The Road to the 2019 Cheltenham Gold Cup

Sizing John is set for a workout at the Curragh ahead of returning to action at Leopardstown for the first time in a year.

Presenting Percy may also be supplemented for Kempton
 
You can understand why they are thinking King George after the way Biter bit the dust.

If he failed to come back it might turn out to be a cake walk for them

Biter was so disappointing I was even thinking my pethate Bristol De Mai might not be a one hit wonder and could carry his form forward to Kempton
 
Wouldn't fancy Percy if this was his first run of season, same with Waiting Patiently.

BDM's chance in any race is dependant on his ability to get into a jumping rhythm. Don't think Kempton suits him.
 
Nicky confirming again Altior wont go King George...It's not that he hasn't sent good 2 milers before Remittance Man finished 3rd to the fellow Travado (Fell) and Tiutchev nearly won it

I suppose Sprinter and Altior were/are just too good at the min trip to be upsetting the applecart and that may have more to do with it than them thinking Might Bite is certain to come bouncing back............will be interesting to find out
 
Remittance Man beaten by The Fellow after what amounted to no more than an exercise gallop in his prep (a match). Still wonder if he might have gotten home, if he’d had a sterner test beforehand.
 
Stat of the day:
Since it became a G1, no horse has won the Leopardstown Christmas Chase (Lexus/Savills) on seasonal debut. Has no bearing on the Gold Cup itself but puts the difficulties facing the likes of Presenting Percy and Al Boum Photo at Leopardstown in perspective.
The same stat goes for at least the last 11 runnings of the King George.
 
Tanlic said:
Nicky confirming again Altior wont go King George...It's not that he hasn't sent good 2 milers before Remittance Man finished 3rd to the fellow Travado (Fell) and Tiutchev nearly won it

I suppose Sprinter and Altior were/are just too good at the min trip to be upsetting the applecart and that may have more to do with it than them thinking Might Bite is certain to come bouncing back............will be interesting to find out
Click to expand...

Owners would and if MB wasn't there am sure he would

Nicky calls the shots
 
Let's not pretend it's about the horse with Nicky he didn't get where he is today without putting LSD's first and foremost.

The 2nd place King George money is a disgrace and isn't worth the risk of upsetting plans when he can doddle round in the Dessie for that kind of money.

The King George has always been 2nd only to the Gold Cup in prestige but in hard cash doesn't even come close

The QMCC and the Ryanair are both worth nearly twice as much and the Hennessy a Grade 3 handicap is worth 25k more than the King George
 
tiggers1972 said:
I'm sure that might all change if The Gold Cup has broken the biter.
Click to expand...

I think it would be a sad blow for racing if this turned out to be the case.

I can't really see it myself, though.

MB, to me, was just so reminiscent of Wayward Lad in the Gold Cup and that one bounced back. Haydock was a one-off. We're up against a fruitcake of a CoC there.

I also think that Hendo is only going to allow MB to show his true form when circumstances demand it. I imagine he thought MB would only need to be 80% ready to win the Betfair but other factors ended up affecting him.

I said in the run-up to Haydock that if MB is allowed to put in the kind of injection of pace as in his RSA nothing will live with him but he would probably need to be 100% ready for it to happen.
 
Last edited:
archie said:
Wayward Lad never won a Gold Cup either.
Click to expand...

No, and to be honest I'm not really expecting him but I said the same about Desert Orchid (and was on Yahoo at 100/1 that day :mad:)

However, I also think there was an element of circumstances at play in this year's Gold Cup.

As I wrote in my review at the time:

“Take out Might Bite and this could be a good handicap.” This pre-race summary is the overriding context of my low ratings for this race. It was a wonderful spectacle at the time because the commentary made it sound like the two protagonists were serving up a savage pace. It seemed like we were witnessing one of the all-time great Gold Cups. In fact, it was anything but, although the winner’s new OR of 176 makes it look good. I won’t be at all surprised if in time we see that mark drop again.

Native River is a thoroughly admirable beast but he was rather beaten up here by Johnson in his determination to see off Might Bite on whom de Boinville showed commendable restraint when it was clear his partner had no answer to the heavy ground up the hill. This exaggerated the winner’s margin of victory as well as the third’s closing effort.

I can see where the handicapper gets his 176 for the winner from. Road To Respect and Djakadam have run relatively close to their marks and makes that possible. We also know Might Bite is top class. However, I’ve watched the race a few times now. The front two got to dictate their own pace on virgin ground. I suspect this seduced the others into thinking they must be going fast and as a result they were held up off a moderate pace against better horses so were always going to struggle to get into it. Djakadam has proved more than once he doesn’t stay this trip. He’s less likely to have stayed in this ground. He was in the group just behind the pace and probably ran as well as could be expected but I can’t have him running to his good ground best here, which is what Native River’s 176 implies. Definitly Red maybe had a harder race than it looked last time or maybe just didn’t fancy another slog in a bog. Either way, he was never running his race. It wasn’t the pace that beat him. Anibale Fly in third is a good handicapper, nothing more. He’s probably a few pounds better than his pre-race 159 rating but he’s the one who, for me, is a key guide to the form. He’s as close to Native River as he should have been. Road To Respect didn’t stay but it looks like he’s been taken as one of the key guides, which would make Native River’s 176 logical. I can’t have that.

Everything else was trying to come from poor positions off a moderate pace in ground being churned up ahead of them. Saphir Du Rheu probably got nearly the worst ride of the entire field. Not only was he held up but he was also kept wide, racing in the ground that had been badly churned up the previous day. Twiston-Davies was presumably riding to instructions as it was a carbon copy of the ride he gave the horse last year but that was on decent ground. I suspect the horse needs to see his fences and he was never going to be ridden in the pack so I also suspect Nicholls and Twiston-Davies had decided before the race they were just going to let him do what he could for a circuit before saving him for Aintree. It’s a ride I can understand but I cannot for the life of me understand the ride Edwulf got. I’m still angry about it.

So all in all, I’m going low with the bare ratings but I half-expect to adjust them upwards by a pound or two in the coming months but I’ll be surprised if I end up getting them near the ORs.

 
Last edited:
Jessie on Sizing john

“I was happy enough with him. He’s got to do a lot. We’ve a long way to go, but I was happy with him.
“Robbie (Power) was riding him.
“He’ll do more in the next 10 days.”
 
Desert Orchid said:
Road To Respect didn’t stay but it looks like he’s been taken as one of the key guides, which would make Native River’s 176 logical. I can’t have that.


Click to expand...

It's very possible R2R didn't stay but the ground wasn't ideal and he went into the race without a run since December.
 
Back
Top