Come off it Shergar! The race would have been very close on a true line - yes Nathaniel getting the allowance would probably still have edged it but please don't make me laugh dismissing him so much!
Flyingbolt....What is your obsession with weight allowances? 3yos are not quite fully grown that's why they get a weight allowance against 4yos who are in the whole bigger and stronger horses, it's not rocket science. Look at the record of 3yos in the KG and you will see the 4yos tend to have a massive edge despite the weight allowance. Workforce was getting an allowance in the Arc, and hasn't won a G1 in 2 attempts without the allowance, so would you say that Workforce only won the Arc because of the allowance he received? If you want to knock Nathaniel for getting an allowance on Saturday then surely you must also need to knock Workforce for winning with an allowance in the Arc. That was only Nathaniel's 6th start, and it's been less than a year since he made his debut, so he will continue to improve this season, where as Workforce being a year older is unlikely to improve atall so the gap in ability between the two will only get bigger than Saturdays 2 1/2 lengh win
All I know Ron is that it's 8 pounds in the Arc, and that 3yos have a great record in the Arc, were as they have a bad record in the King George
Over twelve furlongs, the BHA weight-for-age scale received by three-year-olds is 15lb (June 1-15), 14lb (June 16-30), 13lb (July 1-15), 12lb (July 16-31), 11lb (Aug 1-15), 10lb (Aug 16-31), 9lb (Sept 1-15), 8lb (Sept 16-30), 7lb (Oct 1-31), 6lb (Nov 1-30). In the last twenty years, the King George has been won by St Jovite (92), King’s Theatre (94), Lammtarra (95), Galileo (01), Alamshar (03) and Nathaniel (11) for the three-year-olds, which does not look great statistically, six from twenty. What this does not show is how many of the top three-year-olds (usually the Derby winner) have avoided the race, many preferring to go to the Eclipse Stakes or avoid their elders. In the previous ten years, six from ten were three-year-olds, including Derby winners Reference Point, Nashwan and Generous. This may just be a change in trends. Looking at the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, fifteen of the last twenty winners have been three-year-olds with eleven of those being French trained. The different training methods in France mean that the event is targeted by the likes of Andre Fabre (five) and Alain de Royer-Dupré (two) and there is almost always a maximum field of twenty making three-year-olds statistically better represented.
