That was was the worst Tingle Creek I've ever seen

Probably one of the worse I have seen as well.

I've seen many worse Grade 1's tbf.

yeh and a lot of them in recent years!!

shall we list all the bad grade 1's we've seen, I'll open with reve de sivolas long walk last december

Yeah that was a shocker. Unfortunately this years does not look much better looking at the entries.

You could add dozens from Ireland from the last few years to this list

Reve de Sivola's long walk was pretty poor but have to agree the shocking grade 1s all occur in Ireland.

Nothing stopping UK trainers going over to Ireland for weak Grade 1 prizes.  After all there are "no suitable races over here" especially for novices.

There are no bad Grade 1s just some are better than others.

How do you rate a grade one. One can have a race with a very good horse and poor opposition or a whole lot of not so good equally matched horses. To me the quality of the winner determines whether the race was a good one or not.

See Best Mate's Gold Cups for an example of the first

The leopardstown GC won by Joncol in feb 2010 is an example. Its barely a group 2 on ratings let alone a Group 1. Of all the horses that ran in that race two wins emerged from 7 runners, including Maid in Taipen winning a 2 bit hurdle off 145 and In compliance winning at chase race off 145 2 years later. That has to be one of the worst Grade 1s in history.

The 2012 Hennessy won by Quel Esprit was a shocker, too. He was rated just 150 at the time and was sent off 5/4. Quite funny actually as although the form was franked later on by Follow The Plan who won the Bowl at 50/1 and China Rock won the following seasons Punchestown Gold Cup at 20/1, each of those horses was rated 152 at the time.

Apart from Sprinter Sacre who is an exceptional once in 10 year horse, what else was missing from the Tingle Creek? Somersby is not quite top class but he has been placed in similar races over the last 3 seasons. 2 mile chasing is a specialist event and there are never many really good ones around. Well Chief, Azertyuiop and Moscow Flyer all came along together but in most years any one of those would have been a 1/3 shot.

Sacre is a once in a generation horse imo, better than any of Moscow,Azerty,Master Minded etc.

The problem being highlight is, the next best are miles behind so any top 2 mile race without SS in is massively devalued.

I did think about suggesting the 2012 Hennessy as another example

Never mind that - I thought about suggesting all of Arkles Gold Cups.

How many was it he beat? And who apart from Mill House?

Okay, duck! Run for Cover!!!

A bit before my time, Roger.

Mine too - there will be some old timer along in a minute cr@pping on about 'himself' though. just wait and see.

Lol winding them up is have the fun. Can be no improvement since the 1960s in some eyes