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He pulled real steel and Southfield harvest , much has been said about Henderson in and out form but Nicholl,s been similar , nothing on Twitter to say why they’ve been pulled
Southfield Harvest
Wed 17 Mar 5:44pm Reason: Self Cert (Lame)Real Steel (FR)
Thu 18 Mar 7:39am Reason: Self Cert (Lame)Thanks seaing , he,s not having much luck , think he,s going to struggle for a winner this year
Pity because I quite liked the chances of Southfield Harvest.
It was clearly just bad luck with these horses, as with Politologue yesterday. However, I wonder if Nicholls is starting to become less focused on Cheltenham. The Mullins/Elliott/De Bromhead battalions are looking unbeatable.
Nicholls has kept horses like Hitman and McFabulous back for Aintree. Maybe he genuinely believes the track will suit them better but I can’t help feeling it is a recognition that they cannot win at Cheltenham. We are always told that Nicholls is a competitive man but he must realise he is fighting a losing battle.
If that’s the case it’s a sad reflection of UK racing , we know clan des obeaux doesn’t stay the GC trip but why isn’t he in the Ryanair
It is a sad reflection on UK racing but the power shifted to Ireland years ago and their grip on the festival is tightening all the time. To think when I was growing up the talk was about “Will the Irish have a winner”!! Hence the frenzied scenes when Danoli won.
I think more British based trainers are realising there is not much point training a horse purely with Cheltenham in mind when they are likely to be just blown away by something trained by the big Irish trio. There are plenty of good races to be won before Cheltenham and afterwards at Aintree, Ayr, Perth and Sandown. If I was starting out training, those are the races I would be targeting.
In fairness to Nichols, at least he runs his horses regularly throughout the season.
It’s baffling that the early season UK grade 1 races have such poor fields, when they are UK trainers best chances of winning.
Looking at the list of UK grade 1 winners prior to Cheltenham, any who have raced this week have been stuffed.
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