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Tizzard’s Cider has the right of it. Trainers can always telephone the Clerk of the Course, and walk the course themselves. Uttoxeter has always been popular with trainers since the days of Major McAllister, who would tell them exactly what he was up to. Watered 5.1 on the going stick seems pretty fair, hence 30 degree wash.
Keep an eye on the weather for Mr Vango as he won’t run without enough juice in the ground. (Same applies to Cheltenham & the Grand National). Drying ground did for his chances in the Scottish one as Ayr had the first two days of the year when you would have hung your washing out.
When do the nrnbs start to appear?Current official going is good to soft, good in places with 10-15 mm rain forecast. As soon as I can get nrnb on Coneygree, I’m in – but he won’t be a definite runner until The Bradstocks have walked the course on the morning of the race.
Native River for me. Lovely prep race in the Denman Chase where (as Mick Fitzgerald pointed out) he ran the 2 miles and half a furlong a second slower than Altior on the same card!
P.S. I’d better get down to Specsavers, if I missed something in Saphir Du Rheu’s performance to offer encouragement. Whatever he did in last year’s Gold Cup, when kept out of trouble, that was a poor comeback and the horse looked out of love with the game to me. If he were mine, I’d have tried to find him a little hurdle race with the Betfair Bowl at Liverpool as his next target.
TommyNag, GingerTipster was just trying to point out in a kindly way that you don’t know your rump from your knee.
I really do find the Bradstocks quite unbearable and think they have somehwat ruined the horse.
TommyNag will find a thousand like-minded trolls on twitter that feel the same way as he does. One wonders how they know the Bradstocks.
For a horse that fractured its pelvis long before it ever raced, I’d say they haven’t done too badly with Coneygree, by the way.
Has anybody in the “Retire Cue Card” camp ever actually kept a “retired” horse? Many, if not most, retired racehorses are un-rideable for all bar decent horsemen. Unless they have a second career as a hunter or team chaser, or at the very least are regularly ridden, life in a field is often pretty miserable, boring and often lonely. Sad to say, many horses not ‘earning their corn’ want for the farrier and the vet, and extra feed in winter.
Just sayin’
Well, if you’re afraid of the low sun why do you run the horse at all?
What kind of a person are you, if you know that the sun might harm your horse and you still run it?To whom is the word “you” referring?
Is Cue Card a place the best et of the festival
Absolutely not.
The bet of the festival is to lay Cue Card, surely. If he doesn’t stay, he probably doesn’t place, and he has never run to any of the fancy ratings on a stiff track over further than 3 miles.
Cue Card – I’d love to see him win but even Colin Tizzard doesn’t think he’ll get 3 miles at Cheltenham plus the extra 2 1/2. From a laying point of view, Thistlecrack would have been a gift from the gods.
When did Tizz say this? Why is he running him then?
Colin Tizzard is the trainer. Mrs Bishop is the owner and she wants to run him in the Gold Cup. Tizzard has not said that Cue Card won’t stay the Gold Cup trip, but he has mused on the possibilities of the Ryanair – take that as you will. None of Cue Card’s best staying form is on a stiff course, so his fall 3 out when still closer to Northleach than the winning post still means that we don’t know if he stays in the Gold Cup.
Cue Card – I’d love to see him win but even Colin Tizzard doesn’t think he’ll get 3 miles at Cheltenham plus the extra 2 1/2. From a laying point of view, Thistlecrack would have been a gift from the gods.
So which
If I were recovering from a serious injury, I wouldn’t make my competitive comeback in the London Marathon
If I were recovering from a serious injury, I wouldn’t make my competitive comeback in the London Marathon
Neither would I, I’d want a surface with no jar.
Hear hear
SSK here’s a list of considerations for you:
The super-experienced, ultra-efficient Bradstocks forgot to enter their Horse in the King George
As to Haydock, here’s what Sara said about the setback:
“The problem probably began at Haydock, but didn’t appear until a couple of weeks after and he’s got a little niggle in the bone under his knee; where the cannonbone meets the knee.”
I said before the race they were taking a big risk (They had options at Wetherby and Newbury under consideration). No spite from me, frustration at a fine horse losing another season.
