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Recently, Binocular who I supported and touted to win last season’s Champion Hurdle from the first time I saw him. Jury is still out on him and I still believe he’s in a different league to anything around and will prove it in March.
Ignorant kunt
Monaughty Man.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
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Coombes Ditch was a hugely disappointing animal who threated more times than he delivered. Colin Brown regarded him so highly he chose him over Desert Orchid in the King George, the rest is history.
Coombes Ditch was a hugely disappointing animal who threated more times than he delivered. Colin Brown regarded him so highly he chose him over Desert Orchid in the King George, the rest is history.
I put that down to his breathing problem to be fair to the old boy. He had to be given oxygen many times after finishing a race, so if he was sometimes not putting it all in at the finish then that is probably the reason.
One horse that I was surprised didn’t make the grade over the bigger ones was Barton. Really thought he was going to be something special.
Aces Four – would be loathe to say that he disappointed us but at the end of his novice chase season we genuinely felt that he was a contender for the King George/Gold Cup the following season…but injury intervened.
Henry Cecil’s Thorn Dance
Regarding the list of J Howard Johnson horses. Three Cheltenham Festival winners in there, not many horses are good enough to run at a festival, never mind win there, so I’d hesitate to nominate those three.
Aces Four – would be loathe to say that he disappointed us but at the end of his novice chase season we genuinely felt that he was a contender for the King George/Gold Cup the following season…but injury intervened.
King George horse if ever there was!I remember having one of my rare 3 figure bets on Denman in the 07 RSA,jumping 4 out i was sweating,because he just wasn"t shaking Aces Four off,had he not blundered 3 out he would have finished a pretty close 2nd,too close for my liking!I certainly lumped on him at Aintree at 3/1 after that performance! Top horse imo!
Monaughty Man.
gc
Lol, mind you i did back him in the 95 aintree foxhunters ,was one of Ted Caine`s better ones
As well as Draborgie i seem to remember the Mercers lost Mack the knife in the champion hurdle the same day .
Big disappointments for me were Cardinal Red and Malford Lad ,i was convinced that both had a 3m hurdle in them at the festival …and at big price…but alas
Someone mention last years "talking horse" CAPPA BLEU
I see he’s entered in a novice hurdle at Taunton on Tuesday.
Did some mention The Gold Cup ? LOL
Hang on; I’ve just read that Aces Four has had stem cell treatment and is on the comeback trail; dprp is this correct? Grand National entry mentioned??
From 7th Dec 09:
Aces had stem cell treatment on a tendon problem & had been near to a return but he has unfortunately developed another problem. As he is 10yo,nearly 11yo we have decided to retire him.
It is a sad day in an obvious sense but it is also a happy day – he will retire to a very good home to be pampered and spoilt with his health relatively good.
It would be easy to wallow in self pity about "what could have been" with Aces but I prefer to reflect on just what he did for us.
We bought him in December 2005, Ferdy having bought him at Doncaster Sales a month earlier. He had been "sold"a couple of times by Ferdy but the deals were never completed and so I was surprised to find him still avaialble in December. Surprised because he looked the part & because I knew how much Ferdy thought of him. Before Ferdy got him, he had run in 4 bumpers (placed second twice) and four novice hurdles (placed each time). He had always run on good to soft ground or softer but Ferdy was sure that he needed quicker ground. Additionally, he had had a little bit of corrective work on his breathing immediately after joining the yard.
I really liked him but at the time he was significantly more expensive than anything we had bought so far at £23K. However, we decided to take a "risk" with him & bought him in Dec 05. A couple of weeks after I bought him, Ferdy told me that he would probably win first time out and that he thought that he was potentially high class….but as a chaser not a hurdler.
Eight weeks later, he made his debut in a modest maiden hurdle at Ludlow- a venue chosen as it provided good quick ground. As promised he duly won by 7 lengths….rewarding the one owner that had made the trip! In truth, only 4 shares had been sold & so the win was a great boost in terms of sales!!!
From there he went to Ayr 4 weeks later & won again. By now he was rated 125 & we ran him in a handicap hurdle again at Ayr. He finished only 3rd of 4 …but we probably ran him in a handicap before he was ready and we did so on good to soft ground. The defeat was more about our bad planning than his ability! To prove the point, he ran a week later at Perth – on good to firm ground & back in novice company. He won easily. Three hurdles wins from 4 starts…the syndicate finally "sold out"!
That was the end of his novice hurdle campaign – 3 wins from 4 – and we put him away for the summer remembering what Ferdy had said – he is a chaser not a hurdler!!
He made his novice chase debut at Fakenham in October 06 and fell when very tired at the last. Not the best start! However in the next 6 weeks he went twice to Necastle and twice he won – both times very impressively. Great days for the partners! Graham Lee reported him to have made a noise & suggested that we try to help his breathing a little….though the issue was not serious.
We then went to Cheltenham in December 06 and on soft ground he ran a blinder to be 2nd to Patsy Hall. Graham Lee again reported the breathing issue & said that he would have otherwise won. He had a small operation on his nasal passages and the next time that we were to see him was in The Sun Alliance Chase of 2007. Denman won the race and Aces finished fourth….having stumbled on landing three from home. The memory of him bombing down to the third last upsides Denman with everything else off the bridle will never leave me!! Graham reported him to have been "hard on the steel" when stumbling and so we felt that he would certainly have been 2nd…though 4th in a Cheltenham Festival championship race was great!
We took him to Aintree next for the £70K Midmay Novices Chase and this was the best day of his career. He destroyed a good field and won by an eased down 8 lengths. Most of his owners were there and it was a memorable day.
His next race was to prove to be the start of a run of bad luck. He took a crashing fall at the last at Punchestown when looking like winning and was then injured in the next seasons Charlie Hall. The following 18 months saw him battle with injury & see the track only once until, this weekend, we retired him.
A fantastic horse, rated 157 at his peak and a real superstar for us….13 runs, 6 wins and some great days out!Enjoy the retirement Aces, you deserve it!!
Black Jacari
Thought this horse would do a lot better than he did last season, a very quirky horse and has his own ideas about the game, thought he may emulate Katchit and win the Triumph at the festival, but has never even made it to Cheltenham.
Black Jacari
has now joned Philip Kirby from the Alan King yard.
Phil trains our syndicate horses, Goldan Jess and Nightboat To Cairo, and it will be interesting to see how the horse reacts to his beautiful new surroundings and a change of scenery.
Phil has done very well on a small budget as an aspiring young trainer and Black Jacari will be given plenty of attention in a small yard.
Here’s a link to the news on his site…
Brownes Gazette who was favourite for See You Then’s first champion hurdle. The bent jockey Dermot Browne gave them all a 30 length start, he did get into the race but making up the lost ground took it’s toll and he was beaten about 20 lengths. The horse was never the same after.
See the finish for yourself
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