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I see that the 72 hour final declaration stage for tomorrow’s £900,000, 6f Sprinters Stakes at Nakayama seems to have worked quite well, with a full field of 16 ready to run.
This is the 6th leg of this year’s Challenge series.
Les Arcs and Benbaun seems to have settled in well, but the presence of Takeover Target and Silent Witness will test them severely, especially as they’ve had less distance to travel to get there. Some of the home team look a bit tasty as well.
Here’s a link: http://www.globalsprintchallenge.com/english/news.htm
Thanks, Venusian.
Imagine if they had 72-hour decs in Britain……all that time for trainers to dream up excuses for not running and to contact "accomodating" vets….
You’d end up with a walkover in this country and the trainer of that one would consider withdrawing it "on account of the going"….
7.40am UK time. Les Arcs was reported to have had "noisy breathing" after it track workout earlier today.
Takeover Target won pretty easily by a couple of lengths from Meisho Bowler, Tagano Bastille, Silent Witness and Benbaun.
Without the woolly coat he sported at Royal Ascot, TT is now clearly the best sprinter in the world.
SW seems not to have quite captured his old form, but was entitled to be rusty.
Benbaun ran pretty well to be 5th, beaten around 4 lengths.
Les Arcs 7th.
(Edited by Venusian at 8:11 am on Oct. 1, 2006)
Les Arcs ran well without ever looking likely. The winner looks a real star though. By Celtic Swing did they say?
Surely exposes the paucity of talent in Uk sprinting, where there is little if anything to choose between top h’cappers and supposed Group horses.<br>Judging by the standard of field for this afternoon’s Abbaye, where virtually all the field come from the UK, the French have no sprinters either.<br>Still at least mud loving, ex crock and gelded Reverence should go well for his third trainer. Good luck to small time connections but horses like him and Les Arcs don’t excite like the great sprinters of the past.
Takeover Target is indeed a son of the unfashionable Celtic Swing, and the first two broodmare sires in his female line were of no more than Listed class.
So TT’s hardly regally bred, but luckily he doesn’t know that!
Btw, I don’t buy this notion that today’s UK/European sprinters are somehow inferior to those of some Golden Age in the past. It’s just that it’s so much more interntional and competitive these days. Just look at the times they run, there aren’t too many 5/6f track records much more than 10 or so years old.
The result of the L’Abbaye proves my point.<br>Ryan second string wins- presumably not even rated the best there, least of all Europe!<br>
(Edited by Lingfield at 4:03 pm on Oct. 1, 2006)
"The result of the L’Abbaye proves my point. <br>Ryan second string wins- presumably not even rated the best there, least of all Europe!
So what do you make of the middle distance brigade now that a stable’s third string has won the Arc?" <br>
Quote: from Lingfield on 9:13 am on Oct. 1, 2006[br]Surely exposes the paucity of talent in Uk sprinting, where there is little if anything to choose between top h’cappers and supposed Group horses.<br>Judging by the standard of field for this afternoon’s Abbaye, where virtually all the field come from the UK, the French have no sprinters either.<br>Still at least mud loving, ex crock and gelded Reverence should go well for his third trainer. Good luck to small time connections but horses like him and Les Arcs don’t excite like the great sprinters of the past.<br>
With the exception of Dayjur and a couple of failed Coolmore milers, can someone please remind me what this golden era of sprinters was. Lochsong, an improved handicapper, used to beat the same bunch of improved handicappers yet is lauded like she was the best thing since sliced bread.
No-one ever harps on about the dearth of staying talent out there – the fact that Yeats is so far ahead of his contemporaries tells its own tale. Sergeant Cecil is probably the second best stayer around – he looks like an improved handicapper to me.
This snobbery about handicaps overlooks the facts sometimes – as David Barron said about Coastal Bluff, he could have tackled Group races much earlier but the handicap route was worth considerably more money.
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