Loads more to come Judo. What a day!! Good luck with your Gold Cup bets. You must feel totally vindicated by posts throughout the year.

great work judo.top top marks.

cheers budd, glad you took 25s - cracking position no matter what

it only took a little imagination not a great insight so I'm not claiming anything special, you said yourself a year ago on this thread 'he's probably the second best chaser in training' and the form was all there to see, he just had to learn to settle and sometimes that takes time(he is only 7 years old and has had only 12 chase starts)

I said way back on this thread he reminded me of other previous Gold Cup winners and it's even more striking now:

Best Mate won Haldon Gold Cup off identical handicap mark by 20 lengths first start of 2nd season - Gold Cup winner

Kicking King second in the Arkle behind a top 2 miler (Well Chief) - Gold Cup winner 2 years later

and

Imperial Commander ran in the King George finished 6th and well beaten,won Ryan Air next start, ran Kauto Star to a nose in the Betfair then won the Gold Cup

I had spotted these similarities and just the form, ratings and profile together and concluded 'top class staying chaser, when he learns to settle' and if you listened to Colin Tizzard yesterday that's exactly what he said

I have no doubt he is going to be extremely hard to beat in the Gold Cup as long as he jumps well because he has more pace than anything else,gets the trip and loves Cheltenham

Hi Rick,

Wasn't Cue Card fantastic?!

My main thought when watching the race was for all those lovely horses to come back safe and sound.

I never dared hope for such a perfect result. But that's what we got

I didn't watch it till later last night.

I went to bed very happy dreaming of Cue Card

I thought of you when I was watching the race

yep,im pretty sure hes the 2nd best chaser now Judo.

Dynaste and Al Ferof could challenge him but have to improve,and I do think they are both well capable of doing that.
Exciting times ahead with the new brigade imo.

Well really it was always about him proving he stayed,and until this weekend their were doubts,we all knew that,some doubted more than others but until a horse actually does it their is doubt.Especially with a horse that's shown top form at the lesser distances.

Now how good is he in relation to the other top chasers? I will use the best one from last season the Gold Cup Winner.
People are making excuses for Bobsworth,and I have no problem with that,never do with a horse having his 1st run,and horses are always for me allowed to have a poor run now and again.
But for me, I just happen to think Cue Card is simply a better horse, and if you look back at the race when Bob just beat Cue Card you will see CC winning by 7L(around that anyway) if level weights.Yes,that was over Cue Cards distance,but now that Cue Card has shown conclusively he stays 3m1f- and that from the front not stopping,i really struggle to see Bob ever beating him...anywhere.
He simply is not as good and cannot go the pace,he even got outpaced a tad in the Gold Cup!!And Cue Card is a darn sight faster than last years GC horses that were up in the van.
For Bob to beat CC in the Gold Cup, it would have to be soft ground at least,then its possible I think.
On normal festival ground Cue Card imo would be too far in front before Bob got his stamina going,and then Cue Card would have to seriously hit the brick wall.
Going on that I saw Saturday I really don't see that happening.

All in all if last years winner cant beat him, none of the ones he beat can either,and that includes Sir Des Champs who was legless at the end of that race.
So for me currently Cue Card should be fav,and the major threats will be Dynaste, Al Ferof and maybe Boston Bob,who are all improving still...mind you we may not have seen the best of Cue Card either!!!

great points made Budd

I would be worried of Cue Card winning the CGC as front runners can't win CGC's! Though i would not put any one off backing him or putting him in your books. I certainly will be but he aint a shoe in same way Kauto, Denman, Best Mate were imo

CheltenhamRoar 25 Nov 13 11:32 Joined: 26 Jul 12 | Topic/replies: 2,298 | Blogger: CheltenhamRoar's blog
i think you'd wanna see him back that performance up before getting excited about him winning a gold cup imo.
is his king george run (which was abysmal) suddenly just been forgotten about?
He's clearly a top class horse but needs to back that performance up over 3 miles to be considered a GC horse.


I said straight after the race that the whole performance should be written off and not used to form any conclusion about the horse, there was no 'suddenly forgotten' for me, it was instant. I think if you look back on this and other threads I have made the point many times.

Cue Card was lit up like a Christmas tree from the moment the tapes went up and he was beaten after 2 fences. He continued to pull hard all the way until entering the final straight and no horse would have got home after that. I wrote it off instantly.

Others chose to take the performance literally and assume that was a true reflection of whether he would stay which for me was never logical. Only his second start outside novice company, heavy nearly unraceable going, pulled hard.

So, you still don't consider him a gold cup horse I take it?

I thought Cue Card would be a solid Gold Cup prospect as well, and have taken the 25/1 nrfb, my only Festival bet so far. I backed him in his Ryanair, backed him in his Arkle (remember that was the first time Paddy did their groundbreaking money back offer on Sprinter Sacre) and I reckon I was one of the very few that also backed him in the Bumper. In fact, it was the 40/1 I got on him that day that started my love affair with the horse. I wasn't able to watch the race on Saturday and actually backed Bob's Worth. Having watched it a few times now there are certain things that stand out. Cue Card gets into such a good rhythm at his fences that he is able to take them at speed and while others slow down in the jump stride, so Cue Card is able to make up ground at every fence. But the most obvious thing watching Cue Card is that he absolutely loves it. The way he runs carrying his head held high he knows he is a total star, and the way he kept on finding more as Silviniaco Conti and Dynaste came at him shows his class and heart.

