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What a woeful turnout for one of Warwick’s premier meetings tomorrow.
The £10k novices’ hurdle attracts 4 runners as does the following £15k novices’ staying chase. The two televised feature events are the £23k mares’ listed hurdle that’s pulled in just 6 runners, and the centrepiece £40k Kingmaker chase has a dismal 3 competitors with L’Ami Serge likely to go off unbackable.
The temptation to just run handicap hurdles interspersed with the odd NH Flat / Hunter Chase must be enormous.
I’ll give it a miss.
Mike
Not that the Newbury card is anything but a bitter disappointment too. Perhaps if L’Ami Serge could be re-routed to Newbury it would make the Game Spirit slightly more interesting. I do remember a 2 runner Kingmaker that was a bit of a thriller when Flagship Uberalles beat Tresor de Mai.Filled the first two places in the Arkle next time out.
So Fox Norton for the Arkle
In the case of the Kingmaker, this is probably just symptomatic of what’s been happening lately. But I live in hope that there’s the half chance trainers are finally twigging that this is about the last place to send a fancied Arkle horse for his final prep. A stern test for all chasers, not just novices, it can be a confidence-buster.
Looks like the Kingmaker Chase offers a rule 4 opportunity if L’Ami Serge doesn’t run. The other two horses are 8/1. With an 80p rule 4 deduction they will effectively be 1.6/1 rather than true odds of 1/1. I managed to get 62p on online but you might do better in a shop.
The ground has obviously played a part. If you are an ante-post punter the last thing you want to see is ‘your horse’ bottomed a few weeks before the Festival. Why should owners have a totally different thought process?
The ground has obviously played a part. If you are an ante-post punter the last thing you want to see is ‘your horse’ bottomed a few weeks before the Festival. Why should owners have a totally different thought process?
That was my reading of the situation too. Heavy ground usually takes longer to get over.
Connections also don’t want to ruin their handicap marks by getting too close to L’Ami Surge.Value Is EverythingIn the case of the Kingmaker, this is probably just symptomatic of what’s been happening lately. But I live in hope that there’s the half chance trainers are finally twigging that this is about the last place to send a fancied Arkle horse for his final prep. A stern test for all chasers, not just novices, it can be a confidence-buster.
How many fancied horses are there in the Arkle though with Douvan in the field? And is Cheltenham any easier than Warwick for a novice?
Of course Cheltenham is the be all and end all for many but I would have no qualms about going against the grain and bypassing it. A bird in the hand etc.
Maybe a bit more prize money might do the trick and of course a bit better ground.
In the case of the Kingmaker, this is probably just symptomatic of what’s been happening lately. But I live in hope that there’s the half chance trainers are finally twigging that this is about the last place to send a fancied Arkle horse for his final prep. A stern test for all chasers, not just novices, it can be a confidence-buster.
Can’t agree with that Joe! I really don’t see anything wrong with preparing for the Festival’s stiff jumping test at a course that rewards rhythmical, fluent fencing.
Obviously, one wouldn’t want to ’empty’ potential Cheltenham candidates but the ground is soft, heavy in places and we’ve had no rain here in the last four days. Warwick always has a good covering of grass and I would expect today’s runners to go through it just fine. Just standard February ground really.
Mike
can we change this thread title to lack of runners anywhere.
As an each way punter if I had worked hard all week and sat down today to enjoy my each way betting I would be thoroughly pissed off with the number of horses running today.
Great meeting and that, but I will be glad to get Cheltenham out the way, sick to death of it now. The whole season seems to just be one never ending Cheltenham prep race yawn.
yeats, Cheltenham is, of course, no easier for a novice, but at least he would go there without having fiddled and faulted around a very tricky track last time out (as L’Ami Serge did)
Mike, I’ve been boring people for years about the Kingmaker. I should have kept a list of Arkle candidates who have – if not left their Festival chances in the Warwick birch – then done their confidence no good whatever. Yes. it’s a great track for rhythmical, fluent fencers; trouble is, such a creature is rare among novices. A Voy Por Ustedes can do it, but those types don’t come along often.
There once was a time when the National Hunt season was just that, not a purely a preliminary to Cheltenham. The Festival has sucked up everything.
It isn’t just Cheltenham.
Aintree, Fairyhouse and Punchestown all have much greater significance than 30/40 years ago.
The programme book allows trainers to duck and dive and there isn’t the mindset to run top class horses in handicaps.
The trouble is that if you want to run your horse at Cheltenham and Aintree and/or Punchestown, there’s no profit in bottoming your horse or getting it badly handicapped by running three or four times beforehand.
The Spring Festivals are where people want to win these days. If we want more at other times of the year then we need better incentives – a better autumn festival than the Paddy Power meeting and to beef up Kempton as well.
The spring festivals are an entirely unrealistic target for most.If a horse runs creditably behind a Mullins hotpot there it’ll blow any future handicap thoughts. They have more than four weeks to Cheltenham. Plenty of horses run on consecutive Saturdays with success.
The first 3 in the JLT had all run over the Warwick fences this season as had the top 2 British finishers in the Arkle. Looks like it’s a good prep track for Cheltenham to me.
I’m sure the Warwick executive will be delighted with that. The evidence of one winter probably shouldn’t be enough to go on, but a few more similar returns will go a long way towards convincing others as much as it did them that the decision to scrap Flat racing there was the right one.
For what it’s worth I place as much store in demonstrable technique over that quick line of five fences down the back at Warwick as I do the row of seven at Sandown. They’re right up there proper tests of an aspiring novice chaser’s mettle. Always will be, I think.
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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