Paul and Mo
If A Plus Tard and DDG back up again over 2m who would you back?
As an aside I think Le Rich has a good few lbs improvement in him from what he has shown too and didn't need to be anywhere near peak for his two Leop wins
Paul and Mo
If A Plus Tard and DDG back up again over 2m who would you back?
As an aside I think Le Rich has a good few lbs improvement in him from what he has shown too and didn't need to be anywhere near peak for his two Leop wins
Some people say he’s the best since Arkle and that’s certainly true when you look at what he’s done
Desert Orchid (20th March 2019)
Despite being in the same place for A Plus Tard, I differ on Duc Des Genievres and I have him marked down slightly, more precautionary than anything. Despite the rain I'm pretty certain the fresh ground was pretty much riding good to soft for the opening hurdles and chases on the Tuesday (fresh rain on Tuesday morning and they were straight through to a firmer surface), and deteriorated as the day went on when the ground was no longer fresh.
I think the key to rating Duc Des Genievres, given his race fell apart, is how you rate Espoir D'allen. The problem is the Champion Hurdle also poses more questions than it gives answers as that also fell apart. Therefore using the Supreme as the only practical guide to those two races leaves me with the feeling that we had a substandard Champion Hurdle and the same is therefore true of The Arkle. I think we have to wait until Duc Des Genievres runs again to get a reliable rating, and I'm happy to admit I erred on the side of caution at 158.
I'm kind of in the same place as Maurice PJ. But if pushed, A Plus Tard travelled sweetly and wouldn't have looked out of place in the Arkle. Too difficult to say what would have happened because of the very obvious improvement in both and not being able to measure to what extent. Fwiw though I'd have DDG winning over 2m and APT winning over 2.5m. I think they'd only clash if DDG was stepped up rather than the other way round though.
I'm not convinced that Le Richebourg would have beaten DDG on the day.
Last edited by Maruco; 22nd March 2019 at 9:33 AM.
Desert Orchid (22nd March 2019), granger (22nd March 2019)
Beforehand it looked like a substandard Arkle, so it's probably best to treat it the same way afterwards, at least until further evidence is available.
The Champion Hurdle was probably won by a decent horse. He's only a 5yo so there's no need for big ratings and in any case it seems they went a crazy pace early on which burst more than one of the runners. The winner slowed right into the last hurdle but he didn't lose any ground, except to the loose Buveur D'Air, because the rest of the field were dead on their feet. But he was still in front of that horse going past the post. Are you listening, Eddie?
Klassical Dream probably came on quite a bit from Leopardstown and is entitled to be regarded as a well-up-to-standard winner of the Supreme, which was run at a more sensible pace than the Champion Hurdle.
Nine times out of the I'd always send a horse chasing but with the CH picture as it is I'd be tempted to aim KD at it
Some people say he’s the best since Arkle and that’s certainly true when you look at what he’s done
That's exactly the approach I took. Even allowing for fancied runners like Glen Forsa, Lalor et al not running their races, the placed horses ran to pretty much their ball-park relative merits, which would make them substandard Arkle contenders. But DDG was 13 lengths and value for more out in front. That has to be at least 15lbs' superiority over the other finishers. The ones that didn't run their race could have filled in the 13-length gap and given the form a totally robust look and we'd have been saying it was a good renewal won by a top-notcher.
Last edited by Desert Orchid; 22nd March 2019 at 10:36 AM.
Illegitimi non carborundum
Did you take Us and Them's mark and rate him through Le Richebourg Maurice?
If he can stay fit, I still think that Cilaos Emery will prove superior to DDG.
What is most interesting to me is that, in the 2 mile division, the best novices seem to be Irish and the best senior horses seem to be UK. In the stayers division, the situation is pretty much reversed. If all the novices come through and all the senior horses stay fit we may have some interesting championship races next March.
The older I get the better I was.
Willie lost his 2 best novice chasers early too
Draconien and Next Destination
Some people say he’s the best since Arkle and that’s certainly true when you look at what he’s done
Got round to checking...
I wouldn't word it as you have, Maruco, in the sense that I'd only do that to rate LR retrospectively but UAT was my starting point and then I checked the finishers against my ratings going into the race, which threw up two or three possible scenarios. After exploring the implications of all of them, I felt the best fit for now was to use UAT as the marker as it was producing the figures with which my gut was most comfortable.
Back-rating LR via UAT suggests he'd need to have improved again to beat DDG, which wouldn't be impossible, I suppose. Time will tell.
However, I do think we had an utterly top-class winner of a pretty ordinary renewal. As you know, that's how I predicted it would work out beforehand so I'm open to the possibility that I'm subconsciously allowing myself to be led down a misleading path but if I'm wrong it'll cost me money down the line. Them's the chances we take.
Last edited by Desert Orchid; 24th March 2019 at 12:16 PM.
Illegitimi non carborundum
The Le Richebourg link is tenuous for obvious reasons, but I like the fact that Duc De Genievres beat Us and Them on ground the trainer has stated he wants, further than Le Richebourg did twice when he had everything in his favour. I considered using it and marking DDG up because of it and decided against it I guess I was wondering whether this was part of your thinking when you went high with him?
They'll almost certainly stick to two miles with DDG, but Us and Them strikes me as a horse that could have quite a bit of improvement still to come when he's stepped up, and I reckon he could step right up to three miles next season and possibly be a player.
I think DDG would need further than 2 miles on decent ground. He'd interest me for the Ryanair more than the QM.
Although, with global warming I also think soft ground festivals might become the norm.
Some people say he’s the best since Arkle and that’s certainly true when you look at what he’s done
Does anybody know whether the black book that will be published this Wednesday (18th) will cover the King George and Welsh Nash meetings ?
I would have thought so but there’s no issue on the 25th (obviously) and they’re calling the 18th Dec issue the Betfair Exchange Handicap Hurdle issue.
Last edited by wilsonl; 15th December 2019 at 3:16 PM.
Alcohol, because no good story ever started with "I was eating this salad..."