We want to share an important update with our Betfair Community users.
Over the coming months, the Betfair Community platform will be winding down. The final active day for the platform will be December 21st. From December 22nd, users will no longer be able to access the platform.
Your discussions, insights, engagement, and, most importantly, feedback have helped shape the platform and guided innovation. Your feedback continues to be important to us, and we will continue to listen via our dedicated feedback channels, as well as through product testing and innovations.
To share your feedback and experience, visit: https://support.betfair.com/app/home
Cheltenham Festival
There is currently 1 person viewing this thread.
These 202 comments are related to the topic:
Altior
Altior
sort by:
Show
per page
Replies: 202
|
By:
My post is not meaningless to me I asked you a question and you avoided answering it. You along with others are of course free to believe I am lying. Ok let me ask a different question. If a punter with no inside knowledge made a profit in 20 out of 21 festivals would that deserve respect in your eyes.
What’s more you ignored my 1544 post. That is what I think. |
|
By:
Ok fine.
|
|
By:
Yes Visor,maybe he shpuld just shrug his shoulders,but we all know how Hendo can get very emotional about his horses,especially the high profile ones.
|
|
By:
Like I said I don't give a toss about trainer quotes.
It doesn't take a genius to see that Altior outstays everything over 2 miles. In fact it takes him about 14 furlongs to warm up and it takes another 3 furlongs to pull him up after 2 miles so its absolutely laughable to think he doesn't get 2 and a half miles. As for only racing him against proven inferior horses for fear he could have a hard race, God forbid. Well that's just nuts. What if every trainer took that view with every horse. Mind blowing! |
|
By:
I don't recall ever saying he don't stay two and a half.
I'm just saying that I believe Hendo when he says they made a mistake in running at Ascot. Yes,we all know trainers quotes need to have a health warning at times,but in this case with what has happened with the horse post Ascot,I believe he is genuine with his comments. I think he wishes he had run in the Tingle and Clarence. |
|
By:
Visor,there's plenty of trainers that don't want to take on certain challenges until Cheltenham,that's become a bit of a norm over the last few years.
And ve read on here how people like to wait until March to see the big clashes. I als know that I have said it's a shame we don't see so many clashes during the season as we had when I first got lnterested in the game......Birds nest and night nurse eg. |
|
By:
I'm sure he does regret it but that's neither here nor there now. He thought Altior would beat Cyrname. He didn't and had a hard race trying. That's life. Nothing shameful or egotistical about it. It happens all the time to every horse every racing day and nobody cares... except when its Altior going for 20 in a row. Then the rules are supposed to be different
|
|
By:
Heard it all now .....hendo and nicholls pander to the public and the press, that of course before they worry about their horses ......ffs lads ?
|
|
By:
Even the good trainers make the occasional big mistakes eg Gosden (Roaring Lion); AOB (Saxon Warrior; Hendo (Altior/Ascot) - the majority was usually owner/commercial/media pressure. And, no doubt many more some of you aficionados will know.
The only mistake Hendo made regards Altior/Ascot was Altior was not fit, and he took on the horse that ran best at Ascot and at his optimum trip as opposed to Altior ie a professional error. But, that's water under the bridge now. Let's move on; crying over spilt milk is not productive, and in this juncture not necessary either. |
|
By:
Irish
What do you think Hendo meant when he said they were under pressure to run? Maybe you interpreted it different to me? Once again I have not heard any quote from Nichols,so cannot say re his thoughts on Cyrname running and whether in hindsight he was happy with it. |
|
By:
Let's move on; crying over spilt milk is not productive, and in this juncture not necessary either.
Altior not fit? Explain. Altior not suited to 2m 4? Explain |
|
By:
How'd Nichols not be happy with running Cyrname at Ascot against Altior? He won a big pot of money; broke Altior's winning run. I believe the King George was to gauge whether Cyrname stayed the King George trip, and probably Gold Cup too.
I do not think the exertion at Ascot took its toll on Cyrname in The King George - the extra 4f very, very more likely. |
|
By:
If any horse was going to need that Ascot you'd have thought it was going to be Cyrname!!!, remember in the minutes leading up to the race there was an avalanche of money for Altior who was backed as if defeat was out of the question going off 1/3!!!! If he needed the race ....nobody thought it.
|
|
By:
Irish the two are not mutually exclusive. Of course hendo and pn care passionately about their horses I am not suggesting they don’t but that they lost a little objectivity just on this one occasion. This happens with human beings all the time. History is littered with examples of humans that make one off out of character choices. The fact is they chose to run off against each other very early in the season on testing ground. PN had been banging on to every man and his dog that all his horses needed a run. If Cyrname was the exception then he must have had a reason and perhaps that reason was to beat altior.
Without that I beliieve he would have let Cyrname ease into the season taking the long game view. I think hendo would have done the same. I do not see much evidence from either trainer that their normal MO is to start the season with such a tough pipe opener so early in the season But I get most on here disagree and many do not believe there was any ingredient of putting the occasion before the horse. As I see it only two people truly know. |
|
By:
i think the owners might have had a say in were they ran
|
|
By:
They would have both been fit as fiddles in that race IMO, both trainers had one big point to prove, Nicholls wanted to prove that his young gun was worth the rating and Hendo would had been desperate to ram the fact that the handicapper had the temerity to rate something above his horse right down his, and anyone who dared to believe its throats.
