Cheltenham Festival
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OK, so last season was disappointing but there were legitimate excuses.
He had previously won two Queen Mothers (one sensationally, one less so) and is still a very young horse. He is trained by the best in the business and has been given a wind operation over the summer as well as a long rest that can only help if there are any lingering carryover effects relating to his injured rib.
The current crop of two milers, while decent, is hardly of the Moscow Flyer - Azertyuiop - Well Chief strength. Yet Master Minded can be backed at big prices and every man and his dog seems to have forgotten he is even on the scene.
Lightning doesn't often strike twice but it was not long ago that another French import, trained by Nicholls, ridden by Walsh and owned by Smith was dismissed as being over the top and on the decline after finishing second in a Gold Cup. He could be backed at 8-1 to regain his throne - not a bad price considering his greatness!
Master Minded would probably have to win another two QMs to be lauded like Kauto Star rightly is, and that is probably unlikely. It is a possibility, though. One more even more so.
Am I completely alone in thinking he is a BIG price for next year?
He had previously won two Queen Mothers (one sensationally, one less so) and is still a very young horse. He is trained by the best in the business and has been given a wind operation over the summer as well as a long rest that can only help if there are any lingering carryover effects relating to his injured rib.
The current crop of two milers, while decent, is hardly of the Moscow Flyer - Azertyuiop - Well Chief strength. Yet Master Minded can be backed at big prices and every man and his dog seems to have forgotten he is even on the scene.
Lightning doesn't often strike twice but it was not long ago that another French import, trained by Nicholls, ridden by Walsh and owned by Smith was dismissed as being over the top and on the decline after finishing second in a Gold Cup. He could be backed at 8-1 to regain his throne - not a bad price considering his greatness!
Master Minded would probably have to win another two QMs to be lauded like Kauto Star rightly is, and that is probably unlikely. It is a possibility, though. One more even more so.
Am I completely alone in thinking he is a BIG price for next year?
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give him one run before christmas....miss the game spirit ....and hopefully he turns up at the festival in the same form he was in for the game spirit.
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Ive heard he will go to Ascot in a couple of weeks.
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Sorry should read in November.
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couple of weeks is november.
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His box has been taken by tataniano. Think that says it all.
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^ Didn't know this but don't think we should necessarily read too much into it!
Tataniano seems to be the popular choice to rise to the top of the two-mile division this season but he wouldn't be for me at this stage. Take Osana out of the Aintree race (assuming he ran below his best) and I'm not sure how strong that form really is. Obviously has bags of potential but couldn't be a value bet in my mind at the moment. |
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[>o] get tataniano out of his box. no way mm would be losing to suntini. i hope he gets back to his best this year. i really did my bollocks on him and long run last year(thank fcuk i backed binocular). if he is back to his best i don't think there is any better sight in racing than master minded flying over fences in full swing.
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hes unbeatable wen on song and got bit of cut int he ground
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Massively over rated horse that has had his limitations exposed time and time again, imo - but for some reason people would rather evaluate his ability on one dubious performance when all his rivals hated the ground, instead of every other run in his career...
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dont be a fool . hes won 2 champion chases at least 1 tingle creek and nicholls ses him as the 2nd most talented horse hes ever trained
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Dan, my opinion is that the first QM win was in horrible ground that none of his rivals acted in, and it made him look like a superstar.
