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Would there be the same moaning if Henderson was in mullins position. Don’t think so. A wee bit too much little englander. The truth may be that there are not so many top horses anymore. Would ballyburn won just as easy if his race was moved. Probably. Would state man have won the same if Lossiemouth ran in the champion hurdle. Probably. The fact corach rambler beat the rest of the British horses in the gold cup tells you something. You can fiddle about as much as you want but when one horse is streets ahead in his division then that’s life.
BTW if constitution Hill had bolted up at 1/4 would there be loads of hand wringing. I think we know the answer to that.Gds is the best chaser this century IMHO but not getting recognition he deserves.
All about opinions and the moaners are more vociferous it would seem.As the person who started this topic, I would certainly be just as aggrieved if it were Henderson, Nicholls, or any other British trainer.
This is not about nationality; this is about the entire sport becoming less competitive.
Agree 100% Gladiateur (any other Irish trainer too, in my case). To steal what someone else said on a different forum, they quoted John Hislop as to the problem: ‘The unpredictability of the turf is its touchstone and fascination.’ The more predictable it becomes, the less fascinating.
I know you are glad but when I hear reputable pundits saying ballyburns win was boring really gets my goat. Superb horse wins easily a la frankel yet it boring according to some. Your in the wrong game if you find it boring I.ho.
Nobody is saying the horses are boring, Mickey. Ballyburn, Galopin, Fact To File, etc, have all received plenty of praise and rightly so.
The problem is when virtually all the top class horses are housed in one stable.
The problem I have during the season with races like the Charlie Hall, Lancashire Chase, King George, Cotswolds and Denman Chase is that they aren’t any real GC trials. They’re still quality races, despite the Tizzards running one of their out of form characters almost in every single one of them, but the winners aren’t anywhere near the class Irish horses bring to the festival.
Hewick isn’t trained by WPM, but he still managed to win a very weak KG and Gentlemansgame (Charlie Hall) and Capodanno (Cotswolds) are two more trial winners not worthy of a GC mention.
It’s not necessarily a Mullins dominated game, the home contingent is just way too short of the required talent to compete with the very best when Spring arrives.After the Kauto Star/Long Run era there have been 12 renewals of the KG with Cue Card the only winner who came close to win a Gold Cup. The form of the race has been in some decline for over a decade, imo.
–> This is not Willie’s fault!!!
Just the word trials makes me shiver, they are good races in their own right, well most of them used to be.
The more I know the less I understand.
“Just the word trials makes me shiver, they are good races in their own right, well most of them used to be.”
100% right.
What about the Haydock GN trial? Ten runners, the winner trained in IRE only entered for the Irish GN and four home trained horses entered for Aintree, but only Chambard the only one with a realistic chance to make the cut.
Then the Albert Bartlett trial on the same day, supposed to be a G2 race for whatever reasons. None of the ten contestants ran at Cheltenham. I doubt there were any entries at all among them.
We’re just kidding ourselves thanks to the name of the race, but looking into the quality of them the picture becomes clearer….. No Cheltenham material to be found.Edit: That race also went to Ireland.
There is a headline on the Racing Post website, from Tom Segal pricewise, saying Willie Mullins underachieved at Cheltenham. I’m not able to read the article so don’t know what he is getting at.
Mike, didn’t he have six winners from roughly 65-70 winners? That would be a strike of less than 10% which might be the answer.
“Mike, didn’t he have six winners from roughly 65-70 winners? That would be a strike of less than 10% which might be the answer.”
Well, he had four losers in the Baring Bingham and one in the Gold Cup, so you can’t really rely on strike rate as a good measure.
The article lays blame at the feet of “British based” owners (not “British owners”, phrased so he can include Rich Ricci) for not being public spirited enough to send their horses to British trauners.
Then whines at length about how Mullins can afford to pay more for the best horses.
