deep enough,its only cost me about £50,fy hasnt run for a while,dodging bullets going through that slog last week wont have done that any good,and trifolium was below top class as a hurdler,but i do think it looked like a chaser if ever i seen 1,just dont think it will be good enough,be honest tory i thought you had to win last time out,got it wrong !

I don,t think theres a hores training in the uk that has had an ideal prep for Cheltenham with the weather we have been having, what worries me about fever is he has been scheduled to run twice in the last 2 weeks and missed both engagements, that must be a worry to a backer, my arkle money should felix not participate will be coming back as a free bet and unless I hear some positivity regarding fever in the coming weeks then I will just have to sidestep him and find alternative value.

my biggest winner is ballycasey and im worried that he hasn't had an ideal prep I would have liked another run for him, not far behind bally is faugheen, his prep has been awful he has run over 3 diferent distances, im in quite deep on both of them

Tullow Tank will be too streetwise for Faugheen and if I was a Champagne Fever fan comin in to this with a 3rd I wouldn't be too confident to be honest but then looking at the opposition it's a godawful Arkle

im  about 20th in that wiliam hill 10 to follow,and have cf,ballcasey,faugheen,ss,briar hill and red sherlock,ballydoyle if i had put conti in instead of al ferof i would have been leading,ttt will be placed in either race and conti will place at least !

i agree with you,there the best 2 trainers aswell lol !

corruptus in extremus  • February 15, 2014 10:49 AM GMT 


All you champagne fever fans are clutching at straw.Just like our felix yonger bets.The second coming isnt happening lads.Hope felix gets to run against him.Just another talking horse c f will become,regardless  YOU SERIOUS???

Absolutely.one bad mistake and it's game over.

my 2 pence for what its worth....champagne fever is no value. loads to prove over fences. 2 runs poor prep. no run this year awful stat but I think Cheltenham is his track, he seems to love that hill and bounds up it, if he jumps well he wins.

Ground mate,makes a heck of a difference in this game.Plus Trifolium went off a lot quicker when he got beat,and was ridden perfectly when he won lto.

Very true,he was gonna be 2nd at the very worse imo.

Something about arkle I love, I think its the fact you can spend months thinking who may graduate.

Not going at all mate.
Aint been for ages but I do plan to change that at some point in the future.
Got into an annual routine now,watch it with me bruv at home. We enjoy it that way,sharing opinions etc and it seems to do us ok re money wise,not life changing amounts, but we do ok.

I hope you are right tony! However, there is no stand out candidate on chase form this year so we may see a few more runners than normal, which certainly won't help given his inexperience over fences. I'm not bothered at all about his lack of a recent run. He is a lightly framed horse who won't take a lot of getting/keeping fit.

Yeah,of course if he doesn't get round he won't place, but that's why they have prep runs etc, to give them experience.  Much better to hit one in a prep run than give him easy small runner races where his jumping is not tested.  They would have learnt a lot from his race when he unseated and I'd be confident he won't make this mistake again.

Haven't got any stats, but the best usually come out on top in the Arkle (or are at least in the mix).  Off the top of my head, I can't think of any really fancied ones in the last few years who have fell or unseated; apart from Tatanen, but you'd have to think Champagne Fever is a lot better than him.

I'm not saying it won't happen, but it's not something that tends to happen too often.

fair point that in recent times that none have come a cropper though

Think it's dangerous to assumer just because a horse ran on heavy ground last time out it automatically means he had a hard race. You can tell by how tired they finish usually and DB looked normal as you'd expect imo.

Shut up Sint, I thought I was on to a good point then

Boredom & Raceform Interactive combine to bring you this list of Arkle fallers in the last dozen or so runnings.

11/03/03	Adamant Approach	7/1	fell 2nd
11/03/03	Le Roi Miguel	11/1	lw: led tl fell 3rd
16/03/04	Tidour	33/1	hld up mid-div: hdwy 5th: trckd ldrs 8th:3l down and styng on in 4th whn fell 2 out
16/03/04	Puntal	50/1	in tch and reminders after 4th: bhd fr 7th: no ch whn bdly hmpd and uns rdr 2 out
16/03/04	Mister McGoldrick	50/1	led 2nd to 3rd: chsng ldrs whn hmpd 4 out: slt ld 3 out out: narrowly hdd next:wkng 12l 4th when blnd and uns last
16/03/04	Thisthatandtother	5/2F	blnd 1st: fell next
16/03/04	Central House	11/1	rangy: lw: w ldrs 1st: styd front rnk: chal 7th: trcking ldr whn blnd and uns rdr 4 out
15/03/05	Kadount	20/1	hld up in rr: hdwy and travelling wl whn mstke and uns rdr 4 out
14/03/06	Accordion Etoile	7/1	in tch in midfield tl heavy fall 8th
13/03/07	Don't Push It	4/1	lw: chsd ldrs: hit 7th: styng on and gng wl disputing length 3rd whn fell 2 out
13/03/07	Twist Magic	12/1	in tch: hdwy to trck ldrs 8th: styng on wl and disp length 3rd whn fell 2 out
11/03/08	Clopf	11/1	uns rdr 1st
10/03/09	Tatenen	4/1F	2nd whn fell 3rd

Kauto Star never ran in the Arkle. He missed 2005 and fell in the Queen Mum the following year.

No great ones in the fallers list - I suppose twist magic and dont push it who won the National were ok - interestingly both fell at same time. Would be surprised if CF does not emulate that lot.