Last year's race was at Chantilly, so it makes comparisons difficult to be sure about. My impression going into the race was that this was quite a moderate renewal and I feel Enable has won despite being below last year's level. You can argue various factors of course but for me Enable always does her best work in the closing stages of a race and she simply didn't do that today. To me, she looked likely to prevail by two or three lengths but in the end just about everything in the race closed her down to one extent or another, as Enable definitely appeared to weaken to my eyes. People have said to me after the race that Kew Gardens was unlucky but for me he just didn't run to his form today. He only managed to see off the pacemaker Nelson by a neck today, after having beaten him between 8 and 11 lengths in their previous three meetings. I suspect the Racing Post ratings for today's race may be too high. If we are to believe today's marks we need to accept that Nelson has recorded a career best by 8 lbs in a race where he was a blatant 200/1 pacemaker? That seems fanciful to me.
Enable below her best but done enough, amazing training performance from Gosden, apparently had a set back after Kempton as well. Doyle saved every inch round the inside and got a decent run in the straight, just couldnt get there in time to catch a champion. Could argue he left it too late but thats the way the horse runs.
He stormed out because he had backed Sea Of Class to win and I was one of three smart arses at the table who had backed the winner (5/1 ante post in my case) and he did not take kindly to being told he had no chance when his horse was last at the final bend and Frankie was just pulling Enable out to make her run. Not sure anybody can be an expert on Brexit, certainly not the rabble that are negotiating it. I am certainly no expert on football. On Saturday my fantasy team mustered a whopping 17 points between the seven players that played (and 9 of those were the goalkeeper) whilst my substitute defender Matt Doherty registered 15 on his own. My three players in the Anfield bore draw on Sunday scored 8 points. On matters where facts are in dispute, I definitely am an expert. It is amazing how many people try to argue against facts.
I disagree about the running of Enable relative to Cloth Of Stars. Last year he had to give her WFA and she won by two and a half lengths on softer ground. This year he was a length behind. Capri got a lot closer this year, less than four lengths fifth after being out with the washing at Chantilly. I am not sure what the allowance has to do with it. On the ratings, the winner was the best horse in the race by more than 3lb. If the first two had been carrying 3lb more, they would still have finished first and second. The winner was being ridden hands and heels and the runner-up was produced late after being held up in rear. Both of them could have done 3lb better. The fact that there have been several top champion fillies in recent years may be clouding your judgement.
No chance....yet it was beaten a very fast diminishing short neck. Wouldnt have looked such a "smart arse" had Doyle not had to weave through slower horses huh.
A costly decision that Doyle consciously chose to make. Nobody forced him to sit stone last on the inside rail all the way around, virtually guaranteeing that he was not going to get a totally clear run in the straight with 18 horses in front of him, many of them slowing up as their jockeys realised their chance had gone. That is why Arc winners very rarely come from the back and are usually in the first half dozen around the final bend.
The inference from Maureen Haggas was that Lester Piggott had advised Doyle on how to ride Sea Of Class to best overcome the high draw. On another day she might have got up but had she done so it would have been as part of herself closing Enable down and part of Enable coming back to her field. I think that the key to the closing stages is in watching the ultimate 3rd Cloth Of Stars in relation to Enable. As the field approach the 500 M line it is clear that Enable is going better than the two at the front of affairs. Reaching the 400 M mark it is clear Frankie is about to ask her to go and win the race. Between the 400 M and 300 M marker line Enable takes it up and goes for home. Between the 3 and the 2 and then the 2 and the 1, I would say that Enable has put a minimum of three lengths between herself and Cloth Of Stars. The problem for Enable occurs in the last 100 M where she "Hits the wall" during that last stage of the race she curls up and the staying on at one pace Cloth Of Stars manages to reduce the arrears by two lengths, to only finish beaten one length by last year's heroine. Any unbiased viewer of the replay would reach the same conclusion I feel. It's done and dusted now but I feel Enable won despite being below her best and felt playing up some of the winnings for next year's race at 6/1 was worthwhile doing. Enable only had two runs this year and the indication was that she will be back next season. Sea Of Class is generally the same odds but she has to prove that she trains on from this year to next and not all 4YO fillies do. She might encounter soft ground next season and we know she doesn't like it. Enable meanwhile, likes some cut. Looking at the likely opposition next year from 3YO's it looks a bit sparse on the middle distance front. I was lucky enough to have written a preview for the maiden where Too Darn Hot was making his debut and noticed that he was 50/1 for the Derby. I had a fiver at 50's and he bolted up looking like he