The Road to the 2017 Cheltenham Gold Cup

Oh, and another thing...

Native River, carrying 2lbs less, was 1.7s slower than the 135-rated novice handicapper Final Nudge over C&D an hour and a half later.

I'm happy to draw a line through the race completely.
 
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I think a mistake a lot of us make is looking at overall times which for the most part mean very little.

How do you explain Might Bite absolutely smashing Thistlecrack's time but if you put them both in the same race Thistlecrack would have destroyed him.

My take is what separates the men from the boys is the ability to change gears in an instance with ease so when you jump a little long or a little short or go slightly through a fence
you can adapt immediately and not lose an inch of ground and most importantly not be taken out of your comfort zone.

Native River didn't beat Bristol De Mai over 3 miles he beat him over 300 yds by simply stepping on the gas for a dozen or so strides and immediately taking him out of his comfort zone.

Had the race been run 4 seconds faster Native River could have/would have done the same thing even easier because he would still have been traveling within himself because has that ability Bristol De Mai simply doesn't have in that class.
 
Not sure how you can reach those conclusions, Tanlic.

Firstly, re Might Bite, there's nothing to say Thistlecrack would have beaten him let alone destroyed him. We've both accepted the KG form amounts to nothing so on the day maybe Might Bite would have pulled off a 'shock'. On a different day and in a different race, I can see Thistelcrack beating him but maybe not that day.

Re NR v BDM, both are winning handicappers stepping up in grade so one race cannot be deemed conclusive. On my figures NR did no more in winning the Welsh National than he did at Newbury. Beating Le Mercurey by a relatively short margin in a very slow time means nothing. A lot was said about NR showing a turn of pace yesterday but you'd have had to have been very disappointed if he couldn't quicken up off a slow pace against a much inferior opponent.

I say forget yesterday's race all together. In the big scheme of things it means no more than Brigadier Gerard getting home by a head from something vastly inferior in heavy ground or Rooster Booster short-heading Self Defense in his last race before he won the Champion Hurdle.

Jacob says BDM was flat. That will do for me.
 
Bristol De Mai clearly didn't give his running at Newbury and the explanation given seems plausible. The Gold Cup field this year doesn't look a vintage one at all and given that the horse was a 14/1 shot on the morning of the Denman there's a very strong argument in my view that the 33/1 now widely available is simply the wrong price. I've had a bit on, anyway.
 
Yep, as I said last week, I was true to my word and took the 33/1 when I got home from Spain. Cracking value for one heavily backed to beat a 4/1 shot for the GC (Native River) that day. Don't be surprised if any ante-post updates by the likes of Paul Kealy suggest following us in.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Oh, and another thing...

Native River, carrying 2lbs less, was 1.7s slower than the 135-rated novice handicapper Final Nudge over C&D an hour and a half later.

I'm happy to draw a line through the race completely.
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I see in this morning's RP the owner of Native River is saying they just wanted to give the horse a public gallop in the Denman (ie win without having a hard race). That would be another reason to dismiss the race as anything other than that.

As an aside, here's a controversial angle to consider. Just putting it out there...

Richard Johnson opted not to ride NR that day as he didn't think he could beat Bristol De Mai who was then heavily backed to win the race but suffered an injury.

:ninja:
 
I think you can safely file that one under 'Crackpot Theory' rather than 'Controversial Angle', DO.

Jonners never stops enthusing about Native River every time he is asked, and sees him as his best chance of another Gold Cup winner, by some way.

He also stood himself down for the remainder of the day at Newbury, and the following day's racing too. Maybe he thought they would all get beat as well? :ninja:
 
Grasshopper said:
I think you can safely file that one under 'Crackpot Theory' rather than 'Controversial Angle', DO.

Jonners never stops enthusing about Native River every time he is asked, and sees him as his best chance of another Gold Cup winner, by some way.

He also stood himself down for the remainder of the day at Newbury, and the following day's racing too. Maybe he thought they would all get beat as well? :ninja:
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Jonners was in tatters and stood down as he didn't want to be the reason for the horse getting beat. In reality i could have won on NR.
 
Grasshopper said:
I think you can safely file that one under 'Crackpot Theory' rather than 'Controversial Angle', DO.
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Very possibly. I'm not short of them. But occasionally they're right :)

Grasshopper said:
Jonners never stops enthusing about Native River every time he is asked, and sees him as his best chance of another Gold Cup winner, by some way.
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All the more reason not to ride him if he thought he couldn't beat BDM, maybe?

Grasshopper said:
He also stood himself down for the remainder of the day at Newbury, and the following day's racing too. Maybe he thought they would all get beat as well? :ninja:
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Almost certainly. If he was feeling under the weather and felt he didn't have much to look forward to why not just give himself a break and focus on getting better for the next Saturday?

He wasn't going to beat Altior, Ballyandy/Movewiththetimes or Daphne Du Clos. I don't even know if he had any mounts later that day (I presume Wait For Me, which ran like a coo, and maybe one in Final Nudge's race) so maybe he felt there wasn't much point.
 
Gutting.....

Stand by what I said at time of Cotswolds the horse wasn't right that day. Just shows what a monster he potentially is if he was carrying that kind of injury at the time and it was undetected and still managed to run like that.
 
He wasn't carrying an injury the last day. They found heat this morning and as Tizzard says, it happens every day at every big yard. You just hope and pray that it's not your high profile horses. I feel sorry for those who backed him at fancy prices but that's ante-post for you.
 
archie said:
He wasn't carrying an injury the last day. They found heat this morning and as Tizzard says, it happens every day at every big yard. You just hope and pray that it's not your high profile horses. I feel sorry for those who backed him at fancy prices but that's ante-post for you.
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Sorry you own the horse do you?
 
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