Irish Guineas

Given that the Curragh have not had serious rain in weeks ( I should know I am right beside the course) there is absolutely no way the ground was simply good yesterday.

I would confirm what Eric said...much much breezier today.
 
New Approach had no chance yesterday if he was front-running into anything like a strong headwind.

(and I'd carry my head funny running into one too).
 
I'm not sure it was a headwind to be honest Gareth, but came at about 45 degrees to the left and from in front. NA actually seemed to hang towards the direction it was coming from. That's largely academic though, as anything that can get the inside rail should get the greater cover if the winds in the same direction. I can easily see it riding nearer to 9.5 or 10F today and have been scrambling around for horses with a CD of 0.50. The one I think looks vulnerable to a stiff test in these conditions of the fancied runners would be Nahoodh. O'Brien, Channon and Weld all have more than one runner suggesting that the trail will be broken by one of few gaggle of pacemakers.

Carribean Sunset looks useful with a CD 0f 0.50, but I reckon Halfway To Heaven should be capable of reversing Leopardstown form for what was her debut. her subsequent third in the Poluliches where she chased a brisk pace looks the best form on display, given Zarkava won. Concern however, would be jockey bookings and ladbrokes pricing, which points to a horse I really don't like in Kitty
 
Thanks for weather update guys


We have a Strong Breeze here today (very strong gusts at times) and if it's similar at the Curragh, then i can see it having a significant effect on the races

Not only will it increase the speed of moisture evaporation, thus making ground fast, it will unbalance horses and jockeys if it's hitting them as Warbler describes


Though i don't know the exact effect the weather is having on the races, horses. jockeys, i think this has been very interesting


All the best for today
 
Henry RPR 126 - TS 87

Time Based Going = Good

I think they may need to apply some vector analysis to yesterdays card
 
Originally posted by Galileo@May 25 2008, 01:42 PM
They have put 10mls of water on the ground last night and it has dried up to be Firm again.
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If wind is as you describe Gal, that is no surprise mate
 
Originally posted by Warbler@May 25 2008, 11:45 AM


Carribean Sunset looks useful with a CD 0f 0.50, but I reckon Halfway To Heaven should be capable of reversing Leopardstown form for what was her debut. her subsequent third in the Poluliches where she chased a brisk pace looks the best form on display, given Zarkava won. Concern however, would be jockey bookings and ladbrokes pricing, which points to a horse I really don't like in Kitty
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The jockey booking gives impression that connections think Kitty may run a lot better today, but for the reasons you have outlined Warbler, I think Halfway is worth a little win and place interest here
 
Stewards, best of luck fellas...

(no chance of a replay on ATR before another interminable race from Fontwell is done...)
 
Stewards enquiry does not effect the winner.

Battling success but impossible to rate it highly given the run of Tuscan Evening. The ground looks extremely firm today....plenty of fillys going nowhere and running around a bit from some way out.

Well done to anyone who picked her out.
 
Originally posted by Galileo@May 25 2008, 02:48 PM
Stewards enquiry does not effect the winner.
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Phew!!! :D

and with Nadoodh laid for the place, I might just have completed a fillies guineas hat-trick, after natagora and Zarkava. Not sure I can really lay much claim the Pouliches as it was obvious, but with Halfway to Heaven having run 3rd at Longchamp, it further franks Zarkava, although Modern Look came 4th and was dispatched on the bridle by Natagora
 
Because she beat the winner of this Gp1 3.5L's at longchamp?

In any event, Tuscan Evening on dosage alone was always a lively placed outsider if stamina was going to be an issue under these more demanding circumstances. I did nominate her elsewhere as the big priced placed horse, and she looks well designed for an Oaks trip on breeding. So far to date, she's been running trips completely against her dosage hence why she probably remains a maiden, even though she places with regularity. That's probably the toughest assignment she's had to date in terms of trip, pace, and course circumstances and has run a level close to where she might have beene xpected to (breeding not form)
 
Excellent analysis Warbler, and glad you got the reward for all your - generously shared - hard work
 
Because she beat the winner of this Gp1 3.5L's at longchamp?
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Halfway To Heaven was ridden like a pacemaker at France that day (she probably was a pacemaker!). Regardless the form today is nothing special....the Weld filly in second is probably the one to take out of the race.

Though well done for picking the winner today.
 