This scared off all the credible opposition for a season - he beat no less than 10 yr old Well Chief and Petit Robin to win his second QM, and Tidal Bay to win his Tingle Creek. Voy Por, who would have been a fantastic bet to beat him in that second QM, imo, ran in the Ryanair to avoid him. Since that first QM win all evidence has been screaming out that that victory was massively over rated imo - Voy Por would have beaten him even at two miles at Aintree imo, Big Zeb would have beaten him in Ireland had he not virtually fallen at the last imo, the veteran Well Chief saw him off at Cheltenham in November last year, and he wasn't sighted when he finally ran up against some genuinely top class two mile chasers in this year's QM. I understand why everyone wants to think that this horse is one of the all time greats, but personally I really don't think he is - in fact I don't think he would have beaten many of the QM winners of the past twenty years, even at his best. Whatever your opinion of the above, he's always a horse to oppose imo, as the hype always goes before the evidence when it comes to this horse, which almost always makes him bad value as a betting proposition imho.. |
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here is a horse who on the 9th february 2008 ran in the game spirit chase on gd to soft ground and beat the reigning champion chaser by 5 lenghts on just his 3rd start on british soil . then a month later ran in the champion chase on good to soft ground and beat the same horse by 19 lenghts in 1 of the best performances you will ever see. then the horse went to aintree and was obviously a blatant non stayer. he returned on the 6th decemeber 2008 and ran in the tingle creek on good to soft ground and beat arkle winner tidal bay by ten lenghts in another fantastic performance. he then went to ascot for the victor chandler chase and won by 16 lenghts on the same ground. he then returned to cheltenham to defend his crown and duly won by 7 lenghts. how you can say a horse of this class is over rated is astonishing. this horse obviously needs cut int he ground to perform. absolute suicide if people are going to write off this monster. and hes versatile in terms of how he has to be ridden . ap mccoy has often spoke of getting a feel off master minded that hes never had off any other horse
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Millhouse, may I suggest you go to the Betfair Paul Nicholls column and read his "The best piece of work I have ever seen" article.
Master Minded is a great horse, and one that if he's firing, nothing would (or will) get near him. I also suspect there is another superstar performance in him yet. |
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Lee, if there is you will have my money...
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No problem Millhouse, that's why I love this game, it's all about opinions.
Good luck with your punting. |
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tidal bay was at the top oif his game imo in the tingle and voy por was a fantastic horse who just couldnt live with master minded. also master minded is a better horse these days when nice and fresh . and ure talking of his beating by weklll chief in the connaught last year as credible when master minded fractured a rib during the race but u failed to point that out
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Definitely Lee - good luck to you too, and you Dan...
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over rated
 . why does every great horse and performance have to be over rated? the best 2 mile chaser ever of course IMO |
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maybe a slightly biased opinion there masterminded haha!
I think if the breathing op does what it sometimes can we may see him back to grade one level, but personally I dont think we will ever see him when he was real top class. (First QM) |
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Best horses arent determind by the best piece of work they did.
I agree with Millhouse MASSIVLY over rated horse. A good horse but as with most thses days given way to high a rating. it seems no mater what a horse beats now its going to get a better mark than some of teh greats of teh last 10 years. |
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It seems that consistent victories (and one astonishing one, beating the reigning Champion by 19 lengths, the third 16 lengths futher away) aren't enough for some people.
Okay 'great' and 'the greatest' are bandied around like confetti and are usually the precursor to a good old meaningless debate over a few pints, but over-rated?? I just don't get where his detractors are coming from. |
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Dont know about MM being overrated,but it does seem that Big Zeb is underrated.Real good winner last season and see no reason why he should not win it again.Better horse than MM last season and imo will prove to be again this season.
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Master Minded was a very good horse on the day he won the first QM but none of his subsequent form was quite that good. 90% of chasers come up to a peak for one really high class run but never reproduce it. Only the very best can maintain that level for 2 or 3 seasons.
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Agree none of his subsequent form was as good as his first CH CH win - personally I've never seen another horse that dominant in a Championship race before or since - but he won a subsequent Ch Ch, a Game Spirit and an Irish Champ. Chase so where the 'over-rated' tag comes from I've no idea.
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This is a good debate, and I know that people love this horse, but I personally don't buy the way that first QM has been rated for one second.
The ground was awful that year, and it threw up freak results in many of the Championship races. Katchit beat Osana in the Champion Hurdle, and Kauto Star only finished a short head in front of Neptune Colanges in the Gold Cup. The QM was no different imo. Voy Por didn't go on the ground at all for my money, and ran way below form, and as the only other credible challengers Tamerinbleu and Twist Magic did what they often do and ran no sort of races, Master Minded was left to come home alone and looking like the second coming of Arkle. That run just doesn't stack up, imo, when you consider that five weeks earlier, in a race in which the principals raced hard to the line, Voy Por gave Master Minded 6lbs and was beaten just five lengths in the Game Spirit at Newbury. If you believe that Master Minded's 19 length defeat of the same horse in the QM just five weeks later is an accurate refection of his ability, you have to buy into the fact that he improved by 18lbs in just over a month. For me, a far more likely interpretation of that form has always been that Voy Por ran pounds and pounds below his best in that QM on ground he's always hated. With every race in which Master Minded has run since, that conclusion has become more and more likely, imo, as he's never reproduced that level of form, and his limitations have been exposed on many occasions (as in my post above). Don't get me wrong, Master Minded is a very good and admirable horse, but he's not the superstar people still seem to believe him to be, in my humble opinion... |
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This is a good debate, and one I'm very glad to have initiated.
