The Dante is awfully weak too.  But any horse can improve from now till Epsom horses as are not machines.  A good trainer will peak his horse for June.  On what we seen Midterm, UAR, 他和2000 guineas winner, there is nothing special this year.

UAR cruised up to Port Douglas but found little when asked. I believe if that had been The Derby Port Douglas would have won; this Chester race reminded me very much of the 1984 Derby between Secreto and El Gran Senor where the latter was going much the better (cruising) with the former hard ridden 2f out - the former eventually won.

Staying @ a mile Irish Guineas /St James Palace etc

I wouldn't pay too much attention to High Grounds as a benchmark between Midterm and UAR as High Grounds was given a shocking ride today and Midterm was running on unstuitably soft ground and pulling away at the end of his trial. I expect Midterm to win the Dante well on much better ground next week and go into the Derby as a short priced favourite with Minding being confirmed for the Oaks.

I think comparing us army ranger to elgransenor is a bit optimistic

elgransenor came there in the derby with a double handful. us army ranger was travelling well but hardly cantering all over them

and backing The Gurkha too.  The Gurkha is certain to go straight to the French Derby

Apparently, the genetic test on Galileo Gold indicated he had only a 1% chance of staying the Derby trip, hence the withdrawal from The Derby.

This is the same "genetic test" that said Dawn Approach would win the derby. Its a funny old world, isn't it?

letting us all "know"...

on a separate forum I did warn ppl about Galileo gold not going for the derby.  I do feel for you guys though.

Galileo Gold won the Guineas in a decent time, by 2 lengths. It it any wonder they're sticking to 1m? It's not beyond the realms of possibility he could win both the Irish Guineas and SJP. The right decision regardless of what the gene test says.

pedigree isn't everything.  Ppl were not sure Golden Horn would stay 1m 4f for the Derby according to pedigree...

I suppose there's a kind of irony in that people make the ruler of the world chester connection when talking about army ranger, and port douglas looked more ruler of the world than the favourite. Yet now they've both been written off by many. My ante post bets are a bit messy, but Port Douglas was 33-1 after the race, and still available at 20-1. I didn't take it, but would have had i not already have put money down. I'd also say there's a big prices on Sundays trial horses. I think Welds horse is big at 33-1, out of STS, and Idaho is a price. However if i were to start from Scratch i'd go with Port Douglas 20-1, Tirmizi 33-1 and housesofparliament 100-1. I suppose you could swap either of those with Idaho, but the value is there.

^^^ or maybe he's an up and coming trainer who wants to not make early mistakes by taking a potentially career blemishing risk with a horse who is good over a mile, who can then be chanced over 10f. The horse doesn't need 12f. Al Sheqab strike me as people who let horses train on. If they were ever to test 12f, it doesn't have to be this season, if any.

Just watched yesterdays race for the first time and I wasn't as disappointed with UAR as many seemed to be. The front two pulled miles clear and for his second ever run it was a pretty decent effort imo. Certainly wouldn't be ruling him out and might save on him nearer the time.

keynes
This is the same "genetic test" that said Dawn Approach would win the derby. Its a funny old world, isn't it?

The test said Dawn Approach would NOT WIN the Derby.

A comprehensive winner of The 2000G (8f) yet not allowed to partake in an open blue riband race in his age group and sex ie The Derby (12f), is a sad reflection of how the commercial values of a race horse - post his racing career - has taken precedence over sportsmanship and probable versatility and potentials of the horse; I've always thought the Al Shaqab Racing are a sporting establishment and not afraid to pushing the limit of their horses eg Treve.

Galileo Gold galloped and quickened all the way to the line and was a convincing winner of The 2000g.

http://www.equinome.com/tests/speed-gene-test


For a full explanation of test

I have categorised 17,148 horses in my database as one of these nine types: [C.C; C.T; T.T] ........ [C.?; ?.T; ?.?] ........... [C.C?; C.T?; T.T]
Obviously I did not pay £495 to test each of 17,148 horses.
Some of those horses were born around 1900, long before the test was invented.
How is it possible to categorise them?  If they were sprinters they were C.C.

Last week before the 2000 Guineas I had Galileo Gold as C.C?

You may wonder why I have so many categories.  Why not just C.C; C.T; T.T ?
Some horses did not run e.g. Golden Horn's dam was unraced.  These unraced are often marked as ?.? (just to tell me I looked at them and had no info).
Some only ran a few times, and it is not easy to tell from their races what type they were due to insufficient data.

You can often guess.
All of the winners of sprint races are very likely C.C.
All of the winners of the cup races are likely T.T
You can guess many more.
Obviously if the sire is C.C and the dam is C.C, then the foal must be C.C.

For example, Montjeu was imo a T.T.
Look at his offspring that won over 5f and 6f on the Racing Post website - only four winners, and they won mostly/ran mostly at further.
To produce a sprinter (a C.C) the sire must possess a C to pass to the foal.  Obviously Montjeu did not have a C.  He was a T.T.

I have a database of all winners of Group races from 1900 to 2015 (or the races that preceded the introduction of the pattern).
I notice the type field (i.e C.C. C.T,  T.T) in the Group races database is blank at the moment, but it would only take me a short while to populate that field from my main pedigree database of 366,000 horses.
The group races database is winners only, no placed Derby horses.  I will have the Derby fields categorised by type in the main pedigree database as i obviously did that when assessing the runners, but I don't have a marker in the main database to extract them.

Many of the Derby winner types will be guesses e.g. C.T?  It is often possible to firm up the guess by looking at the offspring of the Derby winner.
Keep an eye on here for my list of Derby winners.