He went as well as Denman allowed him to. He was being asked to do everything that much quicker because of the pressure being put on him by Denman. He has not had a horse like Denman to race against before and has had the luxury of doing things in his own time. [/b][/quote]Originally posted by SteveM+Mar 15 2008, 05:38 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SteveM @ Mar 15 2008, 05:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-firstpastthepost@Mar 15 2008, 05:30 PM
after watching the replay of the race so many times i just cant believe this was kauto of the last two years .......
For heaven's sake Steve - how many times do we all have to point out that KS was jumping badly from the SECOND FENCE!! There was no way he was being put under pressure at that point! As another poster [on TRF] pointed out, Ruby usually has trouble settling him early, as he wants to go on - nothing like that yesterday, he was just never going. Only his class got him round and into 2nd up the hill.
The same poster pointed out a few other things:
The winning time of Kauto Star in last year's GS was 6m 40.2s whereas Denman's time was 6m 47.8s this year. Although the going in both years was given as G/S if was probably nearer Good last year: all the 2008 races have been slower than their equivalents in 2007 .
As was also noted, times for the first circuit differ by around 1.42 seconds, with 2008 being the faster. However, Denman's winning time was 6.4784, ie 7.6 seconds slower than Kauto Star's in 2007. The poster continues:
"If they went 1.42 second faster in the first half of the race but end up 7.6 seconds slower [overall] something is not right"