Novice Hurdlers 2015/16

to try and see how fast TH early pace was .rather than just using last 3 hurdles

.i've timed from the same hurdle in both races..which is the 2nd hurdle in Flinthams race and the first in TH's..so starting from the same point..to 3 out..we already know the times from that point. So thats a circuit and half near on

Thomas Hobson ran that circuit in 4 min 3.8 seconds...Flintham..ran it in 4 min 10.9

thats why TH finished slowly..yes you would expect TH to run that circuit a little faster..a couple of seconds at most though....its 2m5 race after all....,,but..he has run it 7 seconds faster than Flintham......flinthams race was probably as near to a perfect judgement of pace round here you would see...again hence the near par finish time.....

So the early and mid pace of TH's race is about 25 lengths faster than even pace...hence..he walked home

thats why OE was in the best place..and his jockey rode the correct race..they went way too fast and sitting back..was the place to sit
 
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Never thought this would create so much debate with the winner the deserving winner and more imo.
The race was put to bed between 5 and 3 out. The fact the runner up didn't go past was imo the fact he was at it a lot further out than the winner and in simple terms was 'fu**ed' whereas the winner was at least allowed some recovery time in between even though it looked slow motion at the finish.
 
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Just watched the race and no doubt the top rated Thomas Hobson deserved his win. If I were going to criticise any jockey it would be the winning one who made a tad too much use of his horse whereas the jockey on the 2nd has shown much more patience been exactly where you would want to going to the last but his mount simply wasn't good enough. I would be abit suspicios of

Open Eagle is what he is "ordinary" as was the race. The favourite opened favourite on the strength of a recent win but what a desperate event that was, not nearly as bad as the one won by the 2nd at Plumpton. I think it's save to assume the name Skelton and being unbeaten had more to do with his price than what he had actually achieved.

I suspect Open Eagle wont be representing the yard in the Deloitte or the Neptune unless to give someone a ride at the Festival. I suppose in a way it does give Altior a bit of a boost in the fact Open Eagle ran a decent race but you could say he's as slow as they come and that's why they stepped him up in trip which worked to some extent.

Don't think this affects Altior's chances one way or the other
 
A general observation, no matter whether you though a jockey rode a "bad" race or a "good" race in any race , none of us know the instructions given by the trainer or even if those instructions were carried out to the letter.
 
Diamond Geezer said:
A general observation, no matter whether you though a jockey rode a "bad" race or a "good" race in any race , none of us know the instructions given by the trainer or even if those instructions were carried out to the letter.
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Yes, this is something I often try to keep in mind. Then again, we often hear the trainer say, particularly regarding the top jockeys, "You don't tell xx how to ride a race."

Then again, on the ML yesterday, WH was honest enough to admit the plan for Smad Place in the Hennessy was just to take a prominent position and Alan King's immediate post-race comments hinted at his not being at all happy during the race but that things worked out successfully in the end.

A jockey I'm very wary of is Paul Moloney as I don't like the way he gives 90% of his rides what he clearly considers a percentage type of ride by keeping the horse back in the second half on the race and hoping the leaders fade. Then Adam Wedge, standing in for Moloney lately, gives the stable's horses similar rides. So now I'm thinking maybe it's Evan Williams that's calling the shots.

On the other hand, while I don't think Jamie Moore looks properly positioned on top of a horse, he seldom gives one a poor tactical ride, so much so that I just put that riding position issue down to appearance and don't see him as any kind of negative.
 
Yes, if it's more than 10% I'd be surprised.

Then again, I'm only seeing Saturday televised races.
 
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Desert Orchid said:
Have we ever agreed on anything, GH?
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Probably on most everything else that goes unsaid, DO - it's not a vendetta, you know! :cool:

Everyone is entitled to interpret form any way they see fit. I'm just offering my own view on the relevance of the Leamington as a marker on how good Altior is (which is why we join forums in the first place, right?).
 
i can sympathise with the positive franking view tbh....just because...if OE had been absolutely hammered out of sight..i can guarantee one or more people would have posted.."thats let Altior form down". the answer..if he had bombed out is....would it f00k

like i said earlier..do we really need Usain Bolts form franking to know how good he is?..when he wins..does commentator say.."good run that..lets hope the guy in second franks it next run..or we will have to mark it down"

by all means..when hosses are in maidens and running only a couple of races..its nice to have form upheld..but do we need the constant comfort blanket of every horse in behind..franking what we know is good anyway?

I would never downgrade what i measure as a good perfomance based on future exploits of those behind unless they were hosses that had never run or very lightly raced..and even then..unlikely to. When there is little form..we all look for the boosting. Its just not necessary with hosses who have already shown in a number of races what chops they have.

Its akin to picking the 8th race that Frankel won..and if 2nd hoss got buried next time..saying.."well i'll have to downgrade the form of Frankel..2nd hoss let form down"
 
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Tanlic said:
Why on earth do you think Chltenham will suit him better that Aintree eg? He's 100% a 2 mile speedster who go bogged down for about 3 seconds at Kempton and then flew. At Cheltenham he was flat out to get up the hill.

Nicky is sending him back to Kempton, He went there last time when he could have gone to Sandonw's stiff track for twice the money.

I'd hold those AP bets until nearer the time,
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Tanlic, you're a funny one. We spent a day arguing over which course between Cheltenham & Kempton would suit Altior better or play to his strengths. With Stamina in his breeding I, and a few others here, picked the former, others were encouraged by his action etc. You were adamant Kempton suited him better because of times.

