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Ah come on Bulwark, I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Cecil, but his turn of foot in the Cadran was brilliant. Ok it wasn’t a strong race, but it wasn’t a weak one.
Bulwark had his big chance on Saturday – he blew it…….by 6 lengths……to a stablemate of Cecil of lower class…..please stop going on about Bulwark being the better horse, because quite frankly, he isn’t, and nowhere near….
Let me ask you Bulwark – how often do you get quickly run 2mile events? If you are adamant he will win off a fast pace, why not stump up the fees for a trip to the Melbourne Cup? The owners can reimburse you after he wins……
yeah that’s a good point. Everyone is always suspicious when there are blanket finishes. Yet Sir Percy is what? 11 lengths better than DT or DD? :o
Well, looks like we’ll have to disagree on that one. But let me ask you this. Why the vastly improved form of Yeats this year? Last year, other than the Coronation Cup, he disappointed on all his other starts, including a 4th in the Irish St. Leger. And read his race description – ‘stayed on well at end’. His form for last year reads – 21946. Not exactly fantastic form for a middle-distance runner. His form over 2m+. 11. Not exactly rocket science to work out he loves the extra distance.
The Irish leger was his only race over 14furlongs last year – the others were all over 12furlongs. And read the race description for all of those. Not one mention of staying on. ‘Soon weakened’, ‘stayed on one pace’ are much more common descriptions.
So shock horror – he’s upped in trip from 12furlongs to 20furlongs for his FIRST performance of the year, and destroys the Ascot GC field. ‘Led over 2f out, ridden clear and in no danger over 1f out’. Look, he relished the extra distance.
And don’t even suggest for one second to me that Sergeant Cecil or Hawridge Prince are better than Kastoria. Even in a sarcastic tone!
Well if you go on http://www.attheraces.com and type in the horse you want to see replays of, click on the horse, and those replays available will be shown by by icons next to the race that says ‘REPLAY’
If the race is not there, it will be available on http://www.racingpost.co.uk – one again, type in the name of the horse, click on the horse, then next to the race, it will have 2 buttons. 1 says ‘full’, the other says ‘fin’, ie. finish.
Click on which one you want to see, but they charge 20p to watch the whole race, and 10p for the finish, so you’ll need to set up an account and deposit some funds into it.
You could also always check youtube.com and type in ‘horse racing’ or ‘keiba’, and you’ll get masses of pages with over 50,000 videos. I’ve only checked the first 500 or so, but there are plenty of races from this year on there, all in good quality.
A horse can be flattered by his run though. Isn’t that why form exists? To find the genuine articles and the ‘frauds’?
I don’t really understand what you thought I was saying Smithy. I’m not denying Yeats gave his running. What I meant is that Yeats was found out by the ‘shorter’ trip. 2 miles is his minimum.
And I wouldn’t exactly call Kastoria a ‘top-class’ filly. She’s decent, yeah, but ‘top-class’? People start shouting at me when I called Ouija Board that.
God, not more ratings, please. So you reckon Kastoria is better than Yeats then do you?
His Coronation Cup was an example of the jockey winning the race, not the horse. He was allowed an easy lead, sent the opposition to sleep off a moderate pace and no-one could pick up.
2m is his minimum trip these days – simple as that. Do you think he would have won the Arc? The King George? The Grand Prix de St. Cloud?
If he could, don’t you think maybe connections would declare him for those races?
I’m saying Sixties Icon is a good horse. I’m saying despite the stable’s ‘poor’ form, his quality shone through brightly. The same happened with George Washington for O’Brien in May. But it didn’t happen with Sir Percy yesterday.
Whether that is down to the form genuinely affecting the horse, or the horse perhaps not just being as good as everyone expected, of course can be debated, but personally I feel it is the latter.
Well you could argue that for any horse surely? If Sixties Icon had been campaigned purely for the Derby, might he have won it? If Sir Percy had been sent to the Arc, might he have won it?
