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Bubble burst today.
Never seemed to be travelling or jumping well enough today and although still travelling well when the mistake was made I did not think he would have won anyway.
Interesting that Gordon Elliot took him on again on worse terms with Clarcam than the previous time.
Maybe Vautour is not that brilliant after all.Early to be writing him off. It was an extremely bad error and may well have caused a strain or whatever, often there is more to that type of mistake, not often horses win after a blunder of that proportion. Impossible to tell, be interesting to see what reports come out of the yard. Clarcam looks very, very decent and still clearly improving.
It wasn’t the same Vautour yesterday as the one that won at Navan. He sweated up quite badly in the preliminaries and his jumping was nowhere near as good as it was last time. Hopefully Mullins can get him back on track, and I suspect the JLT rather than the Arkle will be on the agenda if he can.
It seems a little ridiculous to say ‘bubble burst’ after one defeat when obviously amiss. He gave Clarcam fitness and an absolute tonking last time, so that can’t have been Vautour’s true running.
Generally ‘bubble burst’ is saved for when a hyped horse is beaten by an exposed horse despite doing his absolute best.
I like everyone else was shocked to hear of his defeat and find it absurd to be writing him off. Clarcam turned around an 8 length defeat into a 17 length victory and I am sure Vautour is more than capable of gaining his revenge.
In an atmosphere where the majority of the media are loath to criticise rides I cannot help but feel Paul Townend did not fill his horse with confidence and by not setting out to make all he allowed inferior horses an advantage they were not afforded when Ruby rode him. Indeed the only time Townend rode him before was when Western Boy made him pull out all the stops only for that horse to not get a look in at Cheltenham when Ruby was back on board.
Some horses sulk and/or lose concentration when reined back having previously been allowed to stride on (Carraig Mor at Exeter an example this season). It may be that Townend was riding to instructions however I cannot help but think Vautour would have benefitted from a more positive ride and not have had the lapse of concentration that arguably cost him the race if Ruby had been on board.
The price a trainer like Willie Mullins pays when enjoying a remarkable near 50% strike rate is that Ruby Walsh can only be in one place at a time. Paul Townend is on ok jockey but not in my opinion top class and perhaps Mulllins needs to look elsewhere for a replacement for Walsh when the time comes.
Perhaps the jockey couldn’t ride a more positive race? He was on a horse who was never travelling and got in too deep to virtually every fence. With Real Steel in the race it was always going to be difficult to gain an easy lead. Unfortunately, it now gives connections an excuse to skip the Arkle.
Mullins was saying he didnt see the race yet but had a gut feel for the reason why Vautour didn’t perform yesterday when interviewed on RTE today, yesterday was potentially a write off if thats the case…
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