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Cheers for that.
Though I still maintain that to stand a chance in the BC Classic, you have to be as hard as nails both physically and mentally.
Georgeous was inept in both these categories as shown by the injury picked up in the Irish 2000 and his mental instability he displayed each and every time he set foot on a racetrack.
Giants Causeway on the other hand was able to put in NINE performances of the highest magnitude before his BC exploits and in each of those races he looked like he could run through a brick wall and still ask for more.
Hold That Tiger was well worth a shot in the Classic. Having put in a tremendous late run to place in the 2002 Juvenile, he then ran a very creditable but well-beaten second to Mineshaft in the ’03 Woodward. When Mineshaft was subsequently retired before the Classic, it threw the race open and gave HTT a real shot. In the race itself he ran well in behind the two pace-setters until the home turn but simply didn’t get the trip.
I’m so glad I’m not a trainer – beginning to realise that if they don’t run them [Best Mate] we complain and if they do run them we complain even more……
Marb
People who i consider decent judges fancied this horse, and though i may disagree with their choice in this race, they were far from misguided
i can understand why they went for GW , which i’ve outlined above, but you and the RP analyst, who btw i don’t rate as decent judges failed to see
Are any of these ‘decent judges’ known publicly or just people you know?
The reason I ask, is because I read more than 8 papers on Saturday, and also glanced at the selections of around 20 racing journalists in total. I then switched between ATR and RUK throughout the day, listening to expert views from many quarters, and I would challenge anybody out there to name 5 media people who thought George Wasington would win.
From recollection, I can’t remember one person tipping GW, but as I missed a few interviews or articles, then I dare say there might have been some. Even GW’s biggest fan, Matt Chapman, clearly stated before the race that he didn’t think the horse could win – and he speaks from the heart, not the head about that horse
Reet Hard,
No I don’t understand more than the trainer of GW about the sport.
I also don’t know more about football than Martin Jol, but on the day he picked Paul Robinson in goal, only to see him drop 2 clangers against Aston Villa, I had suggested he should have been dropped. This begs the rather obvious question, was there a point to your question?
Mike
MM, are you suggesting that of the 386 horses that have been declared for tomorrow, only those that have somewhere been tipped should turn up? Or, is there a point that most of seemed to have missed?
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The point is, MikkyMo, that a number of professionals at the very top of the game, and who had far better insight into the horse’s capabilities than you, and as many scribes as you’d like to draw into the discussion, felt it worthwhile entering, transporting, and racing GW on Saturday.
Do you seriously believe that they didn’t know what they were doing?‘I’ll take it the mass hysteria Paulo you mean is the ridiculous reaction to Diana’s death, but to be honest the death of GW is bordering on hysteria.’
This coming from the person so outraged by the article written by the PA stuff immediately after the BC Classic? Could it be that your hysteria comes from the fact that you spend loads of time reading TRF and horse racing articles? Or did George’s death get a mention on the news broadcasts? I’m fairly sure Diana and George Best would have had one or two…
‘I’d hate to see you as prosecutor in a murder case. If you think it’s undeniable ""proof" that a horse who finished 6th, earned the racing post comments "mid division, 6th, and not much room straight, soon ridden and one pace", had a considerably easier year than this year and went off 4/1 which indicates that, somehow "proved he handled a dirt track" your sorely misguided.’
As opposed to Dylan Thomas in the Jockey Club Gold Cup? ‘Last throughout, always behind’. Beaten 32 lengths by Bernardini. George was beaten by 6.
Without been ignorant, personaly I can’t fathom what your on about ????
He may have went on dirt but do you think he showed his best form on it? Some of us don’t think so and it’s not for reasons of over sentimentality that has got our backs up, we’re not all shedding tears, but it’s the way the connections have handled this horse since he came back from stud, and perhaps a lot of people have just had their bellyful of Coolmore/Ballydoyle this season, what with strange race tactics, jockey in the dock….to me this was the last straw, and I ask you, if this horse had been yours would you have been so keen to run him? I know it’s easy to say with hindsight but I would have gone for QEII, Champion, or BC Mile, wait for Hong Kong even.
One can only surmise the reasons behind it, but I think most people would say it’s purely for business.
To me, they ruined a good horse and it will be a while, if ever I think, before some of the public forgive them for it.What was Andre Fabre thinking when he ran Arcangues in it?
Backed the horse but was only given 25/1 as Sean Grahams bookmakers in Newbridge said they were only doing their morning prices, I tried to argue my case but to no avail, the horse returned something like 138. something to one. Still pains me to this day. Backing french horses has been my most profitable punt, espiecially when their sent over to contest big English and Irish races. The french trainers are the best in the world.
The point is, MikkyMo, that a number of professionals at the very top of the game, and who had far better insight into the horse’s capabilities than you, and as many scribes as you’d like to draw into the discussion, felt it worthwhile entering, transporting, and racing GW on Saturday.
Do you seriously believe that they didn’t know what they were doing?Thanks for the reply Reet,
I don’t think I have ever said they didn’t know what they were doing – I have simply posed a question (on another thread) asking if they got it wrong, and expressed surprise (on this thread) that the horse ran.
