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I think this is a terrible decision personally. He’s already had a really tough season and hasn’t shown his best around Punchestown recently anyway.
He has the chance to join an elite group next March. Nothing else would matter to me if he was mine.
Townend knows how much it took out of him judging by his after race comments – trainers will tell you a lot of times when horses go over the top they can look (and work) at their best immediately before it happens…kind of like a star burning at it brightest until it fades.
He clearly showed them no ill effects last year after Cheltenham and yet it ended up being his worse performance of that season – Townend even commented after that he felt flat and that he felt very simmilar in the John Durkan this season, so maybe Cheltenham had a longer lasting affect on him than anyone thought.
Clearly I am in the minority in thinking that he has done enough this season and I don’ think that running him because he is fit and well and its Punchestown and the money is good is enough reason to ask him to go again after the grueling race he had at Cheltenham. Fingers crossed if they do run him and we do get another below par performance that it only ends up with him being beaten for a place and not risking an injury or worse from a tired fall.
Yes that may seem an extreme over the top thing to say but horrible things can happen in this sport…Highland Hunter at Cheltenham springs to mind and going back a number of years you had the One Man incident at Aintree following on from his great triumph at Cheltenham.
I’m sure he won’t run unless he’s right but as we saw with Paddington on the flat constant hard races do take their toll plus gerri colombe will be fresher for the race. I’ll leave it to Willie. He gets it right most of the time.
Mickey,
Fastorslow will be even fresher and loves the track. I’ll be taking first show on him.I don’t think that running him because he is fit and well and its Punchestown and the money is good is enough reason to ask him to go again after the…….’grueling race he had at Cheltenham’.
All I can say is, it’s a good job he doesn’t play under Klopp at Liverpool!!!
If he played under Klopp he would be rested regularly to ensure that he was not tired and thus underperformed
If Galopin des Champs played under Klopp for Liverpool he’d be centre midfield alongside Gaelic Warrior with Ballyburn playing as a 6
Having said that Gaelic Warrior would probably be the Darwin Nunez
Blackbeard to conquer the World
“If he played under Klopp he would be rested regularly to ensure that he was not tired and thus underperformed”
Did you see the Man City vs Liverpool game LD73, then many were out again on the Thursday to beat Sparta and then again on the following Sunday for a cup game against Man U.
None of those players, except for Kelleher did any standing around. I think Gallopin can manage a rest and fire up again for Punchestown.
Gaelic ‘Captain Chaos’ Warrior…………yes, it has a certain ring to it.
And they only won one of those 3 games (the easiest of the 3 against Sparta, which they already had a 5-1 lead from the 1st leg) and in the final game of the 3 (FA Cup) they patently run out of gas in extra time against Man U after wasting chance after chance after chance in the 2nd half……i.e. they underperformed due to tiredness from being asked to go to the well one too many times in quick succession.
Btw, Galopin couldn’t fire up after a break between Cheltenham and Punchestown last year so there is a very good chance that history will repeat itself this year too. His main objective has been won this season so there will likely also be an easing off on him compared to going into Cheltenham.
I think it was a mix of some players having been overplayed(because of the injury list) in a combination of trying to get players that have come back from injury plenty of minutes to get back into rhythm.
The PL (Gold Cup) at Old Trafford next month will see a different result…
Blackbeard to conquer the World
If I was a betting man LD73, I’d take you on and say he’ll win at Punchestown.
Nathan………….I hope they take on Man U like they did against City, United won’t know whether they’ve been punched or bored!!!!
But we digress.
Griff – Might depend on how strong the opposition that turns up is and also what ground conditions are like in order to see what kind of performance he will need to produce to win the race i.e. how near to his very best will he have to be.
His post-Cheltenham record in the past three seasons reads: 1-1-2
If he’s fit and the ground is okay there is no reason why he shouldn’t run. Although he’s only had a total of four runs in the past two seasons and that equals already this season’s number. But a GC winner at the age of eight should be able to cope with a fifth run in the space of about 26 weeks.From a betting point of view I like taking on long odds-on shots after a “long” season.
Ruby – From a betting point of view I would taking the exact same position as you simply because he will likely be at his most vunerable coming at the end of a long season and off the back of being on the front end from the start of the most grueling Championship race run at the Festival.
LD – the other very short one I’m keen to take on is El Fabiolo. If Jonbon should run, he’ll be somewhere close to even money, but if the Hendo horse should be an absentee he might go off at 1/2.
I would also go against Constitution Hill, but jumping just eight small hurdles reduces the chances of him not completing the course. Though he is one of the horses you always have to take on, too risky as ante-post bet and just too short on the day. But he’s not the only one this applies to.
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