Cheltenham Festival
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Do you think Sprinter Sacre will comeback to what he was?
Do you think Sprinter Sacre will comeback to what he was?
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How easy is it to get SS fit i do not know i am not his trainer but after a heart problem i am guessing pretty hard!
id imagine he,s not being pushed like he used to be..... |
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Agree alleged,just hope if it does have to battle,nothing awful happens,bad feeling about the whole thing !
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I have the same feeling
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If i am honest, my pocket is thinking he will run round pop every fence and that will be enough having gone all in trying to steal off our bookie friends thinking he wasnt a runner!!
Maybe it is Hendersons nerves starting to filter out around the nation of horse racing fans  |
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Only cos being punters we all want to win on every bet we place don't we
It will be great to see the horse back and if he is i will get over it very quickly pmsl |
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It reminds me of watching Ricky Hatton coming back or tiger woods,gazza after his knee,and even Apollo creed
 ,most people don't come back after a bad injury or that are out a certain amount of time,long k at Flintoff in the big bash,horses are the same for me,I will be shutting my eyes at every fence ! |
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correction: Denman was 2nd in three Gold Cups after the irregular heartbeat had been successfully treated, the final time at age 11.
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Hand on heart, I am confident he will run to 170 in this years QMCC. (That statement may come back to bite me in the ass, but there you go)
Tomorrows run may be different and he may do something similar to Beat That the other week. Jump and travel great and get tired on the run in, but Cheltenham will be different imo Also comparisons with like Denman, Hatton, Woods etc are a little misleading. They came back and jumped straight back in against Kauto Star, Pacquaio, McIlroy etc. Freddie is straight back into arguably the best T20 league in the world after years off doing TV. They were against top sportsmen at the top of their game, so Hatton, Denman etc were jumping into the lions den. Sprinter will not be doing this and will be facing much inferior animals. |
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Will win on Saturday then bomb out in March. Hopefully goes 6-4 or less Saturday night for the CC.
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I didn't believe a return to the racecourse would ever happen, so tomorrow can't come quickly enough now. I haven't had a bet on him since the Arkle but his presence on the racecourse is captivating. Hope all goes well for him at Ascot and I look forward to him strutting his stuff at Cheltenham on the 11th March. His presence alone will be worth the entrance money and will probably put another 5000 on the attendance.
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Do all you doubters seriously think Henderson would even bring him back if he didn't think he would be able to get close to his best? We're talking about the highest rated chaser of the modern era. Look at all the coverage from the media and even us on here that this comeback is getting. Henderson would have major egg on his face and a backlash from the public if he brought Sprinter back and he was a shadow of his former self, it's not as if Hendo needs the prize money. Sprinter has had a lot more time than Denman to recover from what happened to him and Denman put in some monster efforts when he came back. Of course there's going to be a lot of ifs ands and maybes leading up to the race and there will be a lot of nerves for 4 1/2 minutes of the race tomorrow but let's all just hope he goes out and does what we all remember him doing so many times before and that is show us all what an amazing 2 mile chaser he really is.
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Yes will be ready for tomorrow but come March may well blow out. For me, it would be very rare to win the Champion Chase after one run in 15 months at 9yo with a heart monitor on.
At 9-4 he rates rank bad value compared to many other 9-4 shots we see day in day out. |
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Courtesy of Timeform and the peerless Jamir Lynch :
'With more than a little help from Michael Williamson, our Chief Correspondent takes a statistical look at the chances of Sprinter Sacre recapturing his brilliant best. "A scrambling success in the Champion Chase, whilst operating at 85%, would be an achievement, but the ambition, the hope, the need is for a fully-recharged Sprinter Sacre..." It's a restoration project, one organ only, for the greater good. Once the finest specimen of its type, raising spirits and stirring souls with one awesome performance after another, enrapturing pilgrims, it was taken to be unique, taken to be heavenly, taken to be invulnerable, taken for granted. Not anymore. Wear and tear, together with specific damaged parts, put its future in doubt and its past in glorious focus, something special, worth fixing if possible, hence the recovery plan. All the preparatory work is done, and the time has now come to exercise it. To really exercise it. In this particular case, you can help, by donating €65 to replace one of the 244 decayed bellows of the Sacre organ, the grand pipe organ within the iconic Paris Basilica of Sacré-Cœur: the Sacred Heart. But it’s less complicated to renovate a work of art than a working heart. From one restoration project to another and one Sacré-Cœur to another, the Sprinter Sacre cœur, literally the heart of what’s the matter for a phenomenal thoroughbred whose perfect-10 sequence over two seasons left an indelible hoofprint on racing history. Sprinter Sacre’s track record, and accompanying Timeform rating of 192, making him the best chaser since the days of Arkle, is the very reason why his heart-related affliction and tentative comeback have been under the microscope as much as his regular blood tests during a long rehabilitation. It was around this time last year that another high-roller of the National Hunt world, Big Buck’s, faced