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Grumpy git that I am, I will begin with this week’s selections:
Coolmore using Lasix, thus depriving us from having our moral high-ground over the Sherman’s.
C4 referring to Ascots handicap as the “Big race of the day” ignoring the G2 Charlie Hall presumably on the grounds it was ‘oop north’.
Yet more ground excuses from the flat big boys, Johnny G take a bow son.
With the flat ‘ground’ cry-babies now out of the way,it’s lucky we have the jumps trainers stepping in with an impressively quick start in the “he will need this” stakes. Oliver Sherwood explodes out of the blocks openly admitting using a Grade 2 Chase as a training exercise for the Hennessey. Nobody bats an eyelid, predictably.
Please add, a general old git attitude is preferable but not essential.
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Can we add the annoying trend of full term chasers being run over hurdles to the list as Silviniaco Conti, Simonsig (both of who also fall into the ‘he will need this’ category) and potentially Bobs Worth join Ma Filleule & The Druids Nephew in starting their season over the smaller obstacles.
You could argue in this day and age that the adage of needing the run is obsolete (how many times do we see horses winning first time out after huge layoffs, some are well over a year plus since they last visited a racecourse) so surely it reflects more on the trainers not working the horses sufficiently so they are ready to run – maybe stewards need to start fining trainers if said horse no shows in a race as it amounts to the same as schooling in public.
Many Clouds yesterday at no stage looked like getting even remotely involved in the Charlie Hall and for me was palpably not even fit enough to do himself justice in the race – don’t forget this is the exact same horse who was able to win first time up for the last two seasons. Was it is a case of Sherwood simply being to easy on him now he is a Hennessy/Grand National winner?
For me the ‘he needed the run’ excuse does not work for the performance (or lack thereof) we got yesterday, personally you could do more damage to a horse asking him to race in soft ground when unfit – had he been in with a chance of winning say up until two out and then got tired you could except that often peddled adage.I know horses improve a lot for their first run but he will need to make a heck of a lot more than normal improvement to be involved in the finish of this year’s Hennessy that could turn out to be one of the best renewals in recent memory (assuming they all get their safely).
Don’t mean to pick on this horse specifically for this point and I know that he has loftier targets upcoming but a horse of his calibre
should not have been beaten 25L by a horse also making his first start since last April.Rant over
Looks like Many Clouds will not run in the Hennessy according to his owner and you would have to question how many times we will actually get to see him now before Aintree
http://www.racingpost.com/news/live.sd?event_id=12941324&category=0David O’Meara using lasix on Mondialiste was also quite revealing.
He is a master at taking horses from top flight trainers and improving them by 5-15lbs. I’m not suggesting anything libelous myself, but O’Meara missed a chance to silence the “they’re all on the juice” conspiracy theorists here.
LD73 in most cases I would agree, however I also agree that there is no need any more to give a horse a run and I think it can be quite damaging to horse, not that I would know though.
However you can get some value. For example tomorrow, Silvianco Conti on chase form tomorrow is a very good bet, it will get him fitter and he should win.
You sometimes need to look at trainers as well.
I would not back a Sherwood horse with your money yet alone mine so if you have your trainers you like or dislike regardless of the horses ability then you take that into account.
Sherwood was saying that he thought Many Clouds had improved from last season but his end game is the National again.
Look at McCain, Red Rum was hopeless until National day. Nothing was said then, it was accepted.The majority of horses bleed during intense exercise (I’m always amazed that the animal rights folk concentrate on the whip rather than trainers working horses so hard their lungs bleed). Lasix (Furosemide) is thought by some to help reduce blood pressure (and therefore the chance of bleeding) and/or to increase the viscosity of blood by reducing plasma volume.
90% + of racehorses in North America run on Lasix, and 10 minutes on Google will highlight data showing that Lasix works well, and other data saying it’s highly doubtful that it significantly prevents bleeding. One thing everyone agrees on is that the ’emergency’ diuretic effect of Lasix means that a horse lines up, 4 hours after taking it, weighing 10lbs to 20lbs less than it would have had it not been given Lasix.
Now, whether that weight is on its back, in its saddlecloth, or in liquid carried by tissues, the horse has suddenly had a dramatic drop in the weight it needs to drive around the track during the race. Some experts argue that this is the real advantage of Lasix, and I can understand European trainers using it when it is legal, especially when there is a chance that a European competitor with which it has a close formline – Found/Golden Horn – is not having Lasix.
From what I can find, it seems highly unlikely that there are any downsides for the animal if Lasix is used only occasionally.
I just wonder how mnay of those who laid the odds about the Arc winner would have done so had they known Found would be running at a significant weight advantage.
