Straw Bear

Goober you can't really take any Meade performance over Christmas seriously. Carberry felt going down to the start he wouldn't be winning that day. Fair enough regarding your opinions on the FF - I disagree personally - but we can't read anything into Christmas

In fact, to me, the only thing you can say is that Archie running that close while every other Meade horse was being beaten out of sight practically shows how good he is.

Fighting Fifth was a top display IMO and if he turns up on song at Cheltenham he will not be out of the frame.

Maruco says that there could be a shock result because Sizing and Osana could do to each other what Hardy and Inca did last year. But surely if they do that then Sublimity will win again?!
 
To be fair Bobbyjo, I tend to be a little cynical where 'stables out of form' are concerned. More often than not it turns out to be nothing more than a sequence of runs by poor or overrated horses, poorly placed or poorly handicapped horses until eventually the yard slams in a treble somewhere and suddenly the run has ended as quickly as it began! I take on trust from those on here about Meades poor run, I dont follow his horses closely enough to comment, but surely if there was something ailing ALL of them then Harchibald, of all horses, wouldn't have bothered to put up such a fight as he did at Kempton and would have been well beaten. Thats how I see it anyway!

I would be a bit surprised if Sizing Europe was put into a war with Osana much before the second last.
 
Originally posted by uncle goober@Feb 3 2008, 06:27 PM

I would be a bit surprised if Sizing Europe was put into a war with Osana much before the second last.
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Agreed; I'm sure De Bromhead who seems a very intelligent man will have that angle covered :rolleyes:

It really is going to be a fascinating race as it's so hard {as informed opinion on here demonstrates} to make a cast iron case for any of the main runners, or to rule any out decisively. There are at least three jokers in the pack - Sumblimity, Harchie, and Katchit who for various reasons we can't predict - maybe five if you include Afsoun and Straw Bear!

For my money SE has shown the most reliable form, the talent, and has had the best preparation.
But I'm not going to be amazed if he gets beat on the day
 
In fairness goober...you know how many horses Meade has in training in Ireland and Christmas is a time to make hay. I know he has a reputation for having all his horses over the top by February/March but he still had a similar volume of horses running as normal and they were all below par

Then again, I've heard Archie has been in isolation although I don't know for how long that has been the case. After all, no one knew at 26 Dec how bad things really were...he still had a winner on 1st Jan [the very well handicapped Well Run at the time who is one to still keep an eye on by the way!]
 
Originally posted by Maruco@Feb 3 2008, 12:25 PM
likely to ensure Afsoun gets the race run the way he needs. He would be one of three that will certainly benefit and I can see him running a big race again this year.
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:clap: :clap: :clap:

Me too. :laughing:
 
All the evidence points to Straw Bear preferring an easy 2m on a flat track, as proven when he trounced Afsoun at Wincanton last season.

I think it is unfair on the horse to write him off just because he is unlikely to win a Champion Hurdle on a stiff track which he won't relish.

There are plenty of flat track graded hurdles for him to target over coming seasons.

What is of concern is that he can underperform even with his ideal conditions (as in last seasons Xmas Hurdle), so one wonders if he has an intermittent breathing problem or somesuch physical ailment?
 
I know he was reported to have broken a blood vessel in the Champion itself, but didn't realise it was attributed to other unexpectedly poor runs.
 
He bled very badly in that race. Horses which bleed badly in one race have the tendency to do it again, esp when asked for max effort, so they are treading on eggshells with SB.

Some horses even bleed on the gallops and have to be treated with kid gloves - for example Ionian Spring bled when he got excited, so Clive Cox developed a regime for him so he was always excercised on his own, taken early down to the start, kept away from other horses etc
 
Oh, I see. As a betting medium he is certainly one to steer well clear of, but I am sure he will pop up in some more Graded events before he retires.
 
I can't quite get the theory that Straw Bear won't be winning graded races over hurdles again - quite aside from the fact that it was less than 6 weeks ago that he won a Grade 1, there are a few 2m graded hurdle races run with very small fields that are winnable by a horse with the talent of Straw Bear. Granted, he'd be short of Champion Hurdle winning class however there will be plenty of horses running in the Champion who will have far less of a chance than Straw Bear does.

He has the size and scope that indicates to me that he should be a useful chaser.
 
Form figures over hurdles of 112121421P612 and £250k aren't too shabby, for all his problems.
 
Shadow Leader, is there anything vets can do to stop bleeding within the laws here? Obviously they use Lasix in the States but that is banned here.

Otherwise once a horse is a known bleeder it is simply impossible to back him or have a bet in a race he is involved in surely?
 
Vets cannot administer anything to prevent bleeding that you are allowed to race horses on, no.

There are other ways to get over bleeding though in some cases - a change in training routine is best with an emphasis on longer, slower work rather than shorter, faster interval training. I've been riding a horse for a while now who we have had since last July. When he came to us we knew that he had been bleeding at home but in all the time we have had him he hasn't shown any signs of bleeding, either at home, in racecourse gallops or on the track. Our training regime places emphasis on stamina rather than speed however and involves going over longer periods rather than the short, sharp bursts of interval training.

So no, you couldn't discount a horse entirely after a bleeding episode, not least as sometimes they can burst once and not again due to a low grade infection on that occasion which puts their body under more pressure than usual under the extremes of race conditions. Best Mate is probably a good example of this - he is only supposed to have bled the once I believe.
 
The first horse I had a share in bled just the once [over a mile at Chepstow]. He was treated with a course of lasix and never appeared to bleed again, tho he only raced in a charity race after that. It was 1.4 mind you and he'd only ever raced up to 1m under Rules. He was 4th.
 