While I actually agree with most of what millhouse says (I think his first QM win was over-rated), I still think a number of pieces of form away from that one off spectacular make him the best we have seen since Moscow Flyer. As I said initially, I am working on the theory that he was never right last term - and although many will take another view, nobody can deny that there is at least a possibility that his rib injury and rushed prep for Cheltenham saw him underperform behind Big Zeb. Go back to 2009, and 10-length and 16-length maulings of decent (if not superstar) competition in Grade One events surely suggest however they are rated that he is a mid-170 horse and maybe more. He then won by seven lengths in the QM to confirm himself a very good champion, if not out of Moscow Flyer's mould. Even rating his first Qm conservatively, I think it's hard to rate him lower than the mid 170s at least. Although Tamarinbleu and Twist Magic patently failed to run their races, it is less clear whether Voy Por did - or if he at least ran close to his best. Even taking him out of the equation, the distance and manner of the beating handed out to solid yardsticks in the Grade Two to Three mould in that race put him on a very high rating. That being the case, I still feel he has every right to be top of the list to regain his QM crown next March. If the wind op has worked and he improves a few pounds, that would make him hard to beat for me. |
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So whats wrong with the current champ,and why should MM beat him.
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have to agree with a lot of what Millhouse said above.At the time i thought it was one of the worse QMums i had seen for a long time,and thought MM rating after that was over the top.Fair enough he proved to be the best 2 miler for a couple of years after,but that rating put him above some horses of the past that imo were better.
See absolutely no reason at all that he will beat Big Zeb next March,none at all. |
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moscow flyer. master minded. best 2 mile chasers ever. FACT. and on their day there wouldn't be much between them.
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That's exactly why this game is great - because opinions make it so.
For me, Big Zeb is one of the least trustworthy championship winners I can remember. His jumping will always be a worry, he manages to get beaten far more often in pokey little races than he should, and when he's bad he's very bad (ie. Tingle Creek). Am sure he has excuses too, but for my money he has needed more than most in the past and won a QM with a good performance on a day where the opposition failed to show up. His defeat of Forpadydeplasterer was not top-class form for me - and, as I say, my opinion is simply that Master Minded was not at his best all last season. On his day - when things go right - Big Zeb is a very talented individual, but it would not surprise me in the slightest to see him make an early mistake in next year's renewal, always be off the bit and finish well out of the money. Just my opinion, of course! |
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When MM got beat by Well Chief he not only got injured but was conceding 10lbs,iirc.
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won a QM with a good performance on a day where the opposition failed to show up
Tom Think that statement is more apt re MM to be honest. Personally thought this years race was a good one with the winner pretty much faultless. MM,its not fact that Moscow and MM are the best,its opinion shared by you and the handicapper,who in my opinion got it wrong. If MF AND MM had run against each other i have no doubt MF would have won,but of course we will never know. |
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Moscow genuinely a different league to Master Minded, imho...
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I think sometimes we look for a level of consistency in the performance of the top two mile chasers that is unrealistic. To reach the top in that division, the jumping has to be particularly slick, which of course increases the chances of making jumping errors (that was particularly well illustrated in the case of Moscow Flyer). They also generally go so much faster in the championship races over two miles by contrast with the smaller field, less prestigious races over the same distance at other times in the season; on that basis, it is not surprising that horses like Big Zeb can look less than superstars in the smaller field races run at a lesser pace.
