Sorry Ron but you are kidding yourself. No way on gods earth would WM run him at Cheltenham without him being 100%. Douvan was beaten because he was hyped beyond reality. In all of his 13 races he has not beaten one top class horse!! Thirteen races!! So the bubble burst, its as simple as that.
No I'm not DBF. He may well have been over-hyped, but he was beaten before he lined up. Say what you like, you won't convince me, nor many others.
As has been said many times before horses are not machines, they have off days. I don't buy any of this armchair trainer stuff about Douvan looking unfit. It's easy to say all this in hindsight when he's been beaten, but no one said it on the DT before the race. Nor do I buy Dancing Braves theory that Douvan was all hype. He may not be as good as he's been hyped up to be, but you can't honestly believe he ran up to form yesterday. I'm sorry but he's better than Special Tiara and Fox Norton. I think Douvan has just had an off day, nothing more to it really. He was probably abit sore after the race from all the fences he hit hard. This is why I always bet the same stake regardless of price, as horses have off days, and you could end up blowing your whole bank on one horse if you up your stakes just because it's a short price
Jesus, whether he was hyped or not, he's smashed that lot so Ron's perfectly fine thinking his condition (and i can't comment as i don't understand enough about it) was poor. It's also come to light he fractured his hip at the start of the race. So, basically, taking everything into consideration, you're wrong.
It was said before the race Shergs. Sorry it didn't get published on the DT. I was busy running a comp and my wife and daughter aren't on the forum.
Some unfortunate comments on here. You can only say it as you see it and Ron felt he looked wrong. I spend a lot of the time at the races watching them in the paddock and I could not have fancied Douvan as he appeared to me. What was baffling was at the same time the TV 'expert' was saying what a magnificent specimen he was. I believe they were talking from a script. Francome would have called it right I'm sure. Horses should be trained hard for this sort of target. Douvan was past that point.
Funny you should say that Bustino. My wife said exactly that (ie talking from a script). I reckon you're right. It's the only thing that makes sense. But totally discredits the TV "expert"
MRI scan shows Douvan has a fractured pelvis "Douvan will be able to return to the track in the autumn after an MRI scan revealed the Champion Chase disappointment had suffered a hairline fracture to his pelvis. The exceptional seven-year-old jumped erratically and never threatened when attempting to stretch his winning run for Mullins to 14 in Wednesday's feature event. He was subsequently found to be lame behind and Mullins revealed the extent of the injury on Friday afternoon. "Douvan has a stress fracture on his left ilium, which is his pelvis," he said. "He'll have box rest and should be 100 per cent. The vets are recommending 12 weeks, but we'll see – that's the maximum. Everyone errs on the side of caution, but he'll do eight or ten weeks [box rest] and 12 if we need to." Given fears that Douvan might have suffered a career-ending injury, Mullins expressed his relief at the prognosis. "It's very good news," he said. "Bone injuries will come back 100 per cent. I'd be more worried if it was a ligament or a tendon, but it is bad timing. It's a common enough injury and he should start back the same as normal in the autumn. "A lot of the time it's the sort of thing that would get put down as a muscle injury. To do an MRI scan might cost between £1,200 and £1,500, so lots of people when they go lame would leave them in until they come right, but we said we'd get it done. I'd say it happened early when he threw in one of those extraordinary jumps." Still begs the question - why was he not pulled up when his action went? Ruby said in another report that his action went early on in the race.
I'm not really into taking a horses appearance into account, I tend to purely judge a horse on its form, I don't even take to much notice of jockeys, unless a complete clown is onboard. To judge a horses appearance in the paddock with any sort of know how though, I think you need to know that horse pretty well, and know how it's looked before in previous runs. Plenty of great horses from the past would look like donkeys in the paddock to a so called paddock expert. Even Frankel was never that much of a striking horse to look at, you could see he had plenty of power in his back legs, but his all round appearance was nothing special. Sea the Stars for example though was the complete package, looks and ability. But then again he still wouldn't have got anywhere near Frankel, despite visibly looking like a much better horse than him. The best horse I ever seen in the paddock was a horse called Windsor Palace. AOB trained him a few years ago and he was mainly used as a pacemaker for some of his more talented horses. He pretty much proved to me that paddock appearance and looks, have only a slight bearing on how a horse performs and you should never read to much into it. I think people tend to get to wrapped up in all this, rather than concentrating on the most important thing, which is the form book
On the contrary Shergs. It doesn't matter how good the form is, if it ain't in the right condition to run to his best, the form is irrelevant. I understand what you say about knowing an individual horse but we aren't talking about beauty here.
Admittedly I don't know much about horse condition but I simply can't have it that Willie/Ruby would run one if they didn't think they were right. They know better than anyone what's needed to win at Cheltenham.
