Leopardstown Christmas

Our Duke wouldn't have looked out of place in Bleu Et Rouge's race today, and I rate him quite a strong fancy tomorrow. Thought his Navan performance was really quite taking, and he can be even better over this kind of trip (strong-travelling type). Won't mind the ground either.
 
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Grasshopper said:
Our Duke wouldn't have looked out of place in Bleu Et Rouge's race today, and I rate him quite a strong fancy tomorrow. Thought his Navan performance was really quite taking, and he can be even better over this kind of trip (strong-travelling type). Won't mind the ground either.
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Good stuff. We can't both be wrong :cool:
 
For those of you not racing there was a Zoe Conway musical tribute to the Lexus Chase.
Zoe is an internationally renowned violinist who played a 5 minute classical tribute to "The Lexus Chase "
I listened and listened for clues as to the identity of previous winners; The Listener was the only one I came up with.
God be with the days you would get replays of the previous ten winning performances on the big screen.
 
I saw Nicky Henderson at the track today and so wanted to ask him what are the habits of most French horses that he thinks need ironing out. But it was not to be, we were on escalators going in opposite directions.
 
Who was he going down on? :lol:

My question is this? How come Leopardstown can come up with 4 great days racing which draw good attendances during the festive season and Kempton with 10 times the population come up with only 2 days on what is one of the most important pre Cheltenham meeting around.

Shockingly bad turnout by trainers. Boxing day Kempton had half the runners that turned out at Leopardstown

Not one Irish horse came a cross for the King George when really Kempton should be putting the hands in the pockets and make it a 200K race as

it is supposed to be 2nd in the pecking list behind the Gold Cup. The Melling Chase is worth the same as The King George and the Ryanair much more.

Kempton put up 12k for their Juvenile hurdle while Punchestown put up more than twice that for theirs.

Kempton need get their fingers out their backsides and get some proper marketing done and change this meeting to a proper 4 day Festival like their Irish brothers do.
 
Kempton is in the wrong place in the Calendar to support 4 days, as it is up against too many other UK tracks over the Xmas period. It's also an idiosyncratic track, that would struggle to pull enough horses over a four-day period. It's also worth pointing out that Leopardstown fills a lot of it's '4-day Festival' with bumpers, dross maidens and 0-105 handicaps.

Two days of high-class racing is always better than 4-days of high-class racing peppered with garbage, imo. I always enjoy the Xmas racing, and see absolutely no need for any tampering with the calendar on either side of the Irish Sea. Outside of the obvious clash between the King George and the Lexus, the rest of the programme works very well.
 
chroniclandlord and myself were talking about this yesterday. We both remember Christmas meetings where you'd be lucky to see even one horse with pretensions to winning at Cheltenham. The meeting is better than it ever was, largely because of the sheer number of good horses in the country at present.

But Grassy, "bumpers and dross maidens"? We're going to have to buy you an orange boiler suit and send you on a reorientation course.
 
Don't get me wrong, Art - I don't mind the occassional Bumper or dross maiden myself, but they are often hugely uncompetitive affairs over Xmas, and it gets just a wee bit tedious watching yet another Mullins debutante hack-up at 4/9.
 
Grasshopper said:
Don't get me wrong, Art - I don't mind the occassional Bumper or dross maiden myself, but they are often hugely uncompetitive affairs over Xmas, and it gets just a wee bit tedious watching yet another Mullins debutante hack-up at 4/9.
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That's a different issue, he's cleaning up in every type of race.
 
21 winners and counting since Boxing Day they said on ATR.........that is simply amazing by anyone's standards

Example: The Mighty Giggi have had 5 winners
 
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Grey said:
That's a different issue, he's cleaning up in every type of race.
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It's not different - it's related.

If you are going to fill four days, you are going to have to include some ropier races - that's a fact.

I wouldn't mind this fact, if the races in question were competitive. But they are farmed too often by horses who massively outclass the rest of their field, thereby diluting the visual spectacle, as well as rendering it a non-event from a betting perspective too.
 
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Ridden completely different to what I was expecting, and all he did was stay.

Great ride by Robbie Power too, I agree.
 
Thistlecrack likely bottomed ADO.

Lieutenant Colonel bottomed in the stayers too.

ADO maybe a national type now.

Our Duke would ideally like a bit of cut but very taking to win like that today
 
I think it's back to 'Plan A' for the Champion Hurdle - Faugheen or Faughgeddit.
 
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