2018 Gold Cuppin'

Possibly. A decent man and trainer but I just don't have him down as being great at targeting specific races although that is obviously more difficult with Eddie O'Leary pulling your chain.
 
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archie said:
I'm very much warming to Road To Respect at 10/1 nrnb bog. Seems to be still improving, handles any going, 3rd top OR behind Might Bite (given 169 for beating 151 Double Shuffle) and Sizing John (under a cloud). I'd freely admit that either of those could turn in a monster performance on the day but I think that RTR is a good ew price. If only he had a different trainer!
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This what they forget Archie. He deserved the 162 he got for beating Whisper as he would have beaten him a 151 horse by about 10 lengths.

But the handicapper is a joke at times because if a horse is on the way up into the big time he could beat Paddy McGinty's goat in a King George and he will penalise you.

How on earth can he have justified 169 for beating Double Shuffle 1 length? The 3rd horse Tea For Two was beaten over 100 lengths in his two previous races and Thistlecrack is totally out of form

I wonder what he thought when Tea For two came out and ran to about -10 being pulled up just after halfway. Double Shuffle IMO wont run to his new mark of 166 as long as his a$$ is pointing backwards
 
I think we're agreeing, Tanlic, but as I said, I wouldn't put it past Might Bite to do 169 on the day. I just see Road To Respect's form as solid and on an upward curve.
 
Does 166 flatter Double Shuffle? A little, but not much. Frodon is off 164 now after his demolition job at Cheltenham recently (154 won by 17L) and DS was a couple of lengths ahead of that horse in the Amlin in receipt of 4lbs.
 
Euronymous said:
Does 166 flatter Double Shuffle? A little, but not much. Frodon is off 164 now after his demolition job at Cheltenham recently (154 won by 17L) and DS was a couple of lengths ahead of that horse in the Amlin in receipt of 4lbs.
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Oh Please man c'mon Frodon was totally out of form.. I had this shyte when Grassy put up Fox Norton/Altior when the horse was a s big as a barn door wasn't off a yard.

Use you brain man..Frodon was beaten 25 lengths by Black Corton then 10 1/2 lengths by Top Notch in between times Might Bight only manged to beat him by 8 length so are we to believe that Black Corton will beat Top Notch by 14 1/2 length in the Gold Cup.

166 is a joke for a horse who at best has never ran to anything like that in his life who Top Notch treated with total contempt.

The King George as I said before the race was Shyte and Might Bite has a mountain to climb when he meets Sizng John Native River and co.

BTW I have Might Bite in all my Chelt accies so I am rooting for him but he's not the good thing people are making out he is....This Gold Cup is leaps and Pounds above anything he has faced to date and NJH will tell you the same
 
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Tanlic said:
Oh Please man c'mon Frodon was totally out of form.. I had this shyte when Grassy put up Fox Norton/Altior when the horse was a s big as a barn door wasn't off a yard.

Use you brain man..Frodon was beaten 25 lengths by Black Corton then 10 1/2 lengths by Top Notch in between times Might Bight only manged to beat him by 8 length so are we to believe that Black Corton will beat Top Notch by 14 1/2 length in the Gold Cup.
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Frodon clearly need the race when he got beat by a race fit Black Corton, it was his first outing of the season and that's why I didn't use it when I outlined the case for Double Shuffle's rating.
 
When Tanlic is using Tea for two to crab the King George form because he got beat a long way at Haydock that's pretty much game over as a sensible conversation. Using that logic Outlander was right next to him so every horse in Ireland is practically f'd !

Ridiculous.

I would agree to the extent that the King George form isn't probably world beater form however comparable to everything else it's probably the best on offer atm.

Double Shuffle is the best value in the Gold cup by a country mile.
 
Best of luck to you, Danny, but I can't accept a 3rd season chaser suddenly improving by over a stone. I tend to think it's the Kempton factor (where he has a good record) and Kempton is the definition of the opposite of Cheltenham.
 