was a potential contender. He was cut to 20/1 but I was a bit surprised to see him out so soon after, and dropped to 7F. He was kept to 7F for the Champagne Stakes and will go to the Dewhurst next. These are bad trends for a Derby candidate and Gosden revealed recently that he has doubts about Too Darn Hot staying. If I were a pro punter I would be getting out of Too Darn Hot and banking a profit off the bet at 50's. My first Derby bet this season was on Godolphin's Quorto. The lightning striking twice after many barren years is an ask but he looked good on his first two starts and I thought 25/1 was a starting point on the race. He duly beat Anthony Van Dyck next time but Charlie Appleby then revealed that the Derby isn't on his mind for the colt and that, for now at least, he sees him as a pure 2000 Guineas horse. I feel Aidan has a moderate looking bunch of potential Derby colts again this season. In recent years he has had stamina laden runners proving too slow at Epsom but coming good in the Leger. The aforementioned Anthony Van Dyck looks his best prospect, while his faster horse Ten Sovereigns is dubious for me as a Guineas prospect. The Middle Park Stakes is poison for the Guineas in a generation now, I think 1991 and Rodrigo De Triano was the last colt to follow up in the Guineas. Aidan has said that Ten Sovereigns may run in the Dewhurst, after previously saying he was likely finished for the season. The story is that the horse has come out of the Middle Park so well but I reckon he simply doesn't have a horse in the yard with enough speed/class ratio to trouble the better entrants. The media are still trying to hype the Dewhurst as a "Race for the ages" but I reckon Too Darn Hot has it in the bag. When the first betting came up I jumped in at 2/1. The Stoute horse looks overrated to me on his form thus far. Only 1 horse he has beaten has managed to win a race in 21 attempts and that was a nothing class 4 affair. I reckon Sangarius has a stone to find with the Gosden horse, who may have more to come himself. I am dubious about a colt emerging to tackle Enable next year. The 3YO fillies look in a worse state than the colts this year. I did Just Wonderful for the 1000 Guineas at 25/1 but she never seems to run the same race twice. The Fillies Mile may tell us more but it could muddy the waters even more. We may not have seen the Oaks winner yet and it's probably the hardest Classic to call the year before the race for an ante-post. Enable for me to follow up and create some history at 6/1.
I don't think there is any doubt Enable was not 100%, she doesn't stop like that. Doyle was maybe a split second away from what would have been called the ride of the century, fine margins. The best horse on the day might have finished 2nd but the best horse in the race won, she beat a high class filly after only an egg and spoon prep race at kempton, that's what the real champions do. I said before the race, if you get beat by the draw then you arent good enough. I remember the Vermeille Zarkava stood in the stalls and gave Dar Re Mi an 8L Start, she still won hands and heels. Sea of Class is a decent filly but she's not one of the greats, the winner is.
I don't think James Doyle had many alternatives other 5han to ride Sea of Class the way he did. Had he not had to pull round one of the horses in the field it would have won. Enable wasn't at her best. One of the common sights in flat racing though...whatever the race...horses getting blocked..jockeys trying for gaps not there etc..thank goodness the jumps season is fast approaching..
aye all plain sailing on the jumps, horses falling in front of you, jockeys hanging on to horses neck after wacking one, 20 clear and down at the last, jumping hurdles but still unseating, and you can still get boxed in for good measure, cant wait, all our problems are over until may
I'm struggling to think of any big race this season being lost because one got boxed in, handicaps at ascot maybe. I backed sea of class and I knew what type of horse it is, cant really ask for a better run than it got, could ask for Doyle to go earlier but anyone backing her knew where they would be 2f out. Zarkava had to barge vision d'etat out the way for her run, sea the stars "hell have to be a champion to win from there" its the best race in Europe for a reason.
Yep..these are known obstacles..adds to the excitement/spectacle of a race...I.e you can be 20 lengths clear yes but you still have to jump em...there are plenty of flat races where you see a horse denied a clear run/boxed in/poor decision from a jockey...flat racing I m afraid is pretty boring compared to the jumps... You can't beat a cold winters day with your feet up at home watching some equine thoroughbreds jumping fences and all the excitement that brings..
Yep, nothing like watching a bunch of slow moving plodders trying to scramble over obstacles on a god forsaken race course somewhere well beyond nowhere.
Don't tend to watch racing midweek or bet midweek except the big meetings. .as my other post mentions 'You can have too much of a good thing!'
I have been to some of those racecourses and I used to live not many miles from one that sometimes even makes it onto TV these days when the TV people manage to find deepest darkest Lincolnshire. We do not believe in any of that god nonsense, we Yellowbellies were forsaken by Thor more than a millennia ago so no trip to Valhalla awaits... Talking of somewhere well beyond nowhere, should I be calling Lincolnshire County Cricket Club to see if any of them fancy a trip to Dubai to try and give Pakistan a game?
