Cheltenham Festival
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Vautour
Vautour
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Hypothetical situation lads:
Vautour jumps the last at Kempton in better fashion and wins a length from Cue Card. What price the Gold Cup? I'm guessing 4/1 tops. I'm still convinced he's a very, very special horse. He loves good ground and Cheltenham. If, and of course its a massive if, they go for the Gold Cup, Walsh won't be making the running a circuit from home. |
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if he is making the running isnt he going at the speed he wants too
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beking George I was dubious of vutour even tho I had backed him straight after the jlt ,what had me doubting was the form of the horses he had beaten over fences ,nothing had come out and really boosted the form and I thought he had a mountain to climb in the king George based on that ,so to be beaten a whisker after looking all over the winner everywhere bar the line against grade 1 horses and being totally unsuited by going right handed was a stonking run imo ,and I would not be surprised if vautour could improve 8-10 pound on that performance given the right conditions i.e , so a 180+ plus run could be immnent ,small problem of which race he goes ,if he were mine then ..gold cup !
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before the king George ^^^^^^
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If the Gold Cup was run at Kempton, yes, Vautour would have an excellent if not a 'fav' chance of winning, but an extra 2f and uphill is an extremely tall order for a horse that was 'caught' by another with dubious stamina; if Don Cossack had stayed up he'd most likely be the winner of that race and probably win by a length or more considering he caught up with Cue Card heading towards the 2nd last fence.
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I agree with your analysis foyle... I layed him for KG but am on him 10-1 nrnb for GC and I think he will be in it.
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hope so harvester !good luck
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think he is at least 10lb better at cheltenhm impossible ,and if I am right and he stays then his price is too big .............
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If he improves 10b and stays he'll be finishing when the rest are jumping the last!
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Pretty dangerous ignoring the Kimg George run,or at least trying to reason it.
Sometimes it's best to believe what your eyes told you. He would have been 3rd in all probability if DC had not fallen. Cue cRd faltered at the last as well don't forget. Vautour had it all his own way up front,traveled well and had them all in trouble , looked like winning easily. He patently failed to stay the trip well. Now he has another 2 furlongs with an uphill finish. It don't matter how much better left handed etc,he don't stay means he don't win. Only slight question for me was how fit he was,but the way he travelled and got them all at it tells me he was pretty fit. Another question in the what race connundrum will probably not be answered till Djakadam runs next. Should he win well then I would expect connections to split them at the festival,with Vautour in the Ryanair. And that is one race where he could reach the 180's. |
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Vautour this, Cue Card that, Don don don, but
I am pretty sweet on O'Faolains Boy @ 33/1  |
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I'm pretty sweet on his trainer ^
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It's no secret that Vautour is a hard horse to get fit. In fact Ricci said: "he was only half fit" for his run @ Ascot.
So how fit was he for the KG? To quote Budd i'd say "pretty fit". There are 3 reasons why i say this 1) Only Half fit @ Ascot 2)In his career Vautour has never put in a sparkling performance before March 2) Strong word that he was not even fancied by his connections. The latter of course is pure speculation but i'm a believer. So did he stay the KG trip? Impossible for me to say given the reasons above. Of course there are the ones that say categorically he didn't but then they must also believe he was at peak fitness. The data tells us he won't reach that till Cheltenham. Let's hope in runs in the GC now. |
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looks like they forget to tell ruby that the horse was not ready
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In my view that was a sparkling performance......till the petrol ran out.
Im not sure he could perform like that without being fit . Will he be fitter in March,could be,but does that mean he stays the extra distance well enough? Fair point re Ruby's ride,but is that not the way the horse is usually ridden?? Looked to me like they were not bothered about the trip and just wanted him to be ridden normally.that way they find out if he stays,they did find out imo. To be fair he did nearly win the race so he probably just gets3 miles The gold cup,is another matter. |
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He is being trained for the Gold Cup so I think zero chance of Champion Chase.Training him for the GC is the opposite of the CC,trying to get him to settle be less exuberant maybe covered up.
Tactics ground and rub of the green is what Vautour needs.I would like to see him over 3 mile before GC but I don't think that will happen. I think i am right in that War of Attrition had not won at at 3 mile prior to his win so it can be done. |
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I think he'll progress from kg especially as it was his first 3m trip (and at the very highest level).
.. And I cannot get my head round why everyone says "if DC hadn't fallen..."... Well he did fall and not for the 1st time. And he's failed twice at chelt. I just wish coneyg was there to serve it up to all of them again! |
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Vautour proved he stays 3 miles, so with a waiting ride in the middle of the pack like Ruby gave Djakadam last year it'll give him a winning chance but the important question is will he stay up that hill after the 3 more exhausting than the KG miles ? Its not the flat easy Kempton, its the ultimate stamina/class test and you can win 10 KG's but struggle at Chelt. If they have doubts why not give him another year, take the Ryanair this time and return next season in the GC, it'll be the sensible option. Going for the GC it'll mean they'll either obsessed with winning the GC or they know for sure Vautour will stay the trip against this year's opposition which is not possible unless they'll test him against Djakadam which they won't.
