Bally Conn

Headstrong said:
......her current record may be showing the folly of not paying enough attention to the lesser lights which keep the bread and butter coming in
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That's clearly untrue as her income per horse (in terms of fees) is as high as any trainer in the country with the possible exception of Paul Nicholls. Not that she's immune from criticism by any means, but she doesn't tend to lose horses she isn't happy to see go. That may very well be a genuine fault, but she is what she is and that is a consistent attitude.
 
The point I'm making is that some trainers take a lot of trouble to ensure that even the moderate horses in their yard - and let's face it that is the majority for most trainers - find the right race and win races at their level. I have heard criticism of Hen on that score, from people in a position to take a view - which I'm not, I've never had a share in one there.

Agreed if you make no secret that what you are about is training horses to win or be placed at top level, then fine; and I've no doubt she is quick to advise getting rid of the 'no-hopers'. It's certainly a consistent way of operating, and ther eare only so many boxes in a yard.

But the competition is ferocious at that level now and I wonder if she has quite kept up to speed in that respect - does she have the owners to compete in that sphere any more or should she be putting more effort into the lesser lights? It's just a question, in the light of her lower profile in the last couplke of seasons, and using Bally Conn as a soemwhat glaring example. I only know if I were in your position I'd feel a bit peeved!
 
Fair enough points in general Headstrong. I'd point out that it's not keeping horses which can win at the top level which is the issue with Hen (let's face it, she has virtually nothing which is capable of competing in championship races at the moment), but rather keeping horses which stick to her script for them. It seems that once something looks like it might not be winning the races she envisaged it will, she loses patience with them quite quickly. The fact that many of these horses are subsequently able to show form literally stones in advance of that shown in her care raises significant questions about the effectiveness of her current regime. Bally Conn is far from an unusual example of a horse totally transformed by a switch from West Lockinge.
 
I agree with you Rory, Hen has never been a numbers trainer and five or 6 seasons ago was 'pound for pound' one of the best going. I don't know what factors are behind her downfall, I just know that she's clearly not having the success she was and it's not necessarily down to the material she's got, as Nick Williams showed as another example with Maljimar.
 
Many yards have a policy of paring down at the end of the season and recommending to owners that their horse be sold if they don't feel that they are performing the way the trainer [and staff] feel they should be performing. This is mainly to make way for a new batch of stores/yearlings since space is often sparse (as long as owners' wallets not being bottomless!) and in the ongoing effort of every trainer to improve the quality of their string and the level at which their horses compete. Why do you think that every year the HiT sales at Donny and to a lesser degree Ascot have job lots from NH yards in the spring/early summer and the HiT sales at Tatts and Donny in October contain job lots from flat yards?

Let's face it, if an owner is paying a lot of money in training fees (and Hen would be near top end) they'd rather have their trainer be honest and recommend they sell if the animal is disappointing and shows no sign of reversing that, rather than to continue to pay through the nose for training fees for a horse which isn't fulfilling expectations.

As it was, 'Connor' is for whatever reason much happier in himself at Martil Hill's - I believe a large part of that is the back problem discovered with him and the change of daily routine, allied with going to a smaller yard where he can receive more one to one attention. Some horses also improve for going to a yard where the horses are maybe not as good as the horses where he is originally from; a lack of confidence in a horse should not be understimated which is why it is so important to let horses win pieces of work and not get thumped with regularity - they tend to give up then. Some horses, in a switch like this, can gain confidence and enjoy being a bigger fish in a smaller pond, so to speak.
 
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When I saw Best Mate in the parade ring the day he won the Lexus Chase I thought he was physically the most magnificent NH thoroughbred I had ever seen and it influenced me to take a share in Bally Conn. Henrietta Knight had a deserved reputation for looking after her horses, schooling them well and giving them time.

My impression now is that Best Mate and Hen were a perfect match. He was a horse that didn't need too much scrubbing to get fit and held his condition really well. Thus he benefited from Hen's regime of bringing horses along carefully and, dare I say, gently and he repayed her patience with three Gold Cups. Denman's run on Saturday is a further reminder of just what an achievement that was.

Of course, there have been other horses that have done really well at West Lockinge, but there have also been plenty of examples of horses doing better after they have left there. I think that Hen does well with a particular type of horse but I wouldn't call her versatile.

I doubt she studies race conditions and the form book at night and she doesn't send horses to tracks outside a relatively short geographical range. You won't see her running horses in Sedgefield sellers or Market Rasen claimers, or switching between hurdles and fences to exploit old handicap marks.

Her training is geared to producing a Best Mate or an Edredon Bleu but not every horse benefits from this approach or has the potential to be a star.

Her advice to sell Bally Conn was sincerely offered and, from her point of view, was largely correct. Even if she got him back to being fit and well he would not have been found the same opportunities by the Knight stable that his new trainer has found for him. Their expertise does not lie in searching for the little fish that Martin Pipe used to find so sweet.
 
