Pinatubo (king of 2 yr olds)

from what appleby said last year he dosent show em much at home so its anyones guess as to if he has improved or regressed

would say earthlight french gns more likely

curragh flat on next week, so hopefully well get the irish 1000/2000 even behind closed doors, wont be any guineas at newmarket, just hope r ascot is on

Run the Guineas behind closed doors, if necessary. Horse racing really does not need racegoers esp at a time like the present. As long as the horses are immune to Covid-19 the meeting ought to be on.

Cheltenham went ahead without any restriction!

I should think there’s no chance with a crowd there on that date

supposed to be confirmation of entries deadline yesterday for the race

If it is run and he wins the Guineas I would swerve the Derby where AOB would be mob-handed go for the St James Palace Stakes, the Eclipse, Juddmonte then the Arc. Simple.

Good morning Cry.
I'm not sure what you mean about Pinatubo's style of running. He seems to settle OK and has an extended finish when he is asked the question. Even in the Dewhurst on soft ground he looked like he was going away at the finish unlike anything else in the race.
I know breeding is important and his trainer thinks on breeding he is likely to get 12f but if push comes to shove he thinks he will be a 10f horse.
And I really cannot see Godolphin sitting on him as a miler. That is why I think, if he wins the Guineas, they will be looking to step him up to 10f because that is en route to the best races. Of course, I could be wrong. That's the beauty of racing.

Great bet. Have you laid it off? 


The Mill Reef race you showed was on heavy ground Cry. If you want to see a sprint finish  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2j2JvPa-UE&t=2s

I have laid it off but it would still be sore if it was voided.

I don’t really agree with that. Mill Reef could not have sluiced up in a Derby and an Arc if he had not really stayed. The record says Mill Reef was really a middle distance horse and that is surely correct.

I take the view that Mill Reef was poorly ridden in the 2000 Guineas. They thought they only had to beat My Swallow not realising what a monster they had from Major Hern. I think Mill Reef would have been a length or so closer to The Brigadier if ridden more conservatively in the Guineas. However only one horse I have seen would have beaten the Brigadier over a mile, and that is only probably by not much more than 1 length if that.

Its a great shame that the 2 only met once. The rematch over 10 furlongs would have been some race. I personally believe the Brigadier was the faster horse  though and would have won again, but not over a mile and a half.

Hi brig

Nice debate as ever.

Mill Reef got tired in the Guineas, the only time he never ran on strongly in spite of what you say about his hat trick of unbeaten efforts over 12 furlongs in 3 group 1s.

The most objective assessment of the merits of BG and MR has been by Timeform. I am not a slavish adherent to their assessments, but they had no reason to be biased as they had no connection to either stable of MR or BG. They assessed them both as 141 rated horses at the end of their 3yo seasons. Unless they were quite up the poll, MR must have run very considerably better after the Guineas, something that coincided with him stepping up in trip. I don’t think this was a coincidence but its only an opinion.

I doubt Mill Reef could have beaten BG over anything less than a mile and a half, maybe not even over that trip.

Maybe we can just agree to differ but also agree that the Brigadier was a truly great horse with hopefully an everlasting stream of admirers old and new. History will hopefully remember him very fondly.


Of course BG improved again at 4, quite remarkable given he started on 141. I think he ended with 144 a pound behind Sea Bird and 4lbs behind Frankel. Still third best ever European flat horse is not shoddy.

One horse around not long after I was born was Ribot. I wonder if he was underrated by Timeforms 142 rating. He did some astonishing things. Incredible that henwon his first Arc at 9/1 or something bizarre.

From Tony Morris this was nice:

Let’s reflect first on who Ribot was.  He was bred by the Razza Dormello-Olgiata (Federico Tesio and the Marchese Incisa della Rocchetta) and foaled at the Sussex branch of England’s National Stud on 27 February 1952.  His dam Romanella, who had been speedy but jady during her racing career, was paying a return visit to Tenerani, who had covered her in Italy in the previous year.  Winner of the Derby Italiano and St Leger Italiano at three, Tenerani had won the Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Goodwood Cup in England at four, proving himself a dour stayer.  He had yet to be represented on the racecourse when he began the English phase of his stud career at a fee of £250.

Tenerani and Romanella were both Dormello-bred, and Tesio, who was always his own trainer, did not have much respect for either, the former because of his lack of a turn of foot and the latter on account of her imperfect temperament.  He had no great hopes for the product of their union and paid no particular attention to the young Ribot, still a plain and under-sized individual as a yearling.  He made no entries for the colt in the Italian Classics.