Obviously once they took the decision to go they were going to run, but remember, just a week earlier, GW was widely expected to run in the Champion Stakes and only became a non starter about 3 or 4 days before the race.
Mike
MM, are you suggesting that of the 386 horses that have been declared for tomorrow, only those that have somewhere been tipped should turn up? Or, is there a point that most of seemed to have missed?
No, that’s not what I am suggesting at all.
But likewise, the huge amount of horses that have little or no chance today that haven’t been tipped up, haven’t had tens of threads about them justifying why the horse has a great chance.
Mike
Paragraph 1 – You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘hysteria’.
Paragraph 2 – Please don’t say George Washington didn’t go on dirt.
Paragraph 1 was certainly mine but paragraph 2 is not, could have been Mikky Mo, as we both have the same initials Triple.
I did say bordering on hysteria, didn’t I triple.Paragraph 1 – You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘hysteria’.
Paragraph 2 – Please don’t say George Washington didn’t go on dirt.
Paragraph 1 was certainly mine but paragraph 2 is not, could have been Mikky Mo, as we both have the same initials Triple.
I did say bordering on hysteria, didn’t I triple.Nope, wasn’t me MM
(Note I use the expression "genuine emotion" – there is also the mass hysteria shown over some events, which is something different and, IMHO, somewhat distasteful)
I’ll take it the mass hysteria Paulo you mean is the ridiculous reaction to Diana’s death, but to be honest the death of GW is bordering on hysteria.
If your life long family pet dies, who you built up years of emotional attachment, I would probably shed a tear or two, but I will quickly come back to reality, and realise that the death of a pet pails into insignificance to the death of a relative. The death of a racehorse where I have absolutely no emotional connection is to me unfortunate and thats the only word that I would use, I certainly won’t be shedding any tears.MM,
I tend to agree with your views. I loved national hunt racing but the deaths of horses, slow and slightly slower with which you knew each of their characteristic quirks and had perhaps gained money from, became too much over the years and i gave it up as a rational decision, based on emotion.
In the case of GW, it seemed to me the unemotional ones were those trying one last desperate gamble to regain some profit from a horse that had disappointed its earlier moneymaking potential. The capacity for humans to bogusly justify their selfish actions is hard to underestimate. If they are honest and true to themselves then fine – if they are joining a bandwagon of hype and hypocrisy then no. The death of Alan Ball was another example where the media and fans who had slated his managerial ability, ridiculed him calling for his sacking, suddenly were good old Alan’s long lost pals. Perhaps they were really grieving for a part of their own life in 1966 that was ever lost – hypocrites.
What are all the GW grievers actually going to do about anything ? – absolutely nothing but go on to the next unfortunate horse and repeat the same old laments,
"In traditional philosophy the emotions are passions, i.e. passive states, as opposed to actions, which are behaviours. In life, action often seems to bubble out of strong emotion, but it can be resisted, which seems to indicate that emotion and will are separate but related sources of action. Action from a purely detached, "cold blooded," passionless decision is conceivable but perhaps rare, since any matter that engages the self sufficiently to fix one’s attention, and intention, is likely to involve some emotion, however mild. The "cold blooded" killer seems, and is, more horrible than someone acting out of strong emotion. Such a person seems inhuman, just because of a sense that he is pathologically detached from human feeling and operating more like a mere mechanism. Emotional involvement implies that something means something to the person, and perhaps involves some suffering. The cold blooded killer thus acts as though he doesn’t even care, one way or the other, neither suffering nor aware of suffering"
Are any of these ‘decent judges’ known publicly or just people you know?
The decent judges i referred to, contribute to this and other forums Mikky and the odd one or two do write articles for public consumption i believe
He may have went on dirt but do you think he showed his best form on it? Some of us don’t think so and it’s not for reasons of over sentimentality that has got our backs up, we’re not all shedding tears, but it’s the way the connections have handled this horse since he came back from stud, and perhaps a lot of people have just had their bellyful of Coolmore/Ballydoyle this season, what with strange race tactics, jockey in the dock….to me this was the last straw, and I ask you, if this horse had been yours would you have been so keen to run him? I know it’s easy to say with hindsight but I would have gone for QEII, Champion, or BC Mile, wait for Hong Kong even.
One can only surmise the reasons behind it, but I think most people would say it’s purely for business.
To me, they ruined a good horse and it will be a while, if ever I think, before some of the public forgive them for it.UM
IMO GW only performed near his best on one occasion this season and that was in his defeat in the Moulin, where i got the impression it was either a prep for something else or a big feck up by his jockey
His one run on Dirt was that of a G3 horse and that was as a 3yo, taking on older and better horses than he’d faced on turf
In this years Classic he was an older horse taking on horses who had similar ability to himself
The only doubt surrounding GW in the Classic in my mind was the 10f trip, but connections thought 10f was not beyond him because of his performance in the Eclipse i presume
I personally would have sent him for the Dirt Mile, where he would have had very, very big claims
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