Watering at Epsom

read this last night.
2 days of sunshine

For the 1st time in my life i find myself agreeing with the OP. However its been like this for years now. Nothing new.

COT, someone with your expertise must know that Epsom will never be good to firm on the Friday by design. However, if this weather continues, short of watering on the Friday morning, there's not much he can do to prevent the ground drying out considerably on the day.

What will be hilarious is if we get thunderstorms on friday ........

clerks of courses are obsessed with watering - York is the worst offender where they're not happy unless they're are strips of false ground

Rain is certainly in the mix for Friday. Looks like heavy showers. Don't write Macswiney off just yet anyone.......

2mm added today, that's fair enough. If they didn't water, the ground would be firm in places. Rain due for Friday might make top of the ground awkward for the Oaks but it will be nowhere near enough to disturb Derby day. Temps will get up to 20 degrees by lunchtime Saturday, beautiful day in store.

This is why the 1995 Derby will live long in the memory. The warm ante post favourite, Celtic Swing, was taken out as he favoured some cut.

This prompted the headline, Sad, Mad, Bad.

Others such as Presenting, wanted it hard as a road. Any attempts to discuss watering were shot down. Pennekamp, Celtic Swing’s conqueror in the 2000 Guineas, finished lame. Celtic Swing was re routed to Chantilly for the French Derby on good ground. Connections were vindicated.

Firm ground on a track like Epsom would not be good for racing.

Just an opinion of course

Celtic Swing did win the French Derby of course.

the ground did'nt do the winner any harm,Lammtara.
Won the King George & Arc after.
Should let nature take it's course.

Judging by the early times it looks like the ground has rapidly changed from good to soft for the first race to proper soft going for the second race. Quite obviously the big shift is largely due to the earlier watering. Still, anything but the shock horror prospect of flat horses being allowed to perform on good to firm summer ground, so they're probably satisfied with their handiwork.

Hilarious

it rained all of May - there's no way the ground was going to be unsafe after a week of so of dry weather - fastish maybe but not unsafe

Howellsy

Nice to hear from you.

The proof of the pudding, especially a soggy one, is proved by the eating.

So the lunatic overwatering before the heavens opened has had its own consequences and we had a race run in an utter bog because the utter tube did exactly what he should not have.

What is wrong with starting a 2 day meeting on good to firm, adding a little water after the first day to prevent it going firm for the second?

What is happening is that any filly who is best of good to firm going will never ever be allowed to have her ground in the Oaks. Of course there is nothing to be done about the weather. But horses who need a bog have the weather to help them. Horses who need fast ground are being impeded by blundering idiots.

Hi COT, I find it just as frustrating as anyone else, but the COC is no idiot - his worst nightmare is firm ground. Had no rain fallen, I suspect it would have been genuine good to firm come race time today. It's such an inexact science with the weather here. In the end we really need to blame the weather, not the COC. What I hate is watering to maintain good ground with absolutely no chance of rain. That's a different matter. This is Epsom, the Derby meeting, and rain was by no means certain; up until today it was as hot as it gets for several days in late may.

I suspect it would have been genuine good to firm come race time today

Hi Howellsy. But what would be so wrong with that? The directive they were given a few years ago was to aim for good to firm ground in the summer, not good ground.

his worst nightmare is firm ground

Why?

Rather better than a bog.

The dishonesty is also an issue.

The times showed that the ground was clearly soft. It took them a while to even acknowledge it was good to soft. It’s a disgrace that the fillies’ classic was run in over watered false ground.

I expect the clerk who over waters will declare the going good to firm when the jockeys come back in splattered with mud. In fact this exact thing happened a while ago at York when in 21 RPR aces no favourite won and jockeys like the mud soaked Fallon came back in and described the official good to firm as heavy.

No doubt the imbecile will be watering again just not to prevent the going becoming good to soft just to make sure fast ground horses have no chance.

The clerk at Epsom is not just a tube. He is a total idiot.

Hi Figgis, 1. perception 2. withdrawals and small fields.

