Calico Cat

Desert Orchid

Desert Orchid

Senior Jockey
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
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If you had a well-bred, unraced 4yo gelding, bred to stay and act in soft, what programme would you plan for it?

I'd think about bumpers or maidens for a bit of experience and take it from there (but I've never owned any more of a horse than what you'll find in a tube of UHU). If it was really good, prepare it for a valuable handicap, say the Ebor or something like that?

Calico Cat makes his racecourse debut in a reasonably prestigious race against horses with form in G1s. Why? It seems a tad ambitious and if it runs well what will the official handicapper do?

Anyway, it all intrigued me so I thought it was worth emptying what little I had in one account on the beast at 250/1 just in case my reverse logic proves to have some foundation.
 
I couldn't say I got a good run for my money in that CC was never really in it but it certainly stayed on in the ground and might have won in another circuit...
 
Only just seen this, we ran him in the race because we believed he was good enough to take a hand and not disgrace himself and there was good money on offer. He ran up to expectations and given he was so green I would love to take on the winner at Ascot again and wouldn't be at all frightened of doing so.

Hopefully Thirsk's undulating track won't trouble him today, but he is in seriously good nick and he really should be different class to his opposition today.
 
What do you mean by Bouncing, how would he bounce ? That's just a made up theory. Plus he had never run before, so how does bouncing even come into it.

Noble Alan is a jump horse who was never going over this trip on debut, I would be mortified if any of these could beat him, especially Noble Alan.
 
I don't think the bounce is a made up theory at all. I think there's plenty of evidence to support it. It did occur to me that it might not apply following a racecourse debut but there's also the possibility that this might just come too soon after Chester. There's also the possibility that the jockey's inexperience could be a factor. In my view it cost the horse second place last week.

Noble Alan lost that race at the start and wasn't given a hard time. I expect him to leave that form a long way behind and if he can translate his class over jumps to the Flat he'd be on a similar level to CC's Chester form.

But good luck from someone who backed CC at Chester!
 
The bounce wouldn't really apply in this instance DO imo..but to say the bounce is a made up theory is totally incorrect...and it could happen FTO

The theory behind bounce as far as i know is that ..a horse puts in a maximum effort after having a break from running.. its usually a winning effort..but because the horse had no warm up runs..it pushes its exertions to the max in a short period of time..after such an effort..its takes time for the horse to recover. I would imagine it could affect any athlete..hence why top efforts are usually built up to steadily as in most training regimes

i'm surprised that anyone who owns horses can't appreciate this effect...and to deny it exists goes against all training procedures

if it didn't exist then horses wouldn't need warm ups..it would just be aimed at the target race and never run in between...a top horse can be run like that as it will probably have weeks between target races tp recover..whereas lower class horses run more often so are race fit/race exercised... most of the time. Its about asking too much in one go and then not giving enough time for muscles to recover.
 
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"Goes against all training procedures"-that one has me baffled". Plenty of trainers don't believe in the bounce-personally I believe horses get beaten for a variety of reasons that can't be explained and the bounce theory tries to wrap them all up in one neat little theory.
 
LUKE said:
"Goes against all training procedures"-that one has me baffled". Plenty of trainers don't believe in the bounce-personally I believe horses get beaten for a variety of reasons that can't be explained and the bounce theory tries to wrap them all up in one neat little theory.
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a normal training regime is to bring a horse to the boil..asking a horse for a maximum effort after being rested isn't the norm

if this isn't the case then there isn't much point in trials or giving horses runs to keep the edge on them..which is the norm.

muscles need to be toned..a horse that bounces gets the muscles hammered in one maximum effort...hence it takes some getting over
 
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The reason I believe in the bounce is from my own experience playing football at a reasonable amateur level. Playing every saturday or sunday was never an issue but if I tried to play within a week after a particularly physically demanding game I felt alright during the warm-up but ten minutes into the game my legs felt like there was no muscle in them. I think it's something to do with lactic acid but I'm not well-enough read on the matter.
 
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