Last Seasons Arkle

all from the supreme novices....connections of spirit son must be more gutted by the day.

Or it may contain the winners of none of those races. It might be better to see what actually happens before asking a question like that.... and whatever happens, the Arkle may have had a quality field, it was not a good race.

Not a good race. FFS highest rated performance of the festival. The form is there for all to see. Anyway forget about March it makes no difference Cue Card Al Ferof Sprinter are all beasts. Agree it's a great shame about Spirit Son would have won a Champion Hurdle IMO class horse.

It wasn't a good race, at least in the terms I'd use. Sprinter won at a canter with only one "opponent" for the last 3/4 mile.

A good race would have had three horses jumping the last together and battling up the hill (think Dawn Run's Gold Cup or Viking Flagship in the Melling). It was a good field and a very good (perhaps great) performance by the winner. Three of the runners have excellent form.

Kauto Star's 09 King George and Frankel's 2000 Guineas were great performances but not good races.

How can it be a good race??
Main challenger lost his race at a fence,runner up is better over further,and the only other reasonable threat cant jump!!
Was a damn good performance from the winner as Stront says,but also as he says not a good race.

It was rated a better race than the Gold Cup, Champion Chase, Champion Hurdle, World Hurdle how can it not have been a good race? It was touted up as the race of the season all year long and it fully lived up to that billing and probably surpassed that. Menorah wins at Aintree next time out. Sprinter wins G1 on bridle next time out. Cue Card bolts up in Haldon Gold Cup next time out. Even Blackstairmountain has won races since and Foildubh who most recently finished just behind Big Zeb and not a million miles behind Flemenstar. The race may have been disappointing if your selection couldn't live with the winner but to call it a bad race is amusing.

Couldn't live with the winner??
He was living with him fine till the jock asked him too early.

Anyway,its clear we have different ideas of what constitutes a good race,so best leave it at that imo.

budd still doubting Sprinter.

Forget it MM, we know how good he is

FFS SMH

Steamship was referring to the contenders in the arkle, not the actual visual nuts and bolts of what happened......If we're going to be pedantic about it, SS is never going to be able to win a good race unless something is able to get him at it.

Thanks duffy for backing me up and I had forgotten about them meeting in the Supreme. I watched it last night and feel for connections of Spirit Son and Recession Proof.

Strontium calm down you know what I meant and I put it up to start a debate, rather than going on the attack you could point out better novice races from the past ie the 2011 Supreme.

Rhinestone.
I aint doubting SS mate,how can i?
Hes been impressive in every race over fences.
But i can keep an open mind as to other horses,and i happen to be equally impressed with what ive seen of Sanctuaire over fences.

Steamship, I was not "going on the attack" and I'm sorry if you thought I was. I was disagreeing with your premise it was a "good race" - evidently Masterminded and duffy thought it was, so it was worth making my point. Maybe they also think a 10-0 game is a good football match or winning a Test match by 400 runs makes that a good game.

The main problem with your arguement is it's based on a totally hypothetical situation - i.e. runners from that Arkle win the QMCC, CGC and Ryanair. If that happens, come back and talk about it it March.

duffy/steamship,
the nuts and bolts of what happened are what makes the race lads,not the line up before hand, as what that tells us is that it SHOULD be a good one.
And on paper it did look a good renewal with former festival winners lining up,but the way the race panned out does not to me constitute a good race.

OK, steamship was referring to the fact that we MAY, (he said may) be able to look back at this race in the fullness of time and be able to say that the race contained some very special horses, he was not really commenting on how the race itself panned out, or whether it in itself could be technically described as a good race, it wasn't meant wholly literally...lads....and I personally would decribe a 10-0 hiding as a good game if the nil belonged to liverpool.

okey doke,fair enough.
oh and im a Liverpool fan

I bet you thought your day couldn't get any better after AF wins....and then liverpool win....and then united get beat.....everything happens in 3's.!!

yeh was a good day,be nice if could bottle it!!
seem few and far between!!!

You can't just write off races because horses don't finish close together LOL

quiet agree

agree with mastermind and duffy here...but can't be asked to get into an argument about it...masterminded last comment says it all imo...anyway back to the hennessy