Granger your never ending love affair with the lesser spotted Disko has been one of my favourite things since joining Talking Horses but probably because it reminds me of similar instances with myself in years gone by
Man who catch fly with chopstick .... accomplish anything.
Nicholls thinks he “may” be over-priced, DO......which somewhat less equivocal than your own position, no?
I’d have been more convinced if he’d said he thought SDR would have won last year, if only he had taken the race a bit more seriously!
Me too, obviously, but he'd leave himself open to criticism if he put that comment out there.
As for "may be" overpriced, I recall he once said one of his horse "might have a chance of being placed" just before it won a handicap by about twenty lengths and afterwards said he thought it was a certainty. Wish I could remember the name of the horse, though.
Ken Pitterson only gave SDR a passing mention in the Weekender as looking burly and this being a satisfactory comeback.
However, the race analyst in the form book was more positive:
... two places and not much more than 3l behind Native River in last season's Gold Cup, hadn't seen action since a halfway fall in the Grand National and was said to be in desperate need of a run. Layers were mostly unmoved by this ultimately well held third, and there is still plenty of 66/1 about him in the Gold Cup market. It's worth noting, however, that eight of his nine career wins have been gained after breaks of six weeks or fewer, so, although no match for a pair of evidently more forward rivals over the final three obstacles here, this proper workout just under five weeks before a return to Prestbury Park ought to have pleased connections greatly. A sounder surface, should it arise, may yet see him run Native River far closer.
Anyone who has backed Coney Island for the Gold Cup must be pleased to see the decs for Ascot. Every chance he’ll be found wanting for pace against some of these.