Road to the Gold Cup 2011

Grasshopper said:
Henderson has certainly hinted previously that he thinks Punchestowns stamina is questionable. However, given he has been the only horse to ever get one of the best 3m hurdlers of the last 20 years off the bit, I'm a bit surprised they hold such an opinion.
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The thing about Nicky though is he's never had a Gold Cup calibre horse in his stable. Off the top of my head Marlborough is the only animal I can think of who's even run in the race so until Punchestowns is tested over a trip the trainer is as much in the dark as to his stamina as any of us.
 
Galileo said:
Best Mate ran 5 times as a bumper/novice hurdler on his first season on the track - 4 times as a novice chaser - 4 times in his first Gold Cup - then after that he was treated like a weak or unsound horse. The truth is that only started when he won his first Gold Cup - it was the trainer that could not take the extra runs not the horse.
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Remind me again - as my memory is dodgy - what happened to Best Mate? Oh yes, he dropped dead of a heart attack during a race. A weakness he had most probably been harbouring for a long time. Clearly it was the trainer who couldn't take the extra runs not the horse...which one is still alive now??
 
Shadow Leader said:
Remind me again - as my memory is dodgy - what happened to Best Mate? Oh yes, he dropped dead of a heart attack during a race. A weakness he had most probably been harbouring for a long time. Clearly it was the trainer who couldn't take the extra runs not the horse...which one is still alive now??
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If Hen Knight thought the horse had a heart problem during her training of the horse - I think there is the slightest of chances she would have let us in on it by now particularly given the stick she has got.

Harbouring the weakness for some time? Guessing now aren't we?
 
looking at how GC horses are now campaigned..HN looks to have produced a template that other trainers are following.

what about Menorah?..not running again until the CH..imagine if he was trained by HN..the stick that would be being handed out
 
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HN only started getting stick after Best Mate had won a Gold Cup or two and racegoers and punters wanted to see more of him. Menorah obviously has nowhere near that sort of profile yet.
 
Euronymous said:
HN only started getting stick after Best Mate had won a Gold Cup or two and racegoers and punters wanted to see more of him. Menorah obviously has nowhere near that sort of profile yet.
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I know the profile isn't there..but he is still being wrapped in cotton wool.

you seem to be suggesting that the more well known a horse is..the more he should run

other trainers are now following HN's route aren't they?
 
Khyber Kim won the Greatwood and the Bula and then didn't run until the Champion...
 
Simon said:
Khyber Kim won the Greatwood and the Bula and then didn't run until the Champion...
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again..if trained by HN..would have been criticised

there are lots of horses that don't run loads of races for numerous reasons.

HN was unfairly criticised imo..i think there was some sexism involved with the stick she got.,.compared with what others don't get for running their horses in a similarly sparce way
 
Freqency of Best Mate's outings was only ever half the argument when it came to Henrietta Knight. The biggest beef I had with her was the lack of imagination when it did come to campaigning him. Whilst she did take in the Lexus with Best Mate (a move I applauded at the time), the horse was never really - at any stage really - given an opportunity to display just how good he might be.

It was the combination of light and unadventurous campaigns she was given stick for - not one or other in isolation.
 
Grasshopper said:
Freqency of Best Mate's outings was only ever half the argument when it came to Henrietta Knight. The biggest beef I had with her was the lack of imagination when it did come to campaigning him. Whilst she did take in the Lexus with Best Mate (a move I applauded at the time), the horse was never really - at any stage really - given an opportunity to display just how good he might be.

It was the combination of light and unadventurous campaigns she was given stick for - not one or other in isolation.
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what did you expect though?

i don't see any great adventure with ANY trainer once the first GC is in the bag

how adventurous do you want?..July Cup..November Handicap..KG...AW Winter Derby Trial..type adventurous :D

i'm not sure you can be that adventurous after winning a GC Grass tbh..its a pretty predictable route i would have thought
 
EC1 said:
what did you expect though?

i don't see any great adventure with ANY trainer once the first GC is in the bag

how adventurous do you want?..July Cup..November Handicap..KG...AW Winter Derby Trial..type adventurous :D

i'm not sure you can be that adventurous after winning a GC Grass tbh..its a pretty predictable route i would have thought
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Denman has run in three Hennessy's, EC1 - two since he won his Gold Cup. That's the way to campaign a Gold Cup winner, and the best way to find out how good a champion really is, imo.

It's a real shame that Clive Smith and Nicholls swerved similar challenges with Kauto Star, though I hold out the (ridiculously optimistic) hope that the Racing Post Chase will appear on the agenda in February. Despite the fact that Kauto Star has no questions to answer in terms of his class, it would have been nice to see him try to despatch lesser animals giving stones away....just to see it.
 
Agree with your sentiments GH but I would say it's 100/1 he appears in the RP Chase in the month before Cheltenham. What about the Sandown Gold Cup?
 
