Iris Bleu

[Colin Little]

Would anyone like to comment on how Iris Bleu performed yesterday?

I suppose it was a bit too obvious for the connections to allow him the same race as last year. When they interviewed David Pipe before the race, I think reading between the lines he let a bit more info out than his dad would have done.

I though IB was travelling really well during the middle of the race, Timmy Murphy must have been a bit worried when the all the market leaders were dropping like flies, putting him in danger of maybe winning, which imo was never the plan today.

Any ideas what the plan may be?

[davidjohnson]

I think you’re reading too much in to it to be honest. The case for him yesterday was that he had such a good record fresh in the past couple of seasons. However on the rest of his form from last season he hadn’t got a chance as the horse looked to have ‘gone’. He’s had to recover from serious injuries in the past and it’s possible that they’ve taken their toll. I don’t think he’ll win another race to be honest.

[Colin Little]

You may be right DJ, but I’m not totally sure. I’ll accept he’s not getting any younger & he will be an 11yo soon, but he was very well handicapped yesterday.

If he is best fresh as well, you would have though that they would have really gone for it with him yeterday. I thought they talked about him & rode him as though they had something else in mind.

[Maurice]

Can you tell us what he said, Colin?

I backed IB and wasn’t at all concerned with his position until the start of the final circuit when it struck me that he was not responding to some quiet niggling. I just thought maybe the horse had an off day.

I don’t buy into the past-it theory. His profile was similar going into last year’s race and he stotted up there. I thought yesterday was the day to catch him.

He’s incredibly well-handicapped on last year’s race, well enough handicapped to win a normal ‘Hennessy’ but if he needs to be fresh to be at his best then running yesterday was a mistake.

[Colin Little]

It wasn’t so much about what he said, which was very predictable, place chances etc. It was more about the signals he was sending out. His father was wonderful at reeling off loads of information about his entries without actually telling you anything you didn’t already know, and avoiding dropping any sort of hints that you could make use of. I thought David was a bit edgy & his tone was not in keeping with a horse that I had 8 or 9lb clear from memory & that had a good record fresh, & won the race last year. He was sort of saying it wasn’t going to win.

On the best fresh discussion, Maybe I have a slightly different take on it. There’s no doubt that he has a good record fresh, but does that mean he is best fresh? The connections have so many options they can prep & aim this type of horse at one race in the entire season. I suppose it’s connections prerogative to choose the time. It seems they have decided against having loads of horses ready for Paddy Power meeting this weekend, again probably because it’s become too obvious that they target it.

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