But the man they called the ‘Wizard of Dormello’ was not to be permanently deceived.  Ribot’s progress on the gallops in March and April enabled Tesio to see the colt in a different light and he then felt sure that he was destined for a brilliant future.  Sadly, Tesio never saw that potential realised.  He died on 1 May 1954, just over two months before Ribot made a winning debut in a five-furlong event in Milan.

Ribot had only two more runs as a juvenile, scoring a comfortable victory over six furlongs in the Criterium Nazionale in September before thwarting the very speedy Gail by a head in the Gran Criterium over seven and a half furlongs in October.  As Gail went on to beat older horses in the all-aged Premio Chiusura, it was not surprising that Ribot was named Italy’s champion two-year-old.

Ribot started off at three with a six-length win over stable-companion Donata Veneziana in the Premio Pisa, his first race away from Milan, then, back at his home base, he trounced Gail by ten lengths in the Premio Emanuele Filiberto, the ten-furlong event that routinely featured as the principal trial for the Derby Italiano.  It was obvious then that Ribot’s omission from the Derby entries had been a mistake.

In July he had only his proven inferior stable-mate Derain to beat in the eleven-furlong Premio Brembo, and, having accomplished that readily by a length, he had his first race over a mile and a half in the Premio Besana in September.  Derain was again his runner-up, but ten lengths in arrears this time.

After seven starts and seven victories, Ribot obviously commanded respect, but what was anyone to make of his form in small fields in Italy when he turned out for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe?  Longchamp punters were not particularly enthused, allowing him to go off at nearly 9-1 in a field of twenty-three.  The race was a revelation, Ribot winning by a margin that the judge under-estimated as three lengths.

Ribot was still not finished for the season.  He returned home for a Premio del Jockey Club contested on heavy ground and won that by fifteen lengths from Norman, a previous two-time winner of that event.  How good was this champion?  It was still anybody’s guess, and many felt that he was value for more than the rating of 133 awarded him in the 1955 Racehorses annual.

Fortunately, there was more evidence to come – seven more races in 1956 and seven wins.  The first four were in Milan, between ten and fifteen furlongs, his margins of victory successively four, twelve, eight and eight lengths again, the last of them in the Gran Premio di Milano.  Then came his only venture to England for the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, when his connections blamed the soft ground for a below-par performance; he won by only five lengths.

Ribot had one more run in Milan, registering an eight-length win over nine furlongs in the Premio del Piazzale, before his return visit to Longchamp for the race that was to mark his farewell appearance.  The Arc crowd did not under-estimate him this time, sending him off at odds of 3-5 against nineteen rivals, including a couple from America.  The judges at Timeform had a better idea of his merit after he had trotted up by six lengths from Talgo, who had himself won the Irish Derby by the same margin. The rating of 142 he was awarded as a four-year-old was the highest ever granted to a middle-distance performer.

A master of every distance from five to fifteen furlongs, accomplished in any ground conditions, and blessed with an outstanding turn of foot, Ribot bowed out of racing unbeaten in sixteen races over three seasons in three different countries.  Many experienced observers regarded him as the best racehorse they had ever seen, and plenty of my acquaintance held to that view after the likes of Sea-Bird, Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard had come and gone.  I have always regretted that he came along a little before my initiation as a racegoer.

**I meant to say above 140.

Jump racing has been suspended until July 1st to give clarity to owners and trainers. Possibly due to the demand on the emergency service among other things. They are still trying to get the flat started, even in a region and behind closed door way, as soon as they can.
Looking at the betting of the 2000 Guineas if they push for a region start will that exclude runners from Ireland and France? There is only one other entry, apart from the favourite, from Newmarket that is high in the betting list and that is Palace Pier.

I have already backed the favourite in a small way but is it not a no-brainer to take the price available now given the fact that all of the runners at risk of being excluded are factored into that current price and there will be no deduction for non-runners?
Plus, if there are restrictions on runners due to travel, Irish and French, or if the race is run later in May, Newmarket have three fixtures in May, will the current race be made void and money returned?

Straight to Newmarket.

Given the fact that someone has layed it all the way out to 9/1 overnight
I would guess the plans are up in the air.

ive laid the fav, and backed the french horse, but  i think thats wrong unseatedrider, antepost bets should stand imo, unless race cancelled

Pinatubo wins if he turns up in my opinion, doesn't he? My idea of a bet in the race would be Lampang E/W 66/1 with one firm. Every chance of a big field this year too.

From the Betfair market page--All bets will be void in the event that horses from jurisdictions outside of the UK, deemed to make a material difference to the market, are prevented from entering this race.