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To hear some people talk we should all draw stumps and go and have tea when it rains rather than run important flat races.
Have Timeform learned nothing from their mistakes regarding Celtic Swing and Hawk Wing? Why do they continue to rate impressive one-off performances on bottomless ground so highly?
I have no axe to bear with my ex-employers here, I just think they repeatedly let themselves down in these situations.Hawk Wing ran on good ground and posted a time that was .42 faster than standard in the Lockinge, is that the race you are talking about?
JohnJ.
Soldier Of Fortune was very impressive in winning the Irish Derby. However, the race has a recent history of wide margin winners.
Since 1992, St Jovite, Zagreb, Montjeu, Sinndar and now SOF have all prevailed by a margin greater than 5 lengths. Dream Well and Galileo were also wide margin winners.
A decent number of the field each year had already participated in the gruelling Epsom version only a couple of weeks prior to the race. Take into consideration the ground and the result is impossible to merit on face value.
Given conditions no easier than good to soft, Soldier Of Fortune wouldn’t get within 4 lenghts of Authorized.
I can perfectly understand people taking the result with a pinch of salt given the ground on the day, but surely the fact that four of those six wide-margin winners listed went on to win either the King George or the Arc (both, in Montjeu’s case) means that wide-margin winners of this race should be respected, rather than treated with caution?
Point taken. Montjeu, Sinndar and Galileo were special horses.
But the race does have a history of throwing up some strange results. St Jovite was beaten 2 lengths by Dr Devious in the Epsom Derby, reversed the result to secure a 12 length victory in Ireland and was then subsequently beaten by the same horse in the Irish Champion. Dream Well did nothing after his Irish triumph and Zagreb had one more outing when well beaten in the Arc.
The Irish Derby is generally a small field, comprising of horses that weren’t good enough to run at Epsom or were just unsuited by the course and those that participated and had a hard race. The pace of the race can be muddling and the ground false. This is why the race can, at times, produce a false result and well strung out fields.
I do believe that this particular result should be treated with caution, but I guess time will tell…
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