I'll post full thoughts on the matter when I get chance Archie and I see your point about a 3rd season chaser suddenly improving however there are possible reasons why. He's been a different horse since headgear was applied just simply better all round. The King George was only his 3rd try at a 3mile trip admittedly all around Kempton. To my eye the horse is an out and out stayer I actually think he'd get 4 miles no problem at all. He does though lack gears and its evident in all of his races he always travels well but when a pace quickens he's flat footed and it takes him a while to pick up. It wouldn't surprise me if they ran him over 2m4f next week that he could get beat by an average handicapper in a slow paced race it wouldn't worry me one jot. He's finished 3rd I think in a close brothers at the festival and whilst not form that could be taken seriously at this level it was form as good as anything he was doing at the time and also anything he's ever done over that trip which suggests to me he has no problem handling the track and when he gets chance to run over his best trip there I think he will exceed what he's done in the King George. I also feel Might bite will also improve on what he's done in the King George given better ground and is a worthy favourite.

TBF if anyone watches the Replay of the King George back you'd be entitled to think that if Double shuffle hadn't made a bit of a hash of the second last he'd have got even closer to Might Bite. Given the way he was staying on at the end you'd think a bit further and a stiffer trip would suit.

Granger was mentioning about his conversation with Double Handful about value the other day. Given the fact that Might Bight is around 7/2. Killutagh Vic is 10/1 last seen hitting the deck in a race where we can't even be sure he'd have won Sizing John is around 8's last seen finishing distressed. Coney Island 12's last seen winning a 3 runner Graduation chase. Disko 25's hasn't even been seen ! Bristol de fking Mai 33/1 FFS what will it take.

Double Shuffle 40/1 3 places 1/4 odds NRNB

A place returns a 9/2 on outlay which is more than you can get about Might bite winning and I for one think Double Shuffle has more than a punchers chance of hitting the bullseye !

Just getting in the spirit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZtczjQ9szo
 
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Danny said:
When Tanlic is using Tea for two to crab the King George form because he got beat a long way at Haydock that's pretty much game over as a sensible conversation. Using that logic Outlander was right next to him so every horse in Ireland is practically f'd !

Ridiculous.

I would agree to the extent that the King George form isn't probably world beater form however comparable to everything else it's probably the best on offer atm.

Double Shuffle is the best value in the Gold cup by a country mile.
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WTF are you going on about. You're the very man who told us Tea For Two would have to find loads on his best form to be involved and he finished right up Might Bite's ass

I'm not making up thing as I go along I stated clearly that I thought the race was crap before it was run......You told us Might Bite would win by air miles or something

The King George is famous for horses collapsing in a heap and being tailed off which may open a door for EW punters

I could see BDM folding and stopping like shot, Fox Norton can't possibly get the trip, Thistlecrack a def PU candidate if his last performance is anything to go by, Whisper won't get away with jumping errors round here which leaves an opportunity for Double Shuffle or T42 to pick up a place at big odds

That what I said and as it turns out that is exactly what happened but that said anyone with half a brain knew the race lacked quality with so many negs against the favs bar MB

All I am saying now is Might Bite will find the Gold Cup much tougher if Native River and Sizing John get there in one piece plus the Irish have an uncanny habit of one of their lessers running abig one.

As for Double Shuffle this is not a picnic at Kempton Park this is the hardest race on the toughest course imaginable and one of the toughest races to even be placed in. Double Shuffle will think he's gone into orbit and will be tailed off IMO and he could be 1000/1 and I wouldn't have 2 cents on him......be the biggest shock since Foinavon if he were in the 3
 
The Biter is not only winning his races with ease, the form is being franked by those behind.

He has little to fear from a Sizing John who is woefully out-of-sorts, and even less to concern himself with from a one-paced plodder like Native River.

I can’t fathom why people would think Tizzard’s campaign for NR is shrewd, when the horse thrived on racing last season. I don’t care how fresh he is for Cheltenham, he won’t be able to go the Biter’s gallop, and will be a staying-on for the Place scraps, alongside Our Duke and Minella Rocco.
 
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You got a funny idea about winning races with ease........almost fooked up at Cheltenham was all out at Aintree and was dying a dozen deaths at Kempton against a 151 rated horse who has caused an uproar on twitter with his new rating which is complete nonsense
 
I'm a huge fan of the biter (and I've got 14s and 12s for the Gold Cup) but does he really win with ease, GH?

