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Does anybody else think Rip Van Winkle’s a banker more than me? I’m looking at the 7/2 and thinking ‘what?’
Rip will win for me.Ascot was to get him ready for this race it be tough but he beat CC
Canford Cliffs has it all, high cruising speed, he travels, he quickens. He loves Ascot. But he’ll have to be a machine to get by Rip. Rip Van Winkle will probably be going faster than any of the horses Canford’s come across before. Time and time again last season we saw horses travel to Rip’s hindquarters and he just won’t let them by. But Canford Cliffs is alot better than the likes of Delegator. It will be interesting. No doubt Ballydoyle will make it a serious pace to try take the sting out of Canford Cliff’s turn of foot.
Rip was beat at halfway at Ascot (place laid him, stated on here pre-race) and has to give lumps of weight to 2 top-class 3yo milers. Thinking place lay again tbh..
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I don’t like rip as a horse, mainly cause all the excuses that are made for him. That said, if a pacemaker was put in this race and rip was on his game, it’d be a matter of how far he wins by. Let’s face it, it’d feel like a marathon for canford but rip would be coasting.
I wouldn’t want a pacemaker for Rip Van Winkle. At least not in typical Ballydoyle style. His best performance came in this race last year where the pacemaker almost couldn’t lead him. Have the uncontested lead, get a soft break, and wind it up from 3 furlongs out. What else is going to want to lead? Dick Turpin is hardly in the race to just soften up Rip Van Winkle if he runs, is he? Canford Cliffs might not settle without a pacemaker/s and might be given too much to do, for example.
Rip was beat at halfway at Ascot (place laid him, stated on here pre-race) and has to give lumps of weight to 2 top-class 3yo milers. Thinking place lay again tbh..
The weight concession is irrelevent. It really shouldn’t be a factor in people’s betting and yet I hear it mentioned time and again. If RVW is as good as last year he probably wins but his run at Ascot was too off-putting for me.
Hmmm a worrying trend. 19 of the last 20 winners finished 1st or 2nd on their previous start. The exception was Sayyedati in 1995, never got a run in the Queen Anne and finished a 2 1/2L 5th. Hmmmm.
The trends don’t say much but they say Dick Turpin or Canford Cliffs. I might have to switch alliance from Rip to Dick…
Rip was beat at halfway at Ascot (place laid him, stated on here pre-race) and has to give lumps of weight to 2 top-class 3yo milers. Thinking place lay again tbh..
The weight concession is irrelevent. It really shouldn’t be a factor in people’s betting and yet I hear it mentioned time and again. If RVW is as good as last year he probably wins but his run at Ascot was too off-putting for me.
Matters to me, which is the key thing for me
Particularly as I don’t rate Rip’s best that highly, hence the weight is crucial to the overall reckoning.- Total Posts 17716
Huge Canford Cliffs fan and always regarded him as really special.
Rip Van Winkle is the one horse who can find out just how good he is if AOB can get him spot on for this.
He had a tough season last year running at distances that were dead against him.
To this day I maintain he didn’t fully get the trip at Sandown and if I am right that makes his run behind Sea the Stars in the Eclipse something really special.
For me Rip Van Winkle is 100% a miler. If he comes to the Sussex all guns blazing Canford Cliffs is going to need a Sea the Stars performance to beat him. That makes 8/11 a shocking price.
Love to see a great race between these two but as far as betting goes I wouldn’t bet against him but I doubt if I’ll bother unless he drifts…..he was tremendous value in has last 2 races now’s a time to watch and enjoy.
I’ve said before and I’ll say again:
If Rip runs, Rip wins. Needed the run first time out. If people have doubts, look at the form of last year’s Eclipse and how it worked out.
I do sometimes wonder I if tend to try to chuck bombs at the bombproof but..
Canford Cliffs is 4/6 on the strength of the Irish 2000 and SJP form but this isn’t The Curragh or Ascot, it’s Goodwood, where you need a particular type of horse – a well balanced one. All other things being equal, a horse with a history of hanging might not be a good bet at 4/6 at Goodwood.
