Well this is the only the bit I can find where you've quoted it? I left the initial comment alone as I simply thought you were getting the wrong of the stick.
What I'm saying is a horse needs to be able to stay a truly run 3 miles to win a stayers, but can get away with it off a moderate pace, which brings those who are effective off say, 21F into play, as they're not required to run a true pace. This is very much at the hub of the hypothesis. I've consistantly said that the stayers hurdle ISN'T truly run (for whatever reason) . Indeed, I've gone on to ask what might happen to a few reputations if it were?
Far from "buggering up my argument" (such eloquence) all you've done in suggesting that they'd want further if sent over fences is provide me with an alternative explanation as to why the race rarely (well never on my records) produces a grade 1 time. Are we dealing with horses, a majority of which were simply too slow for shorter distances? and that this deficiency is then shown up when they're asked to race against each other in a division that the more talented haven't felt it necessary to indulge? If we're dealing with marathon plodders and aspiring Eider candidates it might offer a clue. It would explain why the elite stayers (as i do believe a few exist) are able to come back year after year and still win.
I think it's probably fair to say that some of the non-staying argument pertaining to MWDS was drawn from yesterday, but I've gone to great lengths to spell out that I thought it stemmed from Haydock, and was compounded by Alan King's reaction to the Betfair run. It is his mis-diagnosis of the route course, and his subsequent commitment to a detrimental course of action at home, that I suspect compounded a vulnerability. Again, I thought I'd made that clear?
The idea of the stayers being a slow division however, isn't new, and I seem to think I raised it 12 months ago at least. In this context, MWDS is possibly the latest victim
