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Just wonder how you qualify for "legendary" status in this sport?
Must be something to do with "Panorama hours" looking at the card for this heat…
Enough material for a box set of said documentary with this lot….
Not a lot, for sure
I’m very much looking forward to Phil Smith’s answers on the Q+A on this kind of topic.
Anyone know what has happened to them?
No David. The BHA has categorically denied that the bias at Beverley has been affected by watering.
It used to be the low numbers that developed runny noses and stepped on stones – interesting to note that pace horse Masamah (stall 11) developed a cough yesterday as soon as he was informed of his draw…It is in the very nature of the sport that sometimes your bets will run appallingly and give you litte, if any, entertainment for your money. Your horse might get pulled up, fall at the first fence, miss the break by a furlong or yes – plant themselves in the stalls….
If any potential new fan to the sport can’t deal with this sort of disappointment, they are never going to follow the sport anyway so I think Joe Newcomer is getting far too much airtime in this debate.
There is absolutely no justification for changing a totally fair and logical rule.
Hi Harry
To what extent do you think there are integrity issues in the bloodstock industry these days?
Obviously there is significant potential for owners to be ripped off via collusion between whoever is buying on their behalf and the seller – and there have been some high profile examples over the years…
What measures do you take to ensure your Highclere patrons get good value for their money?
John Warren and I take the buying of our horses extremely seriously and Highclere’s reputation stands first and foremost upon total integrity. Naturally we hear of all sorts of dealings going on at the sales but we do not our success has been built upon John buying the horse that he likes from what is always a tiny short list. The two of us are extremely secretive at the sales and keep our business to ourselves and our vet in order that we have the best chance possible of buying horses in our price range
Alan Potts and Pinza are spot on.
There has to be a clear rule – and this is as clear as it gets. Sariska had a chance to win, but her temperament got the better of her. End of story.
To start arbitrarily imposing rule 4s/place deductions on punters who have successfully identified the fastest horse (with the right temperament to demonstrate that ability) would be nothing short of scandalous.
Perhaps not so much a question, but I would like your view on the following idea….
The BHA (and/or Timeform) should produce a provisional form rating for televised Group/big handicap race winners within minutes of the conclusion of the race, with the figure displayed on television and then perhaps compared to previous winners of the race/season’s best divisional performances/greatest horses of all time etc
The logic is that – to the uninitiated, racing is just a set of animals running around a field and it is very hard for a newcomer to get any kind of handle on the significance of the performance they have just witnessed.
We need to educate and in the process, potentially fascinate the viewer. What would Torvill + Dean’s Bolero have done for anyone without the judge’s perfect scores at the end? Or Bolt’s Olympic 100 metres without the world record time?
I appreciate that the handicap figures would inevitably need revision after the event, but I don’t think that would be a legitimate excuse not to produce them.
As James Willoughby suggested in a recent RP article, in order to find a new following, racing needs to sell itself on quality and the intellectual challenge of finding winners. I think bringing the ratings to life and in the process stimulating debate around the great horses would go a long way to aiding this cause.
I think a better way is to tell viewers the rating before the race. To this end we now offer a free service to racecourses offering our ratings to be published. Not every racecourse has taken the offer up. I personally would be against immediate post race reaction as ratings are too important to guess. See my point earlier about Harbinger. I think we would lose credibility if we said X on a Saturday afternoon and then Y a short while after.
Nick Mordin’s view – one of his better pieces…
HARBINGER NOWHERE NEAR AS GOOD AS THE HYPE
I’ve been watching the British racing scene for a long time now. But the extraordinary way horses get heralded as all time greats on the basis of a single questionable performance never ceases to amaze me. Despite having seen so many of the horses they’ve touted flounder when attempting to justify the hype British racing hacks seem prepared to don their rose tinted spectacles en masse at least once a season.
The latest horse to receive the accolades is HARBINGER (42) because he’s just romped the King George by eleven lengths in course record time from two Derby winners.
According to Timeform Harbinger is now the equal of Ribot.
Let’s take a look at that:
Ribot won all sixteen of his lifetime starts including two Arcs, a King George and three other events that were awarded Group 1 status when the pattern was introduced. He won at the top level in all three seasons that he raced.
Harbinger has just become the first older horse since the pattern was established to win the King George without previously placing in a Group 1. He has been beaten three times below that class in a career spanning just fifteen months.
In winning the King George Harbinger beat a runner up that didn’t seem to get the distance after chasing the strong early pace, a third placed horse that’s now seven and has won just one of its last 21 starts, a fourth placed horse that clearly ran below form, a fifth placed horse that pulled too hard due to seeing too much daylight and his own pacemaker who ran a suspiciously close sixth seeing he clearly doesn’t stay the distance.
It’s also worth noting that Harbinger’s so-called course record was achieved around a new course that has only been used just 46 times for 12 furlong races when the word ‘soft’ hasn’t appeared in the official going description. He ran a time just half a second faster than three year old handicappers achieved when establishing the previous course record.
How anyone can justify saying that single performance merits rating Harbinger alongside Ribot and ahead of such legendary stars as Mill Reef and Nijinsky is beyond me. I rate him just an average Group 1 winner that was made to look good due to his main rivals running below their best in a tiny field.
And let’s not forget that Harbinger has a history of tying up. His form fell apart after July last year in the only two subsequent starts he managed. So the chances of him even making it to the Arc look pretty darned slim. The idea of him being as short as even money for the race is just plain daft.
Given the press coverage and that enormous Timeform rating it’s going to take a lot of courage on the part of Harbinger’s owners to run him again. It will surely be awfully tempting to exploit the situation and retire him right now rather than risk denting his currently huge stud value with another loss.
The one other Group 1 that I’d give Harbinger a serious chance in if he stands up to training and continues to run would be the Irish St Leger. I say that because he’s already scored over 13.5 furlongs and won the King George by outstaying his rivals off a strong gallop. There aren’t many decent horses around in the staying division and he’d have a good shot of beating most of them.
I sent Nick Smith a text yesterday saying that whoever came up with these colours should be shot.
In fairness, he said that they had tried to register much simpler plain colours but had run into loads of red-tape with "cherished" colours and the like with weatherbys – and what they ended up with as a compromise was this convoluted mess…
Think they are trying to get special dispensation to have much simpler silks next year.
Agreed CH
I just think it is clear that when those tactics are applied, the horse is an extremely difficult ride – too dificult, perhaps, for a jockey who hasn’t ridden a winner in half a decade.
There are
far
more deserving cases of people in the sport who should be hung out to dry and made an example of – of that I am
100%
certain.
Good effort today on an extremely tricky horse. 100% stand by my original thoughts about the ride the other day – in fact more convinced the horse wasn’t deliberately stopped after that run…
