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From X:
“Regrettably Sir Gino will be unable to run at Newbury tomorrow as he has sustained a small wound to the inside of his near hind leg which is sore, it must have occurred during routine exercise yesterday and although he is less sore this morning than last night I am afraid it will not be completely cleared by Saturday. We anticipate that he will be back to normal by the beginning of next week so the timing is very unfortunate. This will leave us with a dilemma where to go in order to get another run before the Arkle. The Pendil at Kempton would be an option although it is over 2 ½ which is not ideal. There are very few alternatives except for a newly created 2m novice at Bangor on 26th February but that is getting horribly close to Cheltenham.”
No doubt the racecourse gallop at Newbury has been provisionally booked.
What a nightmare again.
This is why I said they should’ve aimed him for the lightning novices a couple of weeks ago.
When you leave it this late and something goes wrong, you’re fecked.It was the same with Champ a couple of seasons back. Had to shoehorn him into a 2m chase on good ground as he was running out of time for a prep.
The horse ended up crocked and never travelled a yard in the Gold Cup.It is 13 days between Bangor and the Arkle. Is Henderson seriously implying that Sir Gino is too fragile to withstand a hack canter around a gaff track against hugely inferior opposition and then run at Cheltenham?
Perhaps his RACEHORSES would be more robust if they ran in RACES more often instead of being wrapped up in cotton wool. The clue is in the name.
13 days between the arkle would be OK if you could guarantee everything would go smoothly at Bangor.
That’s far from the case with NH racing though and should he make a bad mistake or suffer an overreach, he’d surely be out of the festival with only 13 days to spare.I’m on him at 8s for the Festival so on this occasion, I won’t be complaining if it’s a racecourse gallop and popped over a few fences next week.
No big deal if he doesn’t run before Cheltenham. He’s run twice this season which is alright, and looked a natural at Kempton.
Glad i cashed out my Sir Gino/Constitution Hill double over Christmas. Money was put on the table – real money, so snapped it up.
Although, to add, i really hope the horse is ok and runs at the Festival, as planned. Let’s hope it is just a minor issue, at this time and a quick recovery happens.
CAS
Everyone knows that Nicky doesn’t have RACEHORSES, he trains PERSONS, hence can’t afford to have human rights people questioning any potential abuse…There was once a horse called Remittance Man, who won the 2M 4F novice chase at Kempton, then called the Galloway Braes, now the Pendil. He scored by 30L on Feb 23rd and on Mar 12th, he won the Arkle.
Of course those races were too close together and 2M 4F was too far. I just can’t quite remember who trained Remittance Man.
Oscar, thanks for reminding me. How could I have forgotten?!
Henderson’s habit of referring to a horse as a person is distinctly odd. Does any other trainer do it?
AP’s point sums the situation up succinctly.
The sport is run by off course bookmakers these days so a lot of novice chases have gone including a nice 2m one onKingwell Hurdle day at Wincanton
That Remittance Man Kempton race happened to be his 5th run of that season and came off the back of running twice in 11 days earlier in December where he beat Morley Street on the 15th (on good to firm ground!!!) before going on to win the Wayward Lad Chase on King George Day.
Those two particular wins followed on from his two runs in November (one again on good to firm ground) that were actually only 5 days apart!!!!
You should send that info to Seven Barrows, LD! Might remind Nicky of the days when he wasn’t so scared to run his horses.
On the bright side at least Nicky has learnt how to use twitter
He’ll save himself loads of time now he can tweet instead of writing it up, printing , taking a photo, uploading it and then tweeting itWell done Hendon.
Charles Darwin to conquer the World
Second up into high pressure race at Cheltenham , could be seen as risky , would Hendo risk a person that good ? . Better off preserving unbeaten status to next year. Kick off Jan 2026 somewhere maybe .
The problem with running Sir Gino again isn’t particularly the thought of a normal recovery time. He won’t. It’s the thought of a superficial injury that doesn’t have enough time to heel before Cheltenham. So can understand why Nicky is reluctant. However, race experience over fences can be important too.
Value Is EverythingThis was always the likely outcome when he started off in the Fighting Fifth and were still considering running him in the Christmas Hurdle until quite close to the race – what annoys me is Hendo bemoaning the fact that he doesn’t have any more options of where to run him…..yes you do, they just didn’t suit you to a T to be worth considering.
There is also just as bigger risk of him picking up a superficial injury at home doing routine things (as it would appear he has done here) – maybe if they ran these horses a bit more often then they might be more battle hardened and less fragile.
To be fair, the horse himself is a rare talent that whilst more match practice would be preferable I don’t think it will be the thing that will be the difference between victory and defeat in the Arkle, assuming they both get there, lets not forget that his biggest rival (Majborough) will only have had one chase race more than Sir Gino – strangely they both have very similar trajectories in that they both won their debut starts (in 3 yr old hurdle races at Auteuil just 16 days apart) before coming to UK/Ireland, Sir Gino had one more hurdle run than Majborough and as a result of that has had 6 lifetime starts compared to Majborough’s 5.
To me Sir Gino looks the out and out 2 miler (dam was 7F flat horse, out of a dam that won twice at 6F) whilst I wouldn’t be surprised if Majborough ended up excelling at a longer distance as a number of Triumph Hurdle winners over the years do (the further he went that day over 2m1f in heavy ground the better he looked).
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