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I’ll be astounded if he wins the Coronation Stakes TAPK. He might be in with a shout in the Coronation CUP though. (sorry pal, you’d have done the same to me!)
Very Good Corm!
At best it was an ill-judged ride. However, Windsor Palace is currently on good terms with himself evinced by his run last time out. Yesterday he did not make the running and got a nice tow from Robin Hood. St Nicholas Abbey sat too far out of his ground at the given pace but he was ridden to beat Sharestan. Joseph also had to wait a couple of strides when he went after his mount as Sharestan was alongside and as always he takes a while to hit top gear. The 10f trip was inadequate for the favourite so anyone taking cramped odds in what looked a potentially messy race beforehand should blame themselves first.
St Nicholas Abbey running & riding enquiry
From Irish Racing.com
"The Stewards enquired into the running and riding of St Nicholas Abbey, placed second, ridden by JP O’Brien, and trained by Mr AP O’Brien. Evidence was heard from the rider and trainer concerned.
JP O’Brien stated that his instructions were to get his mount to switch off, get settled and make the best of his way home. He said his mount hated the ground and he was never happy with how he travelled. He tried to get him to creep into the race and he held onto him as long as possible to make sure he got home on the ground. He felt that if he had come off the bridle earlier in the straight he would not have finished out his race as well as he did. He stated he felt he obtained his best possible placing taking into account todays conditions.
Mr AP O’Brien confirmed the instructions and outlined how his charge had been to Dubai earlier in the year followed by a little break afterwards, he trained him since with a view to running today on route to the Coronation Cup. He explained how his charge had been beaten in this corresponding race last year on soft ground, and has shown a preference for better ground in the past. He expressed satisfaction with the ride considering the ground conditions, saying if his rider went after the pacemakers earlier in the race, he’d have been out on his head and wouldn’t have lasted home.
The Stewards also received a report from the Turf Club Veterinary Officer who stated that St Nicholas Abbey was Post Race Normal. Having viewed the video of the race and considered the evidence, the Stewards noted the explanations offered."
Yep, lets keep a 12f Group 1 horse held up over 10f so he will get home. Interesting.
Pacemakers are against the rules in most parts of the world, I’ve got no idea why you people put up with it. Legalised cheating.
Send a pacemaker out for black caviar and see what she does to it!
The O’Briens can make up as many excuses as they like,they have a history of it and on ocassions come out with some absolute pearlers,I can recollect at some point an excuse for all the following horses being beaten when ‘perhaps’ shall we say they should have won!
Henrythenavigator
,
Fame and Glory
,
St Nicholas Abbey
,
Duke of Marmalade
,
One Cool Cat
,
Hawk Wing
,
Holy Roman Emperor
,
Yeats
, etc I’ll give
High Chapparal
and
Rock of Gibralter
the benefit of the doubt as Mick Kinane did put his hands up over the latters last ever run at Arlington. There are times in life you just have to put your hands up and say "I F****d Up" So why cant they? Because they genuinely believe the Public cant see past their noses!How wrong they are,I have learned over the years to bet O’Briens horses with caution as the stable is certainly not Punter friendly.Hindsight shows that
Honeymoon Queen
actually had a better chance than the market showed as I have stated previously but its not for Coolmore to tell us that,its for us to evaluate her form,pedigree,Jockey booking and then realise after the race we also made a boo boo!
Homecoming Queen Gord, HOMEcoming Queen
**** sake Tommy thats twice in 2 days!
Heads Gone mate! You gotta laugh though,I still think St Christophers Abbey
will win the Coronation Sta….Cup!
There are times in life you just have to put your hands up and say "I F****d Up" So why cant they?
That’s exactly the point. Why can’t they just hold up their hands, say they got it wrong, admit they miscalculated in the heat of the moment and in the cut and thrust of a fast-moving race, admit they played the percentages and concede that it went wrong?
They assumed that it would be a simple matter to just hang on in there, wait for the pacemaker to come back to them and then pounce.
Mitigating factors would be Joseph O’Brien’s youth at only 19, despite his success on Camelot in the 2,000 Guineas and on other horses, the fact that pacemakers and front-runners usually do come back to the field and the family loyalty aspect.
Joseph, like Michael and Richard Hills with their father Barry, owes his position and his opportunities to the apple-of-his-eye sentimentality of Aidan in using him instead of other jockeys. Aidan always defends him because he knows that he is implicated in the saga as well.
All this claptrap about not wanting to murder the horse is just ridiculous. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s just that’s it’s a lot better when you have the courage and honesty to admit them, instead of laying false trails and trying to fool people with tailored excuses and half-truths.
Joseph misjudged it and he should be big enough to admit it. He didn’t press the button soon enough and, when he realised his mistake, the bird had flown. No amount of blaming the ground, making out he was trying to look after the horse and just following instructions (conveniently backed by his father, the king of spin) will alter that basic fault.
Why so many people in racing are prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt time after time amazes me.
In a very different scenario at Fakenham, Sam Waley-Cohen also resorted to bending the truth and coming out with mistruths when he tried to come up with a feasible reason for riding a finish too soon and not just admitting he miscalculated the number of circuits. He was rightly dubbed Sam "Wally" Cohen on this forum.
Again, why can’t people just come clean and be man enough to admit that, like all of us, they make mistakes every now and again?
As with President Richard Nixon after Watergate, the cover up is worse than the original wrongdoing.
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