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Neither should even have run at the Festival.
Aftertiming?
Not really – go back and read the threads.
The New One’s Haydock form was nowhere near Champion Hurdle class – that wasn’t necessarily down to a lack of ability from this likeable horse, it could have been because he is carrying an injury, but either way it showed he wasn’t going to be winning any Champion Hurdles.
And Sprinter Sacre, the horse with a heart condition, who the ratings maniacs keep backing off the boards on the day despite the clear evidence he is a shadow of the great horse he was.
Is this being critical of the connections?
Not at all – what else were they to do with these horses?
They had to take the chance.
And that’s worth remembering – don’t assume that just because a horse runs in a race that it is able to do itself justice or that its trainer even necessarily believes they are able to do themselves justice.
There is nowhere else to go so you put on a brave face, accentuate the positive, talk about great work on the gallops – and pray for a miracle.
No miracles for that pair, though.
That’s racing. :)
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The New One was perfectly entitled to take his chance, clearly his run at Haydock was disappointing but one effort like that doesn’t mean you write the horse off for good.
Sprinter Sacre, again clearly there were huge Q’s about the horse. No one really knew and on his last run he was only a couple of lengths off the Champion chaser in waiting. It was reasonable to think he might improve on that.
You just can’t help some people. :)
Only joking, of course. :)
But I think it was APracing(?) who stated here after Haydock he thought the horse ran as if carrying an injury and he wouldn’t be surprised to read it had been withdrawn and after the Champion Sam Twiston-Davies said the horse ran as if something was amiss.
Me? I just wrote off The New One for the Champion after he scrambled home at Haydock.
Sprinter Sacre? I just don’t do horses who have had heart problems – such a shame though as he really was one of the greats.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Had written off TNO but believed SS had a good chance after his 2nd to the future champ and the positive vibes from BG. Denman had come back after a heart problem, maybe not to his best, but somewhere near with another Hennessey plus 3 GC second places. SS was out for much longer than Denman so maybe with hindsight this was an immense task to get him anywhere near winning. Sadly it was not to be and I think the horse will now be retired.
In sprinter sacres case would it maybe have been an idea to save him for the melling chase at aintree?
He had won it before and aintree is an easier track than cheltenham plus he would have been running against a lot of of horses who would have had hard races at cheltenham.
Hindsight hindsight. 3 lengths last time out to the horse that had been cleaning up in the 2mile divison. With normal improvement he would win reverse that form. Things went wrong but the horse was perfectly entitled to take his place.
I think they need to try something different with The New One. I can’t see him winning a Champion Hurdle now that Faugheen has laid claim to the crown and Douvan has made his case for next season’s renewal.
The New One couldn’t beat a veteran in Hurricane Fly and although that horse is a legend, he isn’t quite at his peak now and it has to be seriously disappointing that Twiston-Davies’ horse hasn’t run to a level that brought him past the two time Champion and imperious Irish race winner.
I suspect The New One may just fall between various perches, without claiming his place at the top of any of them.
Sprinter Sacre clearly went backwards from The Clarence House and you suspect that the first reaction from Nicky Henderson that day, a pained grimace, told the story that they didn’t have the horse where they wanted him.
Some pundits felt Sprinter Sacre would improve a stone from that race and although he was tenderly enough handled by the jockey that day, Barry gave him a bit of rousting on the run-in and he didn’t find anything for it.
I don’t have access to Nicky Henderson’s training process but I would imagine they might have gone and put more work into the horse in the belief that he had to improve more than they had hoped in order to be a serious contender at the Festival.
When there is a health problem, other parts of the body have to work harder to compensate for it. When you push for peak performance other areas may suffer and when you fix one thing, something else can go wrong.
It’s a great shame to see the horse unable to do himself justice and I think it would be wrong to persevere and perhaps cause other health issues.
Retirement is the dignified and correct decision in my opinion.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
No hindsight – as stated read the last threads. :)
Mr Caution is right – retire him.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"It is hindsight. I said retire him after the race. However after the previous race when he was only 3 lengths 2nd he was entitled to take his place. Connections had to try. Now that it is failed retirement beckons. But theres no way he couldn’t run after finishing 2nd by lengths to the seasons top 2mile performer.
I guess they’re running tests because they have to come up with answers for the multitude of people who backed him because of the glowing reports.
Feeling a bit misunderstood here! :)
Like I originally said, they had little option but to both run horses but, as stated here over a month ago (I think hindsight comes after an event not before it?) neither had any chance at Cheltenham to my way of thinking.
Love both horses, though – sometimes it is a bit sad – if lucrative :) – to be right.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Surprise, surprise, a scan has now confirmed that The New One has a back problem and won’t run again this season.
I feel he must of picked this up on the desperate ground at Haydock, hasn’t looked the same since that day. Hopefully the break sorts him out.
Surprise, surprise, a scan has now confirmed that The New One has a back problem and won’t run again this season.
Other topic about this states he has ‘kissing spine’. After the way he ran at Haydock, jumping right, Alice Plunkett stated that the horse was wearing a disk on the bit with brushes on at the start of The New One’s Cheltenham race. The brushes discourages the horse to hang right as he gets his mouth bristled. Seems rather strange they looked to correct the error using an old showjumping method, rather than looking at the horses itself!
Seems a tad cruel to me doing something to stop the horse hanging right when he was doing so because of a medical condition. And, given that he didn’t hang right previously shouldn’t the problem have been picked up sooner? As for SS, the stable were in despair at his condition last autumn and I feel he should have been retired then.
My dear old father has been going on non stop about the coincidence of the announcement of The New One’s injury coming the day after Willie Mullins informed us he intends to be handing Aintree entries to his 1-2-3 in the Champion Hurdle. I just nodded and quoted my old favourite line in response to similar notions of ‘funny that’. Although the fact that Nigel Twiston-Davies was all geared up for a crack at the Christmas Hurdle before Mullins’ intentions to run Faugheen were made known came up again.
My dear old father has been going on non stop about the coincidence of the announcement of The New One’s injury coming the day after Willie Mullins informed us he intends to be handing Aintree entries to his 1-2-3 in the Champion Hurdle. I just nodded and quoted my old favourite line in response to similar notions of ‘funny that’. Although the fact that Nigel Twiston-Davies was all geared up for a crack at the Christmas Hurdle before Mullins’ intentions to run Faugheen were made known came up again.
Are you suggesting it’s not just the horse who has problems with his spine Charles?
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
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