Road to the 2014 Cheltenham Gold Cup

Ardross said:
1 Some , particularly Irish contributors were antipathetic to the Hen and Terry show

2 He mashed Beef or Salmon on a regular basis except in a bog when he had suffered a bad cut on the way over and was suffering from the virus that eventually appeared to damage his heart and take his life.

3 Ratings obsessives couldn't believe the evidence of their eyes so preferred their numbers.
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Spot on. There was a charmless sneering towards them (too english?) and the carping about the number of runs per season (not an issue with other "genius" trainers though)

Ratings only ever take you so far. The evidence of my eyes was of a beautiful smooth traveling horse who skipped fences as perfectly as any jumper i have seen. It was almost as if they weren't there.
 
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Ardross said:
What a pile of trash . Best Mate remains the most underrated Gold Cup winner of all time - he won 3 ffs. Something no other horse but Arkle has managed in the modern era .

He was disparaged - despite in 2002 beating a field full of Grade 1 winners simply because Commanche Court ran the race of his life to be second , in 2003 he destroyed all the fancied contenders and because Truckers Tavern ran on past exhausted horses he was disparaged for that and in 2004 it was soft and Culloty said he was not as fit as he should have been also Hen's other horses were badly out of form yet he still won . Carberry was clear that the soft ground was the only thing that enabled Harbour Pilot to get close.

I have no doubt Best Mate would have been good enough to win all the Gold Cups of the last decade - he would surely have outstayed Kicking King on his preferred good ground in 2005 for example except 2007-2009 and I suspect his brilliant jumping and ability to travel would have meant he would have served it up to both Kauto and Denman . Ratings mean **** all at that level. He would have beaten Long Run with his back legs tied together ! Now there is an overrated horse.
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wouldn't have beat denman in 2008 imo. absolutely brutal performance.
 
tiggers1972 said:
If rating mean nothing why have then?

Utter tosh!
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Ratings at the very top level - especially of horses that win within themselves are always likely to underrate them . Best Mate for example was beaten by Wahiba Sands in Nov 2001 giving him 21lbs over an inadequate trip- at the end of the season WS was rated 162 - showing that was a 180 performance trying to give him weight but that was ignored in assessing Best Mate's rating .
 
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The simpler the nature of the race, the more ratings are relevant. 2 year old dashes on AW probably a good example.

Chases are at the other end of the scale (that's not disparaging the former).
 
If ratings were an exact science and a definite answer to a horse's ability then all handicaps would end up with a dead heat of all runners !
 
its interesting how Best Mate "isn't that good a GC winner" judged by using ratings...but those same ratings are then questioned when Arkle's 212 is quoted

i think people tend to use or ignore ratings to suit their arguments...quote them when it suits..they try to question them when it doesn't

ratings apart...just getting a horse fit to run its best in 3 GC's is a feat in itself...then to win one of them is an achievement...to win 2 is outstanding...to win all 3 is unbelievable
 
Ardross said:
Best Mate for example was beaten by Wahiba Sands in Nov 2001 giving him 21lbs over an inadequate trip- at the end of the season WS was rated 162 - showing that was a 180 performance trying to give him weight but that was ignored in assessing Best Mate's rating .
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Is that this race?

http://www.racingpost.com/horses/re...lts_top_tabs=re_&results_bottom_tabs=ANALYSIS

At 1lb/length, if Wahiba Sands ran to his end-of-season OR of 161 in that race, Best Mate would have run to 181.

However, Dusk Duel would have run to around 159 and Logician would have run to 155.

Dusk Duel was rated 146 going into that race on the basis of his novice season. You would have him 13lbs well in in his subsequent handicap starts. He was beaten 55 lengths in his only remaining chase start.

Logician came in to the race rated 135. You would have had him 20lbs well in in his subsequent handicap starts. In 9 such races, he never got his OR above 140.

No wonder it was ignored.
 
That is hardly material . Dusk Duel went wrong on his next start and his form is irrelevant. Logician was rated 149 not 140 into that race even though his form subsequently dropped off .

The horse whose form was reliable was Wahiba Sands who showed he was a much better horse than rated in that race.
 
