from Nick Mordon:
LONG RUN NO CERT TO IMPROVE AT KEMPTON
As they set off down the backstraight for the final time in the Betfair Chase Diamond Harry's jockey James Reveley made a fateful decision that may well have a negative impact on the immediate prospects of every horse that ran in the race.
With nine fences still left to jump Reveley decided to move Diamond Harry up to take on Kauto Star for the lead. With the benefit of hindsight and sectional times the leaders should probably have been taking a breather at this point due to the strong early pace they'd been going. But, thanks to the ensuing duel between Diamond Harry and Kauto Star, they ran the roughly five furlongs from the first in the backstraight to four out 4.4 seconds faster than Grade 3 class chasers did over the same trip in the next race won by Cappa Bleu.
This brought about an unusual phenomena that I call a pace collapse where the entire field tires badly until they nearly grind to a halt approaching the finish.
From four out to two out the leaders ran 6.3% slower in the Betfair Chase than they did in Cappa Bleu's race. From two out to the last they ran 8.9% slower. From the last to the finish they ran 10.4% slower. All told they took five seconds longer to get up the homestraight.
Normally every horse that runs in a steeplechase over two and a half miles plus where there is a pace collapse requires as long as ten weeks to fully recover from the effort according to my research. However there is quite often one horse that the race brings on in fitness rather than knocks off form.
In the case of the Betfair Chase it is easy to leap to the conclusion that LONG RUN (40) will be such a horse because he was almost certainly the only runner that needed the run. You could well argue that he simply blew up through lack of fitness and this prevented him dipping as deeply into his reserves as his rivals.
Most likely this is the correct conclusion. But I reckon there's around a 20-40% chance that Long Run will be knocked back by the race as well.
What worried me the most about Long Run's performance was the way he got stretched into a string of jumping errors when Diamond Harry and Kauto Star kicked on. In addition he ballooned the last due to being tired and landed in a heap. He could so easily have crumpled on the landing side of the fence if he had set down even slightly wrong.
Before the race Long Run's trainer Nicky Henderson had voiced concerns about his charge's jumping and reported he'd just returned from extensive re-schooling with the expert in this field Yogi Bresner. This being so there has to be a concern that Long Run could once more be stretched into jumping errors in the King George.
The obvious counter arguement is that Long Run made several mistakes when running below form on his seasonal debut last term but bounced right back to take the King George next time out.
I wish I could say definitively what the right position is to adopt with Long Run after this performance. All I can say for sure is that the general odds of 6-4 now available about him for the King George make me want to look elsewhere for the winner.
KAUTO STAR (43) is clearly not the horse he once was. But he still put up a magnificent performance. He jumped boldly, set a strong pace, stood off a lengthy challenge from Diamond Harry then repelled Long Run when his old rival tried to work his way back into the race.
I honestly thought that Kauto Star was finished after he'd run a clunker at the Punchestown Festival. But trainer Paul Nicholls shrewdly reasoned that if he was ever going to win another Grade 1 it would be the Betfair Chase where he could give him a fitness edge by training him to the minute. As Nicholls said "he was very, very fit we made sure of that ... this was his Gold Cup."
It now seems clear that Nicholls' game plan all along was to win this race with Kauto Star and the King George with Master-Minded. However he and owner Clive Smith are now mulling over the idea of letting Kauto Star join Master Minded at Kempton for one last shot at the race he's won four times.
If he were mine I'd be tempted to retire Kauto Star and let him go out with a big win. He finished tired here so it's going to be hard for him to recover in time to reproduce this effort in the King George. The Gold Cup might seem a logical target if he's kept fresh. But the Cheltenham race appears to favour younger, more lightly raced horses these days - with fourteen of the last fifteen renewals going to horses that had thirteen or fewer previous starts over fences. It's hard to see what else Kauto Star could win.
Then again, thoughts like these simply highlight the wonderful difference between jump racing and flat racing where so many of the very best horses get retired before they've really shown what they can do. And no one should ever under estimate a horse that I agree is the best steeplechaser since Arkle. I think he's going to have a tough time winning again but you can argue it's great that he has the chance to try.
Third placed WEIRD AL (40) moved well for a long way and impressed with his accurate jumping at speed. But he didn't run quite up to the form he'd show when winning the Charlie Hall on his comeback. Indeed trainer Donald Mc Cain reported that jockey "Timmy Murphy said he didn't feel quite as sharp as Wetherby - which, with his track record, would be understandable. But it's a great run, and we're very pleased with him. It will be a long break, because he is definitely a better horse fresh and sharp."
Mc Cain is clearly right. Weird Al is not that robust for a chaser and almost certainly needs breaks between his runs as he requires longer to recover from them. He underwent surgery to correct partial paralysis of his larynx after running a clunker in last year's Hennessy and bled when pulling up in the Gold Cup in his comeback outing.
The major worry before Weird Al ran so badly in last year’s Hennessy was that he was legless in the closing stages in his previous start when just getting up in a slow motion finish to dead heat with subsequent Paddy Power Gold Cup winner Little Josh at Carlisle.
It was especially worrying to note that the Racing Post reporter said Weird Al looked distressed in the unsaddling enclosure after that race. I say this because it was a similar story after he'd won on his hurdling debut where he actually needed to be given oxygen he was in such a bad way.
