Forum Replies Created
- Posts
I had almost forgotten but someone made a good point online about an identical error made by El Fabiolo in the 2024 Champion Chase. Townend immediately pulled the horse up and this was his explanation to the stewards;
“Jockey said gelding made a bad mistake at fifth fence, having lost all momentum and considering the manner in which gelding stumbled he felt it prudent to pull up”
I shall get to Punchestown and that will be it for me with RTV and I was there at the beginning.
Still have no clue as to why flat racing on the channel escapes the positional graphics but not jump racing including the National?
The graphic popped up for a split second in a couple of flat races at Catterick the other day and then promptly disappeared.
It’s a mess on RTV and so inaccurate. The other day we had 6 horses still running but only 5 on the positional graphic for a couple of minutes. Perhaps the tracker had fallen off?!
Despite subscribing I have watched pretty much most of the Cheltenham & Aintree Festivals on ITV. How long before follow Sky & RTV in showing positional graphics?
Intrigued both Ain’t That A Shame and Stolen Silver are both non-runners. Both old boys had little chance but did someone have a word in the connections ears?
Not sure Aintree can afford another fatality tomorrow. Another Celebre d’Allene type incident really would send the once a year commentators into a frenzy. One of the reasons I hate this time of year.
That has a put a massive downer on the whole meeting. Don’t think I’ve ever come across any horse being ridden out to the line with a broken back but in a Grade 1 at Aintree with the World’s media watching in. You couldn’t write a worse headline for the sport if you tried.
If the trends I mention in my previous post were to continue only 4 horses would meet the criteria, viz;
Haiti Couleurs
Captain Cody
Johnnywho
Buddy OneSince we now have the plastic National recent trends would suggest you need a 1st or 2nd season chaser who hasn’t run over fences more than 10 times, who has previously run in a race with 24 or more runners, aged under 10, won over at least 22 furlongs, ran in a Grade 1 or Class 1 that season and had never run over the Aintree plastic fences before.
Thanks LD73 for those stats. I doubt we will see many horses ever again that could stand up to so much racing at the highest level or would ever be campaigned like that.
I believe you are right Gladiateur. I would be interested to know just how many horses coming out of Irish point field aged 4 are still racing 5 years later? I should imagine the wastage level is pretty high?
3268 races and 304 different winning trainers. The leaderboard after today;
1st Skelton 683 pts (178 wins)
2nd Murphy 420 pts (132 wins)
3rd Nicholls 331 pts (85 wins)
4th Pauling 325 pts (90 wins)
5th Henderson 316 pts (76 wins)
6th Snowden 263 pts (78 wins)
7th Owen 225 pts (80 wins)
8th O’Brien 219 pts (72 wins)
9th N&W Twiston-Davies 205 pts (60 wins)
10th Tizzard 203 pts (54 wins)
11th Derham 192 pts (51 wins)
12th G&J Moore 181 pts (53 wins)
13th Honeyball 163 pts (48 wins)
14th Russell & Scudamore 154 pts (50 wins)
15th Bowen 151 pts (47 wins)
16th Mulholland 149 pts (55 wins)
17th J&A O’Neill 147 pts (44 wins)
18th McCain 140 pts (48 wins)
19th Gordon 133 pts (41 wins)
20th Lavelle 131 pts (36 wins)I’ve sadly lost all interest in race that is unrecognisable from when I first started watching it in the early 1970s.
Saying that it looks as though it’s become a race for young horses as with the Gold Cup most likely due to the much weaker fences and reduced distance. No winner aged 10 or over in the last 10 runnings.
All the trends were turned on their head and the thought of a novice (or maiden chaser) winning the National would have been unthinkable not that long ago.
Leading trainers for March;
1st Mullins 71 pts (8 wins)
2nd Skelton 68 pts (20 wins)
3rd Henderson 49 pts (13 wins)
4th Pauling 47 pts (14 wins)
5th Murphy 36 pts (12 wins)
6th Alan King 35 pts (10 wins)
7th O’Neill & O’Neill 32 pts (7 wins)
8th Nicholls 28 pts (8 wins)
9th= Lavelle 27 pts (9 wins)
9th= Russell & Scudamore 27 pts (9 wins)Had the Cheltenham Festival been run in April would they be cancelling the whole event for this work to be carried out? I think I know the answer to my own question!
The lack of consultation with trainers/owners is pretty poor too.
I wonder why Cheltenham only publicised the fact the hurdle wouldn’t be in its normal position just 48 hours before the start of the Festival?
Also if there was an area of wet ground where it was not drying, could that suggest the drain issue was still ongoing when the Festival started? There was certainly a reluctance to water much to Mullins annoyance.
Does anyone know why the positional graphic is not used (thankfully) for all UK & Irish flat AW & turf racing but as soon as it goes to the slower pace of a NH meeting at Ludlow the annoying thing appears again? I’ve given up asking RTV themselves.
It does sound like quite a large area they are looking at and why the sudden urgency? What does a few weeks in April matter? Lee Mottershead does ask again on the Nick Luck Daily whether they should have run that last race on Trials Day knowing what they know now?
According to the podcast it was a 1950s clay drain that caused the issue at the Trials meeting. I thought Cheltenham had done a lot of work on its drainage system following the bogs they sometimes ran on during the 1970s? Why did they still have 1950s drains?
We also had the movement of that hurdle at the Festival which was a bit odd.
