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The majority of British runners are struggling to get home. Is it as simple as the Irish runners are more used to running on really soft going. Willie and henry seem to have their string superfit and rolling.
Nickys reluctance to run horses often now looking really misguided. I hope going forward trainers run their horses. You never know what might happen.
Aidan never wraps them in cotton wool.Nicky on Sir Gino and Shanagh Bob NRs:
“Both horses appear to be in great shape, but we cannot ignore the performance of all our horses throughout the week, and last week as well, and we feel it would be crazy to chance it with two young high-class horses with their lives in front of them.”
“The old ones and second rate horses like Chantry House and Mill Green can sing for their supper, who cares?”* added Henderson as he called his labradors to heel and headed for the carpark.*I may have made the last bit up
That must have been a difficult week for Henderson. Luccia’s run in the Champion Hurdle was about the only bright spot.
Maybe it will make him rethink his strategy. Mullins runs his horses. By the time Cheltenham comes around, they are fit and battle hardened.
Someone mentioned on one of the threads how they thought Henderson has lost his nerve. He does seem to have become defensive in how he campaigns his horses.
I switched on RTV yesterday and it was showing the 2013 Gold Cup, won by Bobs Worth. OK, it was 11 years ago but Henderson looked so much younger. Sorry to say it but he looks like he has aged about 30 years since.
He does seem more stressed by the business than say Nicholls , Nicholls though isn’t going to war at Chelt against Mullins in the same way …. Plus Nicholls is arrogant , and I mean that in a good way , he’ll make a decision and stick to it , he won’t be waived by what others think
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It’s not uncommon to lose your bottle a bit generally as you get older, and I suspect CAS is right, Nicky Henderson might be a worse case than most.
I can kinda understand it with Constitution Hill, because I think Henderson knows he’s got one of the all-time great Champion Hurdlers on his hands and, at his age he won’t get another like him in this lifetime, but it’s not just that horse, is it, it’s most Grade 1 animals in his yard in recent years.
The only exception are the JP McManus horses and I suspect at some stage the owner had a short one-way conversation the likes of Michael Buckley shirked having, namely: “Racehorses are born to race, so race my horses if you want to continue to train for me.”
But I suspect Henderson is now too old to change generally of his own volition.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I think it can go either way, ID. Some people get more cautious as they get older. Others throw caution to the wind.
JP McManus is a case in point. He does seem to have improved the quality of his stock in the last few years. It looks to me like he knows he is getting older and he wants to have a last hurrah in his old age. No disrespect to Ginger but his speculation on another thread about Fact To File running in next year’s Ryanair is wide of the mark. If Mullins even suggested that, I am sure JP would put his foot down.
Likewise Hales and Ferguson spending 700,000 euros on Caldwell Potter. Of course the price is crazy. But they are two old, wealthy men who know they cannot take their money with them. They may as well take a chance. If that money buys them another Cheltenham winner, it is money well spent as far as they are concerned.
I think Henderson needs to have that sort of attitude. Taking horses out because the ground is not absolutely perfect is playing it too safe. Mullins’s horses run on deep ground all season in Ireland and it does not appear to do them any harm.
I think you’re absolutely spot on, CAS, but it might be easier for Ferguson and McManus to adopt that attitude for the following reasons.
Ferguson is a former hugely-successful football manager with a massive extended family (children and grandchildren) he is proud Patriarch of – racing is just a recreational part of his life and his legacy to the world is unaffected by his racing decisions.
Ditto McManus, a successful City financier, who I gather is head of a similarly large family, who probably views racing the same.
But for Henderson, it’s life or death stuff – he’s still managing his own equine Man Utd at Sevenbarrows and I suspect his Cheltenham Festival legacy strike rate is everything to him.
Henderson just can’t be as chilled about it as Ferguson and McManus because it’s a job for him, not a recreational pastime.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Fair point, ID. In fact it did occur to me as I was typing my post!
It is obviously not fair to judge Henderson by this festival. However, when Dan Skelton was interviewed after one of his winners he said something like “sometimes you just have to run them, no matter what the ground is like”.
I think that is where Henderson is falling down. He has got too defensive. I understand he cannot be reckless but you can go too much the other way as well.
It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out. If the horses get over the virus, will he take a strong team to Punchestown? Or will he play it safe and go to Aintree or nowhere at all?
Henderson’s mind keeps rerunning that Cyrname/Altior battle ….he’s never got over it
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Agree HDLG. I think it left a mark. As did his pulling Altior from the Tingle Creek and claiming the ground was heavy when it was only good to soft.
Winner , winner chicken dinner , they needed that
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The stable form including the number of horses entered still of great concern.
One winner after Cheltenham (Persian Time by a neck) and then six losers in a row. Beaten 14, 22, 32, 6 and 22 lengths plus one faller today that was already beaten.
No word from him yet, but he’d have to perform some magic in order to have a successful Aintree and Punchestown. Though the latter still isn’t on my mind yet. His horses would have to run very well in the next 2-3 weeks or it’s “season over” for the stable.
These things can change very quickly.
If I remember rightly I was posting about Henderson’s stable form way back on the 23rd February, the day before the Pendil Novice Chase.
With my “trainer form” ratings it would be unusual for a stable to be in extremely poor form for that long if it were to continue right up to and including Aintree.Value Is EverythingNot a quick fix, whatever virus/bug the stable has picked up will just have to work its way through their system and you can’t put any exact timeframe on when the stable will come out the other side.
You may get some that recover quicker and are back to form in time for Aintree and you may have some that won’t and it could be that the season will be a write off for some of them – you might even get the odds ones that will never be the same.
No way to know what horses fall into which category, ideally you would think that Punchestown might be far enough down the line to where you might be able to start backing them with some confidence but we all know how reluctant he seems to be with sending horses to Ireland at the best of times so……
Last 14 days they are 1 from 14 (7% S/R) with one other runner getting placed – I guess the only real positive you can take is that they haven’t had any runners that have been pulled up since the Martin Pipe at Cheltenham….baby steps and all that.
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