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No strong opinion here and have doubts about most of the favourites…
Sense that Casual and NA will not be suited by this race/course…and that is something i usually bet against. Im not that excited about any of the Stoute runners (if Murtagh had gone for Frozen Fire…i would be looking closer at Tartan) and Curtain Call is a laughable price
At the odds, i might just chance Rio. Goes right against my policy of not backing possible non stayers but i cant quite weigh up whether his pedigree shouts that out or not. Hes a very big price… whatever
But not sure yet <!– s:? –>
<!– s:? –>Every time I looked at the Derby betting, I shake my head and woder why Curtain Call is so short? My conclusion is that it can only be the reputation of his trainer because for me his form has more holes in it than a colander. He never went a yard in the Futurity Stakes when behind New Approach and only closed up because of the very strong pace, he was given a gift of a very soft lead in the Beresford, form which even if taken at face value has yet to receive any boost at all from the principals whilst the Nottingham form is worth no more than an exercise canter in the contect of the Derby with runner-up Drill Sergeant beaten in a handicap since off 95.
Discuss
I agree he is the worst value of anything in the race. He’s also been beaten too many times at this stage of his career for a potential top class three year old. his price should be worked out based on his 2yo form because his three runner win was a joke Drill Sergeant is a nothing horse at any sort of level.
Curtain Call on form should be double figures.
Casual Conquest, Tajaaweed, Frozen Fire and Tartan Bearer, surely the winner must come from those four?
Henry won’t run, Doctor Fremantle has been beaten in a handicap and the rest I wouldn’t consider at all.
Personal preference for Tartan Bearer – has the profile for a Derby winner, will improve for the step up in trip, has the right trainer / jockey combination and has won the best of the trials.
Wouldn’t surprise me if any of the four I’ve shortlisted win though. Would be disappointed if Curtain Call wins.
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Flash, while I agree with the rest of your post I don’t think that this point is particularly valid:
He’s also been beaten too many times at this stage of his career for a potential top class three year old.
To use but one example, Generous ran seven times before the Derby and won only three of those. So it is entirely possible for a horse who doesn’t have an outstanding wins:runs ratio to develop into a high class performer once he matures and/or is stepped up in trip.
However, you are right when you say that Curtain Call is a joke of a price. He may win, who knows, but at those odds I wouldn’t touch him with the proverbial bargepole. Like you, I believe that the Dante form is the strongest going into the race (although I still don’t believe that Twice Over gave his running at York- he wouldn’t even have won at a mile) and I’d expect the two main protagonists from the Knavesmire to fight out the finish next Saturday.
Unless there’s a big improver in there somewhere, that is….
I agree,
Curtain Call is very short and needs to be opposed at current price. May be it is punters going through the race looking for one who acts on soft and will stay further than 1m4f. The Derby on soft is (imo) a stamina test similar to 1m5f on good. Too early to judge what the going will be. At this stage I’d make him favourite for the St Leger, not the Derby.I’ve done Tajaweed with a saver on Casual Conquest.
Ginge
Value Is EverythingAgree. You’d have to go way back into his 2yo season to find form even close to good enough to win the Derby. The bare form of his last 3 runs would be nowhere near good enough. That said Cumani is very good at bringing them along slowly and coaxing improvement but that reason alone is not enough to justify his current position in the market imo.
Has Tajaweed’s form really been franked because Unnefer has won back in a lower grade subsequently? I’m not sure you could say it has. Unnefer did no more and (probably a bit less imo) than he was entitled to at Newmarket and if you given credence to collateral form, you could argue Dr Fremantle’s form was boosted more in that he gave Pampas Cat a bigger beating in the Chester Vase than Unnefer gave him at Newmarket.
Disagree, think this years derby will be won by a horse with the initails CC, Curtain Call has serious 2yo group form, is bred for the task and always looked to be a serious enough contender, won his trial easily without looking 100% (at a time when many of the middle distance sorts didnt look 100%), is with a good trainer, who has done everything to keep him right and is apparently in very good form.
Having been far from impressed with anything else in the trials, barring casual conquest, it really looks like there are only two derby horses in this years derby, and it is not really surprising that both are very prominent in the betting.
