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I did suggest last week, that Rich Ricci might be interested in employing other trainers as well. Hendo wouldn’t be the worst address to start with and Palixandre won’t be his last horse with him.
Being that he had a horse with Hendo in partnership with Michael Buckley previously it would stand to reason that he would be his port of call for this venture.
GM, why wouldn’t Ricci be interested to win more big races in Britain? He isn’t exactly married to Willie Mullins and I think there isn’t anything what Hendo could learn from WP.
A trainer who is familiar with Gold Cup and Champion Chase success and who has plenty of runners at Cheltenham during the entire year. It’s just a small step for now, but you never know where this could go in the end.
Rich Ricci was on ATR On The Line at the beginning of the season, he was asked then about this, and said he was happy to have horses with other trainers.
Not really sure it’s that massive a news story…He knows spreading risk is a good thing, but he also knows how well Harold Kirk has done for him in the past, and that buyer won’t be buying him his horses at any other yard.
He’s going through a spell of not quite having the same luck. His stars are injured, and he’s not getting quite the same level of novices (his supposed best was injured in Annamix)..It was always likely to happen, as the numbers he actually buys aren’t all that high. For a couple of years everything he bought was winning pretty much every race….
Twitter: Jackh1092
Hindsight is 20/20 so make the most of it!I’m sure Mullins won’t be too worried either way. He had 7 Cheltenham winners and 6 of them were for other owners. The only novices hurdlers ricci has that are very good are getabird and sharjah and even they aren’t that good.
And this is not a case of ricci leaving Mullins which is what you suggested Ruby.I’d guess that RR finds it tough to face Mullins down (Anyone would) in a debate over where something should run. Rather than tell Mullins what to do in these situations, he just backs down as he did with Vautour.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I owned a fancied horse – for the Gold Cup, or anything else- and had told friends and family it would run in a certain race or stay in its box, then that’s where it would run. RR, who had told the world and its wife the same thing, is a supposedly big player in the hard-headed banking/finance world (the widest smiles after that announcement would have been on the faces of those who were planning negotiations with him), allowed himself to be made a prize fool by Mullins and Ruby. It would have been less embarrassing to be in the stocks in Hyde Park having rotten fruit thrown at him.
So, I think Ex Ruby Light’s call could be a sound one in the long term. Ricci will know that if he left, and Gigginstown did not return (and who now would take horses away from the much younger Elliott?), Willie would struggle to return to the glory days.
To be fair on Vautour they said he wasnt working terribly…..of course, the cynics out there probably won’t believe this..
Joe its not a case of taking horses away from trainer x, its highly likely giggy could have all the horses they have with elliot, and still give mullins some…in fact i think this will happen at some stage…Mr Ryanair has said he has the desire to.
Joe, isn’t RR out of the banking world now? I thought he was…..
RR was daft in vautour gate.
Twitter: Jackh1092
Hindsight is 20/20 so make the most of it!Jack, maybe he is out. He certainly deserves to hold no responsible job after such a cringeworthy public display of his ‘leadership’ skills over Vautour.
And whether Vautour was working like a donkey or a superstar, a man whose reputation, to a huge extent, relies on his integrity, should not have entertained for one nanosecond a suggestion that broke his word.
Maybe O’Leary will send Mullins a few, just for devilment and to keep Elliott on his toes. O’Leary’s a man I’d avoid in any walk of life.
On the subject of the horse, anyone got a clue why it was bought in June 2017 and took this long to have an owner?
I presume he hasn’t been an owner since June 2017!?
Twitter: Jackh1092
Hindsight is 20/20 so make the most of it!still cant let that vautour scenario go? Sheesh.
So he shouldnt be able to hold such positions in life because how he handled one of the horse HE owns.
So much hatred…
Completely agree Jackh1092. It would be hard to see Harold Kirk buying for Ricci in Henderson’s yard. However, looking at the very successful situation Simon Munir has created for himself with Anthony Bromley buying top horses and placing with many different trainers – you can only guess if Harold Kirk will be on a retainer by Ricci for a similar path to travel. There is one thing that is so clear from the festival, that is if you do not have the right buying power in Ireland and France, you will be on the back foot, who would have thought Paul Nicholl’s would be struggling for top horses – when he had a yard full of them and owners.
ham, I will never forget it and neither will many others. It was a shameful episode imo and I’d hold exactly the same opinion even if it hadn’t cost me a few quid.
But as to hatred, I don’t hate Ricci. I think he’s a fool at times, but I quite like the man. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever hated (in general, too strong an emotion for me), aside from war criminals and Mugabe.
Yeah Obi, buying is everything. Kirk is key to the Mullin’s yard, so much so, he often turns up to the races instead of WPM to speak with the jockey and owners…I can’t see him moving anywhere….
For an owner of his great success, RR doesn’t buy many of the most expensive store horses etc.
There will be the odd horse he’s bought im sure which we aren’t privy to the price of that’s been very expensive, maybe faugheen? But, on the whole he seems to rely on the expert eye and connections of Kirk+Pierre-Boulard…and then Mullins to eek that improvement. They don’t often buy the most expensive “1” horse but instead the placed horses…..
Twitter: Jackh1092
Hindsight is 20/20 so make the most of it!Ricci was extremely fortunate to have a raft of horses with the likes of Mikael D’Haguenet, Champagne Fever, Faugheen, Annie Power, Vautour, Vroum Vroum Mag and Douvan all come along in a very short space of time winning big races like shelling peas – you could argue that luck was very much with him for that period and has since turned its back on him.
Now that that golden run has pretty much come to the end, he is probably realising just how lucky he was and how difficult it is to continue having good horses replace those before and it makes sense to explore other avenues and having horses elsewhere. Also bear in mind that he has kept both Annie Power and VVM as broodmares (something that he swore blue he would never do as he had no interest in that side of things) so maybe that shows a big change in his thinking in general.
I realise Vautourgate left a bad taste in many peoples mouths but to continue to use that as a rod to beat him with over every decisions/comments he makes seems rather silly to me – the best laid plans and all that.
Do I think he is fraustrated that he isn’t having the same kind of success with Mullins now…yes but maybe the old addage of winning solves everything meant that any thoughts he had of branching out with other trainers were just that and easily ignored at the time.
Things do change but also the more they change the more they stay the same and I just don’t envisage him not retaining the majority of his horses with Mullins afterall it only takes one or two new horses to hit the heights and the garden will start looking rosie again.
Great move for him and look forward to backing some of his Hendo brigade!
Palixandre – the horse that’s mentioned in the RP article and apparently set to have a NH Flat race in the coming weeks could well be an interesting sort.
2+2=392 in this thread it seems
Ricci may be wanting to see his horses spread a bit more but can’t see him leaving WPM. Perhaps he’s been told he can’t increase his numbers too high with WPM (been buying a good bit last 12-18m) as he doesn’t have the numbers available. He has taken on a good amount of Jared Sullivan horses in the last 12m.
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