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How in the blue hell is Billesdon Brook not even considered for this race by Hannon? Mental. Based on breeding the horse was more likely to win a Melbourne Cup than a 1000 Guineas. Didn´t look like she was stopping either.
Great call wit.
1-2-4
Cheval Grand
Rey De Oro
Kitasan BlackThey pulled miles clear of the rest. Idaho a credible 5th.
Crazy. He has run at Haydock three times now, and won by 22L, 32L and 57L in Gr.1/Gr.2 races. They should name the track after the horse.
Yeah I think another trainer said something similar, but does that change anything? It just shifts out the field to an invisible rail. I don´t see how that helps the badly drawn horses. You seem to be better informed than me, so when is the last time a horse won the Japan Cup from a very wide draw? All the favourites are drawn on the inside, too. I just don´t think Idaho has the class after a long and hard season to beat fresh well drawn top class local horses. Of course if he´s hitting triple digits odds, he might be worth a flyer just like Iquitos and Guignol (who are drawn well). It seems the European raiders are generally overpriced, unless it´s a monster like Danedream, but even she could only manage 6th from a horrible draw.
I´ll have a little e/w on Guignol (on race day) and Soul Stirring (20-1). Guignol is a frontrunner and drawn well in #3. I have no idea what they are doing with Soul Stirring running her over a 1m-1m1 all the time, when her breeding and runs clearly suggest she needs 1m4. Would probably handle even further. Second time she´ll run over 1m4, the other being her Japanese Oaks win.
Nobody’s tempted by the 25/1 about Idaho it seems. When you consider his terrible record outside of Britain & Ireland I suppose it’s not hard to understand why.
Can probably wait for the Japanese odds. Last year the foreigners Nightflower went off at 36-1, Erupt 39-1 and Iquitos at an insane 135-1. He ran on for a four length beaten 7th. *cry* I´ll probably have a little on Iquitos/Guignol again. 7th in the Arc must be worth a try at 50-1.
Talismanic made sense. Good draw. Good odds, cause only 3rd in the Gr.2 Foy, but that was easily a Gr.1 quality race with very strong form, considering Cloth of Stars then finished 2nd and Dschingis Secret finished 6th in the Arc. Especially keeping in mind how much CoS came on for the Arc for Fabre.
And that my friends is why you duck the real race. No need to confirm what they saw at home with Enable, when you can beat up on a bunch of Gr.3 winners, and be the best in the world.
I’ve seen the form crabbed on twitter too. But in cases like these (and his York win alerted a few that he was well capable of something like this) it is the manner of victory that tells the tale more than what is behind him. He is putting races to bed a long way out with a burst of acceleration that gives nothing else a chance, He then, with nothing to race against, goes farther and farther away showing a huge appetite for racing despite being out there alone (I think that latter aspect is often ignored and most certainly should not be).
From time to time at this level it’s a case of ‘it ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it.’
There is a difference between giving credit and completely going overboard.
Is Cracksman a Gr.1 animal? Absolutely.
Is he the 2nd best middle distance horse of 2017? Probably.
Has he proven that without a shadow of a doubt today? Absolutely not.Highland Reel was been beaten 12L by Jack Hobbs with soft in the description, and 9.25L by Enable. Today he was beaten 7.25L (over 2f shorter) in what everybody perceives to be a prep race for the BC Turf. All the other horses that finished directly behind Cracksman in the Champion Stakes, Voltigeur and Niel have weak Gr.2 wins at best.
Yet some people are suggesting Enable is lucky Cracksman didn´t turn up for the Arc and that if they meet tomorrow he´d be a clear favourite. Okay.
Gosden played his cards absolutely perfectly it seems. He knew he´d avoid likely defeat in the Arc, while getting a 2nd rate field in the Champions Stakes, and with the British desperation to make Champions Day happen, he would be guaranteed a massive rating, if he did it in style.
And that my friends is why you duck the real race. No need to confirm what they saw at home with Enable, when you can beat up on a bunch of Gr.3 winners, and be the best in the world.
Danedream has Enable covered by the level of opposition in her Gr.1 wins and it´s not even that close right now.