If you think connections of horses always make sensible decisions you are going to lose a lot of money. They live on dreams and hope in a world of cognitive dissonance.
“The super-experienced, ultra-efficient Bradstocks forgot to enter their Horse in the King George” You are getting your years mixed up: does that happen frequently? They cocked up the entry for the 2015 King George (by the time of which the horse was crocked anyway).
I concede that Sara may well have said that. Coneygree’s wellbeing is just about all she thinks about, or talks about, and she has said plenty more besides including that their winter grass gallops have had so little rain up to the Betfair – all the way up to Christmas in fact. The fact is that the cause of his injury is probably unknowable.
“(They had options at Wetherby and Newbury under consideration).” They were the Charlie Hall at Wetherby and the Hennessy. I am not sure wether you think mentioning these races proves that you think you are right, or that Coneygree should have run on unsuitably fast ground in the former when not quite ready, or run on unsuitably fast ground in a big field giving a stone to Native River. The challenge still stands: find a more suitable race on soft ground that Coneygree might have used as a prep for the King George.
“No spite from me, frustration at a fine horse losing another season.” Moving along from your opening sarcasm, anybody would think you paid Coneygree’s training fees.
“If you think connections of horses always make sensible decisions …” I suppose by sensible you mean a decision with which you agree, based on the thousands of winners you have trained from the comfort of your sofa.
“…you are going to lose a lot of money.” Ahhh. Finally I get it. The bookmakers have closed all your accounts because you have bled them dry. For some of us National Hunt racing is a sport, first and foremost.
“They live on dreams and hope in a world of cognitive dissonance.” What does that mean?
Not looking good for Coneygree in this, and not that big a surprise I suppose. I suppose there’s still time, but I wouldn’t be confident.
http://www.racingpost.com/news/live.sd?event_id=23049724&category=0
At the risk of boring everyone to death, they should not have run the horse in the Betfair. They nurse the animal through all sorts for months and years and then launch it into a Grade 1 against the KG winner in desperate ground and try to burn the speed out of Cue Card? Sara later says she doesn’t think Dicky went fast enough! Awfully sorry for the horse and his dedicated fans, but no sympathy for the Bradstocks.
The presumed omniscience of this nonsense would be funny, were it not spiteful. Between them the Bradstocks have about eighty years experience working with racehorses. And you have how many?
Here is a list of considerations
Owners not trainers decide where horses run;
Can you find an alternative prep for the King George in the Racing Calendar;
Did you walk the course or talk to the jockeys about how the ground was riding;
Do you think jockeys should follow their riding instructions (which were the same as for all his races); Coneygree blew for less time after the race than he did when schooling at Haydock the week before;
Coneygree has won on heavy, as did his dam three times, and his brothers Carruthers and Flintham five and three times respectively;
The Betfair was Cue Card’s first win on heavy; does he truly stay three miles with the choke out;
Coneygree’s current injury is the result of getting jarred up on fast ground at home.
Before that Sara Bradstock said He was working as well as he ever had.For what it’s worth, the Bradstocks are delighted with Coneygree’s run, but felt Johnson might have gone a bit quicker on the first circuit to draw the sting out of the others, since all Coneygree does is one paced, albeit a rather rapid one.
It is a pretty big ask to expect any horse to beat a race-fit, 178 Timeform rated chaser first time out, and the Bradstocks made it pretty clear in the press that their main concern was that they had not been able to work Coneygree on their grass gallops as they had been too firm. (Normally they would give a horse at least two fast pieces of work on the grass – with a good few days interval in between – before its first run of the season.)
Timeform rated Coneygree’s run 169, which is not too shabby after a year’s absence. Now he only has to improve a mere 12 lbs plus to collar Cue Card in the King George.
And by the by, Cue Card was magnificent: the old boy and his connections deserve all the plaudits.
http://www.sportinglife.com/racing/news/article/465/10659384/lydia-hislops-road-to-cheltenham
It is rare indeed that I find myself agreeing with Lydia Hislop (The daft price of Thistlecrack, and the value of Djakadam)