Never heard that one Colin!

A change of bedding can help one that has respiratory problems so maybe if that is contributing to any bleeding, unusual as that would be, that could have something to do with it.
 
The Mordin view (taken from his weekly report on his web site)

STRAW BEAR BEATEN BY THE GROUND

Anyone who took the odds on about STRAW BEAR (38) winning the big Grade 2 hurdle at Sandown last Saturday has good reason to be mightily aggrieved with the Clerk of the Course for posting a grossly misleading official going report.

The official going was soft which would have suited Straw Bear perfectly as he'd won nine of the previous ten times he'd run on what my going allowances say was yielding or softer ground at seven furlongs or more (I'm counting Fibresand as yielding) but lost all ten times he'd run on anything faster.

It soon became apparent that the going was nowhere near to being soft because the runners weren't throwing up divots as they would on such ground. This was confirmed by the time of the race which was the eighth fastest of 228 hurdle and Bumper races run over Sandown's extended two miles in the last dozen years - excluding the mixed Spring meeting where the hurdles course is reconfigured to accommodate the flat races and they run a shorter distance as a result. In fact they were just 3.7 seconds off the fastest time run in this period. No question the going was good.

In the circumstances Straw Bear ran a big race to run a good second to AFSOUN(40). He remains the best hurdler on soft ground, and I fervently hope I get the chance to bet him on such ground at Aintree or Punchestown against whatever wins the Champion Hurdle.

Afsoun is a rather puzzling horse. He runs big one day and poorly another. The best explanation I can come up with is that he's a nervous horse that does not perform well before big crowds. I can only guesstimate the biggest crowds he's performed before but it produces an interesting result. He's lost the last seven times he's run at really big meetings where large crowds attend but won five of the last seven times he's run at less well attended fixtures. One of his two defeats was a second place finish to Straw Bear on soft ground, a surface that horse is almost unbeatable on. The other loss was a half length defeat by dual Champion Hurdler Hardy Eustace over the 2m 3.5f at Ascot which suits that one so well.

This time Afsoun ran without the earplugs that have been used to counteract his pre-race nerves in the past. He pulled hard going down to the post - something he's done before. I dare say he'll hate the extended parade before the Champion.
 
I`m not having that, what about the ground in the Supreme Novices and Top at Aintree - both were ran on faster ground than they had on saturday surely??
 
I'm not convinced his Afsoun theory stacks either, unless of course you're asking me to believe that finishing third in a Champion Hurdle (in front of the biggest crowd he faced) isn't his best piece of form. There's clearly limitations to ones insight if you choose to assess performances based purely on figures in the left hand column. In many respects I put his Ascot defeat down to Mick Fitz not having one of his better runs too.

I don't doubt that the horse is a bit of character and throws in some poor ones, but I think they're pretty random. He's a year older than he was last season, when as a 5yo he had a well documented mountain to climb. He was 2.75L's nearer to Sublimity in the Bula, where both horses had to give 8Ibs to Osana, and both were considered to have run poorly that day.

This year we have Sizing Europe and Osana, possibly to be joined by the winner of the Kingwell emerge. On the negative side we've lost Macs Joy, Detroit City, Ikitiaf and temporarily we hope, Brave Inca. Hardy Eustace doesn't look like winning, and if Afsoun could beat him as a 5yo, you've got to think he would do so at 16F again a year on. If Afsoun has beaten Straw Bear fair and square, then the biggest threat to emerge outside of the two market leaders that didn't line up last year is the mercurial Harchibald. shrug::

25/1 e/w shrug:: There's certainly worst bets for a horse that has the ability to stay beyond 16F if we get the tear up that we're expecting Osana to set
 
Thanks for that Shadow Leader - a typically expert point of view. You should get a job as an expert on ATR or RUK!!!

I seem to recall One Man also bled once when Woody pulled him up at Aintree - I think like Best Mate that was also a one off.
 
Outwardly at any rate Useful. I suspect that both horses bled internally on more than one occcasion. Many horses bleed internally, some much worse than others, and it is not visible outwardly. Other horses, once they have burst badly, will be reluctant to put in as much effort in their races as before for fear that it will hurt them as badly as it did the last time. Some horses will race until something bursts so badly that they drop dead, some horses drop dead anyway, despite looking after themselves.

I think that many horses percieved as ungenuine are more likely horses that are bleeding internally or have bled badly in the past and fear it happening again.
 
Goob, I have always disliked the term "ungenuine" in respect of a horse. As you say, there is usually some "history" mental or physical whuch ails them and makes them appear not to go through with their efforts.

Dandy Nicholls is renowned for his efforts in putting the spark back in horses who have "lost their way" and I recall reading that this was largely down to letting them stay in a paddock all day. He compared some training establishments with the "24 hour bang ups" prisoners in the UK have to endure. He asked how can any horse be happy with that.

I also heard recently that Venetia opperates a similar policy of letting the horses spend a lot of time in the paddock rather than standing in their boxes. I guess you only have to look at Zoo animals to see how adverse an effect prolonged periods of confinement can have on an animal.
 
All Venetia's horses go into the paddock every afternoon if not on box rest. She says it makes a lot of work for the staff - they get filthy - but she's certain it's worth the trouble

There's no doubt in my mind that horses benefit from as much time out of their boxes as poss - eg going on the horsewalker afternoon as well as morning while being skipped out - and by a change of regime/route for their exercise. I'm not keen on these huge soulless yards like Barry Hills' either - must be really boring for them; and I never feel horses in very big yards get the attention they need for the more sensitive souls to stay sane
 
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