Danedream´s Arc field > Enable´s Arc field
Danedream´s KG field > Enable´s KG field
Danedream´s 2nd Baden-Baden win > Enable´s English Oaks field
Danedream´s 1st Baden-Baden win > Enable´s Irish Oaks field
Danedream´s Berlin win > Enable´s Yorkshire Oaks fieldAlso Danedream won the Gr.1 in Baden-Baden and Berlin by 6L and 5L in the lead up to the Arc.
It would be a very facile argument to say neither Snow Fairy nor So You Think ran to form in Danedream’s Arc Ginger, there isn’t sufficient evidence to support that claim. It is much more likely that Shareta ran to a career best, and a whopping career best of +8lbs , which was no doubt aided by her having the run of the race at the front.
So You Think came from the back but he had a relatively untroubled passage and he has no excuses on that front, plus he was a 10f horse so coming from off the pace would have suited him perfectly.
Snow Fairy typically raced off the pace also, with great success I should add, so using that to crab the form simply doesn’t add up.
The Arc is a strange race and quite often you get massively priced outsiders sneaking into contention. Retrospectively Shareta’s performance wasn’t all that surprising I should think.
Putting Shareta aside, if Snow Fairy and So You Think were to race in this year’s Arc, do you not think they would at least finish in 3rd and 4th in place of Ulysses and Order of St George? You have to remember I am not trying to make a case that Danedream’s Arc was better than Enable’s, rather that they should be rated equally.
And it is very harsh to say Zarkava only had one stand out performance. She easily defeated 13-time Group 1 winner Goldikova in not one, but two French Classics. Her defeat of Dar Re Mi in the Vermeille was also nothing if not exceptional.
100% with you. That was an impressivly skewed view on the level of opposition Zarkava and Danedream have beaten.
How close she got to Enable and who she had beaten in behind is irrelevant in my opinion, she weakened significantly in the final 2 furlongs suggesting that she doesn’t stay a truly ran 12f.
Yeah she didn´t stay 12f with Enable, one of the greatest middle distance fillies. She still pulled further away from the others. By that logic Excelebration is a 5f horse, cause he couldn´t stay with Frankel over 7f or a mile.
Rhododendron is a really poor example. She beat the 3rd placed horse by 6L and the 4th placed horse by 10L. She beat horse bred to stay like Coronet/Sobetsu out of sight.
She went toe to toe with Enable and got beaten 5L in the end. That´s about as close as any other horse got that tried to stay with her through a race. Is the blanket finish in the Opera really a stronger piece of form?It´s a bit too cheap to say: If the breeding doesn´t suit, the answer is it didn´t stay, and if the breeding suits the horse is just not good enough.
The reason horse racing suffers is that the most brilliant colts/fillies like Sea The Stars, Zarkava, Golden Horn often do not stay in training. The general public wants to be attached to great horses. For that to happen you need them to show sustained excellence (especially once the greatness is established). That´s what hurts the SPORT horse racing, especially in EUROPE. In Japan, America and Australia it´s much more common that star horses stay in training. The public has no interest in a equine dating show.
Another reason is the presentation. They want to see the race record of the horse. I don´t see Enable´s race record broken down in wins, places, group levels and her prize money. I don´t see a discussion how Cloth of Stars could be dangerous based on his current form with four wins and a second. All I see are betting odds. I see discussions about which horses are value to bet on. That tells a casual nothing about what to expect in terms of winning chances or placing chances. You want more casuals interested in horse racing present it like a sport, not gamblers anonymous.
Back to the idea of handicapping rich races like the Arc. That would only lead to owners/trainers trying to cheat. Look at the incentive created by the huge Melbourne Cup prize money and all the problems they have. You have the European trainers trying to sneak in their horses at super-light weights, willingly avoiding Gr.1 races in Europe, because they are worth nothing in prize money or breeding value in comparison to a Melbourne Cup win.
So you generally believe in WFA, but you are unhappy, when great horses get the same treatment as all other horses? The fact alone that Danedream/Enable are the only two fillies in 66 years to do the KG/Arc double and Treve is the second filly in 97 years to the Arc double should tell you: Maybe it´s the class of the horses that´s created the problem, not the WFA scale.
Cloth of Stars was just a one time Gr.2/Gr.3 winner as a three year old.
Ulysses was just a one time Gr.3 winner as a three year old.
Dschingis Secret was a one time Gr.3 winner as a three year old.Comparing that to what Enable did at the same age, you´d have a better case to argue that the WFA was not enough that such mediocre three year olds even got that close as matured four year olds.
