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The article doesn’t really say anything new and in any case Godolphin can hardly be said to be hoovering up at the mo, quite the opposite. Coolmore however are certainly having a purple patch especially with their older colts and these days not that many top flight English trained 3 yos stay in training. However nothing lasts for ever.
Stouty and Bolger must now admit that the derby run did nothing good for their horses !
Yep Bolger must be gutted to have won a Derby and Sheik Mohammed must be ruing the stud fee!
As for Stouty I think he believes AV did nothing good for TB.
What makes you think that Bulwark??? youmzain is a good horse but he isnt one to trust.
Bit harsh to say not one to trust, in his last 10 races, all GR1s, he finished
1,2,5,2,4,2,5,3,3,1,2.Darjina’s trainer now says the change in the ground means he may prefer not to run her. She has won on GD so perhaps he fears GS ground which she has been beaten on twice. Hope she runs and Infallible looks the danger as she whould appreciate more give.
You may be right, brigadier, but last year Mount Nelson (before injury) and Duke of Marmalade were AOB’s main Guineas hopes following the retirement of Holy Roman Emperor. At that time Fallon had said that MN was his Derby horse, which suggests that the stable had considered him at least the equal of DOM.
Hope the firmish ground he’s been racing on hasn’t hurt his previously damaged hoof. Pardon my ignorance, but how do they treat a hoof that has been partially pulled off as AOB reported re MN?
On the form line with PT he is quite a bit behind DOM and I don’t think the stable would hold that view now. He isn’t bred to get 12f so not sure why Fallon thought of him as his Derby horse. Can’t say I know how to treat such an injured hoof but maybe there is a vet on here who knows but AFAIK he came out of the race sound which is good news.
I like Epsom I think its a good track to have on the circuit as its different to anything else but anythings better then a cold winters afternoon at Lingfield with your bag of chips and money on the favourite whos 5 lengths clear in the turn for home to find it lose by a nose from a runner down the outside.
Agree wholeheartedly. Unless you have actually been to the track you can’t begin to fully appreciates the ups and downs and the cambers. I was amazed by it when I went.
I believe that New Approach got injured running at Epsom.Most of Aidans horses could not safely handle the track neither could Curtain Call. So what does it prove? It is good for abnormal horses?
Bolger, though not hugely reliable, has not mentioned Epsom as the cause of his injury and bearing in mind he only picked it up a day or so before the Irish Derby your belief at the present seems to be based on nothing more than that. You need a very well balanced horse at Epsom and those horses that fail to handle the the track simply prove they are not.
Very exciting finish but proved this was not the greatest renewal. As for Mount Nelson this is the second comparatively weak GR1 he has won and you can’t help feeling he is unlikely to prove up to sterner opposition at this level.
Very impressive but would need to see him in group company before you could get too excited. Odds for the guineas are generally 14-1 and not as silly as Cuis Gaire for the 1000 who is as low as 5-1. His pedigree suggests he is likely to be a miler though his dam is out of Realms of Verse so may get further.
Why is Dettori riding Campanologist a major negative?
Frankie riding Campanologist is a major negitive for Literato, as the latter would have a much better chance than the three year old (at his best). It certainly is not a negitive for the chances of Campanologist. But I make it more a bad sign for Literato than a good one for Campanologist.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Mark
Literato won”t like the ground and is unlikely to run so that is why imo Frankie has gone for the other one. I have decided Henry can win this.
I don’t think it is bad for horses and what happened to NA AFAIK had nothing to do with his run in the Derby. As for TB well I don’t think he ran that badly at the Curragh and anyway that race was ruined by AV.
I know many argue Epsom is so unique a track that it is not a fair test as many horses don’t handle it, for instance AOB considers the Curragh to be a fairer test. Imo fair isn’t really the point, Epsom is the ultimate test for a thoroughbred racehorse and as firefox pointed out many great horses have handled it and proved their true ability and he left out Mill Reef.
I agree negotiations with broadcasters won’t be straightforward and perhaps it will flounder when they get down to the nitty gritty as it does appear they would prefer one broadcaster but it doesn’t mean it couldn’t work with more than one. As for McGrath well he may well be more concerned about losing his nice little earner at the beeb who would never bid to be the single broadcaster as they don’t have a high enough commitment to racing.
I have absolutely no issue with promoting the sport to a wider audience.
However I cannot help but think the sums of money being discussed are obscene and could be better spent elsewhere. Yesterday morning I spent almost three hours in my local A&E department and looking at the state of it I was wondering how much more they could do with even a half million pound investment, yet alone a £4-5 milion boost.
OK some will respond that even greater sums are spent on other sports, that still does not make it right in my mind.
I think the Order Of Merit for jump racing has worked well and on a budget far less than being proposed for this Sovereign Series, covering only ten seemingly randomly selected races.
The extra money is to come from sponsors not taxpayers money and the NHS has in the last 10 years had double the money spent on it and output has increased by only 50% but hey that is ano story and off topic.
Comparing the flat and the jumps is not a fair analogy as the UK is the centre of the jump racing world while flat racing is a worldwide sport and prize money is hugely different between the two. Whether it would be better to boost prize money elsewhere is a good question but then how would you get anyone to sponsor boosting for instance class 4 handicaps. If this idea generates more revenue for the industry perhaps it will enable prize money for such races to be increased.
At the end of the day, this isnt going to stop the best 3yos milers getting retired at the end of their 3yo season (unless possibly they are with godolphin and still alive at 4) so why should the lockinge be in there, it is year in, year out, a consistently below average race.
If this Sovereign thing is to be taken in anyway seriously they have to open it at least to ireland and more realistically france aswell, with some of their group races, in britain there are some top class races but just not enough IMO and to try to big up british racing (for little more than the fact that it is british) doesnt help the matter, it just bypasses looking at the actual problem.
The best horse of the year almost always always wins the arc. If not it is usually a stand out horse at another trip.
The fact that there is only one group1 at 1m4f ) for older horses, which is "usually" run on ground that is "usually" unsuitable for most of the best of the 1m4f division says it all about the merits of this competition. It is all about bigging up british racing (clearly more than it deserves) rather than improving the quality of it.
We all know that the best 1m2f race of the season (in almost every season) is the Irish Champion and the best 1m4f race of the season is the Arc. The best 1 mile race IMO is the 2000 guineas, the siussex or the QE2 (they have got the milers right at least) but they have excludued the best 1m2f race and the best 1m4f races.
You really seem to be saying that the Irish horses and to an extent the French horses are better than the British which in recent years has alas often been the case so we should include include their races. However I assume the objective is to promote British racing so including French and Irish races is illogical and there are enough top class races here.
While the arc winner is often the best horse of the year this is not always the case. It is fair to say it is laid out for the race on many occasions with few outings and that one race as the main objective which is understandable as it is run towards the end of the season but it hardly draws people to follow racing. Last year Dylan Thomas proved this approach is not the only one to victory in the arc and why he was imo such a great horse. As for unsuitable ground imo the best horse can handle any ground and course and if it only relishes good or soft ground or a particular type of track it is only the best horse on that basis. I don’t think this initiative is perfect but it will be interesting to see if works.
Didn’t Hawk Wing go to post in 2002 as the Derby runner-up? Nothing of that quality in this year’s line-up for me
Yep at 8/15, he was shoe in though did not win that impressively.
In response to the original question posed by this thread, worse field for the Eclipse in my memory and if I were Corals I would be pulling sponsorship ASAP.
I don’t think it is that bad and imo better than 2002 when there were only 5 runners and hardly a stellar field and nor was the 1999 race so I don’t see any reason for Corals to jump ship.