an identical scenario, as an extraordinary horse returning from an extraordinary absence, whereby the Timeform Stig, Michael Williamson, a human statistical anomaly, went into overdrive to determine the likelihood of the horse retaining ability, by analysing 20 years of criteria controlled jumps data. The conclusion then was ‘far from high’, as proved the case, and the newer, sleeker 2015 model of the Timeform Stig is at it again, only this time he’s putting a figure on it. All animals aren’t equal, but some are more secret than others, and the various reasons behind any given absence can’t be accounted for, each horse presenting a unique case, Sprinter Sacre about as uncommon as it gets, though the hard data of days off makes for meaningful study. The Big Buck’s investigation is to some extent applicable in Sprinter Sacre’s case, regards the impact of an extended lay-off; same boat, also same ballpark for interval length, 420 days for Big Buck’s, comparable with Sprinter Sacre (386 on Saturday). Refining and re-running the numbers, a year on, the summary points still ring true, that an absence reduces the percentage chance of a horse performing to expectation, and that, generally speaking, the longer the time off the greater the effect. Also reinforced is the tipping point, not of no return but certainly of slow return, going beyond the 275-day mark representing the most significant drop-off for horses coming back (mis)firing. And the data suggests it remains the case that veterinary advances, of particular relevance to Sprinter Sacre and his condition, are seeing more horses returning from unorthodox absences, but no greater proportion of them hitting former ratings heights, compared to a decade ago. The marginal upside for Sprinter Sacre, relative to Big Buck’s, is that his crossroads has come at a younger age, and with fewer miles on the clock, both calculable considerations to be factored into the final analysis. But there’s another significant difference, one which moves the goalposts of any study, Sprinter Sacre’s a unique case all because he’s a unique case, to do with his colossal rating. The question with Big Buck’s was whether he’d retain sufficient ability to win a fifth World Hurdle, needing most and probably all of his old form to do so, facing upstarts such as More of That and Annie Power. Normal rules don’t apply to Sprinter Sacre who, with his 192 in the bank, can slip in standard and still win Grade 1s against what’s out there in a thin two-mile division. Winning isn’t everything, says Sprinter Sacre; it’s not near enough. A scrambling success in the Champion Chase, whilst operating at 85%, would be an achievement, but the ambition, the hope, the need is for a fully-recharged Sprinter Sacre, the one whose graceful force punched through the staid bubble surrounding racing. A decaffeinated Sprinter Sacre would be like replacing the last few keys of the grand pipe organ of Sacré-Cœur with a stylophone: you could still get a good tune out of it, but bittersweet symphonies, evoking rather than making memories, unable to hit the high notes. So, what are the chances of Sprinter Sacre once again flying at extreme altitude? 'Running to form' (RTF), and the poundage leeway involved in that, wins included regardless, as was the basis of the Big Buck's inquiry, is one thing for a returning horse but going that extra yard by matching or bettering a peak rating is something else. On the plus side, Sprinter Sacre is something else, or at least he was. Again, it has to be stressed that each case is individual, but running an analysis of Timeform data to ascertain any relationship between absence and (re)producing a peak rating, scrutinising over 20 years of data, provides some sort of a guide to the challenge facing Sprinter Sacre: STATISTICAL TABLE MISSING As would be expected, a lower percentage of horses match the tighter criteria, but it's a very similar sliding scale to the RTF model, again suggesting that length of break has a negative effect on performance. The 275-day droop - non-routine absences, you'd say, by that stage - is again alarmingly apparent. Of all the jumps horses that came back from a similarly long lay-off as Sprinter Sacre, measuring over 2000, less than 15% of them matched or bettered their previous personal best. At what stage of the horse’s career it’s at, measured in racecourse appearances, also seems to have a bearing, more so factoring in a significant absence (using the 275-day tipping point), as illustrated by the following diagram, featuring in more graphic terms that slippery slope down which Sprinter Sacre has slid over time, both time spent racing and time spent on the sidelines. On a general level, it can be identified that the more outings a horse has in a given race type, after a certain point, the less likely it is to hit a peak, which is the nature of the sporting beast, primarily due to age and opportunity. Add in a substantial absence (represented in blue) and it's the same pattern, only worse, worryingly worse for Sprinter Sacre who, making his twelfth chase start on Saturday, after an extended lay-off, finds himself in a specific hole from which less than 10% have escaped with all their powers intact. But most who've been in a similar spot haven't had anything like his talent, which surely counts for something? A more upbeat bulletin here as, yes, the stats suggest that, comparing the various classifications of jumpers in terms of ability, a far higher proportion of top-class horses rediscover their peak after an unconventional absence, at least eventually. Interestingly, with the Clarence House Chase on Saturday in mind, the first-time-out record (following a significant lay-off) of elite horses is the worst of any band judged on RTF percentages, yet they have the biggest share (18.5%) of full-scale recoveries once back on track. One example of high relevance is the mighty Denman, who, like Sprinter Sacre, was diagnosed with a heart condition which prompted a lengthy recess, 330 days in his case. His comeback at Kempton, when beaten at odds-on, was flat to say the least, but only a month later he roared back to finish second to Kauto Star in the Gold Cup, and his pinnacle was still to come, winning the Hennessy under top-weight on his reappearance the following season. Denman’s lesson for Sprinter Sacre is that absence can make the heart grow stronger. These are all pertinent points in assessing the chances