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Falco’s a lay.
It would be a brave lay. His 3yo form in France could be interpreted as very progressive….and he has already proven to be a very fast horse.
At his current odds on Betfair – 7/1 – for what it’s worth, I think laying him is an awful bet.
As previously stated, the French 2000 was run at terrific pace , yet Falco had little problem stalking the speed and seeing the race out really well. I know some saw this race as a hard-luck story for RDLP, but the truth is that he wasn’t able to eat that much into Falco’s lead , even though he’d gone through much easier sectionals.
And for us clock followers, this race rates as a very similar effort to Henry’s Guineas performance.
I’d just watch and enjoy what is , no doubt, going to be a very intriguing race.
Apart from Sageburg and the others , there is an extra worry for Darjina fans : she has run badly on her two previous visits to Ascot ; just about the worst two runs of her career.
you’ll have a task on convincing me that the round mile will take any more getting than the Curragh mile.
Have to disagree there. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, but the climb out of Swinley Bottom to the wire seems quite a lot more pronounced to me – a stiffer test – than the Curragh’s not-so-straight mile.
Anyone on here ridden both tracks ?
He then ‘came on’ for that run by winning the irish guineas in very easy fashion. Slate the other runners all you want but Henry won the race with ease,
The ground at the Curragh helped Henry a great deal that day , imho. Manning set a pretty pedestrian pace on New Approach ( which explains why the finishing time of the race was so slow ) and , judging by the Bolger-colt’s demeanor, that was as fast as he (NA) could go on a surface he was feeling. This state of affairs played into Henry’s hands, who has able to kill NA with his speed at the business end of the race. Had there been a bit a juice in the ground to help New Approach – as there had been at Newmarket , and Epsom,too, for that matter – I’m sure things wouldn’t have been so easy for the Ballydoyle colt and we wouldn’t have seen such a labored effort by the son of Galileo – I think Jim Bolger knew this all too well, hence why he criticized the Curragh for not watering the track during the build-up to the race.
Bosra Sham had everything – the looks, the talent ,and she has trained by Henry – but Pilsudski was a fantastic horse, too , and was the best horse on the day, imo. Perhaps Kieran cost Bosra 2nd place. Also, Bosra got 10 furlongs well. Her easy win over Halling – no slouch ,himself – in the Champion Stakes proves this.
No dead certs for me. But even if 10 furlongs is reaching the limit of Sageburg’s effectiveness range, I’ll be taking him to extract his revenge over Duke of Marmalade, should he take that route.
Imho, he (Sageburg) stepped up considerably on his seasonal debut when beating Darjina last time and almost certainly achieved as least as much as – possibly more than – the Duke did on his last run.
Henry is almost certainly the best 3-Y-O miler in the British Isles, but it is going to interesting to see how Falco fits into things.
The French 2000 , for us time analysts, was a strong race, and , on collateral lines, a 3 length victory over "Rio" reinforces what the clock is telling us, so this race may not turn out to be the formality many people are anticipating.
The above said, I still wouldn’t oppose Henry, it is just that when I’m backing really short ones I like to be pretty sure that I can’t see a danger. Falco is a possible danger, imvho.
Looks a real riddle and a race to not get too heavily involved in, imho.
Contrary to what the pedigree "experts" are saying, Tajaaweed looks as if today’s extra distance will help him(saw out the extended 10 furlongs well at Chester – and in slick time ), and he should be staying on when a few of the others have had enough. Whether he’ll be good enough I’m not sure, but he probably achieved as least as much in his trial as a few others who are shorter in the market. He’ll do for me .
Why is it I get the feeling that the Ascot detractors, Sporting Life mourners, AW racing haters, and Wednesdayists are , generally, the same people.
Perhaps I’m wrong .
the race has benefited from the switch.
Totally agree. There was a lull for a year or two after the switch, but the atmosphere on Derby day is stronger now than it has been for many years.
Also, it is fantastic to see the track’s facilities being brought into the 21st century.
For what it’s worth, I try to not fall into the trap of thinking that one horse is naturally going to follow on where another from a similar background has finished off .
There didn’t appear to be too much between Getaway and a couple of other Coronation Cup contenders, even allowing for traffic problems , in the Arc. And with juice in the ground to help the likes of SOF, it could well be the same on Friday. Also, Getaway is certain to find this race much tougher than his last.
Sure, Getaway has decent claims, but ,at his likely odds, I wouldn’t be going mad over him.
For what it’s worth, this race looks a real conundrum for punters. No obvious pace setter. Rain in the area. How good is the O’Brien horse ? And there are a few more imponderables one could consider.
The horse I don’t get, though, is Phoenix Tower. On what he has achieved at the track – he has only been beating handicappers – his current odds are shocking value, imho.
Curlin’s Arc entry has a fair bit to do with his trainer’s dislike of synthetic surfaces ( on which this year’s BC Classic will be run) and connections may just be keeping their options open.
There is already much talk in the US of a Big Brown/Curlin showdown. And ,obviously, a lot is going to depend on the way the season pans out and whether BB can add to his lustre in forthcoming races , but the Jockey Club Cup is an obvious event for the two to meet in – a race run only a matter of days before the Arc – so it is hard to envisage Curlin traveling to France if the next few months run the course all race fans ( US ones, anyway) are hoping .
I’ve noticed that George Washington is getting plenty of votes in the RP poll. I know "George" has a big fanclub – I guess because many people backed him to win the Guineas – but surely this is a joke. A performance that could be rated 10lbs superior to a poor-by-Group-standards Olympian Odyssey – which is what GW achieved , more or less, on the Rowley Mile – would have seen him struggle to be placed in Zafonic’s Guineas, imho.
An average 2000 winner , not a superstar, methinks.
Can just see it now ; the "traditionalist" waiting to decry the whole Great Leighs’ venture ; the sharp-brained punter waiting for the idiosyncratic nature of the track to reveal itself – which has happened at England’s other AW courses- so that he/she can exploit it.
When Mark of Esteem ran to a different, higher level towards the latter part of his classic year , many people, me included, started to have reservations about whether Sheikh Mohammed’s policy of wintering horses in the desert was such a great idea.
But if you go back and review all of Godolphin’s classic contenders – and older horses, too -it is hard to find one horse, MOE possibly aside, who’s form suffered adversely because of spending the winter months in Dubai. If they were beaten, it was because they weren”t good enough , and few , if any, MOE aside, improved dramatically after a month or two’s acclimatization in Europe, and many picked up the winning thread once they were dropped in grade.
(In fact, Godolphin’s recent Guineas’ contenders look , with two or three exceptions, a pretty mediocre bunch ; horses who had little chance. And surely it is a matter of pure conjecture as to whether Kazzia’s Classic chances would have been comprimised had she spent the winter in Dubai).
