Latest Timeform Ratings

I think you're too precious about Henderson. :p

OTBS has now won 2 Grade 2 hurdles with ease; giving 7lbs and a 3L beating to a 134 rated horse (ran green, won going away) in the first of those, and 5lbs and a 9L beating to a 137-rated novice (drew away, impressive) in the second.

The rating might be a little on the high-side, but the suggestion that the handicapper has it in for Henderson alone, is obviously nonsense.
 
I agree. I'm also pleased Timeform rated A Plus Tard far enough ahead of Defi Du Seuil. I was ready to jump on my soapbox as I expected them to do the opposite.
 
I haven't crunched any numbers seriously yet but I thought Duc Des Genievres was very impressive.

I may end up concluding that the race fell apart but I'd felt beforehand that if there was a Douvan or an Un De Sceaux in the race it would be the grey hence my pre-race enthusiasm for him.

But A Plus Tard was even more impressive to me. Whether the form amounts to the same figure I'll wait and see.
 
Desert Orchid said:
I haven't crunched any numbers seriously yet but I thought Duc Des Genievres was very impressive.

I may end up concluding that the race fell apart but I'd felt beforehand that if there was a Douvan or an Un De Sceaux in the race it would be the grey hence my pre-race enthusiasm for him.

But A Plus Tard was even more impressive to me. Whether the form amounts to the same figure I'll wait and see.
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I'll be interested in your take on the three of them Maurice. For info I have A Plus Tard (162), 4lbs clear of Duc Des Genievres (158), and 6lbs clear of Defi Du Seuil (156). Duc Des Genievres is the one I'm least confident and did the most head scratching over.
 
Well so far I wouldn't say I've done any headscratchng about it but I watched the race again yesterday and remembered what was going through my mind at the time: they're dropping like nine-pins here. As early as the third fence or so I felt DDG had it won. As you know, I had it down beforehand as a substandard race and couldn't quite get my head round Glen Forsa's place at the head of the market although time may well show he's a lot better than I thought, but I thought from early on he looked like a class horse in among handicappers but maybe he was the only one who really acted in the ground. There was no post-race 'that's what we hoped he would do' from Mullins or Townend. They seemed genuinely surprised which did worry me a wee bit.

One mistake I did make after DDG won the Arkle was not checking back to the December race in which, at even money fav, he'd failed to give the allowance to A Plus Tard. I might otherwise have backed the latter in her race. But I'd done the form at the 48-hour stage and was pressing on with getting through the races for later in the week.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Well so far I wouldn't say I've done any headscratchng about it but I watched the race again yesterday and remembered what was going through my mind at the time: they're dropping like nine-pins here. As early as the third fence or so I felt DDG had it won. As you know, I had it down beforehand as a substandard race and couldn't quite get my head round Glen Forsa's place at the head of the market although time may well show he's a lot better than I thought, but I thought from early on he looked like a class horse in among handicappers but maybe he was the only one who really acted in the ground. There was no post-race 'that's what we hoped he would do' from Mullins or Townend. They seemed genuinely surprised which did worry me a wee bit.

One mistake I did make after DDG won the Arkle was not checking back to the December race in which, at even money fav, he'd failed to give the allowance to A Plus Tard. I might otherwise have backed the latter in her race. But I'd done the form at the 48-hour stage and was pressing on with getting through the races for later in the week.
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I have to admit to going to the back form to see if it all ties together, and the conclusion I came to was that they are both significant improvers.

In the case of DDG people will say 'but what if Cilaos Emery or Le Richebourg were running?' In the case of the former I'm confident that he has improved more than a stone since finishing third to him. Not inconceivable with Willie who would have had him hard fit at the Festival. He made a mistake at the second last which cost him the race against Cilaos Emery, so there was also an element of 'who knows' to the run. Le Richbourg's form runs through Us and Them who DDG beat more impressively than Le Richbourg did twice over. Inconclusive but another strand to add in. As I say I found it difficult to come to a conclusion but there is evidence from outside the Festival that helps.