of Sprinter Sacre returning at full force, but we promised you a number, and a number is exactly what we, collating all the data, have deciphered for you. Taking all of the outlined factors into account, and plenty more besides, including consistency levels of the horse and consideration of the trainer, a number of different algorithms were trained and tested against the assembled data. After selecting the most performant model, we then input the appropriate parameters for determining our end game: would Sprinter Sacre be capable of running to at least his former Timeform rating of 192 following a protracted absence? The data-driven answer is that there’s a 25.7% chance; a smidgen under 3/1. Restoring beauty isn't a science. On a holistic level, Sprinter Sacre never has been, and never should be, simply about numbers, because his real value, like the grand organ of Sacré-Cœur, lies in that rare ability to create moments of heightened pleasure and emotion in a shared experience. You can’t put a price on that, or on Sprinter Sacre doing it again in the future. But, if you really wanted to, it’s a smidgen under 3/1.' |
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Sheldon Cooper eat yer heart out
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I'm not convinced by the whole heart thing.
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The above spells doom for my favourite horse and the best work horse ever to go through Seven Barrows apparently - Simonsig.
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How can anyone compare Big Bucks comeback with Sprinter Sacres? Big Bucks had won 4 World Hurdles by the time he was forced out through injury. When he came back it wasn't just the injury that people were worried about it was if old Father Time had caught up with him. With Sprinter Sscre it's different. He's only had 17 runs in his career and is still only a 9yr old and full of enthusiasm to do the job.
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Not since Kauto's reappearance in his final Betfair have I ever wanted a horse to win and perform as much as I do Sprinter today.
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Well for racing of course we want Sprinter to return to his best,but my antepost bets say different.
Still they were placed knowing he may come back so wont be losing much. |
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WELLCHIEF I agree with you big time. I remember watching Kauto Stars last Betfair win and even though I hadn't backed him I had a big smile on my face. Today will be exactly the same. I know it probably sounds stupid but I actually feel a bit nervous. If he wins it will make my season and it isn't even Cheltenham yet!!!
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Good luck sprinter
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I have a feeling he will win but make hard work of it and there will be more questions. lets see.
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God I'm nervous, not a penny on.
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Same here and I havent a cent on him! COME ON SPRINTER!!!
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I thought he was going to hose up when he went past Dodging Bullets. Did he blow up? Some encouragement I thought but as for 190 performances lok like they have gone.
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Didn't jump with his usual exuberance but still looked like winning 3 out. Still think he will win Champion!
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I think if they really wanted that win they could have been much harder on the run in and he could have won imo, but they are thinking of the bigger picture, and nursed him over the line.
Not the same massive jumps but the heart was pumping when he cruised up on the outside, but just got tired. Better ground in the QMCC and having had his prep, which will massively bring him on, he still has every chance. |
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Don't be too disheartened SS backers. He's just been beaten a couple of lengths by the Tingle Creek winner and QM third fav after 14 months off and nursed after two out.
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Of course disappointed that he didn't win but more positives than negatives to be taken from the race. He wasn't as exuberant at his fences as we have seen in the past but im sure Barry wasn't really asking for too many big ones.
Don't forget Denman fell (think he was struggling as well) on his first run back from his heart issue then went on to win the Hennessy in his next race! |
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completely agree Chief.. i think they will be really encouraged by the run and very much the case that BG was told to take it easy with him..
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denman didnt fall
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Not the horse he was - race went perfectly but he just wasn't good enough.
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Plenty of positives today. Think he could be back to near his best. Jumped the 4th last really well and it looked like he'd cruise home. Looking forward to seeing him at Cheltenham.
Denman didn't fall and the next race was the Gold Cup. |
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Agree veryvencouraging signs but Hendo did look disappointed in the stands. Still got a great chance in CC but wait to see if the superstar horse has gone for good
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Could be right unclepuncle, but I'll reserve my judgement after the QMCC.
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I thought it was a really positive run. Will come on bundles and could see him getting back to being the best 2m Chaser around, even if it looks unlikely he will quite scale his previous heights.
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Good luch tomorrow Catch. Nice pot to go for.
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very strongly run race, travelled lovely, got tired and was nursed by barry.
jumping was my only concern. cant wait to see him at the festival |
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Thanks a lot brandy. Certainly is! And doesn't look that hard considering the money. Worried about him getting the trip though...
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