I do believe he is a class apart from the current bunch of likely rivals. With Whisper up to 169 and Henderson acknowledging MB is "yards and yards" superior what must MB's true level be?

In my review of last year's RSA I rated him a bare minimum 4lbs (as value for a bare minimum six-lengths win - I would not contest ten lengths but Whisper did stay on well) superior. Ten lengths would be 7-8lbs. I'm absolutely fine with that. So, a ball-park figure of 175?

I would not be in the least bit surprised if MB is a 180+ horse. But I'm not sure we've quite seen it yet, and the closest he's been to it is probably last year's race on King George day.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Edwulf's new OR 164.

I think that would have been enough for a place in last year's Gold Cup.
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Did you bother to look first... BDM and Champagne West who you were touting last year I believe Add to that Djakadam and Outlander they were all rated higher than Edwulf and never got placed.
 
Had me worried there DO I thought you meant last years King George but I assume you meant that run in the Kauto Star? I'd agree with that or even his 20 lengths annihilation of Whisper until he stopped to talk to the people half way up the hill
 
This is directed at no-one in particular, but for absolute clarity, The Biter is an indolent, bone-idle, shi*tehouse, who had a bundle left in the tank at Kempton, and if a horse had come to his quarters, he would simply have ran on again. In the RSA, he basically stopped to a walk after veering 40 yards across the course, giving-up a 15L lead in the process, and STILL managed to get back up to win on the line....from a horse who went on to finish second in a Hennessy off a rating of 161 two races later.

People who are rating Might Bite through the King George lens, are looking under the wrong rock, as far as I'm concerned.

This is so obvious to me, that I find it mildly astonishing that people hark back to Kempton, and use that easy (yes, in real terms it was easy) 1L victory, to hold him down. Rate him instead through the RSA and the Whisper form-line, and the only concern for the Gold Cup, is a repeat of last year's antics. As I said earlier in the thread, it's my belief that the only horse than can really beat Might Bite is Might Bite. I am utterly unconcerned about any of the opposition he is likely to meet.
 
Grasshopper said:
In the RSA, he basically stopped to a walk after veering 40 yards across the course, giving-up a 15L lead in the process, and STILL managed to get back up to win on the line....from a horse who went on to finish second in a Hennessy off a rating of 161 two races later.
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Nothing I like better than seeing people defend their views with conviction :)

Where I disagree with you - and would invite you to have another look at the recording - is that in the RSA Might Bite's lead was diminishing from the home turn. I'll come back to that in a minute.

I find it hard to get a decent measure of his lead three out due to the camera angle and lack of suitable markers but I'd say when NdB turn the gas up MB probably went 15 clear. It was close to that turning for home but it was down to 12 two out and ten at the last, which is why I've gone conservative with my calcs. For rough calculations, I allow two lengths per stride. It allows me to get a better idea of what eased-down winners or placed horses might have up their sleeve. For example, if a horse is ten strides clear at the last but eased down for a five-length win I can, with a fair degree of confidence, rate it value for 20 lengths.

However, to come back to that diminishing lead, I do wonder if NdB tried to kill them off a bit too soon. Obviously it worked as he still won despite trying to sign some autographs on the run-in. And I agree that he couldn't have been all-out to have rallied the way he did. It's why I say I believe he probably is a 180+ animal. But he obviously has his quirks, which you freely acknowledge.

I'm off now to review Simon Rowlands's sectional debrief from last year. I have a lot of time for his interpretations of how a race panned out. It may well be that the sectionals suggest that if MB had waited a furlong before delivering his kick he might well have won by 15 or more.
 
Might Bite had already started to idle between the last two, DO. He wasn’t doing a stroke, and Whsiper was at full tilt. The Biter is definitely value for more than the margin you give him, imo, and that’s ignoring him getting back-up from an effective standing-start in the last furlong.

He will doubtless be something of a roller-coaster ride for backers, but there isn’t a horse in the race that worries me.
 
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