The whole Best Mate winning three Gold Cups because of his training regime does not sit well with me.

Firstly I think the trainer (obviously) did a great job to get 3 Gold Cups out of him. But Paul Nicholls has got 3 King Georges (and a Gold Cup) out of Kauto Star, Willie Mullins got Florida Pearl winning Grade 1s from the age of 2 to 23 etc to name but two in recent years. There was absolutely nothing in his race record to suggest Best Mate needed just 3 runs a year...it was/is more likely the case that the trainer herself could or would only risk him on those three occasions. As said elsewhere, he had wonderful conformation, great bone and plenty of substance....he could have taken more racing (as he did in his novice days) but was never asked.
 
Galileo said:
The whole Best Mate winning three Gold Cups because of his training regime does not sit well with me.

Firstly I think the trainer (obviously) did a great job to get 3 Gold Cups out of him. But Paul Nicholls has got 3 King Georges (and a Gold Cup) out of Kauto Star, Willie Mullins got Florida Pearl winning Grade 1s from the age of 2 to 23 etc to name but two in recent years. There was absolutely nothing in his race record to suggest Best Mate needed just 3 runs a year...it was/is more likely the case that the trainer herself could or would only risk him on those three occasions. As said elsewhere, he had wonderful conformation, great bone and plenty of substance....he could have taken more racing (as he did in his novice days) but was never asked.
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That was a great argument until he (a) burst a blood vessel on the gallops building up to his bid for a fourth Gold Cup and then (b) dropped dead on his next start. Sorry to be brutal.
 
rorydelargy said:
That was a great argument until he (a) burst a blood vessel on the gallops building up to his bid for a fourth Gold Cup and then (b) dropped dead on his next start. Sorry to be brutal.
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Horses drop dead every day of the week of heart attacks etc for various reasons. Wasn't the reason for him bursting at home put down to a virus? Horses burst all the time.

So Hen knew the horse had some underlying heart problem and did not race him more often?
 
Galileo said:
Horses drop dead every day of the week of heart attacks etc for various reasons. Wasn't the reason for him bursting at home put down to a virus? Horses burst all the time.

So Hen knew the horse had some underlying heart problem and did not race him more often?
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No offence intended Gal; I was rather crassly referencing the fact that many people actually accused Hen of overracing Best Mate after his demise. I was very much in the "wrapped in cotton wool" camp before that, but the likelihood of bursting and/or heart attack must be increased by the trauma of constant competition at the top level. We should really give Hen the benefit of the doubt in terms of Best Mate imo, since we have no definitive answer.
 
rorydelargy said:
No offence intended Gal; I was rather crassly referencing the fact that many people actually accused Hen of overracing Best Mate after his demise. I was very much in the "wrapped in cotton wool" camp before that, but the likelihood of bursting and/or heart attack must be increased by the trauma of constant competition at the top level. We should really give Hen the benefit of the doubt in terms of Best Mate imo, since we have no definitive answer.
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That's fair enough, none was taken.

If Hen was aware of this problem or another problem then fair enough. But I have never heard of one nor did she ever suggest she was aware of one. My hunch is it was more her than the horse that couldnt take it. I was never one to say he should have ran in a handicap, but never even considering Aintree or Punchestown was criminal.
 
Harry Findlay said last year that Denman had broken Kauto Star in the Gold Cup, that Kauto would never be the same again. It turns out he may also have broken himself in the process. Big races at the top level are extremely demanding.

Best Mate might well have picked up races at Aintree and Punchestown had he been sent there, but it might have been at the cost of at least one of his Gold Cups.
 
I agree with both rory and Grey over Best Mate. Trainers don't alweays make a big deal of a horse's suspected fragility - it tends to sound like making prior excuses. Besides in that case, I think it was an intuition on Hen's part rather than anything diagnosed. And he wasn;t tha told when he died - look what she did with Edredon Bleu. If he had survived and been winning G1s two years later, we would all have applauded her genius and judgment without question.

The Gold Cup is almost as brutal a race as the Grand National, and it's just as hard to win three of them with one horse
 
Can't see how people can criticise the Hen for her campaigning of Best Mate and Nicholls and Mullins achievements with Kauto Star and Florida Pearl don't make her success with Best Mate worth any less.

I would disagree that he could have won what he did with a more aggressive campaign each season. Cornish Rebel and Inca Trail hardly thrived on racing and both ended their careers under rules with Timeform squiggles.
 
Had this discussion yesterday about Inca Trail, Cornish Rebel and Best Mate. The former pair had careers that were not curtailed by death quite possibly because they saved so much for themselves ( out of instinct rather than being 'ungenuine') during their races. I felt that Best Mate started saving for himself after his third gold cup in that I think he was reluctant when he won that special Exeter race against Seebald, and that he did not try in Ireland when he was beaten. He then burst on the gallops during work in preparation for a fourth gold cup in which he would quite possibly have dropped dead had he taken part. I doubt it had much to do with a virus. That last bit of speculation does come with the benefit of mahoosive amounts of hindsight admittedly.