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I think Vautour will go the Gold Cup and win the Gold Cup.
Stayed 3m in the KG, though not as impressively as some (myself included) would have liked, but this is a spring horse. It took Willie all year to get him right for the festival in 2025, and right he was, clearly loves Cheltenham. Come March he will be fitter and most likely running on better ground than he did in the KG. Aside from spectacular jumping last year, couldn't get over how much energy he had left in the tank after winning the JLT. |
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Heart not head says Vautour will stay the Gold Cup trip.
The heart says he will be fitter than at Kempton, he’ll prefer going left-handed, he will probably get better ground and float over it and jump spectacularly out of it as he has done before, and Ruby will have the experience of Kempton under his belt and will have ideas on when to give him breathers. The head says that he did a lot right at Kempton but got beat because he didn’t stay strongly enough, and Cheltenham is two furlongs further, and they go up that hill three times and only come down it twice. The heart also says that this horse is a superstar, and you can’t be a superstar in the Ryanair (even if you do run up to a mark of 293p). My wallet is close to my heart. I’m on straight at 12/1 and nrnb at 7/1. |
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@Haventaclue your heart says he's a superstar because he won the JLT doing what other top class would've done and people calling him a superstar for doing it, even though the main races for novice chasers are the Arkle and RSA, not the JLT. Same story this year, so by winning the Festival Trophy(won by class horses like Cue Card and Imperial Commander) in the same style will make people express the same thing about him. It'll also give him another year to develop into a proper GC contender for 2017. It all depends what Willie and RR want, how desperate they are and how Djakadam performs next time.
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Yeah, have to agree that they could easily decide to give him another year before trying the GC. But I'm not sure many other top class novices could have done what he did in the JLT. I'm not talking about the bare form, which is still excellent, more the style of it.
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I think Coneygree as a novice winning the GC, would've been even more stylish. Vautour still has to reach that level despite how good he looked. Faugheen also left V. Lido for dead even more impressively as a novice with Ruby not using his whip once but hugging him in the last furlong. On Vautour he was all out up to the line in the JLT. The 2 and half miles seems right up his street at the moment so why not. GC will be a hard race, winning or not, if they go with him there and he's found lacking he's in a worse position than he'd be if he goes for the Festival Trophy and comes back for next season GC. The decider however will be Djakadam who should win well NTO.
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Think budd has got this spot on and to be honest there has been a lot of pages since the KG wasted on if's and but's, the fact of the matter that as much of a prize the KG is, it was also serving as a finding out mission with regards to Vautour's stamina.
1. We found out he will not stay 3+ around Cheltenham. |
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Ballax
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Has any horse ever won four different races at the Cheltenahm Festival?npretty sure they haven't.
Could this possibly be on their mind if they decide Ryaniar this year and GC next year? |
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theres a school of thought that Kempton is an "easy" 3 miles and 2 and a half even 2 milers can get the trip , but its far from an easy 3 miles ,in the king George they usually go off at a good clip ,theres no hiding place ,yes some like edrodon bleu win the kg but its few and far between .
Cheltenham with its undulations offers the chance of a breather going down the hill ,vautour may or may not get the trip, connections will know better than us , but as said earlier he will likely have his conditions .............just the unknown extra 2 furlongs |
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@duffy - I wouldn't say pages have been wasted by if's and buts re Vautour staying, and saying 'we found out he will not stay 3+ around Cheltenham' is simply another form of speculation. We won't know whether he will get 3 miles and 2 until he has tried it.
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yep agree its all in the hands of connections ,we can only speculate on where he will end up ,
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Nobody said he wasn't ready Gazo. I'm talking about fitness levels. Not many horses have an issue with this like Vautour does.
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People make all the excuses in the world following a defeat.
I am very sweet on Vatour as a horse and last years performance was breathtaking. However, 3m 2f with an uphill finish; he won; stay in a taxi. A flat 3m at Kempton was beyond him; fitness lacking or not. Dom Poli looks the winner to me for the GC. |
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won't stay in a taxi!
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Just hope they run Vautour in Gold Cup, to end all conjecture will be great race if all showing.
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Yep,that's what we want.
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yeah don't think theres a lot more to be said until we know what race he goes in !
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Seagull in the Racing Post Gold Cup spotlight on Thursday said Vautour is likely to go off favourite for it.
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roger , what did seagull think as to vautours run in the king George and regards to vautour staying 3m+ thanks
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The money is going to come flooding in for Vautour if he lines up in the GC with Ruby on board. Segal spot on. imo
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^
only if they never watched the KG.  |