The only win Weird Al has scored that wasn't preceded by a break of at least eight weeks was in a very slow run race on his second start last season where they were only going at racing pace for the last half mile. He'd needed a one year break after his hurdling debut win when he'd finished distressed.
It's going to be very tempting for Weird Al's connections to bring him back in the Gold Cup. But I think that race is simply too stressful for him. He had to be pulled up in it last year despite having had a break of 111 days beforehand.
The right race for Weird Al's comeback is surely the Totesport Bowl at Aintree. The tight turns and smaller field will make the race less stressful and therefore more suitable for Weird Al. And the exceptionally stiff jumps will make the most of his good jumping. If he skips the Gold Cup and goes straight to that race I'd like his chances.
Jockey James Reveley reported that fourth placed DIAMOND HARRY (37) was "flat out all the way", had finished very tired and would need a long break. This suggests to me that Diamond Harry may well need softer ground to slow the pace down. I suspect this will prove to be true as his career develops.
It does seem that Diamond Harry has recovered from the problems he experienced with a suspensory ligament. But he's clearly still inclined to push himself very hard in his races and needs time to recover from particularly stressful ones like this.
I don't know whether Diamond Harry will recover from this race in time to produce his best at Kempton in the King George. But his trainer Nick Williams says he won't run him in that race unless he feels he has recovered. So I'm going to be rather interested in his chances if he does line up and the ground is a good deal softer than it was here.
In my experience almost all horses run below form the first time they're taken on by a genuinely top class rival as Diamond Harry was here. The fact that he was able to sustain his effort for so long and actually look a big threat to win for quite some time says a lot for his qualities. I'm sure he'll be winning again in Grade 1 company sooner rather than later.
TIME FOR RUPERT (35) was flat to the boards to keep tabs on the leaders all the way just as he was on similarly fast ground in the RSA Chase last season. He's a very smart horse on softer ground, especially on more testing tracks. He too is capable of winning at the top level when he gets his favoured conditions.
MASTER MINDED HAS A REAL SHOT IN KING GEORGE
MASTER MINDED (42) looked set to run away from Somersby when he took the lead two out in the Amlin Chase. But he slowed down on the run in, allowing the runner up to come back at him.
One obvious explanation for why Master Minded failed to power clear just when he looked set to is lack of fitness. After all he was sweating beforehand, had been nowhere near ready first time out and is being specially trained to peak for the King George.
However it's also worth bearing in mind that Master Minded has never really kept up the gallop and charged clear like Long Run or Kauto Star once he's had his race won in the past. He's always tended to idle a bit. And with the King George in mind this is no bad thing. He'll almost certainly be at his peak for the big Kempton race. If he'd powered away from his rivals to clock a very fast time he might have had trouble recovering in time.
I can't say for sure that Master Minded will stay the three miles at Kempton. But I'm pretty confident he will from what I've seen of his races over the last couple of seasons. I see him as the best candidate to beat Long Run in the big Christmas race which is clearly his big target for the season. And trainer Paul Nicholls is right to point out that he has a remarkable record on right handed tracks like Kempton, having won all seven of his completed starts on such courses.
SOMERSBY (41) was just a little keen and gave his jockey no choice but to go on a long way out when continually out jumping those around him down the backstraight in the small field. This made this horse who is normally held up rather a sitting duck for Master Minded. He tried to kick away from his old rival three out but made a mistake there and was always going to be beat thereafter. He ended his chance with a slow jump at the last and took several strides to build his momentum back up on landing. But he was finishing stronger than Master Minded in the last 100 yards and closing the gap.
Somersby would have run second to Master Minded in four of his last six starts if a couple of half length decisions for the runner up spot had gone his way. He does seem to lack that vital bit of speed that truly top class horses can inject into a race at a crucial stage. So while he should appreciate the bigger field and longer trip at Kempton I can't help remembering how vulnerable he's looked so many times when tackling the very best in this game.
MEDERMIT was not going well as the first two from a long way out. He's not very big or robust for a chaser so I wonder whether he can fight for position effectively in a big field. He broke his maiden in a 12 runner race but all his subsequent six wins have been in single figure fields. His physique means he probably is best fresh too. His chase runs in single figure fields when it's been 35 plus days since his last start read 1111. He wasn't fresh here but my impression from the way he was beat so far out is that he's going to struggle in Grade 1 company even when fresh and in small fields now he's not running against novices.
THE SAWYER is a big-bodied sort that always needs three runs to get fit and must have soft or heavy ground. He would have won eight of the last twelve times he's had three or more runs under his belt and raced on soft or heavy in Grade 3 or lower class. Here he was struggling to keep up on the fast ground from some way out on his seasonal debut. Give him a couple more runs and genuinely soft or heavy ground and he can win again.
Have had a little ew at 20/1, just feel he is very underrated and has produced many solid performances at Grade 1 level. Thought he travelled better than I have ever seen him in the Amlin, always seems to get outpaced at a crucial stage over 2-2.5 miles before staying on. Add in his preference for r/handed tracks and his unexposed profile over 3 miles and he could easily run into a place here. Agree Long Run looks very hard to beat though.
