No, i agree. For me its is zest for fencing which is the difference. If you watch him attack his fences it is sensational and the way he lands and immediately is in full stride again is something i am struggling to remember seeing from another novice,,EVER. So obviously i am a fan. Last year he hit the last hurdle and faded, this year i can see him flying the last and winning without BG having to shovel the coal. I think he is a freak. Probably the best i have ever seen.

Masterminded, there is hardly a post from you on this thread that I have disagreed with.

All I would add now regarding the hill is all I have said for months - a S Sacre backer, I do believe he had mitigating circumstances last yr - immaturity, obvious physical weakness, possible beathing issue (possibly, possibly not remedied), got there too soon, tanked too hard for the first 4f, walked through the last, unfamiliar jockey. Despite all that, he still looked like the best horse for 9/10th of the race by some margin IMO - does anyone doubt that?

Of course he may not get up the hill, and given that nobody can be certain, we can have a debate, but it has to surely be accepted by all that the evidence against is very thin.

I quite agree Judo.

RC I'm glad someone agrees!

I keep trying to get Sprinter Sacre beat but I just can't. I'll be a backer on the day.  Unless he falls he'll surely hit at least 1.2 in running to lay off just in case.

Although having said that on a line through I'm So Lucky on bare form there's not much between AF and SS. Of course AF was rowing away for most of the race and SS won very easy on bridle. If there wasn't that doubt about what he finds off the bridle he would be 1/2. So it's your own judement call.

Yup, didn't quite understand how a points based system sort of worked and so never tried that again since really apart from sometimes on a scale of 1-10 as to how confident i would be.

Lunatic am i? Hmm

I start early, work out whats likely to be fav after first couple months of the season (which for me starts in October) for each grade 1. I first of all always look at kemptons xmas meeting i.e king george and go from there. As i pick these horses out i start backing them after they have had 2 runs. Sometimes i might back after just one run but that is rare for me. By backing them this early, you get nice prices. Who cares if i backed 20 horses in a 30 horse race, if those 20 horses i have backed were all backed at odds of 14/1 or more e.w, and the 10 not backed were all 100/1 no hopers, then profit would be made quite easily. And this is how i work.

Follow form by only watching races, never look at ratings, always look and keep a very close eye on betfair prices and bookmakers prices. Place bets 2-3 days after 2nd run of season, this lets markets settle down. Those are my rules for the Cheltenham festival! The only meeting of the year where i will build a sizeable antepost portfolio on. I have more non runners this year than i am comfortable with and it is by far the most ive ever had namely fingal bay, (lame) simonsig, (wrong race) Spirit Son (lame) Grandouet (lame) Dildar (going aintree) Minsk (hype i fell for it) and a couple more that are non runners but nrnb!

If that makes me a lunatic, then what are you borntowin? Someone who picks one out per race cant possibly make money unless he or she is in the know or incredibly lucky!

does anyone realistically think PN got AF 100%  for a prep race 2 months before the big day?????????????  id bet SS was a lot fitter baring in mind his prep was 20 odd days before his big target...

Whatever is a few steps beyond lunatic I suppose.

I have 3 in the CH but W Hill persuaded me to pile into the Fly, so I now only have 1 winner in the race. To quote another forumite "I will be quivering like a $hitting dog" during the race but hey, like the dog I might just get a result (hopefully not a pile of $hit).

Tom Segal said at preview night last night he thinks Sprinter will win by a fence. He'd tip him up to win the  Champ Chase. Stamina is no problem he thinks the horse could win a 3m chase.

good for tom

festival fanatic, somersby had 3 targets KG,VC and chelt fest, id expect HEN to get him 100% for each race, FR had a prep for the VC one of 2 targets for him this season, NH would get him 100% for those, AF is  a novice goin for the arkle, that is his aim, everything up to now has been a learning curve, expect him to improove  a fair bit for his last run a good fair bit

but you would expect all these lightly raced top prospects to improve on their prep races when they get into a championship race at the festival

of course Judo,and that means that horses can surprise us when it comes to the day,and silly to rule any of the main players on what they have been doing in their prep races,as you and others have done with AF my friend.

I have SS a very long way clear on my ratings, which I trust implicitly in this case, and I expect him to improve significantly in the Arkle

so on that basis, while I expect all of the challengers to improve I don't believe it likely that any horse will improve enough. On my numbers they will have to improve a stone and that's not likely

of course you can all say you don't agree and that's why we debate. This is just a prediction and we will see how accurate it turns out

Budd - absolutely fair enough re main post above. I agree - nobody knows and because nobody knows we can have a good debate. My view is that the case against him is thin, others think its less thin, but whlst a case against him can be made, a good debate can be had. This is, as you say, the point of debating the issue with other enthusiasts. I've said for a while i would not back him at around evens even though i do think he is a good thing, evens in a G1 novice event does nothing for me when we have 20+ other races to get stuck into.

I also dont understand why people see Al Ferof as an obvious danger. He faded behind Somersby and Finnians Rainbow. BG knows Sprintre Sacre is far superior to FR. So are we saying SS is at least theoretically 12lb superior to AF but SS will give it all away because of the Cheltenham Hill. Seems far fetched.

Of course a world class experienced jockey like Barry Geraghty does not understand the class of horse he rides. Nicky Henderson does not understand the class of animal he trains.

Thieveslikeus do you think that you understand horses more than these two?

I think you should base your analysis on some combination of form reading, race times and statistics not hyperbole from jockeys, who are notoriously bad judges, and twits like Henderson who can rarely even work out the right distance for his horses!  Bear in mind that this time last year they were talking up Finian's Rainbow as if he was Flyingbolt and two years ago Punchestowns as if he were Arkle!

Different ground gabrielle, very rare to get close to good ground for a top 2m chase at Newbury, only have that one race and usually run on soft.  Long Run also smashed the 3m record, as indeed did Burton Port off a 15 month layoff and What A Friend!