Flat Season 2020

Marb said:
I have scanned the races and Sunday looks a great card to dissect. Will the improving filly from last season (Hereby) run in the Lancashire Oaks?
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Love the horses profile. Stepped up from the handicaps and with the benefit of another season can hopefully upset the favourite to win today.

I have had to back the battle hardened Withhold today at 5/1. If he comes back to his best form he can go close.
 
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Cracking performance again by Ghaiyyath. Enable and Japan ran well over trip just too short now. But the winner has really matured into a stunner.
 
I couldn't understand why he wasn't favourite. Appleby said a while back he only lost three kilos at Newmarket and came out of the race very well. I love enable but could never have fancied her today but she still ran very well in what was a genuinely hot race.

Very much looking forward to the sectional analyses.

The next time they meet - if indeed they do - will be electric.
 
Isn't Enable only as good as her form entitles her to be, and no better, despite what all media seems to suggest for the last three years.
 
On my figures she's a brilliant horse but so is Ghaiyyath. She was always going to have her work cut out today against a fully fit, in-form Ghaiyyath and she's done well to beat Japan despite being short of peak fitness. She'll leave this form behind in due course.
 
She was too far off the winner, not quite fit or not. Dettori far too confident he would pull the winner in, or told don't worry about it if you don't win, didn't give her a hard time from quite a way out. She's a brilliant horse, the fact she was beaten today takes nothing away from her.
 
You know what I think does take away from her greatness: how often she doesn't come out as the best horse at the weights. That Enable was receiving three pounds from the winner today is never mentioned - just like crystal ocean last year. Whether the weight concession is justified is a different argument.
 
Her greatness is not performance but her CV and consistency.
You know she will rock up and run her race.
 
A cracking day's racing.
That Eclipse was as good a race as expected; Mishriff won a decent race , and from family of Invincible Spirit and Kodiac will have plenty of suitors for stud; Donnacha training the French Oaks winner aged 21, surely a record .
Shame it all behind closed doors !
 
HawkWing said:
You know what I think does take away from her greatness: how often she doesn't come out as the best horse at the weights. That Enable was receiving three pounds from the winner today is never mentioned - just like crystal ocean last year. Whether the weight concession is justified is a different argument.
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Is wfa a different argument too, then?

Winning an open G1 by more than a length and a half accounts for the gender allowance.

She won the 2017 King George by 4.5L, following it up in the Yorkshire Oaks by beating two rated 118 and 116 into third and fourth by 5.25L and 6L, then won the Arc by 2.5L.

In the 2019 King George she overcame a very poor trip through the race and was value for far more than the winning margin. In the Arc she never got the race run to suit and her run can be upgraded too.

I don't necessarily disagree in principle with your premise but I think we need to look beyond the headline stats.
 
Cherry picking and excuses to suit a narrative. Yorkshire oaks third and fourth selected, poor trip, value for far more than the all out head she won etc.

She is a fine animal, ranking up there with crystal ocean, japan and sea of class.
 
HawkWing said:
Cherry picking and excuses to suit a narrative. Yorkshire oaks third and fourth selected, poor trip, value for far more than the all out head she won etc.

She is a fine animal, ranking up there with crystal ocean, japan and sea of class.
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Agree entirely with DO - she beat Crystal Ocean cosily and ,had she not chased Ghaiyyath and Magical both of whom ended up beaten out of sight , she would have won the Arc.

I tend to agree with G-G’s second suggestion - she was dropped out despite breaking best of all - last year when fitter she sat second - she had to make six or seven lengths up on him and made five before being given a very easy time in the final furlong.
 
HawkWing said:
Cherry picking and excuses to suit a narrative. Yorkshire oaks third and fourth selected, poor trip, value for far more than the all out head she won etc.

She is a fine animal, ranking up there with crystal ocean, japan and sea of class.
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You've been on here 11 years, HW. You should know if I cherry pick I tend to acknowledge it as the basis of humour. The third and fourth were selected because they (along with the fifth, if memory serves) appeared to run to their relative marks. Crystal Ocean is/was a 127/128 animal and Japan could reach that level later this season. Enable was comfortably better than them, admittedly in receipt of the allowance.

