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A.P.O'Brien.

C

Colin Phillips

Dormant account
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
13,267
Location
Talbot Green
Perfectionist, control freak or does he suffer from a Compulsive Behaviour Disorder?

Not meant to offend it's just that I find his manner and behaviour 'unusual' at times.
 
I think he is a fascinating study mesen

he has all the qualities i quite admire..total devotion to what he does..it means one hell of a lot to him..probably his whole world is racing...very little else matters to him i'll bet.
 
He could certainly learn a bit from the Workforce camp about losing with good grace. He'd have been mightily cheesed off if Stoute had been briefing Press and TV after the race that he hadn't had Workforce where he wanted him, that the defeat was down to trainer error, that the horse was better than that and hadn't given his running. As it was, we just got Grimthorpe: "there are no excuses."
 
Jesus Gus, I'd prefer a trainer to be honest post race than hide it through "grace". The only excuse Workforce had was short trip and ground, both out of the control of the trainer.

As for O'Brien, is he not like McCoy, Dunwoody, Schumacher etc etc, just driven to succeed. Like Woods, you might not like what he has done off the course, but on it he has revolutionised golf and forced the likes of Mickelson to try harder than he was and inspired the likes of McIlroy. I might not enjoy the pressure of working for him, but O'Brien is chief operations officer of a business worth hundreds of millions. I wouldn't hold his perfectionism against him.​
 
I wasnt a big fan of him but nowdays I think he is very good, his job is a difficult one and he has results,

he is a well paid man but he deserves it, to have so many interviews in the year with Nick Luck is a job for a very very patient man.
 
Cantoris said:
Jesus Gus, I'd prefer a trainer to be honest post race than hide it through "grace".
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Fair enough, if you think that his comments after the Royal Ascot race were just him being "honest post race". It came across to me as a refusal to accept that his horse had been beaten fair and square.
​
 
gus said:
Fair enough, if you think that his comments after the Royal Ascot race were just him being "honest post race". It came across to me as a refusal to accept that his horse had been beaten fair and square.​
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That would surely only be the case if you had an inside line that he was as fit as he could be. If he wasn't, which is what O'Brien was suggesting, then it would be a fair comment to suggest that he would come on for the run. The public does operate in a vaccum of information and assumes that everything is right every day they run. As I said, I'd prefer the truth than grace, and you can then make up your own mind. Take Ryan moore, he spoke his mind after the Derby and I dismissed his view. But I'd prefer to hear his opinion and make up my own mind.
 
Grimthorpe's full quote from yesterday was:

"The ground might have been fast enough but there are no excuses."

Not quite as honourable as simply saying there are no excuses - he wants to get an excuse out there whilst also wanting to appear gracious. I'm not knocking him, I'd probably approach it the same way if I had his job!
 
Cantoris said:
As I said, I'd prefer the truth than grace
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So would I but my point is that I don't think we were getting the truth. It was spin. Either he'd been told to get out there and spin the horse's defeat or, more likely, he'd taken it upon himself to do so. Either way, it's quite sad.

And I don't believe that yesterday's result in any way bears out what he said at Ascot. If you take So You Think's runs against Sri Putra at face value - and there's no reason not to - he was the same horse yesterday as he was at the Royal meeting. He provided a target for Rewilding to run at at Ascot and Workforce did the same for him yesterday and there's very little between the three of them at 10f. On another day, SYT could beat Rewilding and Workforce SYT.

As I said, I'd prefer the truth to grace but if we're not going to get it then I'd opt for good grace over bad.
 
gus said:
I don't think we were getting the truth.
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And other than using Sri Putra as your guideline, how do you know that? Then you need to have the inside line on how Sri Putra was at Ascot and Sandown. So more variables. I would start with accepting his statement and then make up your own mind when forming an opinion on the horse for your own purposes (betting or not). But you have absolutely no idea whether he was telling the truth or not. Neither do I or most on here as we have no relationship with the stable. I'm sure there is someone on here who could confirm the position, but we surely don't know. The reason I make the overall point is that having been through it with a horse who needed racing to get fit, it does highlight how little the public actually are told. So when a trainer offers it, I'd accept it and make up my own mind. Nicholls got a fair amount of abuse for telling the "truth" in his column as, for example, a horse won even if he issued a warning on fitness etc.
 
Cantoris said:
And other than using Sri Putra as your guideline, how do you know that?
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I don't know it, of course. It's why I used the word "think".

