Well said Zen. I fancied Peddlers for the Arkle, and have lost a bit of cash, but as you said - would back the likes of Peddlers for the Arkle at 9-1 all day long. A real shame to see this happen, I think Donald McCain should have stuck to his guns, for the spectacle more than my pocket.
I'm with Grizzly on the exchanges. It is very hard to see what they have added to the sport but all to easy to see what they have taken away. The other backward step this highlights is the expansion of the festival - there are now too many novice chases and novice hurdles, for example - and only so many decent horses to run in them. So we have sacrificed quality for quantity and I'm not sure that was the right way to go.
The extra races make things better for punters, the more runners the higher the bookmakers overound. Ruby Walsh also made a good point the other day about the Fred Winter filtering out all the crap that would have normally run in the Triumph
Does it make it better for punters if there are more moderate horses running though Shergar? Some of the races are so poor they have no place on an ordinary Saturday meeting let alone the season's main festival - the Fred Winter is a good example, as Walsh implies. I am not really into antepost but it is now much harder to predict which race a fancied horse will go for.
Ruby thinks the Fred Winter is a good addition because it takes all the rubbish horses 'there for a day out' away from the Triumph, allowing the best horses the opportunity to shine.
I'm sure Walsh's toungue was firmly in his cheek Zenyatta. But anyway that is a pretty poor reason to have a race in the programme.
He was deadly serious and I totally agree. The Fred Winter means the Triumph isn't the cavalry charge that it used to be, for better or for worse. That means the fancied horses don't have no-hopers to worry about and can just concentrate on winning the race, not avoiding all the others just there for the day out.
Why is it a poor reason Fulkes? Having the Fred Winter doesn't affect the quality of the Triumph Hurdle, it just affects the quantity. Why would you want to see a Grade 1 race where half the field aren't capable of competing. All they are doing is getting in the way of the horse's that have a realistic chance. How would you feel if you had invested money in a top class horse, and some 250/1 rag impeded your horse, costing it the race
Sorry, but I make the Fred Winter the biggest cheat up in racing - holding a place at the festival is an insult to the great Fred. A handicap for juveniles ? There are so few races restricted to juveniles in the calendar that the handicapper has to get the majority of marks wrong, coupled with trainers 'hiding' a horses a true ability it all points to as crooked a race as you could get. I'll have a bet because I'll be standing there reading the card/bible but I know damn well something with form of P01 or 002 is likely to hose up. I accept that its' presence takes some of the lower class horses away from the Triumph, but I'd prefer to see trainers running their horses properly in races/ground that suits so we get an idea on their real ability, then why not (if good enough) have a crack at the Supreme with a 10lb weight allowance ? Cheating their way to a false handicap mark is wrong whatever way you look at it and the make up of this race literally encourages it....
Absolutely right Grizzly. It's an absolute joke of a race and the idea that it should be a part of the festival to take bad horses out of the Triumph is just about the daftest argument I have ever seen on this forum - and that's saying something!
The Triumph has been won by some real quality outsiders in the past ,such as Heighlin(who scrapped in as no.30) and Oh So Risky off the top of my head.I'm sure there are many more. The real "rubbish" is balloted out of this race and such upsets prove that 4-y-o's progress at different rates and their ability cannot be dismissed,as Ruby contends,after a couple of outings. I really can see both sides to the argument but personally I enjoyed the 30 runner event which was a great spectacle and great betting heat. I don't the like Fred Winter which is only marginally more tolerable than the X Country and Conditionals event. Hard to please everyone!
I can certainly see both sides of the argument but I struggle to see how Ruby's argument is 'daft'. To the contrary, I think it is sensible. You might not like it, you might not agree with it, but it isn't a silly one. In my opinion of course.
Dex - how can you not like the X Country? Great race I think, and a bit of fun to boot. I hate the Fred Winter always have. But it's a good oppo for horses that aren't top class, to give their owners a day out. And a bloody good one at that. I personally think they should make Chelts a 3 day Festival, and pie off all of the tripe races and consolidate. But that's for another day......
I've never had the winner of it Namned.. I honestly don't mind it...just don't like it as festival event.
No probs Zenyatta. You are entitled to your opinion as well and I hope you find the Fred Winter winner - get that pin sharpened! Dexter has a point about having 3 days of good racing and then another day of crap races like the Fred Winter, Mares Race, flat race, X-country, 3-mile novice hurdle plus one other - for people who like that sort of thing. Or perhaps we could have a 6 day festival and really scrape that barrel clean.
Do people remember Royal Ascot a few years ago ? It ran Tue-Fri then on the Saturday they had the 'Heath' meeting which was a poor card with a could of average handicaps and maidens, we went to it for years becasue it always coincided with the Greyhound Derby final and was a great double header, they must have stopped that 15 years ago ? But there is an argument for dumping all the dross races into one day and giving people the option of bothering or not....
Bring back the 3 day festival though with it starting on the Wednesday! Can't argue with the Festival concluding on a Friday compared to the Thursday, that's the only improvement the change made. Not long until a 5 day festival though with a Gold Cup Saturday...you know it's going to happen sooner or later, and maybe not that much later as I think talks have been made about this already! Back on topic, how pathetic were McCains comments in the RP today regarding pulling Peddlers Cross from the Arkle. 'It has nothing to do with the opposition in the Arkle' OK Donald, if you say so
