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I was pretty convinced the padded hurdles were CHs undoing in the Champion Hurdle after he made a serious error in the International Hurdle prior to that. Aintree & today have surely confirmed it.
Nicky Henderson alluded to the fact this week. Was it with the old style hurdles CH was able to view them more clearly both from take off side and landing side? These new style hurdles have certainly proved to be his nemesis.
The last two Grade 1 2 mile hurdles at Cheltenham & Newcastle have produced 4 fallers from 11 runners.
They really should have sent CH over fences after he had won his first Champion Hurdle. I was one of those at the time voicing that he should. He had the chance then to prove what a true great he could have been.
I do but I was conscious of trying to keep it as simple as possible. I didn’t want to move into Duckworth/Lewis territory which to this day I still have no idea how that works?!!
I never liked the trainers title being based purely on winners after what occurred with Pipe & Nicholls and the prize money system which rewards beaten horses entered en masse and didn’t properly reflect the season as a whole.
Thank you Steeplechasing.
I’m keeping it fairly simple as some had said to me that a points based system would be too complicated. So the points are gained as follows and only for wins (I don’t see why placed horses should be taken into account in the trainers title);
Class 6 – 1 point
Class 5 – 2 points
Class 4 – 3 points
Class 3 – 4 points
Class 2 – 5 points
Class 1 (Listed) – 6 points
Class 1 (Premier Handicap) – 7 points
Class 1 (Grade 2) – 8 points
Class 1 (Grade 1) – 9 pointsI might tweak the amount of points when the season comes to an end to see how that might have worked.
As I’ve mentioned before I feel that if you win a certain class of race it should carry the same weight as the next one but this doesn’t happen with prize money where different courses offer varying prize money for winning the same class of race.
1514 races and the first Grade 1 of the season. 238 winning trainers.
The leaderboard after today is as follows;
1st Skelton 282 pts (75 wins)
2nd Murphy 217 pts (66 wins)
3rd Owen 173 pts (63 wins)
4th Snowden 163 pts (49 wins)
5th Nicholls 145 pts (38 wins)
6th Bowen 144 pts (45 wins)
7th O’Brien 123 pts (41 wins)
8th Pauling 112 pts (34 wins)
9th N & W Twiston-Davies 106 points (34 wins)
10th Tizzard 98 pts (26 wins)A breakdown of Skelton’s points;
Class 1 Grade 1 (9pts) x 1 win
Class 1 Grade 2 (8pts) x 3 wins
Class 1 PH (7pts) x 2 wins
Class 1 Listed (6pts) x 1 win
Class 2 (5pts) x 12 wins
Class 3 (4pts) x 15 wins
Class 4 (3pts) x 27 wins
Class 5 (2pts) x 14 winsAfter today there have been 1401 races this season and 4184 points. The leaderboard is as follows;
1st Skelton 249 pts (67 wins)
2nd Murphy 203 pts (62 wins)
3rd Owen 173 pts (63 wins)
4th Snowden 147 pts (44 wins)
5th Nicholls 142 pts (37 wins)
6th Bowen 142 pts (44 wins)
7th O’Brien 112 pts (37 wins)
8th Pauling 100 pts (31 wins)
9th N & W Twiston-Davies 95 pts (31 wins)
10th Derham 79 pts (21 wins)The only 2 trainers in the top 30 with no wins/points so far in November are Lavelle & Candlish.
There have been 17 Irish based trainers with winners in the UK this season. Between them they have had 37 winners scoring 132 points.
Just throwing it out there but has anyone considered just putting up light weight black netting in the direct line to the sun that can be easily & quickly assembled and surely wouldn’t cost 2 to 3 million?!
Why not invite ideas from those inside or outside the sport to find a proper solution if moving the race times is not feasible?
