- This topic has 3 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 5 months ago by
.
- Posts
Bored this evening, So was looking around the web. Seen a good article about horse racing and how cheltenham will determine the state of the Irish Racing industry. link below
Agree with writers views that Irish will struggle this season
It will return to the 80s and 90s when an Irish win was a rarity, all down to the economic situation. I’m only surprised it hasn’t happened already.
Not that I care that much, a good horse is a good horse and doesn’t know where it comes from. I’m proud to be Irish, but the tricolour waving is getting tiresome.I not so sure about this.
In my opinion this squad 2011 is as good as we have sent for many a year. A lot of unexposed horse’s and plenty of the highly rated novice’s starting (Fiveforthree and Micky D).
I think this year will be a very decent squad imo
Interesting article.
The quantity of horses in training is definitely down but I’m not sure the quality has diminished that significantly. I certainly don’t forsee a return to the Galmoy days at Cheltenham.
Truth is, 2005 & 2006 when Irish trained horses cleaned up the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup (with 6 different horses) were freak years. Injuries also cut short the careers of many of our top horses from those years. Both Kicking King and War Of Attrition were cut down before their prime. Both horses were only 7yos winning their Gold Cups but they never got a chance to run in the race again. Nicanor beat Denman in the ’06 Sun Alliance Hurdle but he never got a real chance to fulfil his potential. Similarly the first three home in the ’08 Ballymore Hurdle have all had their problems (Venalmar and Trafford Lad haven’t been the same horses since their injuries and Fiveforthree is clearly difficult to train). Only Forpadydeplasterer who was fourth that year has had a clear run at it and he’s performed consistently at the highest level.
He makes a valid point regarding the number of Irish horses that are now being sold to England. It’s probable that four or five years ago the likes of Menorah and Peddlers Cross would have stayed in training here.
There’ll still be plenty of Irish trained challengers for the big races at Cheltenham but we will be reliant on the likes of Mullins, O’Grady, Meade, Harrington etc. The smaller trainers are finding it harder and harder with syndicates being so thin on the ground nowadays. They were all the rage when the building trade was flying during the boom.
I doubt there’s a Gold Cup horse in Ireland but there’ll be several contenders for both the Champion Hurdle and the Champion Chase. The novice divisions though are always difficult to weigh up because there’s a lack of collateral form re the Irish v UK horses. Cue Card looks a bit of a freak but he may go the Champion Hurdle route and that would throw the novice hurdles wide open. Zaidpour could be anything and Ballyhaunis looks like he’s got his act together. O’Grady has two very decent prospects in The Real Article and Staying Article. Hidden Cyclone has shown promise and we’re yet to see Last Instalment out as well. Mullins will hold a very strong hand in the novice chase division with Quel Esprit, Mikael D’Haguenet, Flat Out and Thousand Stars. Others like Thegreatjohnbrowne, Jessies Dream and Noble Prince have impressed. Chicago Grey looked like he had that good novice chase at the Open Meeting in the bag when he fell at the second last and he wouldn’t even be rated the best chasing prospect in Elliot’s yard.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.