Morning All I attended a function last night and bumped into Andy Stewart, actually it was more than a 'bump', we had some time before the event began and he afforded me about 30 mins which was fascinating and needless to say, informative. Some of this may be old news but I'll summarise the main comments he made: Poquelin - I asked him if he has found a race the horse can win at the festival, he said The Gold Cup ! The horse is now the highest rated chaser in Nicholls yard and at 8 coming up 9 is the perfect age. The horses loves Cheltenham though will clearly have to prove his stamina - he is aimed at the Charlie Hall at Wetherby where he thinks he'll be taking on Long Run, but he thinks Poquelin has a serious Gold Cup chance. I aksed him about one of my favourite horses in training, Celestial Halo, and he immediately responded by saying that it was Nicholls who sent him back hurdling but Stewart was keen to continue with him over fences, he believes they gave up too soon on chasing. He has always loved loved the horse and though him good enough to win a champion hurdle, the day he was beaten a head by Punjabi he said Ruby and AP were racing each other and forgot about Gerraghty and that CH should have won the race. He'll be aimed at another Champion Hurdle tilt. Hoo la Baloo is being aimed at the Whitbread. Runner up in the race last year he said he'll be doing nothing to put more weight on the horses back - read into that what you will ! he mentioned he was entering the horse in the Foxhunters (Chelt) but didn't think he'd end up running in that sphere. Most interesting was his statement about Rocky Street. Unfortunately I didn't make notes and I had by this stage had more than the one pint, so the background to this is a little clouded. I don't know how we started on this horse but his statement of 'This is the best 5yo he's ever seen' struck a chord. No idea if this horse is ex flat and I can't access form/history from the office, but he was extremely bullish about what this one could achieve. He also gave me a horse who he bought in Wednesday that is in training with Rebecca Curtis, I don't remember the name but the horse beat a JP hotpot by 30 lengths at Stratford whose SP was 1/3, again, he was so excited about this one. When the brain kicks into gear and the flashbacks start I'll confirm the name. He also said forget about which race Willie sends Quevaga to at the festival, the 4th consecutive Mares hurdle is her only target - there will be hype about a champion hurdle or stayers tilt but connections have only one thing in mind and that's winninga 4th consecutive Mares hurdle. Finally, having reminisced about past Cheltenhams and relishing the fact that the first meeting of the season is only 4 weeks away, he asked me if I wanted to know who the winner of the Hennessy would be, expecting an obscure plot horse he responded by saying 1833, I frowned and he merely said, 'believe me this wins'. One more thing, he intends to sponsor the Cross Country at the festival (Spinal Research) and maybe even the two other Cross Country races at Cheltenham in Nov/Dec. His reason is slightly amusing, he believes they are benefit races for JP and as a good friend he knows that JP will donate the prize money back to the charity. Fascinating exposure to someone at the very top echelon of NH racing. I dare say he has no knowledge of this forum but would equally be distraught that private conversations are put into the public domain so if anyone is familiar with him professionally or socially I'd be grateful if this isn't repeated.
Cyc: Just sent this to my daughter to remind her that she is, just a sec - calculator, erm 1/8th Scottish. The Scots will have nothing to do with her dad but maybe they'll accept her!
Brilliant stuff Grizzly. Can't wait for a good bit of jumps action to start! The one comment i found strange is that Long Run is going for the Charlie Hall. I was under the impression that his target was the Betfair Chase. I spoke to Yogi Breisner (the jumping guru) at Blenheim the other week and he said that the Haydock race was the plan. Also very interesting that Camp Nicholls are still keen on 1833 for the Hennessy. I absolutely agree with them that he is the perfect type for the race but i would have thought that a mark of 152 would make it a stiff enough ask. Obviously depends on who else turns up but they sound confident. The JP/XC Race sponsorship is brilliant!
Zenyatta - he seemed fairly sure LR would be aimed at Wetherby, maybe it's a coup between Henderson and Nicholls that Kauto wins the Betfair then retires, who knows. The Spinal Research sponsorship was great news, Andy Stewart may not be everyones cup of tea but this sponsorship is great not only for racing but the awareness levels of the charity reach across the masses, and of course it's a charity close to his heart. Cyc - sorry wasted on me, the IT Hitlers in this place don't allow jokes - hope you're well mate. Glad you all enjoyed it, lets hope there's a little gem of info in there somewhere. Be lucky
Grizzly: Shame his bid for the Tote was barely considered, i.e. did not reach the last five. Stewart wanted to float the Tote on the Stock Exchange and let it run independently. Selling it to a bookmaker was the height of stupidity. A catastrophic decision by the government? Cyc: Never knew my distaff grandad, died years before I was born. Mum never talked much about her Scottish engineer dad, for some reason or other..................
