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Trainer deserves a lot of recognition. Lost Sparky May, which must have been a big blow but has trained ten winners from a limited number of horses with Hunt Ball being the flagship horse.
Diabolical hurdlers don’t finish second in Champion Hurdles. Peddlers Cross was never that bad.
Kauto Star is and should always be remembered as a great jumper of fences imho. You don’t win two Tingle Creeks, four Betfairs, five King George’s, two gold cups, two James Nicholsons and an Old Roan if you aren’t a great jumper. Both of his wins this season were down to his jumping finding every other horse out.
Personally I think Sprinter Sacre jumps like a stag. I would take him on with Bog Warrior but that looks highly unlikely to happen so I think he’ll probably win comfortably.
The biggest help to Kauto’s chances this year is the fact that Denman isn’t running. The Tank would put his jumping under pressure and test his stamina which I’m not sure Long Run is capable of doing.
Its about time the top weights were allotted over 12st to carry in these supposedly competitive handicaps to stop Mr Nicholls from using his top weights to prevent his rivals running off their correct mark.
The highest winning mark I could find for a recent winner of the race is 144, so Zarkandar would have plenty to do on a mark of 151 especially on seasonal debut. Though I think running him in that would give connexions a more realistic idea of his Champion Hurdle chances than running in one of the small runner conditions races. While the 8/1 might look tempting, if he goes there not fully tuned up, he will be meeting horses trained specifically for that race.Rooster Booster was beaten a short head off 166 in 2004.
Celestial halo is unbeaten in handicaps and won the 2009 Elite hurdle off his current mark. He deserves his place in the lineup.
I’m not saying they dont deserve their place in the line-up, in fact the true measure of greatness for National Hunt horses is by their ability to concede huge amounts of weight rather than in weight for age races. My contention is that Celestial Halo should carry 12st 4lb and then more horses would be running off their true mark. I certainly think he would be good enough to go very close.
The horse welfare people will string you up for such an outlandish suggestion…… But CH is not Arkle so they can hardly re-frame the race just because he’s off 165. I take your point though.
Its about time the top weights were allotted over 12st to carry in these supposedly competitive handicaps to stop Mr Nicholls from using his top weights to prevent his rivals running off their correct mark.
The highest winning mark I could find for a recent winner of the race is 144, so Zarkandar would have plenty to do on a mark of 151 especially on seasonal debut. Though I think running him in that would give connexions a more realistic idea of his Champion Hurdle chances than running in one of the small runner conditions races. While the 8/1 might look tempting, if he goes there not fully tuned up, he will be meeting horses trained specifically for that race.Rooster Booster was beaten a short head off 166 in 2004.
Celestial halo is unbeaten in handicaps and won the 2009 Elite hurdle off his current mark. He deserves his place in the lineup.
A trainers record at a track is an important thing to check before deciding on a bet. If i fancy a horse on form and think it looks worth a bet I will always finally check the trainers track record and wont hesitate to cancel a bet if the trainer has a poor record at a track.
A certain part as to why certain trainers do better at certain tracks but not others is down to how the horse is trained. For example Mark Johnston trains his horses to run up steep hills. When you look at his record on testing tracks you will see he has a high percentage of winners on testing tracks.
Some trainers gallops may be very tight turning, these horses who are used to being trained to run on tight turning gallops will most likely do very well when sent to a tight turning track like chester.
Some trainers gallops may be very undulating and he may well do better when sending his runners to undulating tracks.How the horse has been trained and under what type of gallop can have a large say as to how a certain trainers runners may run at certain type of tracks.
Henderson and Nicholls; kempton and Cheltenham. Training environment definitely has an impact; marginal but an impact nonetheless.
Australians are renowned for their forthright views, competitive nature and no nonsense attitude, perhaps that’s what he meant?
Cummings comments could have been interpreted as all of those things.
I lose between 200-500 a year on horse racing but I bet for fun. I love the sport and so to me that’s a relatively cheap hobby. I tend to focus on better racing and have made money in some years but it averages out to a loss.
Poker is where I make money though – That’s been an average of 1,500 pound profit per year for the last couple of years. I tend to play that a lot less though cos after a few months of serious playing I always need some time off. It gets a bit much otherwise.
I firmly believe though that with diligence, the correct staking strategy and an edge or form specialism it is more than possible to make money from it. The risk/time/reward combination doesn’t make it worthwhile though….
Kielan Woods is another conditional to follow. This lad is going to be a top jockey from what i’ve seen.
Daft writing St Nicholas Abbey off on the strength of his performance in a slowly run, heavy ground listed race, imo, particularly as Fame And Glory was turned over in this race in similar circumstances last year, and at a similar price.
Also doubt Coolmore would have persisted with the horse either, unless they thought him capable of improving on his past achievements?They did a similar thing with Yeats before he won his fourth Gold Cup but at least with him and Fame and Glory they had proved they were all age group 1 performers. I agree that it would be unlike Coolmore to persist with SNA if they didn’t think he had the ability but you also have to factor in that because he’s not exactly regally bred, they weren’t just going to pack him off to stud after his guineas run.
He is still a nice looking colt but got in a bit of a state and you would liked to have seen him travel strongly then fade in the last furlong rather than labour for most of the race.
I’m not sure you’ll get the price you would want either. The bookies are unlikely to take a chance with him just yet.
My guess is they will use Ryan Moore in the UK whenever he is available. Heffernan and O’Donoghue will ride most of them in Ireland I would have thought.
