Forum Replies Created
- Posts
Part of being a ‘genius’
trainer is managing your assets well.Mr H has two Gold Cup winners in his yard and, bar SS, no other realistic Champion Chaser. For all the talk about Simonsig’s potential he has shown nothing like QM winning form so far and I doubt he will ever jump well enough to win a decent running of the QM.
Circumstances will change things – if Bobs Worth and Long Run were, heaven forbid, laid up for a season, Mr Henderson and his jockey might well start to find merit in the stamina aspects of SS’s pedigree. But as things stand, why use three bullets when all that might be needed is one – two at most? Especially when, with the third one, you might end up shooting yourself in the foot.
When I was a teenager my mother railed against ‘modern’ pop groups and their music (as is the job of all parents). What changed her mind was a line from a Simon & Garfunkel song – "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest".
There are fewer truer sayings. If you ask me how much I will pay you for that old set of Timeforms and I say, ‘Somewhere between £75 and £100. Let me have a look through them properly." Come deal time, which of those figures is the one you recall? Exactly, while my memory resurrects the £75.
I strongly suspect there has been duplicity on neither side, simply Simon&Garfunkelism at work 45 years on from The Boxer.
Well all those years of Peterh bending my bloomin` ear about Auroras Encore paid off ……i got a free curry and a couple of pints of Cobra out of it
,well done from your old dad its nice when your kids look after you in yer dotage !!Lovely post
I think NJH the most naturally gifted trainer in my lifetime
Can you define that?
Mike
I can’t, no more than I could define the gifts of Steinbeck or Mozart. I doubt Henderson himself could define it. Someone said yesterday that there have been 89 races from Aintree & Cheltenham in the past 2 years – NJH has won 22 of those.
I could give you my definition of the success of P Nicholls: Hard-nosed, workaholic with a fine PR strategy and a willingness to change his stance and compromise principles to keep the likes of Smith and Hales, while they have good horses. Invests heavily in top-notch staff and facilities and takes an out and out business approach to training. There’s nothing at all wrong with that, and I’m sure NJH has great staff and facilities. But if you gave them both the choice of twenty unraced horses and ensured all else was equal – staff, facilities, nutrition, gallops etc, I’d bet with a high degree of confidence that NJH would come out on top.
When their moral compass swings so easily from shielding Savile to attacking a sport – not a race – the whole sport – maybe it’s time for racing to organise a licence-payment withholding campaign
The only thing racing should be organisisng is a media response team of intelligent, quick-witted individuals who can be placed on such shows to vigorously defend it’s reputation and aggressively dismantle it’s opponents’ spurious arguments.
Mike
The trouble is, you cannot speak unless you’re offered the platform. When I tweeted about this show on Friday, Paul Struthers responded, then the host, Nicky Campbell responded to us saying he ‘loved the National’. I suggested he invite Paul on the show today: silence, no further communication. It’s their ball and they are obviously going to play the game as they like. Racing would make much more impact PR-wise, imo, by inviting those who support NH racing to withhold their licence fee for as long as is legally possible.
When their moral compass swings so easily from shielding Savile to attacking a sport – not a race – the whole sport – maybe it’s time for racing to organise a licence-payment withholding campaign
Aye, Ginger, he’s always been racing’s strongest ally in the RSPCA. He’s battled on really well imo considering the belligerence of his boss toward the race.
I suspect we will never know just how much he’s done to help the GN get to where it is now. Doubtless many will be claiming yesterday for themselves – as the old saying goes, success has many fathers; failure is a bast@rd
I think Colbert Station & connectons might well be the first to benefit from the new cores. He seemed to go through the top very low but carried on out the other side, thankfully.
I’ve no doubt the race has been changed completely by these new cores. We’ll be back to fast run Nationals and many more results like yesterday’s. One of my best betting races has gone but I couldn’t be happier about it. I’ll just turn to laying the first 4 in the betting
What a cracking post Jonibake. I think NJH the most naturally gifted trainer in my lifetime.
Shame about the tarnishing with Moonlight Path which will always cast a (moon)shadow.
Superb trainer
Something was lost with the BBC, but I can’t quite nail what it was.
I thought there were many benefits to the CH4 coverage: no slomo replays of heavy fallers throughout the meeting, an obsession of the BBC.
I thought the zip wire tracking shot was great and some of the aerial coverage was superb.
