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Judging by his very easy, cheeky success in Saturday’s William Hill Handicap Hurdle, do you think this horse is Champion Hurdle material? While he was running on a BHA mark of 139, he still gave the impression that there’s plenty left in the locker.
I’m quite excited about him. Always travels sweetly, jumps fairly well and looks an uncomplicated type.
What do others think?
In a weaker year maybe but couldn’t see him troubling the likes of Faugheen & Jezki.
Lee
Hard to tell, clearly has bags of potential, but winning a weak-ish looking handicap hurdle off 139 is several worlds away from a Champion Hurdle. Like most horses you’ll only know how good he is when push comes to shove and he has to get his head down.
A cosy winner and he could make big improvement at his tender age but you have to ask yourself if you stuck a horse such as Jezki into last week’s race off 10-12, what would be the likely manner of his win?
He’ll need to improve two stone to reach The New One’s mark of 167 and while that is not impossible it is a lot to ask, particularly as it is tougher to find such an amount when you are not starting from a really low rating.
A decent prospect all the same though.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I doubt he has the qualities to develop into a Champion Hurdle horse. According to Oddschecker not many bookmakers are quoting but 50/1 wouldn’t appeal let alone the 33/1.
Despite the string of wins he still looks a bit fragile to me. I can see his jumping falling apart in a better race and I doubt whether he will ever find that much off the bridle.
It’s been done before, so it’s clearly possible. Make A Stand won a Stratford handicap hurdle off 117 as the first run of his Champion Hurdle season.
Collier Bay won a Sandown handicap off 125 a year before his Champion Hurdle. Rooster Booster won the County Hurdle off 144 a year prior to his success.
Flakey Dove and Celtic Shot also started out with low weights in handicaps.
Since most of the other winners in the last 25 years have been trained in Ireland, the handicap route probably accounts for a majority of Uk trained winners in the last 30 years.
And after today, Sign Of A Victory is rated 150, so doesn’t have that much improvement to make to get competitive.
33/1 (Paddy Power) SOAV looks worth taking a chance to me now Henderson hasn’t got MTOY. The term "could be anything" springs to mind. Only has to improve a stone to be right in the mix.
Value Is EverythingI doubt he has the qualities to develop into a Champion Hurdle horse. According to Oddschecker not many bookmakers are quoting but 50/1 wouldn’t appeal let alone the 33/1.
Despite the string of wins he still looks a bit fragile to me. I can see his jumping falling apart in a better race and I doubt whether he will ever find that much off the bridle.
I think the connections hinted that that was the case. Bridle that is
Only has to improve a stone to be right in the mix.
When Faugheen improves a stone he’ll have to improve 2 stone…..
Charles Darwin to conquer the World
Some seasons it just isn’t a very good Champion Hurdle and that’s when a progressive handicap hurdler can win it – and you can often get a good value bet.
Ditto the Gold Cup – it is a sad fact of life that not every Gold Cup winner is of the calibre of Arkle or Kauto Star and not every Champion Hurdje winner is in the class of Night Nurse or Istabraq.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"….and some seasons it IS going to be a good Champion Hurdle.
When a horse who probably wants further over a stiffer track SLAUGHTERS a 161 OR horse by eight lengths on the bridle round Kempton Park you have to think no progressive handicap hurdler is going to be winning it in 2015.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"One day they will get him off the bridle.
And he’ll pull away further.
Charles Darwin to conquer the World
Faugheen was impressive, however I cannot beleive that was Sign of a Victory’s true running. To bad to be true.
Faugheen was impressive, however I cannot beleive that was Sign of a Victory’s true running. To bad to be true.
I am not sure that is an appropriate assessment of his effort today. It is not as if he was top class and then regressed with this performance.
Sign Of A Victory was touted by some people as a good Champion Hurdle
outsider
rather than a Champion in waiting. A lot was made of a cheeky win that saw him raised 11lbs in the handicap ratings, but even if he was value for that rise it is still worth bearing in mind that he came into today’s race rated only the 4th highest in the field and with only 3 and 4 lbs in hand of the two rank outsiders.
Jim McGrath seemed on the verge of a multiple orgasm as he talked up Sign Of A Victory’s speed before today’s race but the horse had a massive amount to both prove, and improve, in this company.
He’s 50/1 for the Champion Hurdle now but I doubt very much that they’ll run him in that race. I don’t think that even Clive Brittain’s optimism stretches that far into the realms of fantasy.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I also thought that Sign Of A Victory ran too bad to be true. Surely he’s better than that. I’m interested what Barry Geraghty might have to say about him.
Mind you, I thought it was a strange days racing. Many horses were strung out like clothes on a washing line. I mean, who’d have thought that Vautour would’ve got hammered by seventeen lengths?
From a time aspect, the speed figure I had for
Faugheen
was an impressive
141
on ground I had at
-0.33s/f
(good to soft), he wasn’t out of second gear.
The step up in class was a bit too much for
Sign Of A victory
and he ran to a speed figure of
113
yesterday, his best being a
131
.
What did I learn from yesterdays race:
1.
The New One
will not beat
Faugheen
in the Champion hurdle.
2. Ruby will rideFaugheen
in the Champion Hurdle, there is no way he will let anybody else ride this horse.
3. I once worked out on my speed figures, the best speed rating a jumper could earn was a figure of160
, I now realise that this does not apply to
Faugheen
and I was wrong
National Hunt Ratings:
https://web.cloud.virginmedia.com/?shar … a4db803fc9
Mike.
I also thought that Sign Of A Victory ran too bad to be true. Surely he’s better than that.
What evidence is there that he
is
better than that?
If we go back to the start of the season Sign Of A Victory was rated 139 and wouldn’t have been dreamt of as a rival for Faugheen. He went on to win a handicap by half a length and the comfortable style of the win saw him raised to 150 and there was speculation he could find another stone to be in the Champion Hurdle mix.
Going into yesterdays race he needed to find 11lbs with Purple Bay and 14lbs with Faugheen. We now know that he actually had a lot more to find with Faugheen, surely in excess of 20lbs.
Sign Of A Victory travelled well enough in behind yesterday but it soon became apparent he was going to have to work harder at this level and perhaps he’s simply a bridle horse at his own grade, rather than a "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" horse.
Irving was found to have pus in his foot this morning, due to an infection and that might have explained his tame effort. It could be that something
was
amiss with Sign Of A Victory as well but I think time will show he just had a dickens of a lot on his plate compared to anything he had done before.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
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