Imperial Commander might go to Punchestown

He stopped suddenly having bled - he was fit and well the next day and has been in great form since. we cantered him on Monday in order to get a good trac wash and should have the results later today. He was in great form on Monday so we are keeping our options open - notwithstanding the fact he has never bled before and we would like to get to the  bottom of that before making a decision.

hi Bobby some Gold cup that thought your lad did himself proud. What are your thoughts on Long Run are we looking at a new star?

Hi Howdi, I think anyone who had any doubts about Long Run has to accept they were wrong. Having won the King George and a vintage Gold Cup he has little to prove. It was a high quality renewal and he was an emphatic winner and a worthy champion. He also coped exceptionally well with the quickest ground we have seen for many a year. On the face of it he should be around for a long time and the novice division this year hardly looks to be exceptional. To counter that he has two full brothers in Bica and Liberal who never ran beyond the age of 7, and a half sister Liberthine who also finished her career at 7. All were owned by the Waley-Cohen family so they are probably well aware of the precocious nature of the family. It will be interesting to see if he follows the same pattern, but if not he has the world at his feet with Kauto, Denman and Imperial in the twilight of their careers.

Imperial chose an unfortunate occasion to burst for the first time, Paddy thought he was travelling as well indeed better than last year at the top of the hill, but he went suddenly about 20 strides before he made the mistake at the fence. Strangely he seems better than ever at home, we are waiting for the results of tests - but as it stands there is a good chance he will head to Punchestown.

Meat Loaf - Scottish National off his current mark it would just make a mockery of the race as almost everything would be out of the handicap. Wouldn't rule it out but not likely. The Whitbread makes little appeal to me. I can give you very positive vibes about Roll Along, I saw him work Cheltenham week and he looked fantastic and worked really well - not sure of his target but will find out.   

Zilzal - I have wondered about the ground, but as heavier ground presents a greater physical test I cannot work out why that would be. In essence it is blood pressure that bursts the membrane of the lungs - so the options are the membrame was weakened by a virus, or the physical stress incurred in the race caused the pressure to rise above a level which the membrame of the lungs could stand. I suspect the virus because he was absolutely hacking and stopped so quickly Paddys first reaction was he had gone wrong - in fact he trotted up sound after the race and was bouncing again the following day. He bled from the nose on the way back to the stables, so the volume of blood in the lungs must have been substantial enough. He has had a course of anti-biotics and we will see what the trac wash results tell us - but once he has had a few more easy days we will start him back on the gallops. He has never looked as well !

Zilzal - difficult to know, but if he was under that amount of stress and strain he would presumably have been flattened by the race. (The principal method of training these days involves running horses up hills on the basis this requires the most effort and builds stamina)Instead of being quiet he came out bouncing the next day, which is why I suspect it was some sort of low lying infection in the lungs. Hopefully the tests will tell us - because if they dont we will be shooting in the dark to some extent.

Interesting point Zilzal - I walked around half the track it was good to firm, although with a nice covering of grass.To be fair he stopped instantly and was already on the retreat before he hit the fence. In general more horses burst on heavy ground than good to firm due to the additional effort of getting through the ground - but in this case I will suspect we will never know as he had been on anti biotics for three days before we cantered him to get a full scope of the lungs.

Still fresh and well at home - we will give him another few days break and see where we are.

Fascinating stuff. I suspect the ground was not as fast as some of the speed figure boys (including Nick Mordin) estimate and that the fast times were due largely to the distances having been reduced by rail movements in order to provide fresh ground for Friday's races.

Whether right-handed Punchestown is the ideal course for Imperial Commander is open to doubt, though.

I think the ground on the last day was probably the fastest ground encountered at cheltenham.

Any more news on Imperial Commander Bobby - hope all is going well?

Can i be greedy and ask about the well being of Roll Along?

Thanks again