Novice Hurdlers 21/22

Couldn't agree more..I never have fancied Kilcruit and would go as far as to say his most suitable role in a Supreme would be as a pacemaker for a stable companion.
He looks way out of his league to me.
 
reet hard said:
Kilcruit had an easy lead in a steadily run (thereby uncompetitive) race and such sectionals will tell sfa for a contest such as the Supreme; no matter how well they're sculpted.
Click to expand...

Aye, he’s always been good when he gets his own way. I wouldn’t write him off entirely, though. He was given a bad ride at Cheltenham by lining up and running on the rail which let a canny Rachael on SG to keep him boxed in until it was too late, so he certainly had the class then and class does count. Like you and tan, though, he’s not on my list.
 
While I wouldn't necessarily say that he'll win it, I think that Kilcruit is a better horse than many are giving him credit for.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he placed in it.
 
They both lost form before the supreme but SF wá a far superior bumper horse and went off at a short price in the Supreme. kilcruit if he even turns up will be easy to back at double figures and looks way out of his league
 
Last edited:
I loved Champagne Fever but nobody could say that he was a "far superior" bumper horse to Kilcruit. He may have been better, he may not, but he certainly wasn't "far superior" to Kilcruit.

Kilcruit won three of his four bumpers and was a half length second to Sir Gerhard in the other. it is plain silly to be dismissive of this form.

As I said earlier, he may not win it but he can not be disregarded as casually as this.
 
I guess my point is, the Supreme is one of the most unique hurdle races of the season when the atmosphere, excitement, pace etc can show horses in a totally different light to early season form and we know Kilcruit has an engine from his bumper days and he didn’t look too shabby LTO.

Yes he beat little but he’s not totally out of this and I’d suggest the 16, now 14 best price available about him is probably too big against horses who’ve shown a great deal of potential but are yet to race at this level.

Sir Gerhard being the obvious exception but on their bumper form there isn’t 12 points between them.

Consider he hadn’t run yet this season, what price would he be, 7/1 ?. It’s no different to Appreciate It being priced at 2nd fav for the Champion after beating (admittedly routing) a p1ss poor Supreme field.
 
There's an interesting novice hurdle at Naas on Saturday. O'Toole who split Kilcruit and Sir Gerhard at Punchestown in April takes on Journey With Me.

Journey With Me should win as Crawford's insist that O'Toole is a long term project, but it is intriguing nonetheless.
 
wilsonl said:
It’s no different to Appreciate It being priced at 2nd fav for the Champion after beating (admittedly routing) a p1ss poor Supreme field.
Click to expand...

I think there's more to it than that but I don't believe it was a p1ss poor field he beat.

Look at the ORs of the rest of the field who were pretty bunched a long way behind the winner:

148
144
143
143
143
148
(+ 145 Blue Lord)

They were all within about 12 lengths of one another so they've run largely to form. Those ratings are about average for 4th/5th place in a Supreme but they were 24 lengths (about 27lbs) and more behind the winner so if we take For Pleasure and Soaring Glory (who had just won the Betfair Hurdle) as running to their ratings Appreciate It can be rated better than 170. That's higher than the figure I had for either Altior or Shishkin in their Supreme.

You could argue that Appreciate It would have been second to Honeysuckle in the Champion Hurdle.

Novices tend to improve a ball-park 10lbs (some much more than that) into their second season, so factor that possibility in and you could make the case for Appreciate it being a 180 hurdler this season. If that were manageable, I reckon he would have the beating of Honeysuckle.

I reckon that's why he's as short as he is in the betting.

There's obviously ifs, buts and mibbies in there but I don't doubt the value of his Supreme win which allows for the beaten horses being modest, although Blue Lord has shown himself to be a classy first-season novice chaser.
 
I’m sure I just saw a post from Grass - when he must have had too many Mcewans export suggesting Champagne Fever didn’t face a field as good as Kilcruit is.

But it was either an apparition or he sobered up to realise CF beat subsequent Champion hurdler Jezki and Harchibald mk II MTOY, with the eventual champion chase winner Dodging Bullets tailed off, and removed the post.
 
Last edited:
Yes, Lee - was thinking of a completely different horse, and a completely different race! Western Warhorse and the Arkle Chase was the source of my confusion.
 
Last edited:
Anyone who quotes novice hurdle ratings a year after the fact to try and make a case that has already been shot to pieces needs a sanity check. They don't come much more moderate than the 2nd and 3rd behind Appreciate It which is backed up by their form since. The 4th horse won the Betfair so is obviously decent but that obviously took its toll on the horse as he was beaten a distance on the day.Rating are meaningless at that stage of a horses career just about every horse who wins a couple of novices ends up with a 140 or+ that they never live up to as 90% end up achieving very little nor do they end up threatening top class horses. ,In short appreciate it won a **** poor renewal but that does not mean he can't go on to bigger and better things as he could only beat what was put in front of him.
 