By the way, how are your Derby figures looking? The one horse I'm struggling to get a speed figure on for the Derby is Hurricane lane. If I give it the figure I really want to, it means Megallan has improved by around 10 lbs on his previous best. Every other horse in the Dante fits in with that figure though, and it's the only figure that can challenge the fav, although I suspect Third Realm might just be able to improve given a stronger pace - but upwards of a stone will be needed by him. I make it something like this:
71-75? Bolshoi Ballet
73? H Lane
68 Mac Swiney (non stayer and ground not soft enough for me)
67 One Ruler (non stayer for me)
66? Adayar (Sandown)
63 H Lane (bizarrely, I make his Dante either 73 or 63 - mixed signals from the other races)
63 Youth Spirit
62 Gear Up
62P John Leeper
55p Third Realm
55 Mohaafeth

Very interesting H, thank you and good luck.

I could tell you a story about Lammtarra penzance but I'd prefer not to look foolish in public. 

Howellsy, to put my scale in perspective with winning figures of the last 10 years, I have a wider range from best to worst than I do for the Guineas. Highest figure Golden Horn 89, lowest figure Ruler Of The World 75 (although I did have him 76 on his Chester win going into the race). I know a lot of people believe that many winners improve markedly in the race, but that's not how I see it. There's the odd year where we get a Wings Of Eagles or Serpentine, but in the vast majority of years I have the winner recording at least a figure of 75 before the race, so I'll stick to those few qualifiers.

Mac Swiney 83 (last season), 82 this season.
One Ruler 81 (last season)
Bolshoi Ballet 77
Hurricane Lane 75

Personally I don't fancy Mac Swiney regardless of whether he'll get the trip or not. I don't think he's improved from 2 to 3. Even last year he looked a horse who followed up a good performance with a poor one and I can't see having a hard race in the Irish Guineas only 14 days beforehand being an ideal prep. Hurricane Lane is obviously very lightly raced, he's improved with every run and you couldn't rule out him progressing some more. It's just that I thought his last effort didn't look like he had any immediate improvement left. Seemed quite a hard fought win to me and I worry he might regress from that, at least in the near future.

The plan was to back Bolshoi Ballet but now the race is upon us I have decided not to. Much has been said about the time he ran at Leopardstown, but while it was decent it certainly wasn't outstanding. It wasn't as good as the one High Chapparal put up or even as good as the one put up by Fame And Glory. By my reckoning it was only good enough to have narrowly beaten Ruler Of The World and Wings Of Eagles (my slowest two Derby winners of the last 22 years) and to have dead heated with Harzand. This year's renewal might turn out to be as poor as those, but when I think that Australia, a horse who put up far better figures, was available at 7/4 on the day I just can't bring myself to take these odds about this O'Brien runner. Maybe he can improve again on the Leopardstown win, but having watched the race a few times I'd say it was only possible rather than probable.

Therefore, despite the breeding pundits saying he has little chance of staying I am throwing a few quid at One Ruler. They might be right, but last year he always looked more of a stayer to me. The bigger concern is him returning to peak form after a below par effort in the Guineas, but here's hoping.

Thanks - always interesting to hear your thoughts. We obviously disagree on Mac Swiney and One Ruler. I had Poetic Flare running around 7 lbs worse in Ireland than in England, which made sense to me in view of his schedule. I'm not totally convinced BB will be strong at the finish of a truly run 12f. I know what the pedigree suggests, but he was wilting badly at the end of the French race. I think HL may be stronger in the finish - if good enough and tactically speedy enough to get into the race early enough to put pressure on him. I have to say that for me it's between these two.

Howellsy, BB is clearly the safest option as not only as he shown form this season good enough to be at least placed most years, he's the one who looks most likely to run his race. He's shown improved form from 2 to 3 and goes into the race after a new peak where he didn't have a hard race. Everything looks set for him to repeat that, at least. The two runners I have on higher figures have question marks against them and everything else needs to improve. There's even a case for saying he's a bit of value given all that. As I don't have him setting a very high benchmark though I'd say he's priced about right.

No worse than good to soft today, judging by the first race.

The watering may have resulted in Mohaafeth being withdrawn.

One chance for the horse in the Derby. Wrecked by over watering.