The difficulty was coming to a figure for DDG given what happened in the race an elsewhere on the Tuesday, and there is almost certainly something in what Darren says above. Plus he clearly handled the ground better than a bunch of inferior horses. For me the big question mark will be if he can back it up at Punchestown on better ground. I suspect he won't run to the mark anyone gives him for this race, although he may well still win his race.
 
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Maruco said:
I'll be interested in your take on the three of them Maurice. For info I have A Plus Tard (162), 4lbs clear of Duc Des Genievres (158), and 6lbs clear of Defi Du Seuil (156). Duc Des Genievres is the one I'm least confident and did the most head scratching over.
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I've come at the Close Brothers from more than one angle but arrived at pretty much bang on the same result.

My figure for APT works out at 166 in open company. That's quite a rating and would account for most of the championship novice races of recent times. I had him down, as you know, as potentially massively unexposed (along with a few others) but I'm not sure I had him potentially at that level.

The weird thing is, I suspect I'm under-valuing the form still.

There's a huge difference in the times of the later races compered with the earlier ones. It's looking like the rain only really got into the ground by mid-afternoon. Duc Des Genievres has also put up a huge rating but it's based on the same going allowance as for Beware The Bear's race and I'm not sure the ground was anywhere near similar.

DDG's race certainly appeared to fall apart with Glen Forsa departing early and others quickly dropping out for one reason or another but they did appear to go fast yet he was never out of a hack canter just behind the pace, jumping incredibly slickly for a novice. I think his new OR is probably in the right ball-park but I might be guilty of assuming my pre-race reasoning that he was the only one in the field potentially in the same class as Douvan and Un De Sceaux to be correct so I need to be careful that I'm not guilty of wishful thinking but the time rating is pretty much off the scale.

I'll get to Defi Du Seuil in due course.
 
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Paul and Mo

If A Plus Tard and DDG back up again over 2m who would you back?

As an aside I think Le Rich has a good few lbs improvement in him from what he has shown too and didn't need to be anywhere near peak for his two Leop wins
 
granger said:
Paul and Mo

If A Plus Tard and DDG back up again over 2m who would you back?

As an aside I think Le Rich has a good few lbs improvement in him from what he has shown too and didn't need to be anywhere near peak for his two Leop wins
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I'll worry about that when it happens :lol:

(On similar ground to last week it would be hard to oppose DDG regardless of raw figures.
 
Desert Orchid said:
I


DDG's race certainly appeared to fall apart with Glen Forsa departing early and others quickly dropping out for one reason or another but they did appear to go fast yet he was never out of a hack canter just behind the pace, jumping incredibly slickly for a novice. I think his new OR is probably in the right ball-park but I might be guilty of assuming my pre-race reasoning that he was the only one in the field potentially in the same class as Douvan and Un De Sceaux to be correct so I need to be careful that I'm not guilty of wishful thinking but the time rating is pretty much off the scale.
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The Irish handicapper gave DDG a 2lb higher rating for winning the Arkle than he did to Douvan (yes I realise it's a different person now)
 
Despite being in the same place for A Plus Tard, I differ on Duc Des Genievres and I have him marked down slightly, more precautionary than anything. Despite the rain I'm pretty certain the fresh ground was pretty much riding good to soft for the opening hurdles and chases on the Tuesday (fresh rain on Tuesday morning and they were straight through to a firmer surface), and deteriorated as the day went on when the ground was no longer fresh.

I think the key to rating Duc Des Genievres, given his race fell apart, is how you rate Espoir D'allen. The problem is the Champion Hurdle also poses more questions than it gives answers as that also fell apart. Therefore using the Supreme as the only practical guide to those two races leaves me with the feeling that we had a substandard Champion Hurdle and the same is therefore true of The Arkle. I think we have to wait until Duc Des Genievres runs again to get a reliable rating, and I'm happy to admit I erred on the side of caution at 158.
 
granger said:
Paul and Mo

If A Plus Tard and DDG back up again over 2m who would you back?

