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“Can’t help feeling Nicholls had just had enough after Stage Star ran like a drain.”
Inclined to agree. Certainly has a whiff of petulance about it. Cheltenham seemed to be the ‘be all and end all’ at Dicheat when Masterminded / Denman / Kauto Star / Big Bucks were routing the opposition. A coincidence I’m sure.
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Nicholl’s has become a real bottler when it comes to Cheltenham. He gets so defensive even when it’s even mentioned during the earlier parts of the season also.
On training just to win the trainers championship. Owners don’t part with huge amounts of money so a trainer can be Champion and in the grand scheme of things, does anyone really give a damn who champion trainer is other than the trainers themselves.
I could name you almost every winner of every feature race at cheltenham this past 20 years. I couldn’t tell you who was champion trainer those year’s though without making an educated guess.If authorities were truthful with the reason for aiming for good-soft in the first place and truthful with the official state of the ground once racing was under way… there’d be less of a problem.
Fact is preparing going for the meeting to be “good-soft” isn’t easy to get right. Sometimes it’ll be slightly out. So preparing good-soft can result in truly GOOD ground. It’s an inexact science and getting it slightly wrong is nothing the clerk should be ashamed of and good ground is safe. The reason why clerks and authorities don’t aim for officially “Good” ground is if they are slightly out they’d get genuine good-firm – unsafe jumping ground.
Let’s get this straight. Fact is race times on the Tuesday (not just Constitution Hill) were impossible to achieve on real “good-soft”. It was true GOOD ground on Tuesday and (once racing started) the clerk, trainers, jockeys, all knew it was good.
So with it being genuinely “Good ground and looking at the times – had there been no watering and Cheltenham missed the forecast rain completely – which was a possibility – they would’ve been risking Wednesday actually getting drier and becoming genuine good-firm – unsafe jumping ground. So can understand them watering a little (just a little) to ensure the going was no worse than Tuesday. Trouble is they hadn’t realised Constitution Hill is the second coming, got freaked by his exceptional, unbelievable time and over-watered. Believe I heard 5mm mentioned, that was too much.
We then got far more rain than forecast which even without watering would’ve been pretty soft.
Can understand Nicholls’ frustration especially when he would’ve seen the Tuesday times. But had there been no watering and the rain missed Cheltenham completely and ended up with genuine good-firm… We would’ve got far more non-runners, equine injuries and probably fatalities too; along with widespread criticism of “why didn’t they water”?
Value Is EverythingTTC – agree. He clearly liked Cheltenham in those days! The problem is he has never replaced those superstars. It was always going to be difficult, even more so when the balance of power started to tilt to Ireland.
Nicholls gave a bit of a tetchy interview on RTV after he pulled out Bravemansgame. In fact he looked thoroughly pissed off. By all accounts he is very competitive but he knows most of his horses are not good enough now and he looks sick of getting thumped by the Irish Big 3 every March.
It is frankly a bit embarrassing for him to have only one runner today when Mullins and Elliott have stacks of them. And that is one with Maxwell on board! I don’t suppose Harry Cobden was envisaging riding at Doncaster on Gold Cup day when he got the stable jockey job!
Ginger – agree about the ground. I think the clerk was in a very difficult position. We can quibble about the amount of watering and what the forecasts said but given the amount of rain, the ground would have been desperate by the end of the card anyway.
The watering is a non issue really; the amount of rain that fell made it so.
Nicholls is a massive competitor, and loves the challenge, I recall See More Business being taken out of the Gold Cup by Cyborgo, and he was apoplectic with rage.
He can’t win races without the horses, and that must annoy him. We think Bravemansgame is a future champion, and he’s decided there are other days, after advice from Harry. I don’t have a problem with this. Cheltenham isn’t the be all, and there are other days…..
Nicholls frustration definitely upped by the fact Bravemansgame is his best (probably only) horse that had any chance against the Irish and and the ground was just too soft for him.
Value Is EverythingAt the time of See More Business being taken out by Cyborgo, Nicholls and Pipe didn’t get along and for a Pipe horse to take out his Gold Cup horse can somewhat understand his rage. Must have looked bad from his stand point.
Value Is Everything“Nicholls frustration definitely upped by the fact Bravemansgame is his best (probably only) horse that had any chance against the Irish and and the ground was just too soft for him.”
This is the elephant in the room isn’t it? Bravemansgame has comfortably put up both his best performances in Hurdles and Chases on Soft ground.
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“Comfortably” nah TTC.
Indeed, might believe his soft hurdles victory in Newbury’s Challow Hurdle is worse than the placed efforts on good-soft at both Cheltenham and Aintree… And might believe the soft Kauto Star Kempton run might be worse than the good-soft handicap performance (for which he was handicapped on that grade 1 race) last time out.However, it may also be something to do with the test of stamina involved. Speed he’s shown at 3m is his greatest asset. At this stage of his career Bravemansgame may well be effective at 3 miles around an easy flat track on soft. But 3 miles around the stiff Cheltenham course places much more emphasis on stamina. Also Bravemansgame’s jumping is fast and fluent, soft ground reduces that speed and places more emphasis on safe jumping.
ie Bravemansgame’s chance in yesterday’s race was imo much less on soft than it would’ve been on good-soft or good and am sure Nicholls believed that too.
Value Is EverythingI think you are talking nonsense GT. And the ratings favour me. Officially Bravemansgame loves some cut.
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Be sure to catch this evening’s Countryfile forecast. You can swear by it holding good all week.
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