Presentation-wise, I think some gravitas is needed that does justice to the history and grandeur of the race. Too many – Nick Luck in particular (I like him and think he has a fine mind and is a good broadcaster) were trying too hard to be TV personalities. Mick Fitz is probably more suited to that ‘schtick’ than others and I thought he did really well.
Much as I admire the form experience of GC, and JMcG,they are lightweights in broadcasting on the global stage.
Clare is a brilliant, quick thinking, hard working professional, but she lacks charisma and some of her brash paddock intrusions are beginning to look just a bit too ‘I’m Clare, all must stop for me’. I very much doubt that’s the way she imagines it is portrayed, nor her intention, but that dogged ‘get the story’ attitude won’t go down well with many.
Having said all that, a bit like replacing a football manager, who would you bring in to fix it? I like Alastair Down but his naturally hangdog, punning personality, doesn’t fir for a GN anchor.
Peter O’Sullevan, at his peak, would be perfect. Des Lynam is much missed . . . maybe I’m getting old
On my final run through I’ve backed two more, Soll and Viking Blond.
The latter is interesting: he’s inconsistent but has been well fancied for 2 Welsh Nationals. 18 months ago he gave 5lbs to Join Together and Teaforthree and ran them to two lengths. The turnaround in weights tomorrow is more than 20lbs.
Viking Blond should not be the 200/1 he is on Betfair – well worth a saver imo.
Interested as to how they would have derived that rating? Cue Card although easily dismissed has I think finished closer to Sprinter Sacre than in last year’s Arkle; it is very hard to believe Flemenstar has given his running and until today Finian’s Rainbow has looked seriously out of sorts. If Sprinter Sacre is 203 then that must also make Cue Card one of the best chasers we have ever seen.
You got it right in the last sentence
What reason is there to suppose Flemenstar and FR did not give their running?
There wasn’t that much evidence beforehand but I would strongly suspect Flemenstar is a better horse on softer ground. As someone suggested on another thread today’s conditions were very much in favour of Cue Card. If the two horses were to meet over 2m4f on soft ground at Navan the result might be entirely different. Would such a result then make Flemenstar better than Cue Card? As for Finian’s Rainbow he hadn’t beaten a horse this season and although he no doubt improved for the better ground given the almost suicidal way he was rushed up to contest the lead I don’t think his finishing position relative to the winner can be used as anything like an accurate benchmark.
I’ve seen no excuses from the Casey camp who simply accepted that their horse ‘wasn’t good enough’. CC didn’t just beat him he thrashed him by 19 lengths. Granted, the trip probably found FR out, but Cue Card is destined to be the highest class horse that very few people like.
Even the respected Mark Howard (a non-CC fan who would not be convinced when we discussed him at a preview night) said grudgingly after the Ryanair "CC was on a going-day".
There’s been some amount of rubbish written about this horse whose form is gold-plated, from a nose defeat giving Bobs Worth half a stone to a hammering of First Lieutenant and a trouncing of Flemenstar. Were it not for S Sacre, he’s won a QM by 22 lengths and a Melling by 19 on top of his two festival victories, skating up in a Grade 1 at Ascot and annihilating Silviniaco Conti on his debut. Good grief, what do people have against this horse?
Interested as to how they would have derived that rating? Cue Card although easily dismissed has I think finished closer to Sprinter Sacre than in last year’s Arkle; it is very hard to believe Flemenstar has given his running and until today Finian’s Rainbow has looked seriously out of sorts. If Sprinter Sacre is 203 then that must also make Cue Card one of the best chasers we have ever seen.
You got it right in the last sentence
What reason is there to suppose Flemenstar and FR did not give their running?
History will show CC as something of a Mill House to S Sacre’s Arkle. The Tizzards, like me, must be hoping SS skips Kempton giving Cue Card a real chance of winning a ‘classic NH race.
TNO looks like being another horse who’ll need to work awful hard to get credit from some people.
Zarkandar probably ran to 170 or more today. TNO’s rated 155 – he made 2 mistakes and, arguably, he might have done better being held up a bit longer. Had he won a neck, I’d have thought he’d be fav with a few bookies for next year. 9s is a daft price, especially NR free bet.
I was the crazy man who said some months back he would win a Gold Cup or two and I stand by that. He didn’t fail for stamina today imo, and his chasing career could be 3 years away. As to his size, I’ve seen neither horse in the flesh, but I’d be surprised if he was much smaller than Bobs Worth.
Our Conor looks a great prospect, but there can be no doubt whatever now as to which has the best form between him and TNO.
Roll on next year
trainer is managing your assets well.
,well done from your old dad 
