Newbury Hurdle entries.

Ian_Davies said:
overrated Berkshire gaff
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If you've never been to Newbury, honestly, don't bother, you're missing nothing.

I always thought it looked like racing nirvana when watching the Hennessy and the Lockinge on the telly as a kid, but the reality is it's stuck on the back of an industrial estate and nowadays has gentrified appartments and a housing development lining it.
 
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I've already have a little on Favour + Fortune at 25s.
However, I've been drawn to Spirits Bay at 33s. Obviously an impossible task lto, but he did split 2 horses rated 144 + 148. Possibilities here off 125.
Stable have won the race 3 times since 2014.
 
Ian_Davies said:
If you've never been to Newbury, honestly, don't bother, you're missing nothing.

I always thought it looked like racing nirvana when watching the Hennessy and the Lockinge on the telly as a kid, but the reality is it's stuck on the back of an industrial estate and nowadays has gentrified appartments and a housing development lining it.
Click to expand...

My local course. Can’t but agree - used to be lovely, now half the course is ringed by blocks of flats and the centre of the course is one bloody great car park.
 
Robicheaux said:
I've already have a little on Favour + Fortune at 25s.
However, I've been drawn to Spirits Bay at 33s. Obviously an impossible task lto, but he did split 2 horses rated 144 + 148. Possibilities here off 125.
Stable have won the race 3 times since 2014.
Click to expand...
Especially if he puts a claimer on.
 
A couple of observations...

None of the Irish entries have been confirmed. Should we read anything into that? Have they heard that JP expects to win with one of his UK trained runners?

Is this race declining in quality?

This year the top weight is rated only 144 (last year it was lower at 140) but in 2023 it was 148) but back in the day Rooster Booster was short-headed (I never will forgive Johnson for for giving it a harder race than necessary) off 166, no less. Bear in mind that winners tend to go up 5-7lbs and it puts RB in the 170+ category. In other words, on official ratings it was deemed better then than State Man currently is.

Can anyone imagine State Man turning up at Newbury off his current mark?

It seems gone may be the days when horses had to win a fair race to get up the handicap enough to make the cut off a mark in the 130s. It effectively means trainers can plot/school in public/run them unfit etc and get in off a Class 4 mark.

I'm surprised trainers don't leave good horses in the race to put these bandits out of the handicap, Burdett Road, for example. But then I checked the Champion Hurdle and take out the solid contenders for that and we're left with... Burdett Road. on 150. That's a pretty damning indictment of the level of hurdler we're dealing with these days.
 
The world....changes.

In 2025 a horse like Sea Pigeon wouldn't have gone hurdling - he'd have been sold to race in Hong Kong.

And there are an absurd number of Pattern jumps contests now - gone are the days of top class horses contesting valuable handicaps.

But we are where we are, it is what it is, and it's what we make of it that counts.

In the same way I look for a different kind of horse for the Grand National than I would have done 40 years ago, I look for a different kind of horse in races like this nowadays too.

Btw, you just ignored the OP's plea not to run the race down. 😂
 
Just my two cents worth.

If a young hurdler in the U. K is thought to be a 150+ horse in waiting, most trainers would seem to go for a grade two novice hurdle with about three runners, win that on the bridle, blow it's mark, and see the horse predictably fluff it's lines in grade one company subsequently.

Either that or do something along similar lines with an older horse, E.G Kihavah earlier in the year, when his trainer ran him in the Fighting Fifth off a mark in the high 130's, rather than target a handicap hurdle.

Happens a lot on the flat too. Where it's listed and group races that are more fashionable to run well in than showcase handicaps for obvious reasons, stud value, etc.

There's always one or two who evade the net. From memory Mullins and Elliot have progressed the odd good handicap hurdler into a proper graded horse. Just look at State Man winning the County Hurdle three years ago.

I'd bet hypothetical money if an English trainer had the same horse with the same form going in to that festival he/she would have run the horse in the Supreme Novice Hurdle.
 
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