I'm not sure he would be able to run up to the best of his form in a Whitbread, Hamm. He only just gets home in a Gold Cup, and an extra 3f on quicker ground probably wouldn't see him to best effect.

The RP Chase is to Kauto, as the Hennessy is to Denman. Optimum track, optimum trip, optimum conditions to run up to the very best of his form. TDK, myself, Maxilon from TRF (and others) have been talking about the race as a desirable target for nearly four years, and we're no further forward now as we were then. Like I say, so quantifiably good is KS's form, he (like Moscow Flyer) can get away without a prime-of-career handicap outing, but that's not to say that it wouldn't still be an informative and pulse-quickening target.
 
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I agree, just think it's near impossible they'll jeopardise the Gold Cup to do it.

I think they have maybe missed their chance to run him in handicaps.
 
Perhaps I'm in the minority but I think KS would stay the trip at Sandown. It's not the race it used to be either these days. Unless other top notchers turned up to take him on, pretty much everything else would be considerably out of the handicap.

I do agree, though, that the Racing Post Chase would suit KS well, but the timing means we'll never see it.

I would have liked to have seen him run in a top class handicap after his defeat to Monet's Garden at Aintree. I've always felt that he's been dismissed as unable to give weight away on that one effort and I feel he could have proved that wrong. We might never know now.
 
Denman has run in 3 Henesseys yes..but its interesting that the only time he won the GC was the season when he was up and coming.

The Henessey has always been a good race to bring an up and coming horse on from..to win a GC..once the GC has been won though..running in the Hennessey is a big ask for horse..as after winning the GC its a big weight and a very tiring early season target

thats why i think the hennesey is a shit target for a current GC winner..if they want to win another GC...its too tough too early

i'd like to know how many GC winners ran in it after they won the GC...and how they fared later at Cheltenham
 
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EC, my old mucker. In terms of a barometer of form, I'd like to know why a GC would neccessarily be a better race to display it than a Hennessy. This goes to the core of the "All roads lead to Cheltenham" argument. They generally do, but they don't always result in the season's best performances.
 
Galileo said:
If Hen Knight thought the horse had a heart problem during her training of the horse - I think there is the slightest of chances she would have let us in on it by now particularly given the stick she has got.

Harbouring the weakness for some time? Guessing now aren't we?
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Guessing? Not at all. Best Mate did, towards the end of his career, show some signs that he may be harbouring a 'temperament', something which his immediate family (Cornish Rebel, Inca Trail) certainly had in spades. Often when a horse shows signs of temperament, especially in terms of dogging it, it is because they are harbouring some sort of physical problem. I'm not saying that Hen thought he had a heart problem at all, I'm saying that signs of temperament are often indicative of some sort of physical problem , be it breathing, bleeding, heart problems or otherwise.
 
There was his disappointing run in Ireland, for starters, and he wasn't always the most straightforward of horses. Let's not also forget that he had burst badly at home as well, which is always a sign of physical weakness of some sort.
 
I will send you a Christmas satsuma, SL, if you can cobble together a coherent and/or credible answer to that one. :D

Are we perhaps guilty of a bit revisionism here?

Aren't we looking at some of Best Mate's family, and projecting squiggles unduly in his direction?

I think we are.

Throughout his career, he was nothing but a straight-up-and-down, top-class, bold jumping genuine chaser, and for all that some of us would prefer to have seen him capaigned more aggressively, we shouldn't let that detract from the quality of some of his performances.

To suggest he wasn't 100% genuine seems to me to be looking for ways to spare the trainer the rod, whilst weilding it against the horse - surely an even greater injustice than suggesting he could have been tested a bit more?
 
Carn's'arn it......Either you posted too quick, SL, or I'm so trousered (yet anal about spell-checking) that I was too slow. :mad:

:lol:

Edited: For spelling....you couldn't fcukin' make it up.
 
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if HN's methods were so "cotton woolly" why do other trainers of GC winners now follow her pattern..but they don't get the same accusation

why does there have to be a reason why BM was not campaigned every week?

HN has shown other trainers how to win a GC a number of times..other trainers are following suit

looks like HN is a smart lass to me.
 
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Grasshopper said:
Whilst she did take in the Lexus with Best Mate (a move I applauded at the time), the horse was never really - at any stage really - given an opportunity to display just how good he might be.
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This argument has been trotted out so many times. He ran for several seasons in the championship races for the top staying chasers. How is that failing to give him the opportunity to display how good he might be? Of course, they could have run him in a handicap or two but how (in terms of displaying how good you might be) does beating a horse fifteen lengths off level weights differ from giving the same horse a stone and beating him a length? There's plenty of evidence in form books over several seasons as to exactly how good Best Mate was.

EC is right about Knight. She received more stick than she would have done if she'd not been (a) female and (b) regarded as mildly eccentric.
 
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