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… what would your choice be?
Canford Cliffs
Excelebration
Kingman
My tentative choice would be Kingman, though I wouldn’t feel too confident of the win.
That would be some race that Ghost.
If those were the only three in the race it would be another slow run affair in which Kingman has show very good fractions in so would side with him if betting.Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
I thought that at first, I suppose it would be a question of who takes to fences the best.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
It depends. In a truly run race I would give Excellebration a good chance. In a crawl Kingman wins.
Canford Cliffs doesn’t win no matter what.
Don’t know about that, if these were the only 3 in the field and it was a truly run race then it would have to be Excelebration making it and he would blow his chance in doing so being a sitting duck for the other two.
We need a pacemaker put in, how about Montiridge?
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Without Frankel running riot, Excelebration would have won twelve consecutive races, including seven at the highest level (although his programme would almost certainly have been different if Galileo had never briefly entertained Kind).
He boasts a far more decorated career than Kingman and, based on what they achieved and how the form book reads, would have defeated Kingman. Simple.
Read that as "If these three-milers had a race"..
Disappointing!
Would be far more exciting tooRead that as "If these three-milers had a race"..
Disappointing!
When I was typing the title I thought "This’ll catch out a few NH fans"
Read that as "If these three-milers had a race"..
Disappointing!
Me too!
I’d hoped it would be a discussion about the best winners of the Queen Alexandra Stakes.
On that basis, my three against the field would be the Derby winner St Gatien, the outstanding French stayer Marsyas, and of course, Brown Jack.
What do others think?
It depends. In a truly run race I would give Excellebration a good chance. In a crawl Kingman wins.
Canford Cliffs doesn’t win no matter what.
I’d opt for Kingman. The other two we knew a fair bit about but we never really got anywhere near to the bottom of seeing how good Kingman was.
It’s a mystery that Kingman didn’t win the 2000 Guineas. You could say it was the truly run race that caught him out but it was soft when he won at The Curragh and in France, so even allowing for a slow pace it would still test the stamina of a dubious stayer.
Kingman probably should have retired unbeaten and his quickening burst would have made comparisons with the unbeaten Frankel at least worthy of consideration.
The form book doesn’t look too hot for some of Kingman’s races but with the farcical pace and his manner of success, he actually p155ed on top of them and the winning margin bore no relevance to the degree of superiority.
Excelebration probably has the most solid form but would surely have had to go out hard to draw the Kingman kick out and maybe he would have been the hare that showed Kingman in an even better light. Second only to Frankel in some races but he was annihilated, rather than simply beaten in most of those races and probably best with cut in the ground.
My Guineas 25/1 flop, who went on to plenty of glory afterwards, Canford Cliffs, was a good sort but just a little behind the other two horses in terms of talent. He raced against some good sorts and the form is very solid but he rarely won by very much and was put well in his place by the young Frankel who was yet to turn into the monster that Excelebration would face the following year.
My 100% book:-
Kingman Evs
Excelebration 2/1
Canford Cliffs 5/1
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I’d go for Canford Cliffs.
Excelebration would make the running at a decent pace, especially if Coolmore forced a few of their pacemaking battalions into this triple-header.
Hopefully he’d go quick enough to get Kingman tredding water in the final furlong, allowing Canford Cliffs to sweep through with that astounding turn of foot. People write him off as being comprehensively beaten by Frankel, but he was quite clearly carrying an injury that day.
And if they ran over three miles, I’d back Excelebration to wheeze home at a slightly faster walk than the others.
I’d go for Canford Cliffs.
allowing Canford Cliffs to sweep through with that astounding turn of foot.
I don’t think Canford Cliff’s turn of foot was anywhere near as electric as Kingman’s. You have to remember Kingman was closing off a slow pace and making up the ground in a relatively short space of time.
I believe he would have left Canford for dead in the last furlong.
Looking back to this year’s 2000 Guineas I think there were about 13 group 1 wins came out of it since, between Kingman, Australia, Charm Spirit, Kingston Hill and The Grey Gatsby. The Derby, The French Derby, The Irish 2000 Guineas and The St Leger were among those races.
If we compare Canford Cliff’s year, we only really get St Nicholas Abbey going on to anything like the same glory afterwards. I’m pretty confident Kingman would be the faster horse of the two and I’ll lay you a specially enhanced 6/1 price (Mobile Apps only apply) on Canford.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
Excelebration is an under-rated horse. He had the misfortune to come up against Frankel time after time. Had Kingman have come across Frankel time and again he wouldn’t have a string of ones by his name either.
Excelebrations QE11 winning form was IMO better than anything Kingman showed and Excelebration has a higher OR and RPR than Kingman.
I do completely take the point that we possibly never got to see the very best of Kingman through the way his races were run, field sizes etc but nevertheless he didn’t prove himself to be
definitely
a better horse than Excelebration. Had Frankel not been around this horse would’ve won twelve straight races and a good number of them group ones.
I agree that Excelebration was an underrated horse. He possessed a very sharp turn of foot but didn’t have the power to sustain it like the way Frankel could. Nevertheless, all of Excelebration’s 8 victories racked up quite a decent cumulative winning distance of 26.5 lengths. He’d have been a fearsome rival for Kingman.
Should we throw Goldikova into the mix?
Hindsight tells us Canford Cliffs was the best horse in the field for the 2000 guineas he wasn’t right(didn’t run to what he achieved afterwards) in that race or the Greenham previous and Prix Morny as a 2 year old. He should of had 7 group 1’s and being sired by Tagula was a bit of a freak to reach the heights he did in some ways he over-achieved.
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