Dont get carried away with Canford Cliffs

Aye, but he ran a couple of more furlongs than they did.

I wouldn't compare the 5f and 6f times with the rest of the Curragh card.

[smiley:crazy][:p][:x]

y wouldnt u compare those times with the rest of the card?

If you look at all the other trips further than the sprints, they were all considerably slower furlong for furlong. The sprint part of the course was riding much quicker. They constantly move the rails at the Curragh, without giving information on what they've one.

* done

thing I don't get is, everyone is raving about Canford Cliffs and talking him up like he's a steering job at R.Ascot, and backing him accordingly (2.24 as I write this), yet he was comfortably beaten, fair and square, at HQ by a certain horse called Makfi. Why will he now beat Makfi - answers on a postcard, please.

free money

johnny, canford has learned to settle over a a mile and looks a better animal.
he pulled like a train for the first 2 furlongs in the guineas.
plenty of hope for him to reverse form with makfi, imo

Yeah, don't trust times or race distances at the Curragh.
One of the basic tenets of time/speed analysis that!

johnnyrant  22 May 10 22:23   
thing I don't get is, everyone is raving about Canford Cliffs and talking him up like he's a steering job at R.Ascot, and backing him accordingly (2.24 as I write this), yet he was comfortably beaten, fair and square, at HQ by a certain horse called Makfi. Why will he now beat Makfi - answers on a postcard, please

Having been against CC, I'm quite sure that he improved today, I reckon this win was every bit as good as Makfi's. Form doesn't just stand still, look how Raven's Pass turned things around with Henrythenavigator a couple of years ago.

Can anyone explain the reason the 7F races on the 3rd May 2010 at the Curragh are down as being Yielding in the Racing Post i.e the Straight Course, and only the two 10F races (Fame & Glory & Leah Claire race) are down as Good i.e the Round Course.
Isnt the 7F and 8F the Round Course as well? i.e not the straight course.
Then look at the results for the 5th April 2009. Straight Course (Yielding To Soft), Round Course (Yielding). And the 7f races as down as being Yielding i.e on the Round Course.
So what are the 7f races on the Round course or the Straight course???? or were they on the Round Course in April 2009, and have since been moved to the Straight course....

johnnyrant - I agree with you.

And, just as much to the point, why would Canford Cliffs reverse form with **** Turpin? He has run against that one twice this season and finished behind him on both occasions, despite the races being run completely differently.

Put it this way, if team Hannon had been talking up **** Turpin all winter as the best they had ever had, what price do you think he would be for the St. James's Palace?

Canford might well have improved since Newmarket, but he might well not have done. And given that a big outsider trained in France actually won the English Guineas, why would **** Turpin's second in France necessarily be a performance of lesser merit than Canford Cliffs' win in Ireland yesterday?

For what it's worth, I wouldn't be surprised if something I haven't even mentioned wins the St. James's Palace. It's very early in the season and an awful lot can change, but to my eye this year's three-year-olds do not look an exceptional bunch by any means.

^ Clearly Weatherbys are happy enough with the name, and the horse is good enough to finish second in two Guineas', but the use of his real name is not politically correct enough for this forum.

Why does the 3 time raced Makfi not improve on the 2000 Guineas but Canford can? Makfi will be going in fresher of the two and no reason he won't confirm the form imo.

Another very valid point ^

Agree with that too.

jair1970 is right. Looks like race times and distances at the Curragh are all over the place. Consider Fame & Glorys time of 2.13.92 on 3rd May. Nearly 6 seconds slower than the Good ground median time, yet Aidan O'Brien is quoted as saying he appreciated the better pace. And the 2.16.52 by Leah Claire, pedestrian. Either the race distances were wrong, the ground was watered to oblivion, or they crawled in both races (which may seem unlikely given O'Briens comments), or a combination of all three.

I was wrong about Canford Cliffs.

I thought he had been shown to be as good as he is in his past three starts, but I was wrong. You don't win a classic over a mile of you don't stay for starters - he gets a mile well.
My explanation for his easy win yesterday is the same as his jockey's.
At `scot, in france and again at newbury he was ridden either very handy or from the front. At newmarket, for the first time he was asked to settle for the first time, and he pulled alarmingly in the early stages, actually he probable did well to finish as close as he did. Yesterday he settled very well for the first time, and he certainly has the speed and stamina to be a hard nut to crack over a mile now.
If they had tried to get him to settle after Ascot he might have beaten Macfi, and perhaps he will at Ascot. Either way, some of the posts below sound a bit like people arguing that they were right all along about him not staying etc, because the time was not that impressive. Sorry, I can't have that - he is a very good miler now and if he continues to settle well his finishing pace will make hime hard to beat.