He is favourite for the Gold Cup in my eyes now. I respect Sir Des Champs, especially on better going than last year, and think Bob's Worth will have a hell of a lot more to give than he showed on Saturday, but Cue Card has everything you could want in a Gold Cup winner. There is no box unticked now, and I'm tempted to go back in again before the King George.

I've been explaining to my little gang of followers this morning how i came to the conclusion that Cue Card was going to be a superstar staying chaser and that was not until after he won the Haldon Gold Cup 2012. In fact, I had never backed Cue Card until that point and had a very similar attitude towards him as many others. Nice horse probably not top class etc. But that all changed...

A big component of that conclusion was his collateral form with Sprinter Sacre from the Arkle. Many will no doubt remember me saying after the Game Spirit Chase that I was totally adamant that Sprinter was a monster about to happen. I rated that effort at 'at least 175' and I said he had upwards of a stone in hand in the Arkle etc. That all proved to be correct, he smashed Cue Card 7 lengths without hardly coming off the bridle. I hardly paid attention to what Cue Card did at the time...

But then Cue Card comes out and wins the Haldon Gold Cup by 26 lengths and they announce the target is the King George. I then started the analysis of all the winners and other top class horses that ran in the King George looking for a bet. Then just one day when I'd been thinking hard for a good few days this idea just popped up. Bingo! I remember the strength of the Arkle form, then see the similarities to Best Mate and Kicking King... put it all together and my conclusion was:

Cue Card is the next top staying chaser along the lines of Best Mate, Kicking King, See More Business, Imperial Commander and Kauto Star

I invite you all to look up all their lifetime careers and compare them with Cue Card and draw your own conclusion.

Anyway, unfortunately, the King George all went wrong from the very start and many people were completely unable to disregard that run and look more at the profile over all. I really think that run was a red herring. Tizzard said that in a way that race may have helped him become a racehorse and if you look at all the races he has run after the King George you can see it is an almost seamless story of improvement: 3 Grade 1 wins and a second to the best chaser in training, pulling 20+ lengths clear of the third, a win at 3 miles plus and a lifetime high RPR of 180

I can only continue to assume that progression continues as he reaches full maturity and I will not be surprised if he reaches RPRs in the mid 180s this season

8/1 is still massive for the Gold Cup (unless Sprinter suddenly turned up)

Foyles, you knew! Blimey I had totally forgotten that thread, some really good debate and analysis

What are you insinuating?

Best Mate never ran in the Arkle and I never said he did (festival cancelled)

Kicking King was second to Well Chief who went on to be a top class 2 miler, Cue Card was second to Sprinter Sacre who is the top chaser in training

Kicking King went on to win the King George and Gold Cup

The similarity I noticed was not in the run but the career patterns (ages, races run in, type of opposition etc)

The horse he is most similar to now is Imperial Commander, beaten in a King George (6th, well beaten) then won the Ryan Air, went very close to winning the Betfair (touched off by Kauto), won the Gold Cup the year after winning the Ryan Air

Not hard to draw comparisons after the events have taken place, but I was doing this after Cue Card had just won his first race outside novice company and postulating that the horse was going to become a superstar staying chaser based on the form with Sprinter Sacre and others combined with looking how other top notch staying chasers careers went at the same stage

Foyles had the idea 6 months at least earlier than me on his King George 2012 thread

the comparisons weren't important, the conclusion I arrived at were

how you can't see what are virtually identical traits I don't know, the point was not to find horses with identical paths but rather to look for the traits, characteristics and campaigning of horses who ended up being superstar staying chasers

and Cue Card's career has remarkable similarity to several

for example, Best Mate was beaten favourite in the Supreme Novices hurdle, so was Cue Card and they won the same race off exactly the same mark on their first chase in the second season, winning by 20 and 26 lengths

if you can't see that is similar then I dunno what you would consider 'similar'

Which second season chaser have you backed for the Gold Cup then?

In his younger days Cue Card was very head strong so he was obviously campaigned at shorter distances. As many younger horses are.
As a 2nd season chaser the Haldon Gold Cup is a well trodden starting point to start his campaign. Not really a great comparison me thinks.

Any way I'm not here to argue or be belittled.

I respect your opinions and like reading your posts.

The only horse I've backed so far is Boston Bob. (Against my normal thinking as I don't like Mullins as a trainer of 2nd season chasers)

It's a good job judorick isn't chocolate or there'd be nowt left of him.

To be fair Foyles it depend on the mare he was mated with.
Most NH stallions would rely on the Marie's stamina influence. But even then its down to how a horse can relax.

According to Ruby Walsh,Cue Card is bred to stay 5 miles!!!
As Brandy alluded to,its mostly about the mare.

Yes, the ambiguity about Saturdays distance doesn't have any bearing as regards the KG, but it does with regards to the GC.