Just did a wee check on ORs of UK horses in the Supreme.

I Like To Move It is fourth top on 138 (behind Constitution Hill 148, Jonbon 145 and First Street 141) but will go up a fair bit for today's run, probably at least 6lbs (I'll be going higher because I think the Betfair was an extremely strong renewal despite its numbers).

On adjusted RPRs, DD is 1lb in front of CH who in turn is just ahead of the 4yos Pied Piper and Fil Dor with Sir Gerhard rated the same as them and another pound back to Jonbon.

Should ILTMI really be 25/1? If he goes up 6lbs his OR will put him in the mix with that group. When Ballyandy and Al Dancer won the Betfair Hurdle they went to single-figure prices.

However, I'm not tempted to go in again. I have 40/1 NRNB as mentioned on the Longshot thread and I reckon a minor place is a more realistic expectation.
 
Tanlic said:
They both lost form before the supreme but SF wá a far superior bumper horse and went off at a short price in the Supreme. kilcruit if he even turns up will be easy to back at double figures and looks way out of his league
Click to expand...

I didnt expect you to fancy it as it's not favourite.
 
Is anyone willing to make a connection between the Hendo novices and his runners in the Betfair Hurdle the other day?

While I didn't like BB's price, I genuinely feared his potential. Same with FS although I did have a higher rating for him.

I think a mark in excess of 155 is going to be needed to win the Supreme. I think if Jonbon or Constition Hill are in that ball park there must have been some kind of temptation to exploit their mark in a £150k handicap, especially seeing how good the Irish challengers are. The handicapper only put the winner up 5lbs (a very lenient rise, in my opinion). If he's right, Jonbon or Constitution Hill, in theory, should have run in the race and would have hacked up.

I suppose you could argue the opposite; that Hendo is so confident of winning with one or other of them that he didn't see the point of taking on a piddling handicap.

But it's just the kind of angle that intrigues me.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Is anyone willing to make a connection between the Hendo novices and his runners in the Betfair Hurdle the other day?

While I didn't like BB's price, I genuinely feared his potential. Same with FS although I did have a higher rating for him.

I think a mark in excess of 155 is going to be needed to win the Supreme. I think if Jonbon or Constition Hill are in that ball park there must have been some kind of temptation to exploit their mark in a £150k handicap, especially seeing how good the Irish challengers are. The handicapper only put the winner up 5lbs (a very lenient rise, in my opinion). If he's right, Jonbon or Constitution Hill, in theory, should have run in the race and would have hacked up.

I suppose you could argue the opposite; that Hendo is so confident of winning with one or other of them that he didn't see the point of taking on a piddling handicap.

But it's just the kind of angle that intrigues me.
Click to expand...

Couple of things:

Jonbon's ratings is based on the novice form. So does 155 mean 155 when the novices were ran over in the Betfair? I could argure both are massively overrated and Dysart Dynamo will be a level above.

I also mentioned to you before my belief that the UK handibapoer is trying to level things up. The lenient assessment of the Betfair form backs that up.

Thirdly, the UK horses won't catch up quickly bevause a lot of their horses will be handicapped on last year's novice form where the Irish were far superior. Parity is a few years away.
 
Last edited:
I agree that parity is still some way off.

I'm not convinced it will be resolved in what's left of my lifetime. (You might be okay, young yin.)

I think it's the sheer weight of numbers of horses in training in Ireland and the fewer races in which to run them. Field sizes for the maidens and novices races are big. There's more chance of them finishing in a bunch of some sort so the handicapper won't view them as anything more than much of a muchness and rate them accordingly.

They end up progressing to handicaps off low marks but they're still there in large numbers, run a bunch finish and the handicapper can't raise them much. He'll eventually catch up with the ones that go on to win bigger prizes but will still under-rate them to a degree.

Meantime others are being brought along more gradually down the park to disguise their true ability while still allowing them to gain experience and development.

Then they get unleashed when the big money is on offer.

You're probably aware I developed a strategy to account for this phenomenon a few years back and it has served me well in recent seasons. I'm not privy to the UK handicapper's methods but if they're not along similar lines to my own thinking then we're arriving at similar conclusions.
 
I am a believer in the theory that Irish horses are battle-hardened from not ducking races, UK horses are a bunch of fu*cking mincers in comparison, and that’s why we have been having our arses served to us for the last several Festivals.
 
Back
Top