Punchestown Festival 2018

Double J said:
I was on Monalee, but you'd be ******* furious if you on Finians there.
Click to expand...

Worse if you were on Al Boum Photo

To my eye, Townend thought he had jumped the last. Thought he was facing the fence after the winning post in front of the stands. Saw Puppy rowing away and panicked and tried to bypass the fence. Bad lapse in concentration unfortunately, in my book. Punishment is severe.
 
Last edited:
Is he giving his horses (Ricci's notably) a very hard end of season to try to become Irish champion trainer again. Hope the likes of Min and Getabird aren't affected next year.
 
archie said:
Runs this season:
Getabird 5
Mengli Khan 7
Min 6
A Toi Phil 11
Click to expand...

Case closed if A Toi Phil had been always contesting grade 1s from the get go and had run in the Champion Chase, Melling Chase and Punchestown Champion Chase in 5 weeks, winning none. A Toi Phil vs Ballycasey might be a fairer match. They tend to turn up in a lot of these contests to make up the numbers. Getting A Toi Phil to finish 5l ahead of Min today is one of the reasons I ask the question. Guess that 4th place prizemoney could be crucial.
 
I'm not normally full of praise for him, but fair play to Dessie, he let out a perfectly appropriate AAAaaahhh at the sight of the Townend incident and then got on top of it quickly.

I can't find a convincing explanation for Townend's manoeuvre. Horses were veering right at the previous fence but not so much in the approach to the last. I wondered if his horse had gone lame, but in that case he wouldn't have started pulling on his left rein to belatedly try and keep him on course.
 
he's heard a shout or something, that'd led him to believe that they needed to bypass the fence, after turning around and seeing the other horses.

absolutely bizarre.
 
Adross ans Suny what utter tosh...ya dont have a clue wtf you are talking about...overrated yer backsides....Horse never traveled jumping was anything like fluent and looked a shadow of himself....to say he is overrated because of one below par run shows a pathtic underdtanding of the game..
 
Watching the race again it would confirm what Paul Townsend said.....He clearly thought after 3 out all he had to do was press the button and Douvan would go past but when he did the horse didnt pick up like he has always done whe 100%....Hence the confident glance between his legs after the 3rd last. Clearly whatever was ailing him in The CC ladt year is still affecting his performance
 
HawkWing said:
Is he giving his horses (Ricci's notably) a very hard end of season to try to become Irish champion trainer again. Hope the likes of Min and Getabird aren't affected next year.
Click to expand...

Given the various whipping bans handed out to riders of his horses at Cheltenham, various horses being out for long periods with mystery injuries plus the above, giving horses in the yard a hard time in search of prize money is par for the course in my book.Not a yard I would ever have a horse in.
 
I think Willie is a bone fide genius of a trainer, but this isn't the first time he has gone all Martin Pipe/Paul Nicholls on the run in to a trainers championship. Poor Rathvinden wasn't spared (again) from the last in the 3m after there was a chance of third place cash.
 
The last fence is alongside private pavilion lawn so any voices may have come from there.
To be fair they seemed a well behaved bunch for the 2 mile chase as I was near the fence myself and shouted nothing but encouragement to Patrick.
Give a soft lead to UDS on soft ground over two miles and you will only get one result.
Once Special Tiara was pulled out the complexion of the race changed.
That said Douvan had not finished a race in 16 months so probably ran as well as he could.
That Land rover Bumper winner could be anything; a most gorgeous horse from the Shannon Spray family bred locally in Churchtown.
 
edgt said:
The last fence is alongside private pavilion lawn so any voices may have come from there.
To be fair they seemed a well behaved bunch for the 2 mile chase as I was near the fence myself and shouted nothing but encouragement to Patrick.
Click to expand...

I note Gordon Elliott admitted he was down near the last fence...
 
He sure was (picture credit Matt Chapman twitter account)

6jlr3p.jpg
 
It's hard to understand why that addendum couldn't have been part of last night's report. In fact it would surely have been better to publish the whole lot at one go.

At least the account matches what the cameras show, but why an experienced jockey would react in this way to a roaring crowd is still a mystery. That lawn pavilion is only there for the festival, but even so.
 
He changed course before getting to the lawn pavilion. It looks to me as if it was those 3 people at the hedge/gate that must have influenced him.

Sent from my SM-G360F using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top