To say that he is a lay is crazy, as he is one of the best looking horses in the field IMO, and in a race which comes too soon for many middle disatnce horses he already has the form in the book to put him right in the mix.
Didnt curtain call split new approach and henry the navigator in last years futurity stakes whilst with harrington? Now hes with cumani, has done nothing wrong (and apparently everything right) this season. 4-1 and 7/2 may possibly be approaching the limit of reasonable betting sense, but it is hardly a lay IMO.
The 2yo form of new approach appears to have been given yet another boost with famous name almost winning the french derby today, and curtain callls form is right up there on the same lines as that
Flash, while I agree with the rest of your post I don’t think that this point is particularly valid:
He’s also been beaten too many times at this stage of his career for a potential top class three year old.
To use but one example, Generous ran seven times before the Derby and won only three of those. So it is entirely possible for a horse who doesn’t have an outstanding wins:runs ratio to develop into a high class performer once he matures and/or is stepped up in trip.
I take your point entirely and what you say about Generous is correct. It isn’t impossible for Curtain Call to be similar to Generous but I would say its unusual for a horse with so many prior defeats to turn into a top class three year old. It happens but it isn’t really the norm.
I can also take Bulwarks points and Luca Cumani clearly holds Curtain call in high regard and Cumani is nobody’s fool.
I wouldn’t lay Curtain Call but I would be a bit disappointed if he were to win. I don’t think he’d win a good Derby. At this stage (far too early to say perhaps) it doesn’t look as though its going to be a great Derby.
IMO Sadlers Wells dont often enough make great 2yos that Id be very worried about any of the 2yo defeats for Curtain Call, he was beaten at two on a few occasions by horses who were just better at two.
He was always bred to be more of a middle distance three year old and he should be up to holding his own in an average derby. If you look at curtain call in terms of what he has achieved ratings wise at 2 probably running short of his best (rather than victories) he would look to deserve his place even in a good derby field, and this years doesnt really look to be that.
Would it really be that much of a surprise that a son of sadlers wells, from a dam who is a half sister to hernando (who I dont think ran at two) and who was second in a solid looking 7f group1 (beating a double guineas winner in the process) at two wins this derby, when his most serious opponent has only run twice, and most others have been beaten some several times?
Also Curtain Call has already beaten Frozen Fire and a line through Drill Sergeant and Unnefer says Tajaweed hasnt done much better than Curtain Calls reappearance where he looked to need the run.
The derby looks to be about Curtain Call and Casual Conquest and it wouldnt be a 100% suprise if they finish clear of the remainder. Wheras one has been of the track for most of his career the other has come out and run some brilliant races in defeat for a not so brillaint trainer.
At the other end of the price scale, I shake my head every time I look Washington Irving at 25/1. I’m not sure if he’s going to run, but I think I’ll have a bit of that when it’s NRNB.
When you consider he was the Coolmore chosen one in the Derrinstown, & went off odds-on to beat Casual Conquest, I think that says a great deal. He may have been beaten a fair way, & people may decide his bubble has burst, but finishing ahead of Moiqen is a fair performance in itself (& that looks a bit better after today). If something wasn’t quite right with WA, he’s a silly price. I’d rather back him at 25/1, than Curtain Call at 4/1.
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Is Aidan O’Brien really intending to run seven? If he is, doesn’t this tend to debunk any confidence that the Dante form is best?? Much though I like Tartan Bearer’s attitude, Frozen Fire is bound to be finishing more or less up with him (and may act better on the course to reverse the placings) but the fact that he’s only one of seven from the stable still in the race hardly suggests iron-clad confidence.
I wonder which of his three Michael Stoute fancies best? I guess he’s sweet on Tartan Bearer too, but though collaterals from the Chester form do suggest that Tajaaweed is probably the form pick of his trio … one of the longest-standing Derby Legends is that a badly named horse never wins the race, and they don’t come much less attractive than this one (say it aloud in Glasgow and you’d certainly get given a wide birth!)
In the absence of any clear steer from those two titanic stables, perhaps Casual Conquest is after all the most likely choice in what looks like a less than vintage renewal. Though sentiment lines me up behind Kandahar Run, and perhaps this year’s race is one to give sentiment free rein… it’s a great race even when the field doesn’t have stand-out stars.
