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I totally agree with Fist this watering should stop unless we have rock hard, dangerous ground. It just isn’t fair on horses that don’t require cut in the ground. Courses need to stop manufacturing going conditions it just isn’t right and it makes racing artificial to a degree. Let nature decide what the ground is just give nature a helping hand when it becomes dangerous.
Its just as bad on the flat courses keep watering to try and enable good "perfect" ground particularly for big meeetings. NO, stop it, leave it alone!!
Speed kills, as we have found in the past at Cheltenham.
Colin
So does tiredness. There’s a risk that we’re going too far in protection needs to be kept sensible IMO. Unfortunately due to the nature of the sport there will always be deaths in jump racing we have to accept that I’m afraid.
I remember thinking after about the fifth fence that Kauto wasn’t travelling and his jumping was far from fluent along time before Denman injected more pace into the race.
Kauto is normally quick over his fences, but he looked quite laboured over them very early in the race and kept taking an extra stride before a few of them, causing him to get in too close.
It was pure ability that allowed him to get within seven lengths of Denman, who had his conditions and jumped beautifully. If Kauto hadn’t belted a few late on he could have been even closer.
[b:54o9cjtf]While I was taking some photos before the race in the pre-parade ring, there were two gentleman stood beside me commenting on the horses. They seemed quite knowledgeable on the subject of looks, conformation etc etc. They said even then that Denman would win and I constantly heard them say “You’d choose him everytime, wouldn’t you?” They also noted that Kauto had some ‘muscle wastage’ on his right-hind (if memory serves me well). Perhaps someone with a bit of knowledge in this area could shed some light on this. Is this something that Kauto has always suffered from, or can it happen between races? [/b:54o9cjtf]
It’s quite interesting that Kauto is entered for the Sandown Cup over 3m5f. I said prior to the Gold Cup that after Cheltenham he should go for the race (I’ll try and find the link to this previous post), but I didn’t think for a second he would be entered. Personally, I’d love to see him run – what have his connections got to lose? I doubt they will run him at Sandown because Aintree seems to be on the agenda.
Denman will follow the same route to Cheltenham next season (except the Hennessy). Due to his lack of versatility, there’s only a handful of places for him to go – left-handed, galloping courses on soft ground.
He’ll be very difficult to beat in the Gold Cup next year, though.
What one must remember is that if Denman was in any other stable bar Ditcheat, which he shares with the super-versatile Kauto Star, he would be running in more varied races. As it turns out there is absolutely no need to run him in the King George and the like and he can stick to left-handed galloping tracks.
What one must remember is that if Denman was in any other stable bar Ditcheat, which he shares with the super-versatile Kauto Star, he would be running in more varied races. As it turns out there is absolutely no need to run him in the King George and the like and he can stick to left-handed galloping tracks.
The King George is the premier three-mile chase contest in NH. When you consider all the great horses who have won the event (and the Gold Cup), don’t you think that, for Denman to become one of the all-time greats, he’d need a KG on his CV?
No.
I don’t buy into the idea tnat being a great horse requires not only winning often and winning well, but winning over a huge variety of C’s & D’s. I think people are getting a bit spoiled by the new breed of Gold Cup horse who have all graduated from the 2-mile division. 20 years ago Gold Cup contenders were far more likely to come from the previous year’s Hennessey or Welsh National than the Arkle and were often beaten by speedier horses in King Georges. No one questioned their credentials, but it’s 2008 and here comes Denman- he beats the current apple of the racing public’s eye, but because he doesn’t possess the speed of his adversary he’s instantly ‘slow’ and is apparently still to prove himself.
Denman can prove himself a great simply by being nigh-on invincible around Newbury, Cheltenham & the like- trying to gallop the opposition into the ground around Kempton is a difficult task for him, and one which he needn’t undertake to prove his worth, as much as it would be great to watch!I am in the corner that believes denman isnt a great horse yet and never will be rated better than kauto in most of the publics eyes even paul nicholls still favours kauto.I for one was very impressed with denman this year tho but i am not totally sure denmans performances have been to great looking back denmans performances this year was hennesey were no other horse in the race has shown any form ,aon was just a nice race course gallop the gold cup beating kauto with a good performance but kauto wasnt himself and kauto’s back leg and neck you could see he was far over worked for this race,he never jumped even before denman took it up,reports in cheltenham on thursday night was kauto didnt eat properly and wasnt happy over night in the stables and it was SOFT going which kauto has never liked.I for one am not convinced that denman should be the rating he is and has only got that due to beating a BELOW par kauto.I for one cant wait till they have a rematch for kauto to beat the so called new arkle!
Slightly off topic but a friend showed me a letter he’d written to the RP on Sunday showing that trends wise, horses that contend the race Kauto did at Ascot in February, are doomed to fail when tackling the Gold Cup, apparently it is something Nick Mordin pointed out, was interesting to me anyway as I hadn’t heard that trend before and it wasn’t covered in the book I read by Paul Jones, can’t remember the exact numbers, maybe the last 70, I may be wrong so apologies if so, but if anyone has further info it would be good to read it..
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