me to have too busy a style to be a stayer. He’s probably a bit like Dawn Approach in style in my opinion and if you watch Galileo Gold in the Guineas again, he hangs across under pressure towards Massaat. Luckily Massaat seemed to have run his race at that point and Galileo Gold was in front once he got to the rail.
I think these “Staying On” comments are deceptive, often it’s just a case that they are not weakening as badly as others in the race. It looked a sub par Guineas to me anyway and although the Derby is no great shakes either, there will be horses there better bred for the job.
I reckon I will place lay the Guineas 1-2 in the Derby. Better horses than Galileo Gold have tried and failed.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I seem to recall Dawn Approach failed this test.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I wouldn’t run him personally.
10 furlong horse, Champion Stakes winnerGaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
This is interesting, but won’t the romantics among us mourn the loss of the sentiment behind Tesio’s famous quote? Horses’ campaigns being mapped out based on genetic tests… I’m a scientist by profession, but it’s faith and reading pedigrees that make racing fun for me (sentimental old fool).
“The Thoroughbred exists because its selection has depended, not on experts, technicians, or zoologists, but on a piece of wood: the winning post of the Epsom Derby. If you base your criteria on anything else, you will get something else, not the Thoroughbred.”
Bolger’s company came out with these findings not long before the 2013 Derby. He was interviewed on At The Races about it, and a general (rare ) interview. Essentially, his horse, Dawn Approach (2000 Guineas Winner) , did not fit the stayer’s match. What a pity it was that the new owner (Godolphin) did not heed Bolger’s clear warnings and ran him in the Derby , when Bolger had another horse, Trading Leather (Irish Derby winner), who was a more likely candidate. But hey, try saying “no” to the Godolpin’s owner.
Steve Caution, “Pressure” as Bolger refers to is the owners. Godolpin bought Dawn Approach after his two year old career. Bolger’s body language before the race was clear, he had already made public his findings on Dawn Approach. Judging by the purchases Godolpin have had over the last few years (of horses who have already proven themselves at some level as oppose to home breeds where they have some fine stallions and mares) and lack of classics for the money spent, and of course, until recently, the choice of trainers he used, I wonder about the Sheikh’s knowledge. It might have been a horrible case of running Dawn Approach just to have a runner (Libertarian was bought by the man immediately after that Derby and sadly flopped in the Irish Derby, along with the Epsom Winner) It was a miracle that Bolger got him sound for the St James Stakes . It is also a credit to HRA Cecil that he had the balls to refrain from running Frankel in the Derby at that age.
I don’t want to harp on, but those citing Dawn Approach’s Derby as proving he was a non-stayer are stretching credibility way too far imo. Whether or not he’d have stayed, I neither know nor care much, but I do know that he cannot be judged on his performance in the race. In the first 4 furlongs he was more akin to a rodeo horse than a racehorse and I have never seen a jockey on the Flat leaning as far back as Manning did trying to anchor him.
By the 2 furlong pole he was out of gas, though within 4 or 5 lengths of the leader. From there Manning simply sat still.
Non-stayer? Quite possibly. Was that evidence? Absolutely not.
I don’t want to harp on, but those citing Dawn Approach’s Derby as proving he was a non-stayer are stretching credibility way too far imo. Whether or not he’d have stayed, I neither know nor care much, but I do know that he cannot be judged on his performance in the race. In the first 4 furlongs he was more akin to a rodeo horse than a racehorse and I have never seen a jockey on the Flat leaning as far back as Manning did trying to anchor him.
By the 2 furlong pole he was out of gas, though within 4 or 5 lengths of the leader. From there Manning simply sat still.
Non-stayer? Quite possibly. Was that evidence? Absolutely not.
I think you are misunderstanding people here Joe, certainly me anyway.
A horse’s ability to stay depends on more that just the actual stamina genes it possesses. We have to consider a horse’s temperament and running style, along with its tractability in a race.
I said several times before the Derby that I felt Dawn Approach was a horse who seemed to race with the choke out for most of the race and I stated that I felt he would be very hard to settle in the Derby.
As it transpired (For once) my feelings were borne out in the race.
I don’t think it helped that the jockey tried to show who was boss. It would have been better to let Dawn Approach lead and see if perhaps he consented to settle at the front. That has to have been better than the ridiculous battle of wills that put the nail in the coffin early in the race.
I think the message is that you can’t tell from Genes alone.
Golden Horn proved last year that pedigrees can be ignored and visual impression trusted, as a horse who had never looked remotely tired in his career and who could be held up for a run. He defied the pedigree in tremendous style.
In my opinion Dawn Approach was a definite non-stayer but not solely on his genetic make up. The alacrity and pace that allowed him to win a Guineas, were a weakness going into the Derby, which statistically is proven to be the case for most Guineas winners.
Dawn Approach did not have the temperament and tractability to allow him to stay and I believe that would have been borne out had the race been run again on another day.
The way the jockey decided to fight with the horse for control simply meant that the matter was shown in a dramatic and exaggerated manner. Even if Dawn Approach had settled well, been leading two lengths going inside the final furlong and had been caught and beaten a neck late, we would still have opined that he didn’t stay.
I think it is stretching the imagination to think he could have won that Derby and been proved a stayer but it’s all about opinions.
I would think trainers should be analysing all aspects of the factors that make up a horse’s chance of staying a Derby instead of getting a genetic test to make a 100% confident yeah or nay call.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
Golden Horn proved last year that pedigrees can be ignored and visual impression trusted, as a horse who had never looked remotely tired in his career and who could be held up for a run. He defied the pedigree in tremendous style.
I was one who was convinced Golden Horn wouldn’t stay, and yes: he proved me wrong like all the other naysayers.
At the other end of the spectrum, I felt confident that Refuse To Bend would stay 12f back in 2003. After all, he was a Sadler’s Wells and even though his dam was a sprinter, she had previously foaled a Melbourne Cup winner by a stallion with a lower stamina index. On paper, both Refuse To Bend and Media Puzzle should have shared similar stamina – but they did not, and I guess there is still some mystery to it after all.
If dosage is your thing, Refuse To Bend’s DI and CI were less towards the ‘brilliant’ end of the spectrum than the average for 2000 Guineas winners and almost spot-on for recent Derby winners. But then, Golden Horn’s figures weren’t that much different and he did just fine.
The above assumes the difference between the performances of Refuse To Bend and Golden Horn in their respective Derbys was entirely down to stamina; of course, in reality there was a difference in class as well (let’s not forget that Refuse To Bend trailed in miserably some sixteen lengths adrift of… ahem, Kris Kin…)
Can someone please tell me if Brigadier Gerard truly stayed 12f or whether his King George win was down to class alone? I wonder what his results on the gene test would have been.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.