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I would think the KG run with Florida Pearl would be one of his best ratings runs..and Kempton wouldn't have been his best course..whereas FP was well suited
 
Ardross... Dusk Duel and Logician were both running out of the handicap. The OR column on that results sheet includes the weight they were not getting from Best Mate:

Best Mate, highest OR 169 gets top-weight of 11-10
Wahiba Sands, OR 149, carries 20lbs less (10-4, which coincidentally is the minimum weight)
Dusk Duel, OR 146, should carry 23lbs less (10-1) but has to carry min weight 10-4 so is 3lbs out of the handicap.
Logician, OR 135, should carry 34lbs less (9-4) but has to carry min weight 10-4 so is a full stone out of the handicap (he got an extra 3lb off for using a conditional so carried 10-1).

Ignore Best Mate for a moment - Wahiba Sands was only beating Logician, from whom he was effectively getting a stone, by a bit over 3 lengths.

Its a bit ridiculous to be so disparaging of ratings when you don't appear to know the very basics of how they're calculated.
 
clivex said:
Spot on. There was a charmless sneering towards them (too english?) and the carping about the number of runs per season (not an issue with other "genius" trainers though)

Ratings only ever take you so far. The evidence of my eyes was of a beautiful smooth traveling horse who skipped fences as perfectly as any jumper i have seen. It was almost as if they weren't there.
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Christ almighty. Why do you bring nationality into it?

You've a persecution complex to make us Paddies proud.
 
Gareth Flynn said:
Ardross... Dusk Duel and Logician were both running out of the handicap. The OR column on that results sheet includes the weight they were not getting from Best Mate:

Best Mate, highest OR 169 gets top-weight of 11-10
Wahiba Sands, OR 149, carries 20lbs less (10-4, which coincidentally is the minimum weight)
Dusk Duel, OR 146, should carry 23lbs less (10-1) but has to carry min weight 10-4 so is 3lbs out of the handicap.
Logician, OR 135, should carry 34lbs less (9-4) but has to carry min weight 10-4 so is a full stone out of the handicap (he got an extra 3lb off for using a conditional so carried 10-1).

Ignore Best Mate for a moment - Wahiba Sands was only beating Logician, from whom he was effectively getting a stone, by a bit over 3 lengths.

Its a bit ridiculous to be so disparaging of ratings when you don't appear to know the very basics of how they're calculated.
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There is no need to be abusive . I did not pick up the fact they were out of the handicap but used the ratings on that page.

It makes no difference to the point re Dusk Duel or Logician . In a small field , they could easily have been flattered by their proximity . The fact remains much the most reliable yardstick from that race was Wahiba Sands .

Moreover, ratings are not an exact science , they are opinion dressed up as such ,no matter how those who rely on them as being the complete answer to every question about the comparative ability of horses suggest that they are .
 
Bar the Bull said:
Christ almighty. Why do you bring nationality into it?

You've a persecution complex to make us Paddies proud.
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No. It was in response and alluded to in previous post. There was sneering at Hen and Tel which was unnecessary. Various reasons for that i believe
 
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Kauto is a very English horse. And most of us loved him. Because he was able to slam 170 horses by 10l plus, he was easy to rate highly. I'd love to believe BM was aonster, but there's nothing in his record to suggest he could produce stratospheric ratings.

Nothing wrong with 3 x GC and a Kg mind you.
 
Ardross said:
There is no need to be abusive . I did not pick up the fact they were out of the handicap but used the ratings on that page.
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There's no abuse - I'm simply calling you out on a fundamental lack of knowledge about a subject which you are disparaging.

It makes no difference to the point re Dusk Duel or Logician . In a small field , they could easily have been flattered by their proximity . The fact remains much the most reliable yardstick from that race was Wahiba Sands .
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Of course they were flattered, but you can't have it both ways - the flipside is that the race is useless for judging how good Best Mate and Wahiba Sands were. Best Mate plainly didn't run to the 180s and Wahiba Sands plainly didn't run to the 160s mark he oscillated towards over the course of his next 4 or 5 runs.
 
Colin Phillips said:
We've been through this before.

To win three Gold Cups either Best Mate was a bloody good horse or Hen and Terry were bloody good trainers.
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Both. Cant have one without the other. More than a few talented beasts have flickered too briefly and IMO above all the mark of a good trainer is keeping horses at their best over a decent period of time. Why i would always prefer P Nichols to M Pipe say

Few trainers got their horses to jump so perfectly too.
 
Colin Phillips said:
We've been through this before.

To win three Gold Cups either Best Mate was a bloody good horse or Hen and Terry were bloody good trainers.
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No doubt a brilliant training performance in terms of a specific plan executed near-perfectly. I also don't believe that the horse's achievements should be denigrated just because he was active in a less-than-stellar era. But Kauto and Denman were simply operating at a different level at their best.
 
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