Its always interesting and as I briefly referred to in another thread, that when a full brother to a horse like Silverburn, who often displays wayward reluctant tendencies, has 'heart problems' and then disappoints, is there any correlation between the two? Can Silverburn's disappointments be forgiven when taking into account he has a full brother who wobbled after winning a Gold Cup, so hard did he run, and who subsequently has been of ill health and run with indifference back on the track.
 
Grey said:
Harry Findlay said last year that Denman had broken Kauto Star in the Gold Cup, that Kauto would never be the same again. It turns out he may also have broken himself in the process. Big races at the top level are extremely demanding.

Best Mate might well have picked up races at Aintree and Punchestown had he been sent there, but it might have been at the cost of at least one of his Gold Cups.
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Findlay's statement last year showed no class. As good a punter as Findlay seems to be the difference between Clive Smith and Harry Findlay is clear for all to see.
 
It is interesting is it not that now Nicholls has decided that he has been overracing Kauto Star ( should not have run him in the Betfair )and is limiting him to 3 runs a year !


As for Best Mate whilst it is of course possible that he bottomed himself in the soft ground GC of 2004 he had of course had to battle hard to win his KG under AP against Marlborough and had always given his all.

Furthermore, his virus picked up when going over for the 2004 Lexus was well documented was it not at the time , he also had all those staples in his head , he pulled a muscle slipping after jumping the first and the race was run in a bog against B or S at the height of his form ? So he ran well if he wasn't trying !

The Exeter race might be less easy to explain as he should indeed have beaten Seebald much more easily , it was however first time out , Murphy was riding rather than Culloty, and they didn't go much of a clip .

Moreover , though I suspect BM was indeed known to be much more fragile than it ever seemed when he appeared on the racecourse if they had believed he was at any risk in autumn 2005 they would have retired him . Indeed Brian H after the death of the horse , on here I think, mentioned that he had been working very well including in uphill gallops and that they were pretty excited at Wantage . Hence , whilst it may well be that they knew he was fragile and he might well have bled I very much doubt there was a heart problem they kept from the public.
 
Was not so much all the mitigating circumstances Ardross, just how to me he seemed to be disinterested. I too do not believe that anyone knew he was likely to bleed or that he had a heart problem until such times that they showed themselves, with catastrophic results. All credit to the horse for doing so well.

Many horses, some top class, have these problems and we do not know until it is too late. As such they will save themselves, although sometimes in such a way that it appears it may be sudden emptying due to not staying the trip or pure stubborn dogginess. One Man and Morley Street are two that saved themselves regularly, they knew that if they went too fast for too long it was going to hurt huge, and so they didnt, they would use top gear for a short period and then down tools.
 
All very true. And yes UG, I'm certain you are right that such fragilities as a dickey heart do run in families. I remember when Persian Punch dropped dead - he never saved himself, that one! - a few people mentioned other 'Persians' which had dropped dead of heart failure.

Such weaknesses are genetic in horses as much as in humans - possibly more so as the heart of a horse is such a massive organ, any 'characteristics' for better or worse tend to be very exaggerated

PS ... and remember Detroit City, and the two poor runs before he died.

Though my own feeling after reading up on all that stuff last night, is that Denman might be feeling the secondary effects of the Quininine treatment (forgive my mis-spelling last night!) which is well know for its nasty side-effects - and those woudl not be obvious or show up in any tests.

I become more and more convinced that the thing to do is to turn the horse away and let him put back on the condition he has lost and allow the memories to fade, and the medicine to work out of the system
 
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Interestingly, Nicholls seems to be inclining the same way in this morning's RP - that the horse will not be back to himself until another summer off .
 
Whatever anyone says, and for whatever other faults she may or may not have, it appears that Hen did exactly the right thing with Best Mate. For all the talk directly after the 2007 and 2008 Gold Cups (and hell, the 2006 Gold Cup as well) that so many can't see anything to beat the victor the following year, none have managed to do so as yet, nor is it looking especially good this year for that matter either. It cannot be underestimated how difficult it is to keep any horse, especially a top flight horse, sound for three/four/five/six seasons in a row, nevermind to win three Gold Cups in consecutive seasons.
 
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its a pity folk didn't think like that SL when the horse were winning, most people on the messageboards like TRF had 80% of people knocking the trainer constantly for wrapping the horse in cotton wool...those people may now realise..which they should have done at the time..how hard it is to get to 3 GC's..nevermind win em

poor old Hen..the sh*te she used to take on TRF

now if I search back..would I find that 80% of TH's posters also knocked her?
 
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