Um….Lossiemouth, led out unsold at €14k at Arqana foal sales. El Fabiolo, led out unsold €70k as a 2yo. Al Boum Photo, led out unsold as a 3yo at €70k.Galopin des Champs didn’t go through the ring. He’s by Timos out of a Marchand de Sable mare (no, me neither, but Willie and his buyers can talk at length about dam families and obscure or new sires in France and Ireland). Walk in the Park wasn’t a big deal till Mullins made him with Douvan and Min…everyone else playing catchup now.
Segal reckons French vendors will decline Nicholls et al and only sell their good horses to Willie because he pays more, but I don’t think he does. If I was a French breeder I’d probably accept a bit less from Willie actually, to get my stable that prestige.
I don’t think he spends a pile and definitely doesn’t get bidding fever. He didn’t put his hand up at the Browns’ dispersal sale at all, Nicholls bought the record breaking top lot.Grangeclare West and Classic Getaway were expensive, but they’re only with Willie due to Gordon’s deadhorse indiscretion. I don’t know if he even bid on Jonbon.
He buys some at the sales for good but not eyewatering money and I would think the private sales are similar. He’d been teying to get his mitts on Al Boum Photo for a long time before he got him, apparently….probably only at the right price. Better buying 5-10 Al Boum Photos than one Caldwell Potter…he’s got the Ginger Tipster approach to buying…it’s all about the value!
There’s a lot of comments on this thread which go off at a fair old tangent. The little englander comment in particular was ridiculous and amusing in equal measure.
To just answer the original question. I’m with you Gladiateur. It’s tedious, and to repeat the phrase from earlier in the thread “Domination in any sport by anyone gets tedious after a while”.
I’m glad you brought up those numbers and facts, green. By the way, the Browns’ dispersal sale went mad, imo. A few prices were so astronomic as if that certain lot was a CH or GC winner.
Too often I find his thinking ranges between strange and absolute bonkers. Is he just being contrary for contrary’s sake? If he isn’t then it’s a good thing that he has people around him to bring him back to reality.
As regards the domination, I don’t mind who trains the horses as long as we get to see them. It might be a different story if he didn’t run his horses against each other. As a punter plenty of his ‘good things’ go in which provides some much needed balance to the daily list of unfathomable/bookmaker results.
I like to see good horses fulfil their potential. If an expensive horse goes to Willie Mullins or Warren Greatrex where would you think it is most likely to realise it’s potential? I worry for horses like Mighty Bandit and Buckna.
Just on the subject of bringing on young horses. Winning a bumper has been a starting point for many very good horses. The likes of Mullins and Elliott mop up loads of bumpers. It’s hard to believe that they don’t give these races the same consideration as any others. They don’t send out horses half-baked to finish a promising fifth. It’s chalk and cheese the way they approach these races compared to our supposed leading trainers. Henderson did have a good record, but even that has fallen away in recent times. There was a time when Nicholls hardly trained a bumper winner, but these days he trains as many as anybody purely because he sends his horses out fit, and ready to win. He has become an exception. If I owned a horse I wouldn’t accept any trainer just sending it out for a jolly. It’s just lazy, and (as I touched upon in a betting thread) it’s why the big priced winners of these races are so often left field. Going back to Greatrex there was a time when he used to point and fire with Sheehan in bumpers. That all stopped when I guess he thought he had ‘arrived’, and his career has nosedived ever since.
The biggest driver of the drop in the crowds at Cheltenham is surely the exhortatinate cost of going for a few days. There have been loads of tales of only going two days or not going at all. The Irish attendance was well down and given how many projected and actual Irish winners there were surely they weren’t put off by mullins strength. Cheltenham have milked the attendees to saturation point and the irish(and many thousands of english)fans chose the drf over Cheltenham where mullins totally dominated but the crowds turned up.
I go back to just the lack of top level horses too. Just not enough of them. I’m sure there will be loads said but I’m not holding my breath for meaningful changes
Maybe a couple of tweaks I’d suspect.
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