My view of whether CC should in fact be 4/6 is centred around the theoretical question – ‘Why do horses hang?’. Anyone who can contribute to an understanding of that please do…
My hypothesis is – an unbalanced, inexperienced, injured horse running on jarring ground on an undulating track is the horse most likely to hang.
Next a quote from Richard Hannon reported on July 12th.
"Canford Cliffs has got a bit burly, I’d say and he is going to need some work this week. We wouldn’t want it very firm at Goodwood. We took him to France for the Morny and he came back jarred to hell. They hadn’t put any water on and the ground was rough and firm.
"The hill didn’t help him at Newmarket either but now he settles, he has a lovely turn of foot and has made up into a proper racehorse."
Hannon is here addressing the concern I’m raising – attempting to persuade himself perhaps.
He’s taken Dick Turpin out on the grounds ostensibly that the going is too firm but kept CC in. I think Hannon might be telling us that part of the reason for the hanging/veering across the track at Newmarket/Newbury was because CC was still feeling the effects physically or mentally of that last run at 2 in the Morny when he got jarred up. He’s over that now, settles, is more experienced and hence we didn’t see any weird steering antics in his last 2 runs.
What Hannon hasn’t said though is that CC is a well balanced horse. (Code I find for saying a horse will act on the track at Goodwood). Rather he’s expressed concerns about the track and admitted he’s allowed him to get burly – ie had a break and just come back into work.
What I wonder is – is it only an unbalanced horse who will ever hang? In other words you could have a horse who had all the other causal factors toward hanging mentioned earlier but if it’s a well balanced animal it wouldn’t hang regardless. Therefore, regardless of anything else, hanging = evidence of an unbalanced horse, a horse that wouldn’t be suited to Goodwood.
Of course reading a race is never about one horse – it’s a relative endeavour – and the rest of the field could be so limited that CC could win despite not acting on the track.
At 4/6 such a factor could make the difference between backing or laying. It’s clearly playing on Mr Hannon’s mind, I believe, despite the justifications.
The acting on the track factor is heightened by the presence in this year’s renewal of last year’s winner Rip Van Winkle.
Because that takes you straight to the fact he beat Hannon’s Paco Boy in this last year. Why isn’t Paco Boy renewing rivalry? Doesn’t like the track says Mr Hannon, doesn’t like the ‘ups and downs’. Goes to France instead.
Something they learnt last year in defeat?So – Rip Van Winkle. No track concerns there, it’s last year’s winner but – a Galileo miler?!? I think there are still, even at 4, questions over it’s optimum trip.
There are plenty speed influences on the dam’s side. The dam’s numbers look like an out an out miler but then you’d expect the Galileo influence to mean the optimum, especially as the horse strengthens up from 3 to 4, might be 1m2f. If you think Galileo stamps his stock. And further the description in last season’s Derby was that he was staying on toward the finish.
A weird profile. Just what is this horse’s trip this season? With entries in the Juddmonte and the Irish Champion connections clearly haven’t ruled out the prospect this is a 1m2f animal.
I see both horses fitting this profile –
Fast enough to be champions/Grade 1 winners at a mile as 3 year olds but needing to be stepped up to 1m2f (at least) as 4yo’s.
I feel Rip is crying out for 1m2f now, he could be devestaing over that distance if he stays sound.
Thats not to say he can’t win at a mile but in Canford Cliffs he will be meeting an exceptional 3yo miler at the top of his game……
Well I’ve changed my mind again. I can’t have Rip now coming off the back of a poor run at Ascot and I can’t have Canford at that price.
I can however have Premio Loco. He’s a very progressive horse who only ever does enough. He’s finished 1st or 2nd on every one of his last 9 European starts and that includes 3 Group 2 victories. He’s in particularly good form at the moment and is a course winner.
I see both horses fitting this profile –
Fast enough to be champions/Grade 1 winners at a mile as 3 year olds but needing to be stepped up to 1m2f (at least) as 4yo’s.
I feel Rip is crying out for 1m2f now, he could be devestaing over that distance if he stays sound.
Start your fund for Rip winning the breeders cup classic, I shall, as soon as any market opens!
Particularly as I don’t rate Rip’s best that highly, hence the weight is crucial to the overall reckoning.
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