Do we think that either trainer would allow to let their horses go off half fit under those circumstances, not a chance IMO, and as I said, Altior was smashed in to 1/3, if their was one horse that you'd think was under-cooked on the day, it wasn't him. |
|
By:
I do not see much evidence from either trainer that their normal MO is to start the season with such a tough pipe opener so early in the season
I could give you a very long list. Grade 1 horses tend to run in Grade 1 races, all year round(though Cyrname v Altior was grade 2). Clan Des Obeaux started in a Grade 1 in Down Royal with Road To Respect and Delta Work etc. Buveur D'air started off in Grade 1 in Newcastle(I'm sure he regrets that too!). That's just 2 random examples. Nothing at all unusual about the good horses meeting each other first time out |
|
By:
Fook me this has turned to a bun fight, enough now please.
|
|
By:
BD against Cornerstone lad,silver streak and lady buttons....probably thought that would be a nice start to the season I would think.
|
|
By:
Sorry Deptford
 |
|
By:
Who else is there, outside his own stable?
|
|
By:
Duffy your post suggest both trainers lacked objectivity....... both trainers had one big point to prove .... For me that says it all. That the occasion or their personal agendas was bigger than the end to end season for both the horses. Exactly my point. If they wanted to prove which horse was the best why didn’t they have a prep and prove it in the KG or another mutually satisfactory race .... why do it so early in the season?
I can only think of one reason because the occasion took on a life of its own. It was like a runaway train and Imagine the public reaction and reaction from some on this forum if one of them had pulled out. |
|
By:
And lets say Altior had swerved Cyrname and run instead in the Tingle Creek as he had done the previous year. Lets say he didn't win it. What would Henderson have said then? Probably something along the lines of " I really regret now running him in the Tingle Creek as we felt all along that he was crying out for a step up in trip. Its all my fault. I should have run him at Ascot"
|
|
By:
First time..... are you seriously suggesting CDO in Ireland wasn’t just a prep run for the KG . It is not the grade of the race or the opposition that I am talking about it is the extent to which the early season race is a huge deal. Even though the horses are top quality and the race has grade one status winning is not the be all and end all it is a nice bonus with the main objective being to set the horse up perfectly for the remainder of the season. Are we seriously suggesting that was the primary objective of both sets of connections for the ascot race.
|
|
By:
Had he ran in the Tingle,any comments along those lines would have no merit,it's what he had done with the horse before.
|
|
By:
MS,
I agreeee that Hendo lost objectivity, it's actually clear that he did, as it is the polar opposite of his MO to face his horses off in a much tougher race than is necessary but he was overtaken by emotion at the sting he felt at his horse being superceeded in the ratings game, he would have felt slighted and taken it personally. It is to this end though that the horse would have been primed to the minute as the betting screamed at us. |
|
By:
Now you've really lost me. Clan Des Obeaux went across to Ireland for a high quality race for which he started fav and finished second. Do you think he went for a nice day out?
|
|
By:
He didn't go for the day out but there was nothing "deeper" at stake if he got beat, this whole Altior v Cyrname thing took on a whole life of it's own with a lot more at stake. I'm surprised it never had it's own subtitle much like "The Duel On The Downs" did.
|
|
By:
Budd, Henderson was shouting it from the rooftops since last March that Altior was crying out for a longer trip.
Duffy, up until this season there just was no other horse with a comparable rating to Altior. He was always running in the best races but with little worthwhile opposition. |
|
By:
Spot on Duffy. For cdo in Ireland winning was a bonus and they would have grabbed your hand off for second place and horse back in good shape......a very satisfactory days work nothing more nothing less and the KG was always the main prize. Imo this is often how connections view the early season grade 1s. Some connections try and nick one with a horse just shy of absolute top class e.g. road to respect.
|
|
By:
Duffy, there was nothing "deeper" about it apart from the quality of the race. He wouldn't have been prepped any differently than any other year.
|
|
By:
The KG was always the main prize? Really. Did Cyrname not go off favourite for that?
|
|
By:
You can see by reading the posts that there is very little evidence of a knowledge and understanding of horses on the forum.Fair enough its a betting forum. You are underestimating what it takes to get a horse fully fit to a race meeting at a certain time at some future date. If there was any hint that the horse wasnt fully fit they wouldnt run it. Never mind the owners, the press, the public ,......responsibility to them doesnt rate on the scale.
|
|
By:
Agree Irish, and I have a horse with Henderson (so keeping out of this).
The horses are as fit as the trainer can get them at home. Races can bring them on again but not in al, cases. |
|
By:
I don't think Hendo was shouting from the rooftops.
I think his jockey started this stepping up thing and Hendo thought let's give it a go. But that's not the point for me,the point is they chose the wrong time and place and opposition to do that,and that's what he is saying he did wrong. I do understand some horses need their first run,we should all understand that,and I do know some can be fit enough first time out. I thought Hendo was saying the others day that Altior was not as fit as he thought? the state he was in after the race and the fllwing days. |
|
By:
|
|
By:
If I remember correctly Hendo thought Altior was sufficiently fit and did not think a racecourse gallop was necessary. But, 1st time out and over a new (further) distance was a step too far even for a superhorse like Altior.
When he wins The Champion Chase I reckon all will be forgiven given the stocking price he is (if!). |
|
By:
Tbh Irish I couldn’t care less about having very little knowledge about horses. Like you say this is a betting forum. What I care about is making a profit. If I am doing that through sheer luck then I wii take it and I will continue to take it until I stop making money. I use the money to help those close to me and that’s what I care about.I apologise for offending all the knowledgeable people on here.
|
|
By:
Very patronising, sophie, fair play if you make a profit at it, dont take offense but I assume you dont put a lot of your information upon which you make your selections on here because of the likelihood everyone will follow you in ?
|
|
By:
ffs there was nothing patronising about my post. I fully accept and concede you and all the professional people on this forum are much more knowledgeable about horses than I am. I just don’t care. And I understand how it would irritate professional people when idiots like me talk rubbish.
But saying I haven’t shared information for fear of people following me in is probably an assumption you perhaps shouldn’t be making but I will let others be the judge of that. |