We're not going to agree. My basic point is that after the Royal Ascot race the focus should have been on the winner. Godolphin, Al Zarooni and Rewilding deserved that moment in the sun. But it wasn't and that was entirely due to the fact that "that day Aidan O'Brien was like a government minister touring the TV studios on damage-limitation duty", as Alastair Down accurately puts it in today's Post.
 
the point is with WF..the reasons for defeat are in the form book..whereas when SYT lost at Ascot there was no reason on earth for any excuses..the price told you everything..they thought would win by 5..he is the second coming etc

AOB should have just said beaten by better horse on day..when a trainer says after a race..wasn't fit enough..its bollocks imo..if he wasn't fit then word would have got out and he would been 2/1
 
I rate SYT 2 pounds lower for his RA racethan the previous one or yesterdays nce.

he is very good , something like 131 but is not a Sea The Stars or Frankel.
 
gus said:
I don't know it, of course. It's why I used the word "think".

We're not going to agree. My basic point is that after the Royal Ascot race the focus should have been on the winner. Godolphin, Al Zarooni and Rewilding deserved that moment in the sun. But it wasn't and that was entirely due to the fact that "that day Aidan O'Brien was like a government minister touring the TV studios on damage-limitation duty", as Alastair Down accurately puts it in today's Post.
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John Magnier also did an interview with ATR blaming a combination of factors.Surely the money for the horse all week was a serious indicator that they believed him to be a bit special.
 
sunybay said:
I rate SYT 2 pounds lower for his RA racethan the previous one or yesterdays nce.

he is very good , something like 131 but is not a Sea The Stars or Frankel.
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If SYT is a 131..that makes Sri Putra a 121..Sri Putra is a horse that has never won above G3 level in this country..has also been beat at G3.

Do you think 121 is high for a horse like Sri Putra Suny..what would the average G3 horse be on your ratings?

Purely on what I have seen SYT is correctly marked on his OHR's at 125/126

when a horse gets to 130+ i tend to think it special..beating a OHR horse 116/117...and thats being generous... by 5.5 lengths doesn't get 130..imo.
 
Surely the money for the horse all week was a serious indicator that they believed him to be a bit special.
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This could also be a cheap way of advertising the hype for the horse. I think Coolmore regularly do this with their good 2 year olds to make them stupid short prices for the Guineas.

Is a seemingly heavily anticipated Eclipse winner worth more at stud than one that was a pleasant surprise to connections? It's probably marginal, breeders seem to be fairly unsophisticated form readers. How much will it cost Coolmore? Probably nothing as knowing what runs where can often compensate for taking a few spots under the "real" price on other occasions.
 
I think the ground did for WF in the final furlong . I would be far from sure SYT would have beaten him on proper good ground.
 
Personally I didn't think there was any evidence of either Workforce hating the ground or So You Think needing it. In the unlikely event that they meet over 10 furlongs on good ground it will be in the Irish Champion stakes when a half length form difference would only be a minor factor to who comes out on top then.
 
Melendez,

I disagree with you slightly. I think that Workforce is a better horse with a bit of cut. So You Think looks like a real fast ground beast. EC1 has put up a coherent rationale for this viewpoint, both before and after Saturday's race.

However, I am not sure with the same fellow's assertion that SYT would bet beaten by the Arc winner over 12f. Both horses look like 12f horses.

Suny's assessment is a good one. So You Think is a genuine Group 1 horse, Around 130 or so on RPR. Consistent. But he is no once-in-a-decade champ like Sea the Stars.
 
You misunderstand my main point, that being that Ardross was wrong about the Eclipse, and whatever provisio's he now decides to include post race, he can never be right about this year's Eclipse again, regardless of any future events.

Workforce went through with his effort in the manner of a horse who didn't mind the ground, I didn't see anything in SYT's run that would give me any concern about him showing similar form on good ground. If they meet again over 10 furlongs on good ground, Workforce might win, it might or might not be due to the ground.
 
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Bar the Bull said:
I think that Workforce is a better horse with a bit of cut.
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Didn't Workforce win a Derby on fast ground by 7 lengths in super-fast time? What exactly are the chances of a horse doing that who doesn't like fast ground? Timeform now have Workforce running to 131 or more on three occasions - two of them on what they consider to be Good To Firm ground. Again, what are the chances of a horse being capable of that kind of form on ground he doesn't like? Are you expecting him to improve (significantly?) when he gets to run on softer ground again?
 

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