Nick Mordins view (taken from his web site)
IT'S TOO EARLY TO START RAVING ABOUT DENMAN
It's frustrating to speed ratings compilers like myself when the early pace of a big race is so slow it hurts the final time. There's no formula that can tell you how fast the winner would have run if the early pace had been stronger.
This is the case with DENMAN (33) who won a renewal of the Hennessy where the field did little more than hack along for the first ten fences. For comparison, if the two races had been run on the same going, Denman would have jumped the tenth fence in a time 6.4 seconds slower than the front runner in last year's Hennessy.
It's impossible to make up 6.4 seconds in the second half of even the longest race. Denman managed to make up 3.75 seconds, 0.8 of which came on the run in. Even so I don't think he achieved anything more than State Of Play did when winning the same race last year. After all, the runner up Dream Alliance (30) is a long way off Gold Cup class. In addition, although he finished stronger than State Of Play, Denman did begin to tire noticeably on the run to the last and had to be ridden pretty hard to keep going in the closing stages.
This is one of those situations where I have to differ strongly with those who make handicap ratings. They rate this performance one of the best by a steeplechaser in the last decade. I've yet to give Denman a speed rating better than 39 on my scale. That's Grade 1 for a novice chaser but doesn't buy you better than third or fourth place in an average Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Denman may well go on to run as fast as the handicappers now say he can. But until he does I'm going to oppose him when he tackles genuine Grade 1 chasers.