They also go such a pace in the two mile championship races these days that the horse's breathing has to be more or less absolutely right on the day to not be choking or losing rhythm as the race develops. As MM has been given a breathing operation over the summer, it seems likely that his failure to quite see out the race in the QM last season has been viewed potentially as a breathing issue. The Irish fences are generally that bit bigger, or at least have the potential to slow the horses that bit more, and so Irish form in top two mile races can be very different to form in the same division in the UK. That is a point possibly worth bearing in mind in relation to horses like Big Zeb. Also, if you buy into Nic Mordin's ideas about the importance of the rest pattern for two mile chasers, some inconsistency in the form of some of the top two milers of recent years can potentially be seen as a consequence of the horse racing again too quickly after producing a top performance in good company. I think the price for Big Zeb for the QM is possibly about right at the moment, but I would be more wary of underestimating this one than overestimating him. |
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tomdeane
'make him the best we have seen since Moscow' this is correct but most on here would have had you belive that he was much better than Moscow after that win. Subsequent runs have proven that he isnt. IMO |
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Moscow Flyer, Azertyuiop and Well Chief were all very good and when at their peak I would rate them the three best 2 mile chasers of the last 15 years.
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^ That is certainly debatable but I see the logic and almost agree (in the sense that I'd put a peak form Master Minded among the latter two. More importantly, I am still very much of the opinion that you'd be arguing whether Master Minded is the one to shuffle that trio and not Big Zeb. Just feel that MM is still very young to have been written off by many considering he had very real excuses for one disappointing season.
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Sageform - IMHO you would have to add Big Zeb to the list and wouldn't be sure about Well Chief. I think Big Zebs performances compares favourably with anything posted by MF, AZ or MM, and was travelling with real menace when coming down 4 out in 2009.
I also think the reason that they are so quiet about MM is that they are guessing at the problem. On his reappearance last season he lugged right, and we were told that a broken rib had been identified as the problem. When he beat Mahogany Blaze at Newbury I was convinced he was following the same tack although the course did not exaggerate the problem as much as the Cheltenham performance. It was at that point I decided to oppose him, given the rush of support the Newbury win brought. He showed the same tendency again in the QM. Now they have resorted to a wind op - which smacks of desperation. |
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A very interesting thread. I'm in the same camps as Millhouse and abbott on this.
An extract from on of my pre-2010 Festival posts: QM Champion Chase I've said pretty much all I want to say about this race on my QM thread. I've always thought the style of MM's wins amount to more than the substance - arguably the best horse he has met was Big Zeb who would almost certainly have beaten him bar trying to destroy the last fence. I think Forpady is a better horse than Big Zeb and if he is A1 (bearing in mind his setback) he has every chance of beating the favourite. As mentioned MM's huge reputation centres on his demolition of the field in his first QM. That was a stunning visual performance and undoubtedly his best; it was just his 4th run for the yard. his third completion, after easily dispensing with Hasty Prince at Sandown and VPU at Newbury: he was a horse on the up, getting maximum benefit from the impeccable set-up at Ditcheat - a real improver who reached his zenith on QM day. Millhouse, I'm not sure the ground had much to do with VPU's performance that day - he has a fine record on good to soft, and Timeform agreed with the official going given by Claisse (usually filed under fiction, as Alastair Down might say). VPU is, however, a key player in the over-rating of MM, because he himself has always been over-rated at 2 miles. VPU won the worst QM I can remember, driven out to beat Dempsey and River City. His Arkle win was just before they did away with the 5lb allowance he got when beating Monet's Garden just over a length at, arguably, the grey's least favourite track. Other than VPU, as mentioned, he's beaten a bunch of rag-tag-and-bobtails - Hasty Prince, Petit Robin, Mahogany Blaze, a past-it Well Chief and the enigmatic Tidal Bay. As mentioned above, style has been great, substance poor. There might well be some substantial value in the QM in 2011 because although Big Zeb is, in essence, a sound jumper, his concentration lapses in the past have cost him dear and I wouldn't be taking a shortish price about him until he's strung together three flawless wins. If he does that in advance of the festival, I wouldn't oppose him. MM is off my list for the reasons mentioned above and - as hinted at by Bobby D - I take the wind op as a negative. Such surgery is often straw-clutching, and if it has an effect it seldom lasts. It will be a fascinating run up, especially with Sizing Europe targeted at staying chases until his 'best' distance is found. Roll on the trials. |