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Stayers Hurdle
Impose Toi 14/1 EW William Hill and others
Ballyburn 20/1 EW bet365 and othersIts still quite a muddling picture. Must be heavy odds against Sir Gino making Cheltenham now. Race wasn’t run to suit TNL today so I’m not saying thats all he is but at the same time his form in open company and his form at 2m full stop is no better than Golden Ace’s. I’m still not convinced Lossie is a true 2 miler either but probably more of one than TNL and she could be classy enough in what won’t take much winning. If Constitution Hill did get back to 75% of what he was and he can stand up he probably just wins this but its a huge if.
Thought it was a curious run from Flooring Porter. Obviously been off the track a long time and I think they had him in the Cleeve at one point but changed tack to come here and Cromwell mentioned it being a run to get him qualified for the Aintree National. Considering he has to go from the front, it appeared as though today was a jog around, see if the handicapper will help him out. No effort at all to get him prominent, no major effort at all until he was beat to my eyes. Impossible to know if hes still got the ability but I just found the whole thing curious
2M chase div is great for the bookies. None of the favs are flawless jumpers and they are all liable to something like today happening to IET. Something at a wild price probably goes close on the day, happened a few times now.
Cork how many 4yo+ horses do the likes of Godolphin have who are allowed to run in a novice race? Can’t imagine there are many unless they’ve either been very delayed through injury etc or they aren’t very good.
Its a bit weird they’ve created this race seemingly for The Hill’s connections benefit and a lot of prize money on offer too at a time when we can’t get decent prize money for proper races. I think he’d have been pretty certain to get beat if the race conditions had been 3yo+ and he’d had to concede weight for age to some potential Derby hopefuls but the 4yo+ bit is very odd. He’s either going to be racing against some late bloomers or just outright donkeys as harsh as that sounds to connections of those horses if they are still able to run in such races at the age of 4, or other NH horses I guess. Feels a bit like some of these boxing exhibitions on Netflix.
Champion Hurdle:
Golden Ace EW 16/1 various
Poniros EW 66/1 variousGold Cup:
Lecky Watson EW 50/1 various
Stellar Story EW 100/1 bet365, UnibetI’d just run him anyway probably. Hes got the course form, we know he handles the occasion of the festival and hes a good jumper and hes just won an Arkle trial which even if he’d been beaten wouldnt have been that far. Look what happened last year with Jango. Fences need jumping at the end of the day and hes a very safe conveyance who will get round and could place anyway. I think the horse he beat is pretty good too fwiw
Great to see the horse back on track. WD winners. Never really understood the whole weight carrying thing, its relative to the horses hes racing, a good chunk of whom were out of the handicap so if anything its an easier task. its only slightly more than they all carry in a Gold Cup anyway, not as if hes being asked to carry me after 3 days of Christmas dinner leftovers haha
I’m not sure about him beating nothing today. Golden Ace probably hasnt run to her very best today but not far off it. She was the flag bearer of the division of those who are fit and that was very easy. Lossie hasn’t beaten anything of note over 2m and the best boy shes beaten on merit in her career is a 3 miler.
It was a great race to watch but it didnt necessarily feel like that high quality a race which feels strange to say. I doubt Banbridge has had to run any better than he did last year anyway which is still a good standard but not a gold cup winning one if the gold cup winner returns to form. Plus they all need to prove they want the trip that he relishs, they could improve for it too of course but its an unknown quantity.
I’d be quite down on Gaelic for Gold mainly because the longer trip means its more fences on a LH track which maybe he doesnt want.
Would it be fair to say its quite a unique test for aa Grade 1 be that because of the course configuration or the going which does tend to be on the quicker side for the time of year?
Whatever it is you see horses time after time run repeated good races here and I’m not just talking about the winners, I recall a year Thistlecrack seemed to be ‘finished’ and he came here and ran a great race to finish 2nd. I think he lost to Clan Des Obeaux that year and he seemed to grow wings whenever he came here despite not always showimg his form elsewhere.
That could be against the market principles if nothing else.
Banbridge was tackling it for first time over fences, 1 not very good hurdle run over it previously.
I’m excited for the race, should be a cracker hopefully. Hoping whatever happens a few of them go for Gold in March not the Ryanair. This should be a Gold Cup trial after all. If F2F wins it, sure the owner has the reigning champ in the division but it would be Willie’s best dart so maybe it happens still.
