Camelot - he almost fooled the lot of us

I agree that his form has taken a series of spectacular knocks.  Its strange though that AOB clearly holds him in such regard, I would have expected much better from him this year.

Perhaps the colic op has taken much more out of the horse than anticipated.

It is rare indeed for an Epsom Derby winner to do well at 4.

i will be suprised if this horse doesn't improve from his recent runs.

I think this is a horse I would still be interested in from a stud purposes point of view.

Right now his stud fee is hurtling downwards and that is always of appeal!

I think the most likely course of action is retirement with a ' we thought he was the best horse at Ballydoyle ever, but he just never recovered from the very serious colic surgery'

Aidan is a master at rekindling a horses form so I suppose there is still a chance but they surely must have damage limitation pretty high on their agenda right now.

I think if the stud fee represents the fizzling out of a once fabulous career then there is definitely a lot of interest for me as a crop of great looking foals will rekindle the memories of his pomp.

That's can lead to the type of fee/return ratio that I am particularly fond of

His decline (or failure to progress) must be a hint to go for sires who raced successfully to age 5.

Until you start to factor in all the good 4 yo's floating around by Dark Angel. . .

Extremely handsome horse. Do we have any right to expect him to be as good when he nearly died last winter. He battered Main sequence in the Derby who gave the POW second a good race last time. That looks like the only saving grace for the form. However he has still won two of the great races and he will doubtlessly outperform most of the horses 'better' than him that go to stud. To top it all, wasn't he a 500k yearling, wouldn't be worried too much about him yet. If I was a breeder I'd be hoping he keeps losing!!

Main Sequence 4th of 5 yesterday. It gets worse. I think the decline just reinforces just what a hard race the Derby is and how many decent 3yo's are wrecked by running in it.

It is after all , called the ULTIMATE test of a three year old Sageform....

Main Sequence scoped dirty after the race according to David Lanigan. The reputaion of the crop has gone beyond repair though. If they are to continue with Camelot, they need to turn the screw and see if he can show them something he hasn't before, otherwise it is time to draw stumps.

I'm quite interested in Camelot when he retires, esp as his fall from hype should produce a more workable fee, but i'd like to ask the more experienced members of the forum what the effect of his colic will have on his potency/ability to pass on his ability. And while i appreciate its impossible to prove the effect of something like colic on stud performance, are there any previous commensurate examples

I too would be interested in Camelot. perrydinho the bout of colic wont affect his potency/ability in anyway.You may remember the mighty Galileo himself a couple of years ago had surgery for colic,it hasn't exactly hindered him now has it.Years ago one of the very good English NH sires Celtic Cone regularly had bouts of colic,again it didn't stop him siring top class stock.
About the only thing its likely to affect is his day to day management,but that's only for the people who care for him.

Thanks PD much appreciated

If you look at his catalogue page you will see his dam was the winner of a poor G3 as a 4 year old when rated 97. She was beaten out of sight in her last two races a G2 and a G3. There are no other Group winners in the first 3 generations with only three listed winners that I can see. It is baffling how he managed to win G1s. I wouldn't touch him with a 40ft barge pole.

That's one way to look at it The Gotchee. Of course you could look at it like this, Group 1 winning 2yo, 3 x Classic winner inc Guineas/Derby double and very nearly won the Triple Crown, survived colic surgery and fought back to win a Group 3 and be second in a Group 1 at 4yo, Great looking horse by brilliant sire Montjeu out of Group winning mare by Kingmambo,and add on the wonderful advertising strap line that he's the best Aidan has ever had. You may find it baffling that he managed to win Gr 1's, but he did, and some fairly decent ones too. The only baffling thing is why you wouldn't touch him with a barge pole. Hype horse he may have been, but he does have the results on his CV and you can rest assured that the hype will start all over again for his stud career.

[b]fought back to win a Group 3 and be second in a Group 1 at 4yo,[/b

A 5 runner G3 against horses rated 88 91 and 100 where Parish Hall the only decent horse in the race ran poorly and hasn't been seen since. He was second in a 4 runner G1 to Al Kazeem, the other two horses in the race was his pacemaker and an 88 rated donkey. You are easily impressed PM. He is a decent listed rated horse at best. He is overrated over hyped and over here. I think his 7th place finish in the Arc where he received a Racingpost rating of 107 is probably a fair reflection of his true ability.

Oh dear The Gotchee you are completely missing my point,what I wrote above was not my own personal summation of Camelot's ability but the 'spin' that will be put on him by his stallion marketing people.Hence why breeders are recognising his commercial appeal.I will bear in mind your thoughts he really is only listed class and now block enter all my listed horses into the classics.

I can see your point PM but in my view he is a Ford Mondeo masquerading as a Ferrari. Anyway,I see that he still has four G1 entries in the coming weeks so he  has every opportunity  to redeem his reputation

I think there is a middle way here. He was avery good 2yo and until the Derby, by far the best staying 3yo of his generation. Since then he has been shown to be the best of a poor year, has deteriorated alarmingly as have many of his victims in the Derby suggesting that they all had a very hard race there and some late developing 4yo's are now coming past him. Not an unusual profile for a Derby winner.

They certainly are going to have to push the Coolmore PR attack button. Not least because AOB increasingly sounds either delusional or silly going on how incredible the horse is and how they always do whats right for the horse, then in same sentence bemoan what a task he had in the mud in the Irish Derby.  A race he didnt need to run in and as I keep saying a race Grp 2 class now.  Will the lads desperation for a next great stallion rest on Joe Allens help?

The trainer will want to keep the show on the road and, if he manages to keep him in training, it will be the toughest task yet for him to get this horse back to where he was. Ironically it might be that is a cup horse which would be of no interest t0 his owners so Aidan will have to convince them he is Champion stakes material.

Long odds on he retires unless he does something amazing on the gallops at home this week.

o'brien says hes giving camelot a break so doubt he'll be doing much on the gallops this week.

Coolmore yesterday evening: "At the moment Camelot is unlikely to run, he hasn't really been himself this season and is going on the easy list for the rest of the month."

I think you'll find moyes in interpreting the above that he worked yesterday and its now long odds on he'll be retired.

ballydoyle have enough horses at home to work out how good camelot was going to be this year. surely they would have known that he was a group 2 horse at best and made some statement that in light of his colic he has not come to himself this year and he will be retired.......the only blot on his CV would have been his two losses last year at the end. he could have retired and commanded a 20k fee. now he is a shambles.

He'll still stand for a lot more than 20k as a Guineas and Derby winner (also a son of Montjeu), I'd have said 40 or 50.

i cannot see him standing for more than 27k. but thats going to look great for commercial breeders who will use him at bargain prices in his 2nd and 3rd years.

We must remember that he was a 500k yearling and alway had immense looks and had the "natural" speed. many can/will argue that his fire went out after the irish derby and so plenty will take a chance on his offspring and more so with the sad demise of his sire and Galileo nearly being priced out of the commercial breeders.

for standing in Ire, the choice shortlist for his type will be, pour moi, camelot, RVW, Teo. enough doubts remain that he'll be attractively priced but will have near full book and plenty on the market.