Wow = up 34lb. Timeform Extract. Just goes to show how useless ratings can be "Nevertheless, Nando Parrado (103p from 69p) still deserves plenty of credit for the way in which he delivered a 150/1-shock, a rare example of a front-runner genuinely doing it the hard way. A different proposition to when finishing fifth on his debut just over two weeks ago, he may prove capable of better still next time, though he will be forced to either carry a penalty or step up to the highest level."
The Racing Post put Nando Parrado up even further, from 69 to 106. It's not really likely to prove fruitful comparing 2YO ratings where many of the runners will have only had one previous run to progress from and next to no collateral form to solidify the early figures, with that of 3YO horses who may have run at least a few more times and where the collateral form may have branches into many more races through the various runners who have contested races that can be traced back to the relevant horse to provide a better overall picture. This year in particular the late start to the season meant that there was little opportunity for 2YO horses to have runs before the Royal Meeting. Ratings for such races will have been even more tentative than usual this season and I would be taking the ratings with extreme caution. I see Battleground is 16/1 for next year's 2000 Guineas and as low as 12/1 for the race. In a season where we have seen very little of the 2YO population strutting their stuff it seems ripe for better youngsters to emerge before the season's end and the Guineas odds now could look laughable relatively quickly. Getting back to the Derby, there is no doubt that English King is a leading player in an uninspiring year. O'Brien seems to be relying on Mogul and Russian Emperor, with perhaps Vatican City. The first two mentioned were underwhelming for me and if Vatican City does run I am doubtful he will stay. I like the horse and thought he was one of Aidan's biggest potential improvers this season but even at 40/1 I couldn't have a bet because of the dam's sire being Storm Cat. Aidan's hand looks pretty mediocre this season, not that they would ever admit that, nor the punters lose faith, but it leaves it a winnable race for other trainers to aim their horses at. Highest Ground gets his chance to throw his hat into the ring in a weak looking Novice race at Haydock where the already ruled out of the Derby Waldkonig is the only opposition in a contest where it is 20/1 Bar the two. If Highest Ground does not impress that will be another potential dark horse out of the equation. There aren't that many obvious dangers that could emerge late to the Derby party. The Irish Derby could give some guide to English King's chances through Santiago and the Berkshire Rocco line. It is a bit of an ask for Santiago so soon after Royal Ascot but in a mad year you could not totally rule out something running in the Irish Derby and having a quick turnaround the following week in the Epsom version. When English King won at Lingfield my first feeling was that it wasn't strong form. The yardstick horse King Carney had an official rating of 102 but he stank the place out with a 81 effort on Racing Post figures. The same horse went on to run behind Russian Emperor and was even worse on 53. Handicappers seem like Scrooge in reverse in that they giveth weight quickly but taketh away very slowly and King Carney has been eased 2 lbs for efforts 21 lbs and 49 lbs below his official mark. I would ask the Handicapper to consider how much of his life he would place on King Carney being able to run to 100 next time he is seen? The rest of the runners in the Lingfield Derby Trial have disappointed next time, some of them in Handicaps, and Berkshire Rocco is the sole runner to give any hope of the form amounting to much. Every horse who ran in the Lingfield race has had their Handicap Mark dropped since then, apart from the Balding runner-up. He was raised 4 lbs but I am not sure if that will prove accurate given that he ran behind and unexposed O'Brien runner and finished ahead of the disappointing Born With Pride. It will depend if the O'Brien colt improved his mark by as much as some think and whether Born With Pride ran as close to her rating as would justify the increase in Berkshire Rocco's mark. Anyway, we get the chance to see Highest Ground shortly, as he and Waldkonig try to outrun the Haydock woodlands. Maybe a star will be born?
Wow, proper horse, maybe the Derby will come too soon but he looks a monster in the making, easily a 110+ horse. Outclassed Waldkonig there despite that one being race fit, was never really in doubt.
As low as 12/1 for the Derby now. No thank you. He has beaten Sherwood Forest and Woodkonig today, the Derby is in ten days time. The 4th horse home today, 250/1 shot Rukwa, was beaten 18 and a half lengths, giving the first and second 5 lbs. The same horse was beaten 23 lengths last week at Beverley in a Class 5 Novice won by a horse rated 79 and he was giving that winner 12 lbs on the day. I had to laugh at James Willoughby commenting that Mersin has run a race of promise in third. Beating a horse with a RPR of 33 by 5 lengths, getting 13 lbs in weight, promising? Wash your mouth out James. Perhaps Gosden should have run Waldkonig in that Beverley race instead? On a line through Rukwa, he might have gotten 5th place.
The performnce is not going down well with some but in a year when Ed Walker has the Derby favourite and its form is beating a Queens Vase horse at Lingfield, and the 2nd favourite is a stone cold non stayer, I suspect those involved with Niarchos will be trying in the next few days to convince Stoute to have a crack at it and I hope they are successful as ive been nibbling away for months. He was the most impressive maiden winner I saw last season, went in big today and had another go at 33s for the Derby last night just in case. Earned the right to take his chance imo and its a million to 1 on he will come on plenty for the run given how Stoute operates, still green pre race and the Derby being behind closed doors can only be a massive help for an inexperienced horse like this. See what happens.
Exactly this. Does the winner hail from the yard of Ed Walker? No fricking way, not having it. I dont care how good he looked at Lingfield for me the form is nowhere near Derby standard in a decent year. With AOB looking to have a modest bunch this year you have to look for alternatives and you cannot really crab a horse that is now 2 from 2 and looking better the further he goes. I would much rather be backing the Stoute horse at 16's than an Ed Walker runner at 5/2.
