Novices outside novice company

The Arkle is a hot renewal,but with novices.Should SE or BZ be in that race would be a lot hotter!!

Ive always been of the view that the novice season is there for a reason and should be used as a learning time for the future.Whatever they achieve as novices is a bonus,and its when they are fully grown with more experience is the time to take on the best around in their field at the festival.

When talking about times a lot of that is down to the flat between jumps.Its the jumping that novices are dis advantaged having jumped a lot less than a QM horse.

in a way stront it does

but i thought al ferof looked beat very early in the race today.  i cant put that down to the fact he is a novice.

it was his 12th start under rules today, the same as finians

In championship races I believe Novices should stick to their own events. However I often back novices against seasoned handicappers as they are usually well treated.  On the down side backed both Josef Lister and Zaynar today at good early prices, both well backed and beaten!!!!

i'm not saying i think they should or shouldn't, its just a thing thats knocked about in my head for years
another one is when a horse wins after a 2 year absence its an amazing training performance, but when a horse wins first time out its nothing special.  surely when a horse gets roughed off he gets unfit during the summer. as when he returns the trainer has to start off walking then gentle exercise to slowly get him fit.     is there different levels of unfit-ness

anyway,  some horses are just more mature than others and reach their personal peak at different times

horses like peddlers have proven their ability to race at the highest level already so they only have to prove their ability to jump the fences. but surely that will be tested to the limit in the arkle. cant have they run faster on the flat but jump slower.
sprinter sacre on the other hand has only had 1 race to date in last years supreme so for me that would be enough to keep him to novice company
in most years i would say in the arkle you would get only a couple of top class animals compared to the champion where you might get a few. so you would expect to run faster for longer putting lots of pressure on horses in the champion but this years arkle looks exceptional.
of course horses reach their potential at different times and a young horse should keep progressing with age, as he grows and strengthens. but that doesn't mean they will get better at jumping with age

take long run.............when he first came over he looked awesome at kempton.then he finished a very respectful 3rd in the RSA. whether that was down to poor jumping, his age, sam setting him alight coming down the hill or the end of a long season, either way a year later a year older and stronger he wins the gold cup as a 6 year old but still not jumping well
my point is he won despite his jumping not improving from his novice year but because he was older and stronger.  so if a horse is at/or very near his physical peak he can put it up against more experienced horses. 
some horses are just natural jumpers and aren't necessarily going to improve their jumping with age
call equiname won the champion chase on just his 5th chase start. alot of horses run more than that in their novice year

i'm not trying to force the issue just enjoy a racing debate

Grand Crus next Noivce to run in open company although it wont be quite so strong oppo in the Argento ..