Cheltenham Festival
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08 Mar 12
14:03
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Date Joined:
28 Jun 10
I think we all hope the old boy runs a great race irrespective of what else we may have backed. It would be one of the great moments in racing eclipsing him and Denman going head to head last year and arguably even Dawn Run back in the day.
We've also rehearsed many of the arguments for and against. I'd like to suggest one which I don't think has been touched on. I'm not positing it as any kind of absolute so you won't get any exclamations of FACT but this is it:
Racehorse training has changed markedly in the last two or three decades. The old style trainers seemed to instinctively know what has seemed to become a forgotten (by many punters) aspect of the game. They brought horses along gradually with the aim of peaking them for the big events. The down side of such training methods is that like all athletes you are more prone to setbacks the less fit you are to do your job. So the new vogue began by the likes of Pipe and carried on arguably more humanely by the likes of Nicholls is to get a horse very fit to run well whenever it runs.
The great skill which the top trainers have now is an ability to do both of getting horses fit to perform to a ligh level consistently but get them truly cherry ripe for their biggest engagements. The point remains that they aren't light switches which can be flicked on and off. Like all athletes they can reach and hold a peak for a certain amount of time but then have to be built up again.
My contention is that a real peak can only be achieved once in a relatively truncated national hunt season. At the end of last season Nicholls must have thought that at 11 Kauto wasn't going to be the same horse again and planned a strategy around bushwacking Long Run early when that horse hadn't reached its peak. We all saw how much the Betfair meant to him. That was the horses Gold Cup this season. He held that near peak for the few weeks until the King George without being quite as brilliant then. I don't think there is enough time betwen then and now to bring him back to a fresh peak.
Paradoxically, I find all the naysayers about Long Run's form to be reassuring simply because he is also being trained by a master at peaking a horse for a particular race. This year it is the Gold Cup. Last year I believe that it was the King George. He showed his brilliance in winning the King George. Arguably he showed his greatness in the Gold Cup by winning when he wasn't at his absolute peak.
For those who know anything about boxing it is a little like comparing Ali circa 67 when nobody could lay a glove on him and 74 when he wasn't the same but he showed his true grit in beating Foreman. For me Long Run put that final piece of the jigsaw in place in last years Gold Cup and has been campaigned for a repeat.
Until they prove otherwise I'd compare most of the rest of the field to the likes of Richard Dunne.
We've also rehearsed many of the arguments for and against. I'd like to suggest one which I don't think has been touched on. I'm not positing it as any kind of absolute so you won't get any exclamations of FACT but this is it:
Racehorse training has changed markedly in the last two or three decades. The old style trainers seemed to instinctively know what has seemed to become a forgotten (by many punters) aspect of the game. They brought horses along gradually with the aim of peaking them for the big events. The down side of such training methods is that like all athletes you are more prone to setbacks the less fit you are to do your job. So the new vogue began by the likes of Pipe and carried on arguably more humanely by the likes of Nicholls is to get a horse very fit to run well whenever it runs.
The great skill which the top trainers have now is an ability to do both of getting horses fit to perform to a ligh level consistently but get them truly cherry ripe for their biggest engagements. The point remains that they aren't light switches which can be flicked on and off. Like all athletes they can reach and hold a peak for a certain amount of time but then have to be built up again.
My contention is that a real peak can only be achieved once in a relatively truncated national hunt season. At the end of last season Nicholls must have thought that at 11 Kauto wasn't going to be the same horse again and planned a strategy around bushwacking Long Run early when that horse hadn't reached its peak. We all saw how much the Betfair meant to him. That was the horses Gold Cup this season. He held that near peak for the few weeks until the King George without being quite as brilliant then. I don't think there is enough time betwen then and now to bring him back to a fresh peak.
Paradoxically, I find all the naysayers about Long Run's form to be reassuring simply because he is also being trained by a master at peaking a horse for a particular race. This year it is the Gold Cup. Last year I believe that it was the King George. He showed his brilliance in winning the King George. Arguably he showed his greatness in the Gold Cup by winning when he wasn't at his absolute peak.
For those who know anything about boxing it is a little like comparing Ali circa 67 when nobody could lay a glove on him and 74 when he wasn't the same but he showed his true grit in beating Foreman. For me Long Run put that final piece of the jigsaw in place in last years Gold Cup and has been campaigned for a repeat.
Until they prove otherwise I'd compare most of the rest of the field to the likes of Richard Dunne.
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Richard Dunne is fast; when marking a tortoise!! Nice write up.
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When he played for God's own club, Dunnie didn't lack speed - it was stopping or turning that was the problem!
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I must say I did particularly enjoy Nicholl's clutching st straws attempt at psyching Hendo out by referencing how many races Long Run had in France before he came over and arguing that we may have seen the best of the 7 year old. Particularly given that this obvious stayer never went 3 miles and had run a similar number of races to the great Kauto when he came over.
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Nicholl's is the biggest moron in racing,he cant stand hendo and is always taking cheap shots at him,just attacks other trainers without thinking,he says that kauto is better than ever and might be the best he has ever had him this season,then he started all that rubbish about Long Run and how he has regressed this season and not trained on,well if that was the case,then Kautos form this season would not amount to sh1t,also took another shot and stated publicly that if Burton Port was trained by another trainer,then he would have beat LR at newbury,needs to keep his mouth shut and get on with his own job
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Burton Port gonna gub both of them
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Burton Port must be Buster Douglas then.
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