OddDog My apologies, we actually had a very long conversation about BB it's just that every time I entered a drooling 'I love that horse' and 'even money was the biggest rick I've seen in the ring for years' state he would come up with another piece of info and we'd change subjects. I got the impression he loves the horse deeply, he knows he could buy another 1000 horses and not get one half as good as BB, the horse clearly owes him nothing but it was interesting that he felt the horse could even improve this season. He listed every horse BB had beaten and it's an impressive list, he was however aware that Grand Crus represented a serious challenge and if you speak to David Pipe he is adament his horse can get his head in front of BB this season. I mentioned that it must be exciting knowing that you could create history by winning the Stayers 5 or 6 times but he wouldn't allow himself to get ahead of himself. I got the feeling he was just immensely proud of the horse. I think he was reminding himself of how good the horse was, he listed every horse he'd beaten, said the horse was still unbeaten over hurdles, hasn't been beaten since the 2008 Hennessy (when fav as a 5yo !). I asked him whether he regrets not persevering with fences and he avoided the question in all honesty saying that the horse has 3 Stayers hurdles and could add to the tally - I didn't want to press him on whether he could have taken the Kauto/Denman crown, we had both by this stage had a few ! Swan - I didn't speak to him on the Tote bid but I do have a good friend who is a co-owner at Cenkos (his City trading company) who gave me the rundown of their bid ealier this year. Apparently they offered about £200m, then the Totes results came out and there was doom and gloom around the company performance, I think they were £60m in the red and had a gaping hole in their pension pot, all in all the £200m bid was retracted and they put in a lesser bid of around half that which wasn't successful. Half the bidders pulled out/retracted their original bids, Betfred though increased his bid and it's (generally) accepted that he has overpaid for the company by a considerable amount. He mentioned something about a limit on how many shops they could close so they were limited on the savings they could make. I don't think Stewart/Cenkos are overly upset by failing to land it...
Not sure OddDog - he certainly laboured the point that Pipe held Grand Crus is very high regard and unless I've misheard/misunderstood I definitely got the impression Stewart is expecting a rematch come Cheltenham.
Pipe said this after Big Buck's destroyed Grands Crus at Aintree: "We were beaten by the best horse in racing. We can't complain, because the winner was amazing. "I'm sure we'll be novice chasing next year now and at least Big Buck's won't be there! "It was a true-run race, but it wouldn't have mattered how it was run. Big Buck's would have won anyway." http://www.sportinglife.com/racing/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=racing/11/04/07/manual_102834.html
I can't for the life of me see Grand Crus beating Big Buck's over hurdles. The way the race was run at Cheltenham was exactly what Big Buck's didn't want. There was no pace meaning it turned into a sprint. Also, Tom Scudamore gave Grand Crus the perfect ride that day, and he simply wasn't good enough. And then at Aintree they did it all wrong. By taking it up and forcing the pace so early they just gave Big Buck's a lead into the race and pulled him clear of the rest, and then when Big Buck's quickened he had nothing left. I'd be surprised if Pipe thinks it's worth having another go. If he were mine i'd definitely give up because he has a hell of a lot to find, and there is no reason to think that Big Buck's is on the wane just yet. I think we often underestimate Big Buck's achievements. It seems a funny thing to say but the quality of horses that he has beaten is pretty impressive. The likes of Grand Crus, Punchestowns, Kasbah Bliss and so on were/are very good animals. And frankly he has made them look ordinary.
Yep, I remember that interview. I only posted what was said (or what I thought was said) last night, if I've made an error then apologies to all (I'll blame the Stellar !) but of course connections can and do change their minds. Also, I won't be precise with the detail here, but I was at a track earlier this year for a friends 40th birthday celebrations, through another friend I managed to get us a 5 min slot pre racing with a trainer who had runners at this track on the day. All I wanted was one horse that we could give the entire party (about 50 of us) so we could all back it knowing he was a runner. Sure enough this trainer gave us a few horses and said that he really expected horse x to win and that he'd be doing an interview before racing and he'd talk down it's chances to get us a price. We watched this interview and nearly wet ourselves, some very clever answers. Sure enough this 11/4 shot opened up 4/1 won half a length having been backed into 9/4 ! If I didn't know it already, it really confirmed that what you hear from the yards can be taken with a pinch of salt....