Another week passes (1286 races) and the leaderboard is now;
1st Skelton 208 pts
2nd Murphy 181 pts
3rd Owen 162 pts
4th Bowen 142 pts
5th Nicholls 134 pts
6th Snowden 127 pts
7th O’Brien 102 pts
8th Pauling 86 pts
9th N & W Twiston-Davies 86 pts
10th Derham 68 ptsBy way of comparison by amount of winners the table would look like this;
1st Owen 59
2nd Skelton 57
3rd Murphy 56
4th Bowen 44
5th Snowden 39
6th Nicholls 36
7th O’Brien 34
8th= Pauling 28
8th= N & W Twiston-Davies 28
10th Honeyball 21The actual table on prize money;
1st Skelton £886603
2nd Murphy £570475
3rd Nicholls £519043
4th Owen £515958
5th Bowen £456953
6th Snowden £388238
7th Pauling £326261
8th N & W Twiston-Davies £309736
9th O’Brien £300820
10th Honeyball £300097After today’s 4 timer Skelton is the first trainer to reach 200 points this season;
2 Class 1 Grade 2 winners
1 Class 1 Premier Handicap winner
1 Class 1 Listed winner
9 Class 2 winners
11 Class 3 winners
20 Class 4 winners
11 Class 5 winners1180 races into the season and the leaderboard is as follows;
1st Murphy 175 pts
2nd Skelton 175 pts
3rd Owen 158 pts
4th Bowen 140 pts
5th Snowden 108 pts
6th O’Brien 100 pts
7th Nicholls 97 pts
8th N & W Twiston-Davies 75 pts
9th Pauling 74 pts
10th Derham 58 pts225 different winning trainers but the name Mullins yet to appear amongst them
As the season moves up a gear the leading points scorers for October were;
1st Skelton 69 pts
2nd Murphy 65 pts
3rd N & W Twiston-Davies 48 pts
4th= Snowden 40 pts
4th= O’Brien 40 pts
6th Nicholls 35 pts
7th Russell & Scudamore 30 pts
8th Lavelle 26 pts
9th Owen 24 pts
10th Derham 22 ptsIt’s all change at the top of the leaderboard this week;
1st Murphy 151 pts (49 wins)
2nd Skelton 150 pts (44 wins)
3rd Owen 149 pts (55 wins)
4th Bowen 135 pts (41 wins)
5th Snowden 99 pts (31 wins)
6th Nicholls 97 pts (28 wins)
7th O’Brien 95 pts (31 wins)
8th N & W Twiston-Davies 65 pts (22 wins)
9th Lacey 52 pts (18 wins)
10th Evan Williams 51 pts (19 wins)1089 races and 217 different winning trainers.
Leading Irish trainer is Elliott with 34 pts (10 wins) in 28th place.
After today’s racing Murphy moved to the top of the leaderboard with 151 points (49 wins) to Owen’s 149 points (55 wins)
I know we’re covering old ground here but last season there were 144 runners in the 13 Grade 1s at the Festival and exactly 1/3rd of the runners were trained by Mullins.
There wasn’t one Grade 1 where Mullins didn’t have at least 1 runner.
Perhaps I’m wrong but has there ever been another Festival in history with so many Grade 1 runners represented by just one stable?
The issue isn’t the days it’s run on but the quality of racing. Too many Grade 1 races dominated by almost one stable exacerbated by a declining NH horse population. The dilution in each race thanks to the 4 day Festival and the Mares avoidance races.
Moving it to a Saturday is a red herring. Having the meeting during the week means the press & media give it more prominence. Like The Derby it would be lost on a Saturday even in March.
1010 races into the season with 213 different winning trainers. The leaderboard is as follows;
1st Owen 149 pts (55 wins)
2nd Bowen 135 pts (41 wins)
3rd Skelton 123 pts (38 wins)
4th Murphy 122 pts (40 wins)
5th Snowden 99 pts (31 wins)
6th O’Brien 76 pts (26 wins)
7th Nicholls 71 pts (22 wins)
8th Twiston-Davies’s 55 pts (19 wins)
9th Lacey 49 pts (17 wins)
10th Henderson 46 pts (13 wins)
11th Evan Williams 44 pts (17 wins)
12th Candlish 43 pts (16 wins)
13th McCain 40 pts (15 wins)
14th Pauling 40 pts (16 wins)
15th Greenall & Guerriero 39 pts (15 wins)
16th Greatrex 39 pts (14 wins)
17th Mulholland 38 pts (14 wins)
18th Longsdon 38 pts (14 wins)
19th= Derham 37pts (11 wins)
19th= King 37 pts (11 wins)Another week gone and 928 races into the season. The leaderboard is as follows;
1st Owen 144 pts
2nd Bowen 135 pts
3rd Murphy 118 pts
4th Skelton 118 pts
5th Snowden 89 pts
6th O’Brien 69 pts
7th Nicholls 62 pts
8th Lacey 46 pts
9th Henderson 46 pts
10th Candlish 43 pts201 different winning trainers. Leading Irish trainer Elliott in 25th place with 29 pts