Perhaps Rule of Law was crying out for 1m 6f all the time…Perhaps he had been running at distances short of what he wanted whenever he faced North Light…It is likely North Light would have won the Voltigeur, I’ll admit that. But different distances can throw up different horses. Look at the difference between Yeats at 1m 6f and 2m 4f…
Smithy – well at least Rule of Law went on and actually did something to confirm the form.
HJ – I see your point, but the same could be said for Ballydoyle, where 5 or 6 trainers in the UK, Ireland and Europe are actually training Magnier/Tabor/Smith horses. For instance, Neville Callaghan trained Magistretti, who I thought was a very good horse (these were before the days I liked Ballydoyle). That horse gave him an extra element to his stable, but still wasn’t a big trainer.
But given the amount of quality horses that Abdullah has had – American Post, Quiff, Rail Link, Oasis Dream, Banks Hill, Danehill, Dancing Brave, Rainbow Quest, Zafonic, Quest for Fame, Commander In Chief, etc, I would class him as a big owner, just as Sheikh Mohammed is, since he often has horses with Mark Johnston, Noseda, Loder (before he retired), John Gosden, etc
Fair enough a big owner is different from a big stable, so I probably should have said big owners rather than stables.
Khalid Abdullah’s stable. Shouldn’t have written Juddmonte – thanks for pointing that out.
For once, which I can’t quite believe, I am in full agreement with DJ.
Clivex – I couldn’t care less which stable he comes from. Tregoning is actually a trainer I quite like, given that he talks to the press quite a bit and keeps them informed. Might I also suggest that you don’t know me, and therefore have no idea what I look/sound like?
But I haven’t been a fan of Sir Percy since the Vintage Stakes, and I thought he was lucky in both the Dewhurst and Derby. Say all you want about the stable being in poor form, but like i said, both Dwyer and Tregoning reported that his gallops hadn’t gone brilliantly and was in top shape.
Wasn’t Noseda’s yard meant to be in poor form a month or so ago?
And Ballydoyle at the start of the year?
As for Dylan Thomas in the Derby – he was ridden incorrectly, so I think it’s rather unfair to criticise him for coming 3rd after being a ‘pacemaker’ for the entire race.
And also perhaps, just maybe, Dragon Dancer is a horse that acted very well round Epsom?
Alamshar, after Epsom, won the Irish Derby and King George. Kris Kin was beaten by him in the King George, and never won another race.
Rule of Law won the St Leger and Great Voltigeur – North Light never won another race. I don’t quite understand why Rule of Law is being slagged off. Was only out of the top 3 once. Finished less than a length behind Snow Ridge, beat an 11length Yorkshire Oaks winner in the Leger.
Dubawi won the Jacques le Marois and should have won the QE2- Motivator never won another race.
Dylan Thomas – crushed the Irish Derby and won the Irish Champion Stakes. Sir Percy…..is still trying to get to the finish line in yesterday’s race…
As for definition of ‘small’ stables…
Biggest (IMO) – Godolphin, Ballydoyle, Juddmonte, Fabre+Aga Khan, Royer-Dupre+Aga Khan
‘Small’ with inverted commas is in reference to stables that are not listed above.
The reason I don’t rate guys like Tregoning, Meehan, Johnston, etc as the biggest, is because they don’t have Group 1 ammunition like the above do.
Alamshar, Rule of Law, Dubawi, Dylan Thomas – they are the true Derby winners.
‘Small’ stables train their ‘superstars’ simply for the Derby to get their 15 minutes. When that has settled, there’s nothing left of them.
I agree with Aidan completely.
As for Sir Percy….what comes round, goes round. He got all the luck last year against Horatio, and now, people see that Sir Percy is nothing like everyone expected. If a horse is deserved of glory, fine, I’ll put my hands up, but I’ve been against him ever since the Vintage Stakes at Goodwood.
As for the 4 month lay-off……he had over a 6 month lay-off between October and May but still finished 2nd in the Guineas. And wasn’t he apparently ‘sparkling’ in his recent gallops. Perhaps he went flat…..
Don’t bother making an account. Go on http://www.ntra.com and you can get free replays. Click on one of the menus at the top and then on video archive.