Joe, are you saying that Lasix makes a horse lose 10-20lbs of sweat and urine within four hours?
How can anyone justify subjecting a horse to that?
That’s exactly what it does. It must be administered no later than 4 hours before a race, and trainers are advised not to let the horse drink after Lasix is given. Horse will then pee out between 10 and 15 litres (its normal full daily output) in an hour.
Sounds bloody awful to me, thanks SC for the details very thorough.
C4’s latest recruit clearly thinks Lasix is a smart product, AP officially describing AOB as a “genius” immediately following Found’s (tainted IMO) victory.
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I used to be a doc, the effect of Lasix (real name frusemide) is in the name = Lasts Six Hours. It’s used as a diuretic in humans to get rid of excess fluid, the rationale being that, the diuretic effect is relatively short, and the patient will not be stuck beside a bathroom all day. Be interesting to find how long before the race the dose is administered. Horse physiology different from human, of course
Ohhhhhhhhh there all bad BUT Silviniaco Conti In a hurdles race over 2m5f FOR THE RUN is taking the MICKEY!
Why.?
The Grand National horses run in races for the routine exercise all the time.Blackbeard to conquer the World
After Conti’s dismal performance in last year’s Charlie Hall, Nicholls admitted he definitely needed a run nowadays. An earlier season setback has probably scuppered other plans and he can’t leave it too much longer as he would not be then ready for the Betfair. At least PN has said he will need it and will hopefully improve bundles for this. I’m sure he would have wanted to give him a run over fences but horses are not always straightforward.
I appreciate that speaking the obvious is not what those “in the know” do, but if a horse needs to run 2.5-3m to get 100% race fit, why doesn’t the trainer of the horse do so at home before racing under rules?
I fully expect numerous replies from people with low-brimmed hats, typing whilst muttering from the side of their mouths, about me not understanding “the game”.
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Because it’s not just the running of the “race”. It’s the whole day. Getting the horse back in the routine of what happens on race day. Travelling to the racecourse etc. By running at Kempton where the horse has obviously run well in the past, will probably also help the horse’s confidence. A bit of familiarity where thinks have gone well in the past must give a horse a boost. Remember, like us, these are not machines. You will not see Mo Farah’s first race in 2016 running for the Olympic Gold medal. It will be probably some indoor 1500m race, way too short a distance, against a bunch of no hopers, just to give a confidence boost.
:)
Never owned a low-brimmed hat, but here goes…
Horses are not machines is probably the oldest cliche in the book. But it’s the one most often ignored by punters imo. You’ll get as many horse characters as human characters. When I was a kid, there was a horse called Sun Tonic at my local yard; useless on the track, but a beautiful specimen. A chestnut with four brilliant-white socks, he walked around with his nose in the air like some snob at a charity ball. He would go anywhere except puddles. He’d stop dead rather than, it seemed to me, get his lovely white socks wet, and had to be dismounted and led carefully around on dry land.
They are the same way with exercise. Some are like the gym-bunnies who’ll drive themselves to exhaustion. Others will work if they need to. Some will need constant driving to give their best. Some won’t work upsides other horses. Some won’t work unless they’re upsides others. And some will simply not to a tap at home, no matter what steps you take, yet as soon as they are on the track, and the adrenaline is pumping they can be the ones who’d run until they dropped.
In short, it’s not so much what the trainer does at home, it’s how an individual will react to it. Some horses simply need race conditions to consent to work to their optimum.
The Grand National winners going back to hurdles was simply because they were taking advantage of a loophole where their hurdles rating was much lower and thus they thought they were protecting their chase rating for the next attempt at the National.
Hard to currently agree with Sherwood’s comment that Many Clouds is a better horse this year than last when Saturday’s performance would indicate the complete opposite – with the Hennessy off the table it will be interesting to see where he heads next, maybe the recognised National trials against the long distance plodders as opposed to meeting the true G1 chasers.
With regards to Lasix issue – ironic that one of the only two non juiced US horses (Runhappy winner of the sprint) has now been removed from his trainer. Personally I think that European horses should not even have the option of running on any medication (hypocritical in light of Europe’s continued world leading stance on racing drug free) and I don’t think the ‘When in Rome’ adage is an acceptable reason for doing so afterall none of Andre Fabre’s horses are ever medicated and he is Europe’s winning most trainer at the Breeders Cup.
To me there is no tangible evidence to say that it helps a horse, in fact you could argue that it would be detrimental to try it for the first time on a horse that isn’t used to racing on it – a horse losing that much fluid before a race sounds rather dangerous to me as you run the risk of dehydration setting in and that for any athlete is never good.
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