You're also probably long enough on here to know that I'm a perennial decrier of Dawn Run whenever she gets a mention. I don't go overboard about a horse if I don't have figures to justify it. I believe Enable has figures to justify her status although I myself get annoyed when the TV people go OTT with the gush-pish. On the plus side, when they do you can get 5/2 about certainties like Ghaiyyath :)
 
And apparently Dettori went too soon in last year's arc and the arc is the aim and midsummer isn't the time to judge her coughwaldgeistcough. An imagine superiority. She is good - as talented as Japan and Crystal Ocean. Everything else is hype for the good of the sport. If she was the superstar that media would have you believe she would be beating Ghayyaith (better off a long break, sandown not suiting his style before the race) and Japan in receipt of weight.
 
How was enable comfortably better than Japan who "could reach 127/128 later in this season" when she finished upsides him yesterday and was 2l ahead of him in last year's arc.

Complete nonsense. I'm saying she is as talented as Japan. You wouldn't think that's all she is from the hype.
 
The notion Enable won the King George last year cosily is amusing. The great thing about the finish was that she put it all on the line and Frankie said as much.
Given the trip she had you could be generous and say that was the weight she was getting off the 2nd.
 
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Apologies, HW. I over-read your criticism of her. I thought you were dissing her as nothing out of the ordinary in a more negative sense but I see that it is more literal than that.

My own ratings tend at the top level to be about 5lbs below Timeform's, for example, and I tend to be disappointed when any G1 winner doesn't hit 126 on my figures (123 for fillies). Over the years, not anywhere near as many fillies run better than 123 as colts do 126 so when Enable comes along and gets into the high 120s on my figures I'm inclined to give her credit for being good.

I agree about the TV people's hype. I hate it but I hate all the gushing, cloying, vomit-inducing sycophancy they shower on horses and people. I have no idea why the producers think that makes for good TV.
 
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Totally agree with the lat paragraph, DO.

Here she is The Queen - "my arse".

Nothing wrong with appreciating and praising a good/ very good/ excellent horse but less hyperbole , please.
 
And you know when they overdo the gushing, the horse figured will then get beaten. It’s always happened. Denman v Kauto Star?
 
None of this should detract from the fact that it was a very good Eclipse.

Yesterday at Sandown was the best card so far outside of royal Ascot, supported by interesting handicaps at Haydock and the French classics.
 
There are few things more dreary in horse racing than tall poppy syndrome.

In the 2019 KG Enable came from way back after another nasty spoiling ride given to Hunting Horn and in the final furlong Dettori gave her one tap and she was always holding Crystal Ocean.

I recorded the whole programme of both 2019 & 2020 Eclipse and to my eye she looked a good deal tighter last year when she sat second than this . She was asked a very big question yet still got to within a length of Ghaiyyath before tiring close home . It was an excellent effort .

As for the 2019 Arc look at what happened to Magical the only other horse who tried to lay up close in the Arc- despite being good enough to win a Champion Stakes either side’s if the race she dropped out like a stone . I have no doubt at all that had Dettori ridden Enable with more restraint Waldgeist who she had already beaten three times would never have got to her.

There is something rather sad about people who try and diminish great achievements .
 
Ardross said:
There are few things more dreary in horse racing than tall poppy syndrome.

In the 2019 KG Enable came from way back after another nasty spoiling ride given to Hunting Horn and in the final furlong Dettori gave her one tap and she was always holding Crystal Ocean.

I recorded the whole programme of both 2019 & 2020 Eclipse and to my eye she looked a good deal tighter last year when she sat second than this . She was asked a very big question yet still got to within a length of Ghaiyyath before tiring close home . It was an excellent effort .

As for the 2019 Arc look at what happened to Magical the only other horse who tried to lay up close in the Arc- despite being good enough to win a Champion Stakes either side’s if the race she dropped out like a stone . I have no doubt at all that had Dettori ridden Enable with more restraint Waldgeist who she had already beaten three times would never have got to her.

There is something rather sad about people who try and diminish great achievements .
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I did say she was as good as Japan and Crystal Ocean.
 
She's clearly a good few pounds better than Japan. He had a better track position on Sunday and was well beaten by her in the Arc.

Speaking of that race, Port Guillaume was very eye catching in the JC.
 
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