Faugheen & Peace and Co

faugheen remind me a bit of rhinestone cowboy looked the second coming, until champion hurdle day,

peace and co took a step backwards for me last week to my eye, thou the bookmakers still shortened him, i think you need a grinder than speed horse, id save him for aintree flat track better ground than bottom him in the triumph.

hope this helps

i think faugheens price is right. i wouldnt lay it but wouldnt back it.

peace and co has a long way to go and is a silly price.

faugheen has proven he founds plenty when shaken up, can quicken off strong paces, is tactically versatile and is yet to see a  horse good enough to get him off the bridle. okay, he hasnt faceed tno, HF or jezki, but for me the visual impression suggests he can be a level above.

his jumping is the only slight concern, but he proved at chelt last year that even blundering three and two out didnt affect him. he came straight back on the bit when ruby gathered him together.

i think he can surpass the similar level of form jezki/tno/hf are running to.

presumably the OP missed the last year of racing when saying Faugheen has beaten nothing. But hopefully he will also put the money down and lay him not only offer us his opinions.

i have already layed faugheen

Have some toilet roll by your side around 3.25pm on the day.

been following racing for decades................ive seen it all before...............i know all these punters who love having 3/400 on evens and 6/4 shots............they have been punting for 40 years, have had good jobs and are all now retired with only the state pension to live off..............seen it all before guys. only mugs back faugheen at 2.38. best of luck. he might get a sore throat and not turn up.

That's a fair point. He might not turn up, he might fall or he may not be as good as people think and if you've laid him at 6/4 then you haven't done badly.

he doesn't need to be as good as poeple think. If he does show the improvement that people expect of him then he'll destroy them by many lengths but even without that improvement he only needs to arrive in good health and show his previous form to win it.

As for not `beating nothing` why did TNO's connections ran away from Faugheen in the Christmas Hurdle? why did Mullins offered Hurricane Fly a safe passage by keeping Faugheen away from the G1s in Ireland?

Run away?? TNO won a bigger race 2 weeks earlier!!!
And you really ought to know these trainers talk to each other before deciding running plans for their star horses.

As for HF,think we all know they are trying to get him as many Grade 1's as they can before he retires.
Imo UDS would have beaten him last year,and Faugheen probably would have beaten him this year.

of course they talk with each other, thats not the point. Ricci announced Faugheen's plans ahead of time and everyone knew where he was going, which was to a G1 race to which TNO connections said no we'll take the earlier G2 race with bigger prize money as consolation and everyone will understand why we can't take on Faugheen 2 weeks later.

In this top class corner they're at with TNO it should be more about prestige than money, therefore they ran away by refusing to wait 2 weeks and race against Faugheen because they were afraid of facing a far better opponent than Vaniteux amd Zamdy Man lol... if thats not running away then I don't know what is... Of course they will be forced to take on Faugheen in the CH but I bet you whatever that if all of them had a choice including Mullins with Fly they would never run against Faugheen and the whole game would turn into a France horse racing situation where the game is devoted to owners not to racing fans.. but alas thanks to Cheltenham we can see them all in the same ****g race..

TNO Loves Cheltenham,its the trainers local track,he runs in the Bula every year,and its more prize money.
No more to be said on that.
Reason he ran in the Xmas hurdle last year is because they never had the Haydock race then.TNO ran in that this year as it obviously fit into their campaign towards the festival. There was no way he was going to have 4 runs before the new year!!

Will also say that Kempton is not a track that suits TNO imo.
Cheltenham is.

what are you talking about? TNO won the Bula in 2013. Would've also won the 2013 Christmas hurdle if not for mistake at the last. This year they ran away from Faugheen simple as that.

Eh??
I know he won the Bula,and he may well have won the Xmas hurdle....so what??
I still think Cheltenham suits the horse much better than Kempton.

Ran away!! Not for me. We disagree,not a problem.

Ok fair enough but whats your opinion on G1 races? Shouldn't the best horses run in them?

Well,I always use to think that,but to be honest im a bit torn between that and wanting some unknown at the festival.

I do find it frustrating that the Irish Grade 1's don't contain the top horses very much,but that's mainly cos one trainer has most of them.
I would love to have seen UDS,Annie Power and Hfly run against each other last season,and I would love to have seen Faugheen take on Hfly this season.

NTD never shirks a challenge. The Haydock race is a new addition to the NH calendar and was worth 60K, it was, on paper, a penalty kick for TNO so as an owner and trainer it would be foolish to turn it down.

Budd you say the Irish Grade 1's don't contain the top horses very much. The last 2 Ch Hurdle winners ran against one another 6 times in Irish races in the last 13/14 months and you can throw Our Conor into a couple of those races also. Tell me about all these great UK hurdlers taking each others on in Grade 1s during that time.