I make his speed figure the same as Makfi's Guineas win. Xtension ran a few pounds worse than at HQ. He shouldn't be used as a marker by those who want to believe Canford Cliffs has run better than Makfi. It should be a great race at Ascot but both horses might be disadvantaged by extravagant hold up tactics there. Depends on the field and how it's run, of course, but the one that is closer to the pace will prob win.

I gave him the same speed figure as Makfis guineas as well, 114.

people are easily pleased. Xtension ran worse than in guineas, fencing master ran a shocker and scoped all wrong after the race and steinbeck was fat and given a very very very easy ride.
The 2nd is stepping down in trip and the 3rd in going up in trip.
The form is not worth the paper its written on

Red, agree with Figgis about comparing times at the Curragh though, take a lot of them with a pinch of salt, only times over the same distance can be given much credibility

Roger De Bris Joined: 23 May 10 01:07   


Can anyone explain the reason the 7F races on the 3rd May 2010 at the Curragh are down as being Yielding in the Racing Post i.e the Straight Course, and only the two 10F races (Fame & Glory & Leah Claire race) are down as Good i.e the Round Course.
Isnt the 7F and 8F the Round Course as well? i.e not the straight course.
Then look at the results for the 5th April 2009. Straight Course (Yielding To Soft), Round Course (Yielding). And the 7f races as down as being Yielding i.e on the Round Course.
So what are the 7f races on the Round course or the Straight course???? or were they on the Round Course in April 2009, and have since been moved to the Straight course....

The 7f and 1m races use the dog leg attached to the straight course, so the times for those are not always on par with the sprint times. Sometimes that will be due to the wind, other times it will be because of rail movement. Then there's the new mile, which is from a chute on the round course, results don't always make it obvious which 1m course was used. It's a tricky course for clock watchers but made much worse by unadvertised tinkering with the rails in different places on the track, sometimes in extreme measures.

The Beresford and Timeform Million would be an example of the different mile courses being used, on the same day.

Goffs Million sorry!

Nothing bad about the time yesterday. CC didn't beat much but he beat them very easily.

does anyone think there was any firm at all in the ground on the round course at the curragh as all the times were quite slow for strong run races.

Not getting carried away but he wasn't exactly flat out at the Curragh. More to come for sure.

Sprint times were quick enough TLP, I'd say the slow times were due to moving the rails.

so why didnt they re-measure the track after moving the rails?? or tell us what impact moving the rails would have on race distances like they do at Newbury, York, Goodwood etc.

I too was wrong about this horse.  I felt that he would be best at 6-7f and that he didn't quite get home in the 2000 Guineas.  It's easy to see now, in retrospect, that the reason he didn't get home at Newmarket was because he pulled too hard early in the race.  Also, Canford Cliffs has only recently started to work at home like he did prior to last year's Coventry Stakes.  In other words, it's likely that he wasn't at his peak in either the Greenham or the 2000 Guineas.  He settled much better at the Curragh and saw out the mile really well.  The form is arguably stronger than the Newmarket Guineas - he beat Xtension and Fencing Master by further than Makfi managed at Newmarket - and it is rated the best three-year-old performance of the season so far (according to Racing Post Ratings).  Makfi will need to improve again to confirm Guineas form over Canford Cliffs, but who's to say that he won't manage to do precisely that?  Makfi is lightly raced and may well make the necessary improvement.

am i only one who thinks fabre's winner of the french 2,000 guineas is the best 3 y o miler around? beat **** turpin very easily despite having a shocking draw at longchamp. I wouldnt oppose this horse against this newmarket or curragh guineas winners

didnt he avoid all the carnage at LC?

their may have been a few hard luck stories in running at longchamp but not carnage. Remember **** turpin was well drawn and avoided any trouble

Siyouni is the best 3 year old miler in France imo, would be interesting to see how Makfi got on against him.

you think Siyouni is better than Makfi ben??

Not sure, would be interesting though :D

If they all go for the St James Palace Stakes it could be an absolute cracker.