Cheltenham Race Reviews

Desert Orchid said:
Simply playing along with the mad genius tag Slim so kindly conferred upon me.

Aramon was not ridden to win the County, in my opinion. Either that or Townend is a complete and utter clown of a jockey who got a possible winner well beaten. Which is more likely? Or is it a bit of both? I've detailed the ride he got elsewhere.
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Willie briefly suggested he was too high in the weights after the race. But let's be honest which horse would Willie have wanted to win?
 
Desert Orchid said:
Simply playing along with the mad genius tag Slim so kindly conferred upon me.

Aramon was not ridden to win the County, in my opinion. Either that or Townend is a complete and utter clown of a jockey who got a possible winner well beaten. Which is more likely? Or is it a bit of both? I've detailed the ride he got elsewhere.
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The ride simply made no difference to the result. Do you think he seriously could have won if ridden differently?
 
Desert Orchid said:
And I'm pretty confident Aramon would have beaten SR if they'd really wanted him to....
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I’m sorry, DO, but this is tin-foil hat nonsense, based on nothing more than a hunch that connections didn’t want to win a Festival race, with no motive offered to back it up.

It totally lacks credibility, and you probably want to forget the race for a while, and look at it again in a few weeks/months, when you will perhaps have a clearer perspective.

I say this with all due respect. :thumbsup:
 
Grasshopper said:
I’m sorry, DO, but this is tin-foil hat nonsense, based on nothing more than a hunch that connections didn’t want to win a Festival race, with no motive offered to back it up.

It totally lacks credibility, and you probably want to forget the race for a while, and look at it again in a few weeks/months, when you will perhaps have a clearer perspective.

I say this with all due respect. :thumbsup:
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He was joking.
 
I have to be honest and accept that I might be making myself look like a complete idiot to some/many/everybody (delete according to your own opinion) but I wasn't entirely joking.

I can see no reason to believe that Aramon was there to win given the ride he got. If he was there to win he got a totally incompetent ride. Wasn't there another ride earlier in the week in which Townend did exactly the same thing? (When I get the chance I'll look back through his rides to see what triggered the thought.)

Aramon was ridden from the rear and out wide. Whenever I see that I start to wonder.

Saint Roi started towards the rear but by the second light was in midfield while Aramon remained at the back and out wide. Was the jockey told to ride like that? Or is he just incompetent?

In mitigation, he rode Burning Venture in the Triumph exactly the same way but, perhaps tellingly, he admitted later he was riding to pick up some place money and the collapse of Goshen and pace presented him with a winning opportunity. Any half-competent jockey should have realised by halfway in the County that the pace was nowhere near as fast as the Triumph and that a pace collapse was highly unlikely.

Coming down the hill to two out, Aramon closed to within a couple of lengths of Saint Roi who was now closing down on the pace but when they straightened up he was soon left five lengths behind again. By the time they got to the last he was just about on terms with the other four across the track but came away from the flight at least two lengths down. I haven't been able to find a camera angle to explain it. I'm more inclined to believe he was just slower over the flight than anything sinister. At that point his chance had gone as the winner quickened clear and he did very well to pick up and pass the other three up the hill.

He was most certainly not ridden efficiently in the circumstances. I was originally merely questioning whether it was by poor jockeyship or design.

I am not prepared to state categorically that he would have won with a better ride. I believe he might have won but I also suspect Saint Roi wasn't hard pressed to win and may have been too good regardless.

This, in turn, leads me to wonder if the yard thought the same and felt their best course of action was to ride Aramon for second - which he only just made due to the poor ride/pace judgment - but at the end of the day the plan succeeded.

Townend proved how good he can be later in the day when riding Monkfish from the front and near the inside rail. He isn't a Paul-Moloney-one-dimensional-hold-up-eejit-type.

I'll be taking all these notes along to my appointment with my shrink on Monday :)
 
Slim said:
Has anyone watched the race back for how he jumped? The worry was that the jumping would leave him too far off the pace but the ride was a bit over the top to say the least.
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He gave her every chance but simply didn't have the horse beneath him. She simply picked up the pieces late on. Staggered the ride here is even in question.
 
Frankel said:
He gave her every chance but simply didn't have the horse beneath him. She simply picked up the pieces late on. Staggered the ride here is even in question.
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On Relegate ?!?!! You must be watching a different sport than the rest of us.

There's coming from off the pace, then there's coming from the clouds and then there's the ride Townend gave Relegate.

