Unless something was responsible for this super lacklustre performance from Samcro - the beast could not even beat Tombstone -he'd be put away until next season to go chasing, according to Michael O'Leary.

No beating about the bush just straight to the point, spoken like a true businessman Mr O'Leary; the Stayers is just not a sufficiently prestigious race for Samcro, and I cannot agree more.

“He didn't battle. No bottle, no battle. Unless we can find something he won’t run again this year and we’d put him away until next season and go chasing with him,” O’Leary added.

Well whose fault is that then o'leary??

So unless they find something!!?? They have wasted a season.

Well done connections!!!

Absolutely Duffy.

Its all about his owners and their decisions in his campaign this season.
I cannot believe for one moment that his trainer has genuinely thought he is a 2m hurdler.

I really hope this horse goes on to be a real goodun when asked to do what he should be doing.

Ah, so it's the horse that was wrong, not the chuckle brothers.

I think the Elliot might have got his way; he was more keened for the Champion Hurdle as he'd not had one horse sufficiently good enough for a proper go.

If you'd want 500's for the GC, would you lay me 250/1 please, I'm not greedy.

He isn't no bridal horse, he just lacks the ability to pick up at the business end of a top class 2 mile race.

I look at in the context of a horse that is going to be a staying chaser BUT has the necessary class to travel with ease through a 2 mile race in open company, whereas the vast majority of stayers put in the same position would be visibly throwing out distress signs a lot earlier in these contests that's how people SHOULD be viewing his exploits so far IMO.

It would be no surprise to me to see him win a Gold Cup in the fullness of time.

The top staying chasers going into next year, Santini, Delta Work et al if asked to compete in the same races that Samcro just has would be finishing abooooouuuutttt ..............now.

When asked to do his proper job his high cruising speed relative to the staying division will be a mighty weapon IMO.

Not able to beat Tombstone clearly indicated something is amiss with him ie mentally or physically; Don Cossack was less able than Samcro over 2m yet was an easy Gold Cup winner.

Do not give up on Samcro yet. A good long rest will rejuvenates his appetite and mentality for the game. And if campaign over a different discipline he'd fulfil the potential and expectations of his fans and connections.

So many contradictions. Samcro is better than 99.9% of all the hurdlers in training so its hardly comical stuff that connections would opt to keep him hurdling.I take it then that you are assuming the switch to chasing will make him better than 100% of all the chasers or will the connections have to shoulder the blame if it doesn't quite pan out like that?

Given that the only knowledge we have of Samcro right now is as a hurdler, who has an excellent jumping technique over a hurdle, and who will need to adopt a different technique when jumping a fence, then how can anyone possibly know at this stage how his career as a chaser will go. Its all purely based on more hype and reputation.So even if he goes through next season as an unbeaten champion novice chaser we will still be none the wiser as to how he will fare in open class

He isn't no bridal horse, he just lacks the ability to pick up at the business end of a top class 2 mile race.

he has absolutely no speed at the end of the race to cope with proper 2 mile hurdlers.

I really can't understand where either of you are coming from here.He travels like a dream and has bags of early speed.Two furlongs out at Leopardstown and he was cruising all over, and 2 lengths up on Supasundae who was flat to the boards. Yet 2 furlongs later Supasundae was 4 lengths in front of him.So over what trip would he have beaten Supasundae? Either he is a bridal horse or he doesn't stay 2 miles against top class opposition. It may be possible that he has some kind of medical issue but I doubt that very much. One thing I am certain of though, based on everything I've see this year, is that Samcro is not crying out for a further trip. He would take some stopping in a mile and a half hurdle race though if you can find one.

Samcro is better than 99.9% of all the hurdlers in training so its hardly comical stuff that connections would opt to keep him hurdling

My comical comment referred to the fact he is constantly made fav depite form showing he should not be.....bookies and mug punters.
I find his campaign this season baffling on evidence I see....not comical.

Better than 99.9%??......seen absolutely no evidence of that where it matters.....on the racetrack.
Thus far he won a stayers Ballymore and a few other novice hurdle races.
Since then beaten by Bedrock, laughed at by BD and beaten by Sharjah,Supasundae,Tombstone etc.
I hope for connections sake they do find something amiss(without wishing harm on him of course),because if they don't then surely this means hes been campaigned in races he has shown three times now,that they were not the right races for him.
The reason I say he has no speed at the end of the race,is because that's what I have concluded watching his races this season.
Yes, he could be a bridal horse, but watching the Ballymore I did not think that at the time.
I just think hes a horse that needs more of a trip and probably fences.
If he cannot jump a fence well enough,then up in trip over hurdles. Or go flat racing.
How far is anyones guess,a mate of mine reckons he needs 4 miles plus!!

One thing for sure, hes got us talking !! For a horse that's currently won a Ballymore and a few other novice races, I never thought I would be typing this much about him!!
Guess that's what hype does!!!

Yes budd, better than 99.9%. Roughly 5000 horses ran over hurdles in 2018. Only 6 got higher official ratings. That's pretty good. If he were mine he'd be the horse of a lifetime,even as a hurdler and with his obvious limitations. If he can even reach the same standard over fences and make it into the top 10 chasers in 2 seasons time that would be pretty impressive too but this jury is out on that and I'll believe it when it happens but not just because of some strange belief that he was born to be a chaser and never a hurdler.

With regard to what you and Cyclops said after his seasonal debut - he gave Bedrock 5 lbs and Sharjah 10 lbs - both of them fit from summer racing. He beat Sharjah 5 lengths and gave him 10 lbs and Sharjah's next 2 runs have seen him bolt up in the 2 Grade 1s run in Ireland and become a serious Champion Hurdle candidate.You boys would be feeling very silly now if you had gone chasing with Samcro after that run.

