Cheltenham Festival
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Gold Cup - My take on events.
Gold Cup - My take on events.
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I haven't said anything like that duffy. I've stated facts. The horse was travelling better after two out this year than last. On the home turn he hadn't been asked for his effort and was ideally placed instead of like last year where he was coming from off the pace, seemingly going nowhere and being rousted. This race wasn't quickly run and the good ground should have been ideal for the horse. Last year he scampered up the hill like his arse was on fire. This year from travelling comfortably into the straight and putting distance between himself and those who fought out the finish who were being flogged he was then suddenly going nowhere and completely legless after the last.
If you didn't know the horse you'd say he didn't stay. We know that isn't true so I'm stating a simple fact that I cannot explain what happened but if anybody can give an explanation which makes sense them I'd be very interested to here what it is. |
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So what did geraghty or fehily say? what tests have been done on both horses and what have they revealed, I read on another thread that conti came out of the race well and is heading for aintree.
For my money,conti simply wandered off a true course simple as that as happens from time to time,I believe BW himself was affected by this and jinked himself which cost him momentum, nothing sinister at all in any of it. If anyone thinks some bloke was stood there with a contraption best suited in a james bond novel, good luck to them, and anyone thinking that they were nobbled before the race, I'd like to know what could have them only affected on the run-in and not through the race where both were going along perfectly happily, and for that matter even on the run-in neither were dead on there feet, one wandered and the other jinked but ran to the line fair enough. |
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Let me put it another way. Last year Bob's Worth travelling pretty ropily came from behind amongst others The Giant Bolster. He didn't actually pass that horse until jumping two out. He then beat him by 16 lengths. In this years gold cup he turns for home 3 lengths clear of TGB and the jockey of that horse has been getting after it from the top of the hill and goes for his whip before Geraghty and then beats BW by lengths. Perhaps I'm seeking an explanation for what may be unexplainable. I'm not suggesting space men, ray guns or anything else. I'm saying it is very puzzling indeed that when asked for an effort BW didn't pick up and was passed by a horse he laughed at in the straight last year.
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As I've said before I find Conti far easier to explain. Conections were convinced he would stay and he took it up a long way from home. In retrospect the jockey may just have got the horse racing sooner than ideal. After jumping the last he has his whip in the right hand and the horse starts to move over to the far rail and the jockey pulls his whip through into his left hand. Maybe that and the horse seeing the other three finishing like trains on his outside causes the horse to veer over towards them.
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He'll probably dot up at Aintree now but I couldn't back him given how hard a race he had at Cheltenham.
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Geraghty has said that BW was spooked by someone/thing in the crowd I think it was a florescent jacket. Also was BW as good as last season? SC I dont think stayed the trip.
As much as I love a conspiracy theory I dont think there is one here |
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This is a championship race right! Why are people allowed on the inside rail so close to the horses?
If you look at the photographer in the replay who is standing behind the taped off part after the last fence, he is within 4-5 metres of BW and Conti. That is when they are 'spooked'. I am not saying they were zapped but there are too many co-incidences and I find his salmon flip at that point in the race hard to understand - Barry says he was spooked, and he was - he lost his action for no reason...... I am not saying that the photographer who tracks BW and SC as they pass him has anything other than a normal camera in his hands - pointing at the two horses. I am saying that he is too close to the action and people should not be allowed to stand in that part of the course! SC went too fast according to the fractions and sectional times. BW didn't and I find his performance difficult to fathom. |
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Would have been interesting if Bobs Worth had gone down the outside
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Conti not staying is certainly one of a number of feasible explanations for what happened in the race. As I said he was racing from a log way out. Unfortunately this begets further questions about Bobs Worth. He's closer to Conti at the second last and last than he is at the line. In the last 100 or so yards Conti is going away from Bobs Worth. If that is a non stayer we do have to return to the primary and most puzzling apsect of the race. What happened to Bob's Worth? Sure he jinked but he wasn't going past Conti even if he didn't jink and he certainly wasn't going to beat those coming on the outside.
This is a horse who has only had 14 races in his life with two last season and two this season before the gold cup. If anything he should still be slightly improving but as I said The Giant Bolster a much more exposed horse has taken about 20 lengths out of him from the second last from last years race to this. |
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SC went too fast according to the fractions and sectional times
Kingchip, that statement is completely at odds with the time of the following Foxhunters. |
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EE your theory is right of that I have very little doubt that both horses were spooked. Another thing I will add is a very laid back horse albeit inexperienced also spooked in that area of the course. Port Melon. The only thing we don't know is what spooked these horses.
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Or was it pedros theory? Either way something definitely spooked them.
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But to repeat myself even without the spooking which I believe can also be explaine another way I simply can't explain why when Geraghty was the last to ask his horse for it's effort it was still apparently outstayed by Conti who we are agreeing didn't stay and that is ignoring the three horses which flew past them up the stands side.
It's an enigma and sadly likely to remain one. |
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And if we ask the question another way by pausing a recording of the race as ther enter the home straight and ask which horse wins that race if Conti doesn't quite stay what answer do people who knew all the facts about form and how the race was run up to that point give?
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And which finally even allowing for his relatively few races has Bobs Worth been asked one too many times to run hard?
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where would Long Run have finished if he had run?
considering his form is matched very closely with the giant bolster |
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where would Long Run have finished if he had run?
interesting one that. Given he wears ear plugs, might not have been affected so much by the sonic boom.... |
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We may never solve this one but I suspect future events might provide illumination. Lets not forget that Bob's ran extremely badly at Haydock and, while the Gold Cup was completely different in that he seemed to do everything right until the run-in, could it be that he's beginning to tire of the game? Often, the very gamest horses, who take loads out of themselves each time they run, are the ones who turn cute as they get older. Yes, Bob's has been lightly raced, but he's seldom had an easy. Either that or, of course, he may have hurt himself at the end of the race. Would not necessarily trust his stable to have come out with that info if that was the case.
Whatever, next season's Gold Cup looks at this stage the most open there's ever been. After the Denman/Kauto era, a real dearth of top staying chasers. |
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I was not a great Bobs Worth fan for some reason, and also thought that both races this season showed he was not as good as he was last. But as much as I was not a fan, he is undoubtedly one of the gamest NH horses in years who has outdone his natural ability and always run gunbarrel straight
I could understand it if Bobs just tired out of it up the run in. If he was hanging one way because of an injury, I could understand that too. To be rolling around both ways completely drunk like he didn't know where he was after travelling supremely well suggests another explanation is needed. |
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Eeternaloptimist 26 Mar 14 14:54
And if we ask the question another way by pausing a recording of the race as ther enter the home straight and ask which horse wins that race if Conti doesn't quite stay what answer do people who knew all the facts about form and how the race was run up to that point give? That's all very well but they are not machines and more than half the time things don't play out by what the numbers say they should.Even if all the factors leading to that point suggest what will happen next, that's all it is a suggestion, whether likely or not it doesn't mean it will happen. |
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at the end of the day it appears that some bloke inadvertently may have spooked bobs and conti....end of story really.
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i would like to see the roll of film that guy shot as bw and sc passed him - the one staring at the corner of the taped off section.
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the photographer on the grassy knoll, with the sonic boom
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was the sonic boom deployed again today on conti
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Conti was waiting for him this time.... ducked left and right, he threw the shooter on the grassy knoll a curve ball....
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anyone else got their blanket field IR lays in place for the Topham and the National? I have |