By way of final caveat, yesterdays times were much more consistant with a wind affected card, and I'd normally expect to have picked up the discrepancies between the round and straight courses. Edwards gives it as 'Good' again, but the wind seems to have shifted to the North West and thus favoured the straight course runners. Even with a gale blowing though, no horse beat standard again, even though the two 6F races adjust fast (as does the 1K - just) the others adjust slow, getting progressively slower the longer the distance, and hence the horses exposure to a northerly or north- westerley. With a bit of wind assistance on firm ground you might expect something to beat standard on the straight course, but in truth the class of races run on it, might not have been high enough. It makes rating the races hazardous and I'd tentatively suggest that Halfway To heaven has run pretty quickly at 95.29. This would place her about 6.50L's behind Zarkava in what was a faster run Pouliches. In reality she ran 3.5L's into third at Longchamp so the Irish race looks like being a decent gallop, with the winner running within 3L's short of her previous, which isn't bad, given that, that was particularly rapid. She recorded 98.44 at Longchamp in her own right.

The question I'm now asking, and I don't normally have much truct for hypothetical ramblings, is what would happen if Zarkava met Natagora over a mile. My initial reaction would be that the former would win, but I'm increasingly wondering if that would happen given the likely way the race would pan out. A lot would depend on the jockeys rather than the horses I suspect, the time of year they met, and the number of other horses in the race. as the form of both fillies has unravelled its increasingly making for an interesting match up (which doesn't look likely to ever happen of course)
 
The Curragh were hardly going to declare the official going as Firm unless it really was. It's very misleading for Dave Edwards to describe the time-adjusted going as Good.

The straight track and the dog-leg Guineas mile were very much wind affected on both days.

Additional point: The stands would have provided some shelter in the final furlong or so.
 
From the RP:

WHEN Henrythenavigator, New Approach and StubbsArt repeated the 2,000 Guineas result in the Irish version on Saturday, it was a rare example of the same horses filling the first three places in the same order in two Classics.

The most notable examples occurred in Triple Crown races in 1893 and 1978. Affirmed and Alydar were first and second in all the US Triple Crown events in 1978, and Believe It was third in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

In 1893, Isinglass and Ravensbury were first and second in the 2,000 Guineas, Derby andSt
Leger, and Raeburn was third to them in the first two.

Among the 1,083 Classics that have been run in Britain, they are the only two with the same 1-2-3.

When Secretariat won the US Triple Crown in 1973, he was followed home by Sham and Our Native in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
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Doesn't seem to be any examples!
 
Just picking up on this ground business again, I thought I'd try and re-produce Dave Edwards piece in the Weekender for those of you who indulge in the number crunching game.

"While raw speed and lightening fast times personified Haydock's card, in stark contrast, the Irish 2000 and 1000 Guineas which were run on firm ground at the weekend were tactical affairs and on the clock, and quite frankly disappointing. In fact, the majority of the Curragh races were much slower than could be expected for the calibre of horse, with Saturday's seven races totalling 26 seconds slower than par and Sunday's even worse at 44 seconds.

In order to derive a speed rating that matched the 'norm' from previous seasons would have meant contriving a going allowance that indicated the ground was good to soft. It clearly wasn't, so assuming the clock was working correctly and that race distances were accurate then one can only conclude that the races were slowly run. (At the time of writing investigations into both have drawn a blank)......

A fast ground time of 1m 39.63 was 1.63 secs slower than the 1m benchmark and warranted a topspeed of 87 (henrythenavigator). In fact, race-times from all seven races on Saturday's Curragh card were moderate and lend considerable weight to Jim Bolger's argument, in defence of New Approach, that the ground should have been watered, was far too firm and that many horses were unwilling or unable to let themselves down on it. That said, his stable star set far too slow a pace and was there to be shot at by a speed horse, although the firm ground argubaly prevented him striding out and setting a proper gallop. On RPR's the Ballydoyle colt earned a 126 the best in the past decade, but a time lag of 39Ib's is cause for concern.......

The following day Halfway to Heaven (70) prevailed in a blanket finish to the 1000 guineas with a yawning eight length gap back to fifth. Another slow time 1m 40.82 secs and 2,82 secs slower than the yardstick, and the fact that a maiden Tuscan Evening, subsequently relegated to fourth for interference, finished a neck second.

Third behind Zarkava in the French equivilent two weeks earlier, Halfway to Heaven paid a handsome compliment to her conqueror and conversely the performance of Saorise Abu and Nahoodh did little for the form of the Newmarket version"

He goes onto lament something similar happening at Newmarket and observes "as on the Curragh, not one winner managed to beat standard time, and even if you eliminate comparatively the slowest race each day, the trend is still for surprisingly slow times"
 
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