On his next run he was hammered by BD but he also hammered the Supreme Novices hurdle winner and another proper grade 1 novice. On the evidence of that one run BD looked a superstar but Samcro at the very least showed,at that time, that he had improved a lot from his novice season.Subsequent performances painted a totally different picture of that race but, at the time, you would have been stone mad to pull the plug with him then.He was still a proper CH contender and one of the obvious alternatives to BD.

His latest run was awful.He jumped great, travelled great and found nil. Not sure whether he spat the dummy out when challenged or has stamina limitations which apparently in this PC age is now known as "not having the speed at the end of the race"! Either way I apportion no blame whatsoever to the connections for campaigning Samcro as a hurdler this season.His limitations were not evident last season. I've never known the horse as anything else other than as a hurdler.

When youb say connections Budd... who do you actually mean ?

Gordon is the puppet on the string and is actively widening his stock of owners
Michael only wants to see a chaser and samcro is "not the second coming"

...... so do you agree its down to Eddie ?

Fair enough budd, you believe he's not a 2 miler and his future lies as a 2 and a half mile chaser, a cop out distance. So it should be races like the Durkan and Ryanair for him, where he can avoid the very best chasers around.And connections were wrong to try and dream of winning a Champion Hurdle with a champion novice hurdler cos they should have gone down this route earlier. You are probably right, in so far as he probably won't be good enough to beat the very best, but he won't really be achieving anything more as a chaser than he did as a hurdler.

Cyclops,what does "all the talk" have to do with anything. He had not even run in a chase. He was unbeaten over hurdles. He jumps hurdles beautifully. He has loads of gears and loads of pace.What he lacks is the stomach for a fight against the best horses.This is nothing to do with racing over hurdles or racing over 2 miles.The year has not been wasted because we know a lot more about his limitations now, the same limitations he will face when he meets the best of them over fences.And even that is assuming he learns to jump fences as accurately as he jumps hurdles(Black Op!). You could also say that all the talk these days is that his bubble has burst and he will never win a Gold Cup.

I can understand the perseverance of connections on Samcro despite the humiliation dished out by Buveur D'Air (BD) - he was forced to make the running - because if BD does not show he'll probably win the Champion Hurdle on default as they believe Samcro has the beating of the rest. However, his trashing by Sharjah, and finishing behind Tombstone convinced connections ie owners and Elliot no-end that Samcro was not right either physically or mentally; his defeat by Bedrock was the initial indicator that the Samcro this season is not the Samcro of last season.

Let's hope he could come back for one race before the end of the season running over fences in a small meeting in Ireland.

Imp
He got beat by Bedrock and then completely outclassed by BD who was not 100% race fit according to Henderson.
That should have told them then imo.
They werent the only ones though, cos he still started fav again in his next race.
Peope were backing hype and not looking at the formbook.
Maybe those closest to him were doing the same!!!

I never had a problem with him being campaigned over hurdles to begin with this season, they obviously had a view on the CH contenders and thought it was worth having a go. However the problem came when they didn't see the writing on the wall even after his first attempt, however it has given us more evidence on him which isn't all bad.

I questioned his stamina at the end of the Ballymore, put that into the context of what we've seen since and I question it less so.

Come next season I'll be committing to him in staying chases with regards to all the big targets, certainly until he shows me different, there'll be a bit more juice in the prices too as he'll be more a distant memory and with all the recency bias of all the most recent festival winners foremost in peoples thoughts.

Official ratings may be somebody's best guess(its a team effort) but they are the best and most informed guesses and I have yet to see a better system from a private operator.

Cyclops, believe me you cannot tell a great chaser from the look of him. The hype coming from Elliott's about Samcro before he ever ran was never based on him jumping ditches like Pegasus. He's a superb work horse with a cruising speed that the others cannot match.All this would be on the bridle of course.When he started off hurdling last year and went through the season without coming off the bridle,the hype went up a notch with every run. It was generally assumed that he would go chasing only because that's the usual O Leary way. So the hype about him winning Gold Cups was based purely on his hurdles exploits,nothing else.
When they decided to keep him hurdling, at least the hype about him winning a champion hurdle had some substance to it, as the champion novice.

Now that the hype has shown itself to be just that,and the bubble has burst, its probably time we all stopped assuming that Samcro is a superstar chaser in waiting. The prophets were right about him being a very good horse but got it wrong about just how good he is. And its probably fair to say the hype merchants were also bluffing just a little about his future brilliance as a chaser.

Playing the ratings game, his performances this season were judged to have been a slight improvement on those during his novice days until the last one, which was judged a few pounds short. On that basis, he's not regressing but has failed to make the progress expected/hoped.

I disagree about the looks aspect. He's a big horse and the only big horse I know to have won a Champion is Comedy of Errors. Made for fences and while he jumps hurdles well enough, they don't allow him to exhibit the scope that many believed he will possess when tackling fences. Again, I'd quote Don Cossack as an Elliott horse who had tremendous ability in bumpers, flatlined as a hurdle but then showed his true ability as a chaser. Samcro should have been given that chance, if not at the start of the season, certainly after his first run.

Thought I would watch the Ballymore again after all this chat,
Samcro cruised to the lead and jumped the 2nd last going much better than all the others.
Coming to the last he was starting to get ridden but still going better.
After jumping the last, which Black op demolished,he was ridden quiet hard and given a couple of smacks.He worked hard to beat a horse that will be needing at least 3m by the looks of his runs this season,and the third home that day Next Destination ran like an out and out stayer.

Looking more and more to me like hes just not as good as was being made out to be.

I could also have said more races than ever are sponsored by bookies, owners like Ricci have strong links to bookies. They've ruined the ante-post markets. Restrictions are rife. Jeez, owners think they've got it tough...