Bill Ratcliffe's Bel Cantor

S

Sara

At the Start
Joined
Jul 25, 2006
Messages
3,731
Biggest career wins for all three of Bill Ratcliffe, Bel Cantor and Kelly Harrison in the Ripon Cathedral Handicap

Bel Cantor is by a fairly poor and certainly unfashionable sire, Largesse - mind you he probably never gets a decent mare! But Bel is a sound horse who loves his racing and Bill has handled him superbly - he's still improving at 5. Bill's an intelligent 'modern' trainer who does well with his cheap buys - I'd really love to see what he could do with a 'proper' horse as I think he's a very good trainer indeed with huge potential
 
Interesting that this winner on good to firm at Pontefract earlier in the year was withdrawn because of unsuitable ground (good, good to firm in places) at Chester yesterday. For information purposes, he had been due to race from stall 11 in a 14-runner race.
 
DJ

I'm actually coming round to thinking Bel Cantor is better on faster ground anyway... He obviously acts well on heavy (which a lot of other horses don't) but I reckon his best form is on fast ground.

I agree though - the self-certs have pretty much allowed trainers to withdraw horses who are poorly drawn. In fairness, as an owner, it is an expensive business sending a horse to the races and sending a sprinter to run from a high number at CHester is akin to flushing a few hundred quid down to the toilet.

I repeat what I have said elsewhere about Chester - they should reduce the safety limit to 10 at the track and try to stage 8 race cards. It would stop all this nonsense with NRs and might actually help to prevent pile-ups like we saw yesterday in the staying handicap.
 
Wouldn't argue with that tdk, thought yesterday was very much his cup final. Rarely will you come across a 16-runner sprint with such a paucity of front-runners, and those that were all ended up on the wrong side. I thought Swift Princess did really well in the circumstances.
 
I wouldn't blame Bill in the least for preferring the gig at Ripon - Bel is the first horse he bought, and his 'showcase' horse, and it's important he carries the flag as high as possible for the yard - preferably in the North where he trains [Bolton Hall]
 
Back
Top