Was far far far far too far off the pace and absolutely, without any shadow of a doubt, did NOT give the horse the best chance possible of winning, or at least finishing closer in the race.
 
Relegate was on and off it. The horse might not be in love with the game anymore.
 
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Double Handful said:
On Relegate ?!?!! You must be watching a different sport than the rest of us.

There's coming from off the pace, then there's coming from the clouds and then there's the ride Townend gave Relegate.

Was far far far far too far off the pace and absolutely, without any shadow of a doubt, did NOT give the horse the best chance possible of winning, or at least finishing closer in the race.
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Watch the race back and watch Relegate only.
Between the 5th and 6th!
Seriously she wouldn't have won with 5 legs.

The first two looked good on paper and that is how it proved.
 
Slim said:
Relegate was on and off it. The horse might not be in love with the game anymore.
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But even pre injury and year long absence, she was always like that. Biggest asset is how much she finds for pressure.

IMO, Being on and off it was in keeping with the horses priors. And that wasn't the reason she didn't finish closer.

Townend had never ridden the horse before and simply didn't make enough use of her early enough and was too far back for too long in the race.
 
Frankel said:
Watch the race back and watch Relegate only.
Between the 5th and 6th!
Seriously she wouldn't have won with 5 legs.

The first two looked good on paper and that is how it proved.
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Believe me , I've watched it!! I was on at 50/1 and in finding that bet I watched all her previous races in great detail.

As I've just said above, a very common trait in almost all her races is that she finds loads for pressure. I never expected her to cruise into contention on the bit!

I'm 100% sure that Townend did not get after her hard enough or early enough, on top of having a bad position at the very back of a 20+ runner field, in an ultra competitive festival H'Cap.

I'd agree that the front 2 were very good, and I think it is fair to say Relegate might not have won regardless. But for me it's unequivocal that she got a poor ride and should have finished a lot closer than she did.
 
Frankel said:
How were Wicklow Brave and Arctic Fire ridden when winning the County?
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I backed both of them on the day.

They were ridden brilliantly :lol:

Seriously though, I also backed William Henry in last year's Coral Cup. He was also ridden out the back and wide and the only reason he won was because Patrick Mullins was over-confident on WB. I'd have been spitting blood if I'd backed WB. I'd suggest, though, that WH couldn't go the pace early. I don't imagine a horse rated 154, as Aramon was this time last year, would have struggled with the pace in the County last week. Hell, I wouldn't have struggled with that pace.

Early possies for the first ten home last week:

St Roi - mid-div
Aramon - behind
Embittered - tracked leaders
BMUBC - towards rear of midfield
E Belle - mid-div
Moon OG - mid-div
Thatsy - towards rear
Beat TJ - mid-div
Sir V - tracked leaders
Moh - in touch, tracked leaders

The frontrunners were well beaten, suggesting a good pace but those following it dominated the finish, suggesting they were best-placed tactically. Only Aramon and Thatsy got into the race from the back. Whether they were unable to go the pace or were badly ridden is the question. I haven't looked closely at Thatsy but I've looked at Aramon several times now and I've concluded that he was badly ridden.
 
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I too thought Townend was nonchalent on Relegate and his performance was compounded in that the trainer is trying to rescramble up the greasy pole and the mare is the only serious ammunition he has at this point. A win or closer place would have been hugely significant for CA Murphy. That's why I was surprised Hayes, (hungrier) got off.

That said, my biggest collect of the week and the one that dug me out of a hole was Ferny Hollow on whom I thought he was masterful. FH is trained by WPM and owned by Chevely Park.
 
Double Handful said:
Believe me , I've watched it!! I was on at 50/1 and in finding that bet I watched all her previous races in great detail.

As I've just said above, a very common trait in almost all her races is that she finds loads for pressure. I never expected her to cruise into contention on the bit!

I'm 100% sure that Townend did not get after her hard enough or early enough, on top of having a bad position at the very back of a 20+ runner field, in an ultra competitive festival H'Cap.

I'd agree that the front 2 were very good, and I think it is fair to say Relegate might not have won regardless. But for me it's unequivocal that she got a poor ride and should have finished a lot closer than she did.
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Well at least you collected nicely on the place.

She had a nice enough position approaching the 6th not too far off the first two. She was slow away from it and lost ground there.
She was hardly full of running at the end and was held on the line.

I can imagine the scenes if the first two were not in the race. Spencer wouldn't have got out alive!
 
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