Reading through the 'Nicky Henderson' thread this morning then I was shocked to find this from you on Altior posted on 30/12/15 contradicting the above;

"Nicky is a great believer of running them at Kempton before Cheltenham and has always been of the mind it's a good track to sharpen them up beforehand.

If anything Kempton was a bit to sharp for Altior but he eventually picked up and won easily....you would have to think Cheltenham is going to suit him big time with a stronger gallop than they went in the trial there".


This was before you posted questioning why on earth I thought Cheltenham would suit him better than flat tracks like Kempton/Aintree stating he was 'flat out' to get up the hill. If he was, as you thought flat out in the trial, how on earth would a stronger gallop help him get home? Surely if he's '100% a 2 mile speedster' as you claimed a subdued gallop early doors would mean he'd use his speed to burn his rivals, that type of race would play to his strengths! A stronger gallop & you're relying on speed to stay with it & travel but that stamina to kick in turning in to face that hill similar to Champagne Fever or Vautour in their Supreme wins.

I dunno!! You have me all confused here now.


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that cheltenham race was a nonsense re early ..like you say KA..if Altior was just speed..that pace should have suited him..but it didn't suit any of them..was basically a schooling gallop for the whole field..race is best ignored imo
 
Grasshopper said:
Everyone is entitled to interpret form any way they see fit. I'm just offering my own view on the relevance of the Leamington as a marker on how good Altior is (which is why we join forums in the first place, right?).
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My remarks after the race were in the context of what I'd written in my pre-race synopsis:

At this stage there’s still a lot of the novice form I haven’t got too far into hence the references to the ORs. The ones with the question marks are guided by RPRs to a large extent but my own and ORs tend to be higher so there’s a case for making a notional allowance for that. Open Eagle is the big interest for me here but I’m getting my excuses in early just in case! My big rating for him stems from the Kempton race at Christmas in which he was second to my Supreme bet Altior. I said in my review that I felt he was there to win and give the yard a benchmark for the likes of Min and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch of the imagination to interpret his appearance here again as looking to confirm that form but this is over an extra five furlongs and the ground will almost certainly be heavier than at Kempton. The form book comment suggested Open Eagle might improve for a trip, though. On the other hand, the fact that Danny Mullins seems ahead of David in the stable’s pecking order makes me wonder if Thomas Hobson is the more highly regarded. The early betting suggests so but Born Survivor, top on RPRs so probably better again, is favourite and arguably justifiably so. No bets for me but plenty of interest.
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Maybe there was an element of relief in seeing OE leave the other pursuers for dead (since Altior left him for dead) yet I'd suspected TH was the better. The references to the other ratings were to put the likes of Born Survivor into some kind of related context.

I crunch numbers and then try to interpret how they end up appearing. Sometimes I'm right, often I'm wrong (as is always the nature of betting - if you think a horse should be 3/1 you're saying it should only win once in four runnings of the race so you're much more likely to be wrong than right).

Everything about Kempton suggested to me that Altior was an utterly top class novice. He'll need to be 10lbs better next season to cope with Faugheen but any other novice would need to improve more. Min might be the exception.
 
EC1 said:
Min = new Istabraq..if kept to hurdles...imo
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That's quite an alarMINg prediction EC. AssuMINg he wins in March Irish eyes will indeed be beaMINg. Dreams of champion hurdles will be blooMINg in Willie Mullins MINd.

CharMINg and all as that notion seems, I think you might just be daydreaMINg a little. Istabraq was the most deterMINed, brilliant champion hurdler there was & I can't let you discriMINate against his name by comparing a novice raced twice to one so doMINant over so many years.

Indeed I think you need your head exaMINed to exterMINate such thoughts. You are harMINg Istrabq's legacy with such defamation.

:D ;)


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None of the big guns entered up for the Supreme trial at Haydock Saturday. Looks like it'll be fairly testing there too.


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Pilgrims Bay, 7th to Buveur D'air & Wait for me in November at Newbury just about hangs on to win the first at Wincanton. Stepping up 5f but again like me if your into it, it's nice to see winners come as far back as that. I think that Newbury race will be one of the better Novice Hurdle races run this year.

Had him in my tracker so nice 16/1 winner.


Tom Georges Bun Doran from that same Newbury race was 4th that day & goes in the 3.50 Chepstow tomorrow. Will be keeping a close eye on how he gets on at around 5/2.


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Gaz's Way De Solzen said:
Totally agree, hurdles look completely effortless for him he just saunters from one side to the other and doesn't even touch them! Looks a very good prospect.
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And Gaz is one of the best judges on this forum or any other so heed what he says.......that's 2 beers you owe me :lol:

But seriously he was just a talking horse when they started piling into him for the Supreme but he looks anything but now......Definitely the real deal.

That said Altior is probably the most mature individual at this stage of his career that Nicky has ever sent to the Supreme so Min or whatever does take the bacon home is going to have to be very special.
Buveur D'Air is said to be even better but you can take that with a pinch of salt. He is more likely to be like Sprinter Sacre and Spirit Son they were big and weak as kittens and simply not up to the task.
I wouldn't back him no matter what the gallop punters say.
 
Kauto Abu said:
None of the big guns entered up for the Supreme trial at Haydock Saturday. Looks like it'll be fairly testing there too.


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granger said:
Big If I'd say.

Arkle bound
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He's a big horse but a hurdler none the less. The only way he might go chasing next season is if he loses badly in the Supreme. Like EC I reckon he might do a Night Nurse in later years but he's a Champion Hurdle prospect the way he jumps, not an Arkle horse at all IMO
 
Seen this on twitter.
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