Why do you think Frozen Fire may handle Epsom better than Tartan Bearer? I didn’t think Tartan Bearer did anything wrong at York, it was Forzen Fire who had his head stuck in the air and hung to his right. If either of them is to struggle with the track, I’d say Frozen Fire is more likely to.
I wouldn’t be sure the Dante form is best, as suspect the 3 Stoute horses are much of a muchness, hence why he’s happy to run all 3 against each other, but I’m not sure Curtain Call is any better than these either, hence why I thought it would be more a case of 6/1 ish the lot of them behind Casual Conquest.
Regarding Kandahar run, I don’t think he’ll stay, and if he does, I don’t think he’ll be good enough.
For me it’s Casual Conquest’s race to lose and with Moore choosing Tartan Bearer, I think he’s the most likely to take advantage should Weld’s horse not come up to scratch.
I agree with you about stoute’s looking much of a muchness david, stoutes are usually 100% or thereabouts for the trials, and where tartan bearer looks to probably have some improvement in him when upped in trip and through being lightly raced, he doesnt look hugely special, for me the dante all revolved around a horse who failed to run to form.
I think the line of thought regarding Frozen Fire is that O’briens have generally been improving for the run, and perhaps it is thought that he will have more on the day.
Casual Conquest looks like a horse with a lot of natural ability.
Curtain Call was always one I had earmarked for the derby, and mentioned him on the flat horses to follow thread back in april, he has done nothing wrong since then so am not going to go against him. Although he is looking somewhat short now, I think that is probably because connections have seen the rest of the trials.
I remember thinking last year that the trials (authorized aside) looked quite poor, but this years have just looked ridiculous (casual conquest aside).
In the trials the winners were given an RPR as follows:
Tartan Bearer 119
Casual Conquest 118
Tajaaweed 115
Curtain Call 113
Doctor Freemantle 113
Alessandro Volta 108This compares with the last 10 Derby winners where the RPR’s achieved in their trials ranged from 121 down to 107.
High Rise got the 107 in the Lingfield Trial and then won with the Dante 1st and 2nd who had got 119 and 118 behind him.
It is quite possible that Johnny Murtagh could ride Alessandro Volta rather than Frozen Fire as he did win a trial rather than come 2nd. If he does then even though Volta did struggle with the downhill part at Lingfield and going around the bend, it is quite feasible that he could win this Derby.
I read somewhere Aiden O’Brien saying that both Volta and King of Rome are "going the right way" since that race.
However maybe the colts that High Rise beat had problems with the distance.
Mutaghs record in the Derby is very good, since 2000 he has won 3 times, come 2nd once and 3rd twice.
IMO all of the 6 mentioned above will have no problem with the distance, but as to how they act at Epsom, and on whatever the ground is, that’s another matter that will only become known during the race, but I think the winner could be any one of these 6.
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I think the line of thought regarding Frozen Fire is that O’briens have generally been improving for the run, and perhaps it is thought that he will have more on the day.
That would be my line too, in thinking he could well improve past Tartan Bearer next time, especially if the ground on Saturday is good or softer. But that Montjeu head-in-air demeanour is possibly why Mr O’Brien is running so many insurance policies (still including the small matter of Henrythenavigator, who "probably won’t run".)
Kandahar Run at least shapes as if he’ll improve for a step up in distance, whatever the breeding says, and Mr Cecil must think so too. His runner-up Meeriss has hardly advertised the Newmarket Stakes form, but the further they went that day the better Kandahar Run looked; and his 9f spin today was reputedly "exhilarating" (RP – Tony Elves) after an "impressive" 11f piece of work on Wednesday. That’s my sentimental argument done!
Taking the uncertainty over the ground away, I see nothing that isn’t to like about Casual Conquest. The only thing that makes Curtain Call a leading contender IMO is that we know he’ll go well on easy ground. Considering you can get both at 7/2, I know who I’d be backing!
Of the rest it was Doctor Fremantle’s trial I liked the look of most, although I’m slightly disappointed that Moore’s chosen Tartan Bearer.
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