Waldkonig beat donkeys in his 2yo race and barely stays 10f; no chance in the Derby. So it would be easy to crab the form of that race and Highest Ground took a while to wear him down. However, there is no doubting that Highest Ground was impressive in his 2yo race and he is another who was kept off the track until late in the season. He did assert today and, if it had been a 12f race, I got the impression he would have won by closer to 10l. He is still unbeaten so we don't know how good he is. Bound to improve and, at 16/1 still freely available he is a definite play for me I also have him in my stable 1 so
I don't know who this Ed Walker bloke is but he doesn't seem very popular on here. Maybe, if EK was trained by Gosden, he would be odds on with Frankie riding. I must admit, the trainer did not come into my reckoning. I suppose there is always a first for something
Interesting sectional analysis from Simon Rowlands on Alpine Star and Palace Pier at Royal Ascot. The filly clocked the slightly faster overall time but the closing sectionals showed that Alpine Star would have been 15 lengths ahead of Palace Pier based on the relative race times when they entered the final 2 furlongs in their races, but that the Gosden colt would have closed her down to just one length at the winning line because of his faster sectionals for the final two furlongs of the race. Alpine Star took longer than Palace Pier to cover the final two furlongs, with the Kingman colt covering the 7th Furlong in 11.68 and the 8th Furlong in 11.71 seconds. In the 6F Jubilee Hello Youmzain took 11.99 and 13.13 to cover the last 2 furlongs of the race. Regarding the St James Palace race, Rowlands opined:- "The beauty is that the narrow margins between the three of them means that a different pace profile, or different going or a different track, could feasibly result in a different outcome." You could probably say that about most races where the margins are relatively close but I think Palace Pier is less exposed and he was having his first actual "Race"of his career. Pinatubo was dropped 6 lbs by the Official Handicapper to 120 and that is now 8 lbs down on the season after a 2 lb reduction for his Guineas run. It was obvious that he could really only go one way after coming into the season rated 128. The ceiling on how high any horse can go is virtually unbreakable by all but the freakishly talented and it has proven a barrier Pinatubo could not touch, let alone pierce this year. He gave it a good go though and he's still a classy colt, unlike Air Force Blue, who sucked, more than blew as a 3YO.
This is Ed Walker's first Derby runner, so it is unknown territory for him. There are huge echoes of similarity with Walker's Stormy Antarctic, who burst into the Guineas picture after putting John Gosden's Foundation in his place in the Craven. That Craven took place during a thunderstorm and Gosden had said his colt was upset by the noise of the storm. I had a feeling Foundation hadn't trained on anyway and the horse seemed to prove that after a total flop in the French Derby and thereafter, never winning again. Many felt I had written off Stormy Antarctic prematurely and said I would get that thrown in my face on Guineas day when the horse went off 7/1. In the end Stormy Antarctic was no factor in the 2000 Guineas, although he did run better later that season. If you got 20/1 on English King you were backing a horse with a considered chance of roughly 5% so is his chance of winning better than that? Obviously it has to be a good bit better chance than that but at the odds now of generally 5/2 on average, his chance is considered to be almost 29%, so is that really his true likelihood of winning? I can't really say it is and I would have thought the horse should drift on the day of the race. If I were a bookie with any sense of possessing testicles, I would be chalking up 5/1 on the board and if I couldn't do it I would be checking to gusset of the underpants to see what had happened to reduce the testicular status quo.
Couldn't recall the name so looked him up; Not quite the same though is it. Stormy Antarctic had 5 runs as a 2yo and hadn't set the World alight. His run in the Craven was the slowest on the day and, judging by the ratings he clearly wasn't progressing. English King's Derby trial was his third time on a racecourse and he is clearly improving. If the trainer isn't capable of winning a Derby, that is something I don't know and thank goodness he didn't train Frankel
Highest Ground won't be 16/1 if he runs though Stick. A good part of the price is the chance that he won't turn up. I would want "With a run" terms if I was betting now. The Racing Manager to the Niarchos family, Alan Cooper gave his opinion thus:- "I'd have thought the Derby might be too soon - but let's have a chance to speak with Sir Michael. I think the Derby is too soon in 10 days. "He could stay a mile and a half. Frankel can get them to go all trips, and on the dam's side it's more limited up to a mile than a mile and a half, but if you dig deep down in the pedigree there is a mare that stayed a mile and a half. "I think the trip today was ideal. Let's get the horse home and see what Sir Michael would like to do." That sounds a bit discouraging to me. Unibet are a disgrace with their betting on the race. They must have every 3YO colt in training in their list. I had to check to make sure Shergar wasn't in there.
No prizes for guessing why Stoute doesn't win many classics these days, doesn't seem particularly interested in having horses ready to run in them. Highest Ground looked like an obvious potential Derby horse not far off a year ago and even with the race being delayed, they don't a manage to get a 2nd run into him until 10 days before. Maybe with the setbacks he had they just decided a while ago to take their time with him, but it seems strange that he happens to run 10 days before if they didn't have a possible run in the back of their minds. In this strange season, 10 days is ample time between races.
I don't think I'd be reading too much into the stats there. I haven't seen the Jubilee sectionals, but I think in the first half mile of the sprint race they would have burnt a decent amount of fuel. There is only so much in the tank. In sprint racing, a lot is used up early. Personally, I couldn't see either Palace Pier of Alpine Star winning a Jubilee.
Telecaster backs up his good run behind Lord North and Elarqam by winning easily at Longchamp, not to the first horse to bounce back from a shocker in the Derby, there is really nothing to lose by running and not much to gain from not running - a better prep for the Gordon? Ulysses, Dawn Approach and Dubai Millennium off the top of my head, bit of a myth really that the Derby ruins horses, can anyone name a good horse whos career was ruined by running in the Derby "too soon"?
