In-depth interview with Bryan Cooper on the Gigginstown team

Will listen on drive home from work. What does be say about tell us more?

That bit starts at about 14 minutes.

Paraphrasing obviously.

It was an ordinary race last time out, Cooper intentionally made all at a nice gallop to find out for himself what the horse is made of as he will have a lot of Gigginstown horses to choose from and needs to know where they stand.

The horse ran away with him to the line and had a hard time pulling him up (although he uses the exact same phrase 5 minutes later when talking about No More Heroes to be fair).

There's a big step up in class to come of course, but he's going in the right direction.

Asked if he's a Neptune horse he says, "I'd be more Neptune because he won his point to point" but then hedges his bets, says he's won a bumper, has lots of pace, good turn of foot and jumps quickly!

There's no 2m4f race over Xmas for him, he'll leave the race planning to Willie.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for that. At least seems to discount AB and I can't see him being a supreme horse to be honest

The trouble with interviewing a retained jockey like Cooper is that he has no input into the politics between owners and trainers. I didn't listen to the full broadcast but he particularly likes Valseur Lido(probably JLT)and also Don Poli. O'Leary doesn't seem to have a ready made candidate for the RSA other than Don Poli...watch this space! He also inferred that Wounded Warrior might be a suitable candidate for the 4 miler.

I really like the Gigginstown string this season. The strategy of looking for big, staying, chasing sorts is starting to bear fruit.

Valseur Lido looks more like an RSA horse to me

Think he has the class for a JLT. Not enough of a one paced slogger for the RSA!

FF,
You not think Real Steel is a candidate for the RSA? looks the type to me.
Don Poli in the 4 miler I would have thought.

Budd

I wasn't paying the fullest attention but I thought he said they might drop Real Steel back in trip. He's by Old Vic, so isn't an obvious stayer on breeding. He said that Don Poli improved with each run last season and that if he continues to progress this season, he might be a Gold Cup horse in 2016. I think the horse that he mentioned for the 4 miler was Wounded Warrior.

Must admit after watching his last run I would be a bit surprised if Real Steel went back in trip.
God knows how much ground he lost during the race and he finished the race off ok considering.
Reckon up in trip left handed would be the way to go with him.
Oh well , we shall see.

Tell Us More hardens as fav for the Neptune after Shaneshill defeat, best price 8/1 now.

Elliot on No More Heroes after today's run. "He's a three-mile horse for Cheltenham and I'd be looking at the Albert Bartlett. He's a real relaxed horse and does everything at his own pace."

No More Heroes looks a future Gold Cup horse to me.

I think the bookies may have overreacted with pushing Shaneshill out- he came to win the race and just got outstayed. He ran well on better spring ground last year so if we get that at Cheltenham I'd quite fancy him, though Mullins has so many darts to throw at the nocie hurdles I'll wait and see what happens.

Slow run race should have been against No More Heroes. My reservation about him would be BJG's post race comment that he likes 'dig in the ground' He may get it at Cheltenham though it would be unwise to expect it.

I don't think they are saying he wants genuine cut in the ground. Probably more a comment on the back of him being a big horse more than anything. Being a Presenting, should be fairly versatile on anything but the complete extremes either way (which are unlikely at the festival).

Elliot was speaking about him at the Preview evening a few weeks ago in absolutely glowing terms. You can tell he thinks he has something special on his hands.

I liked the way Cooper went against the Mullins idea of running Don Poli in the 4 miler...shows he thinks he's better than that and also that he's not afraid to speak his mind