As an aside I think Le Rich has a good few lbs improvement in him from what he has shown too and didn't need to be anywhere near peak for his two Leop wins
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I'm kind of in the same place as Maurice PJ. But if pushed, A Plus Tard travelled sweetly and wouldn't have looked out of place in the Arkle. Too difficult to say what would have happened because of the very obvious improvement in both and not being able to measure to what extent. Fwiw though I'd have DDG winning over 2m and APT winning over 2.5m. I think they'd only clash if DDG was stepped up rather than the other way round though.

I'm not convinced that Le Richebourg would have beaten DDG on the day.
 
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Beforehand it looked like a substandard Arkle, so it's probably best to treat it the same way afterwards, at least until further evidence is available.

The Champion Hurdle was probably won by a decent horse. He's only a 5yo so there's no need for big ratings and in any case it seems they went a crazy pace early on which burst more than one of the runners. The winner slowed right into the last hurdle but he didn't lose any ground, except to the loose Buveur D'Air, because the rest of the field were dead on their feet. But he was still in front of that horse going past the post. Are you listening, Eddie? :)

Klassical Dream probably came on quite a bit from Leopardstown and is entitled to be regarded as a well-up-to-standard winner of the Supreme, which was run at a more sensible pace than the Champion Hurdle.
 
Grey said:
Beforehand it looked like a substandard Arkle, so it's probably best to treat it the same way afterwards, at least until further evidence is available.
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That's exactly the approach I took. Even allowing for fancied runners like Glen Forsa, Lalor et al not running their races, the placed horses ran to pretty much their ball-park relative merits, which would make them substandard Arkle contenders. But DDG was 13 lengths and value for more out in front. That has to be at least 15lbs' superiority over the other finishers. The ones that didn't run their race could have filled in the 13-length gap and given the form a totally robust look and we'd have been saying it was a good renewal won by a top-notcher.
 
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If he can stay fit, I still think that Cilaos Emery will prove superior to DDG.

What is most interesting to me is that, in the 2 mile division, the best novices seem to be Irish and the best senior horses seem to be UK. In the stayers division, the situation is pretty much reversed. If all the novices come through and all the senior horses stay fit we may have some interesting championship races next March.
 
Maruco said:
Did you take Us and Them's mark and rate him through Le Richebourg Maurice?
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Got round to checking...

I wouldn't word it as you have, Maruco, in the sense that I'd only do that to rate LR retrospectively but UAT was my starting point and then I checked the finishers against my ratings going into the race, which threw up two or three possible scenarios. After exploring the implications of all of them, I felt the best fit for now was to use UAT as the marker as it was producing the figures with which my gut was most comfortable.

Back-rating LR via UAT suggests he'd need to have improved again to beat DDG, which wouldn't be impossible, I suppose. Time will tell.

However, I do think we had an utterly top-class winner of a pretty ordinary renewal. As you know, that's how I predicted it would work out beforehand so I'm open to the possibility that I'm subconsciously allowing myself to be led down a misleading path but if I'm wrong it'll cost me money down the line. Them's the chances we take.
 
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The Le Richebourg link is tenuous for obvious reasons, but I like the fact that Duc De Genievres beat Us and Them on ground the trainer has stated he wants, further than Le Richebourg did twice when he had everything in his favour. I considered using it and marking DDG up because of it and decided against it I guess I was wondering whether this was part of your thinking when you went high with him?

They'll almost certainly stick to two miles with DDG, but Us and Them strikes me as a horse that could have quite a bit of improvement still to come when he's stepped up, and I reckon he could step right up to three miles next season and possibly be a player.
 
I think DDG would need further than 2 miles on decent ground. He'd interest me for the Ryanair more than the QM.

Although, with global warming I also think soft ground festivals might become the norm.
 
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