We all also know that TNO would have run in Kempton had there been no Faugheen - just like last season. I actually strongly agree that it was correct not to run. But they did opt out.

Not at all sut

Not at all sure of that. TNO was always gonna run in the Bula and they ran at haddock in the new race. That would have been enough imo.
Yes you are correct with Jezki and Hf running against each other,but where were the others from Mullins yard last couple of years,not in 2m grade 1s,in Ireland,I know that. As for the Brits,we only had 2 real grade 1 horses and they faced each other at xmas last season,this season we only have one.

You can make a case to lay both horses at their current prices. I think Faugheen should be 7/4 while Peace and Co is around the right price at 2/1

Not saying he isn't the most likely winner but I'd agree that Peace & Co is a cracking 'lay to back' at this stage at 2/1.

Unless something terible happens to his main rivals and they don't run then he will surely be available at 5/2+ on the morning of the race, quite conceivably 3/1. And of course if anything unfortunate happens to him between now and Cheltenham and he doesn't run then you clean up.

Faugheens form looks pretty good to me and he is a deserved favourite. The win of Dawalan did the Kempton form no harm.

TNO fans must have been a bit disappointed with his shocking effort at 1/6 last time out, he hardly jumped a single hurdle straight. If Faugheen had put in an effort like that can you imagine the noise of TNOs supporters. TNO has persistently had an issue with the hurdles which is a bit disappointing as he tends to run in races with hurdles sited at regular intervals around the track! Maybe you are right to argue that TNO is not suited by Kempton. However he didn't seem to like Haydock much either did he. If he lugs out to the right like that at Cheltenham he will end up off the track!

Of all the tracks you could pick for a horse who stays as well as Faugheen obviously does, you would have thought Kempton would be the worst of all. A tight track with no emphasis on stamina. However a decent pace proved no issue at all. He is not going to be out speeded or get run off his feet is he. And he stays so very well too.

I saw on Saturday the clown from the R Post, some cockney geezer who's name I forget, arguing that TNO could have done what Faugheen had at Kempton. Well not if he ran like he did at Haydock he couldn't. In fact I am not sure I ever saw TNO run like Faugheen did at KEmpton.

You ever seen TNO run at Cheltenham??

In fact I am not sure I ever saw TNO run like Faugheen did at KEmpton.





did you not see the MTOY  race, how far clear were they..... or maybe the spanking of ROR?


Of all the tracks you could pick for a horse who stays as well as Faugheen obviously does, you would have thought Kempton would be the worst of all. A tight track with no emphasis on stamina.




surely the same could be said of TNO yet he put up 2 better performanes at the venue than faugheen

@alleged has TNO shown that kind of form this season ?

TNO is fine and solid,would have no worries he will be at his best on the day.
He loves cheltenham,and normal Tuesday going will see him have every chance.

no timtin, I don,t think he has needed to be to beat the opposition he has faced this year.

One major worry for me regarding The New One is his tendency to jump to his right when under pressure. He lost lengths jumping the third last and second last in last year's Champion Hurdle and the same could happen again.

Alleged

I take it you are aTNO fan. Good luck to you. Opinions are what racing is all about and we differ.

I would think laying Faugheen would be a pretty dangerous tactic, although I am pretty sure the bookies will lengthen him on the day.

I honestly would be a bit worries still about TNO's jumping. I know the going at Haydock was bad, but I am not sure that actually explained his jumping and veering so badly to the right at virtually every hurdle. He should not have come off the bit beating that lit and yet he came quite close to getting beaten.

The trainer is a really talented guy and if anyone can get TNO straightened out for the festival he can, but it might not be possible and he may not even run if it turns out there was a physical reason for his wayward jumping last time. All that being said, Faugheen has just slaughtered all opposition to date and is consistently doing a pretty decent impersonation of a champion. I confidently expect him to carry on doing the same thing for a while yet.

Well when he faces a decent CHurdle type horse we will find out how good Faugheen is.
He could be a serious horse,but then again...........

Its interesting, you can throw a blanket over HF, TNO, Jezki and My Tent which implies that none of them are outstanding in the way Istabraq or others have been. This suggests that there is room for a better horse to emerge and put them all in their place. Is Faugheen that horse ?, well he certainly has not been extended yet and his form suggests that he is probably as good as the above mentioned so if there is quite a bit more in the tank then he could well be the one. I agree with the previous poster, I would not want to back or lay him so his price is more or less in the correct zone. Peace & Co's sectionals are pretty good but I agree the nature of the race marks him down as a silly price as we know little about his profile yet unlike Faugheen. For me if there is a play its lay Peace & co