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I would be very surprised if Protektorat ran here. It seems the stable’s evolution has been planned from rapid fire summer handicap merchants (acquire a horse with a low mark, get it schooled and very fit, rip through the mark to get a lot of 1s on the board, then move the horse on and acquire another, rinse, repeat), to opportunistic predators in better races with better but not top drawer horses, to managing potential grade 1 winners.
I think Protekorat’s campaign has been planned with military precision from the end of last season. The first part of the plan was executed to perfection, now they’ll back off him a bit and build to the Gold Cup via the Cotswold or Lingfield (whichever has nice easy ground and preferably no L’Homme Presse).
I do not think they were ever going to give him a potentially hard race on a tight right handed track where the ground is often good against a horse whose prime season target is the race, trained by Skelton’s ex boss whose methods his former assistant is well aware of and who is Mr. King George; plus whatever other decent horses turn up.
The million pound bonus doesn’t exist any more and was very hard to win unless your horse’s name was Kauto. Skelton knows you can’t just treat a grade 1 3 mile chaser’s season like a trolley dash and he’s not going to try to grab all the sweeties in the shop.
“would have been much sweeter on Frodon had he not run at Haydock, I really didn’t understand why they did that after the tough race he had at Wincanton”
A canter round for >£20k place money. Even grand old stars like Frodon have to keep paying for the feed and diesel and staff wages the other horses consume. They know he’s not going to win the King George. They probably reckoned on the strain of the Haydock run perhaps costing him a place in the King George but that place is not going to be the difference between first and second. So it made financial sense to go to Haydock.
I like Hitman and I don’t think he’s soft, I think it’s likely that he couldn’t breathe last year. What puts me off is the trip. I understand that he is young and they didn’t want to pound the lights out of a 5 year old over 3 miles last year but… He started last season on 151. If they thought he was going to be all that over 2.5-3 miles in future, why wasn’t he targeted to grab the Paddy Power and the December Gold Cup? What was he doing in the Tingle Creek?
It just reminds me of the time they ran Politologue in the the King George. Maybe Hitman will improve for the trip but it’s some race for a first ever go at 3 miles.
Where’s the overwhelming evidence that Protektorat is hopeless going right-handed?
Yes, he jumped slightly left when turned over at 2s on at Wincanton once, but he’s also won at Carlisle and been second in a big handicap hurdle at Sandown Park.
Both he and L’Homme Presse should run – they could both have a setback between Boxing Day and Cheltenham and both are currently in the form of their lives.
But the Cheltenham Festival obsession, as ever, looms large and I readily agree neither could be regarded as odds-on to go to the Sunbury venue.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"GG Hitman has a lot to find on the principles , even if you don’t think he,s soft he hasn’t got the form to win this
“Both he and L’Homme Presse should run – they could both have a setback between Boxing Day and Cheltenham and both are currently in the form of their lives.”
Quite so. Why put a horse aside for Cheltenham when there are other prizes to win and the horse could get injured the day before the Gold Cup? It is wasting the season.
What message does it send out if trainers decide the King George, the great mid-season championship and a genuinely great race in its own right, is not worth the bother? It is madness.
If anything, you could argue that the King George has a better roll of honour than the Gold Cup. Why would you not want to win it?
“GG Hitman has a lot to find on the principles , even if you don’t think he,s soft he hasn’t got the form to win this”
Hmmm. He is 6 years old and rated 160, the same as Clan des Obeaux the year he first won. Like I said , it’s just the trip that bothers me.
Where’s the overwhelming evidence that Protektorat is hopeless going right-handed?
He isn’t hopeless right handed. But you have to be better than hopeless to win. The trainer has targeted the Betfair and the Gold Cup. Nicholls has targeted the KG and presumably the Bowl at Aintree with BMG. Fair enough. It’s not like a spin round Tramore and tucked away for the big day.
“Why put a horse aside for Cheltenham”
Neither Protektorat nor, as far as I know, L’Homme Presse have been put aside till Cheltenham. They’ve been targeted at it which is fair enough as they are both proven over course and in the Skelton horse’s case, trip. If Protektorat wins the Betfair, the Cotswold/Fleur de Lys, wins or comes second in the Gold Cup, then possibly even has a pop at Punchestown as a shot to nothing, it will hardly be a “wasted season”.“A canter round for >£20k place money. Even grand old stars like Frodon have to keep paying for the feed and diesel and staff wages the other horses consume”.
Win and place prize money combined he has earned £1.1m so hardly needs to be turning up and taking one for the team in a placed effort for £20k. He was beaten 27L in the 2019 renewal so it would appear not to be a course to his liking and as this was only 14 days after Wincanton it would seem more of an afterthought to run than a set plan.
He is more than capable of winning a 2nd King George based on the if, buts and maybes of the rest of the field and lets not forget that he was clearly the 3rd pick of the more fancied Nicholls horses (Clan Des Obeaux & Cyrname) when he won it 2 years ago….I just think he could have well done without a slog around Haydock for his prep.
Protektorat. I don’t back the Skelton horses as I can simply never catch them right. I think it would be a big mistake running Protektorat in the King George. The Betfair always leaves its mark on winners. When Bristol De Mai was in his prime I believe he would have won a Gold Cup if old Twister could just have resisted the King George and gave him months to recover rather than a few weeks.
Since winning the Betfair in 2019, Lostintranslation has won only once (he was pulled up that year in the King George where he started 15/8). It’s a bloody tough race, as potentially damaging to winners aiming for a King George as the Cotswold is to Gold Cup aspirants.
The NH season I first properly got into racing Bachelors Hall won the Mackeson, the Hennessy and the King George.
Just as well they went to Kempton too as he – and all of them – bumped into one in Midnight Court and Fred Winter’s young chaser and John Francome slaughtered the lot of them in a Cheltenham Gold Cup staged in the April meeting slot after the weather claimed the first date.
How times change – and not always for the better.
Your horse can get injured, an invincible rival can emerge, the ground can go against you – so much can go wrong between now and March.
That’s why you have to strike while the iron is hot as CAS says.
The King George is for horses like L’Homme Presse and Protektorat, that’s what it’s there for.
Both horses have had a mere one race each this autumn and both have won in style.
Absolutely crazy not to run, but then the racing world gets increasingly crazy.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"All L’Homme Presse’s wins have been with soft in the going description and his festival victory was on ground that must have been close to heavy. Will he even have his ground in the Gold Cup?
“Your horse can get injured, an invincible rival can emerge, the ground can go against you – so much can go wrong between now and March.
That’s why you have to strike while the iron is hot as CAS says.”That isn’t Henderson’s or Mullins’s mindset. And probably why they have had so much success at Cheltenham.
If I had a horse good enough to have a winning chance at Cheltenham I’d likely send him to Henderson. If I had a horse good enough to perhaps mop up some races during the season I’d likely send him to Nicholls or Skelton.
I agree inasmuchas I’m on CH for the CH and he couldn’t be in better hands to be trained for that one race.
But Mike sounds like a product of the four-day season generation and tbh if the King George VI Chase, once the great mid-winter Championship, is now merely one of “some races during the season” they really should abolish the race as it’s no longer fit for purpose and is a waste of prize money.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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