I was very impressed by Vandeek, able to sit off the pace and pick off his rivals with a turn of foot. In that respect I concur with your view that they ought to consider the Dewhurst. Of course that does then lead to a can of worms if he wins the Dewhurst because then there is the temptation to try and stretch him to a mile for the Guineas when he does seem to be a natural sprinter. I have to say my initial thought was the Breeders’ Cup if they thought that his tactics would not be a disadvantage round a bend. It is a big pot. Whilst thoughts of champion sprinter next year might be had over the winter, there is no guarantee he will train on, which is part of the reason why top-notch sprinters come along so infrequently on this side of The Pond. Breeders concentrate so much on producing eight/ten furlong Classic horses. So many three year old sprinters of the modern era are horses that did not stay in the Guineas so dropped in trip, which is why so many of our top sprinters in recent times have been older horses.
Clearly I was not the only one that fancied the form horse Porta Fortuna in the Cheveley Park as the 8/1 evaporated and it ended up 9/2. I think that we may see a lot of the runner-up Pearls And Rubies in future as she has had a lot of racing as a juvenile and only run one bad race in the Moyglare. I was very disappointed with Capulet as he held every chance but he may just be a horse that does not like HQ, or more specifically the Rowley Mile, as he wandered around in The Dip; however, credit where it is due to the winner Ghostwriter as he looks a very good prospect for next season for Clive Cox and Jeff Smith.
In the end a pretty bloodless victory for Easy Game but I think Willie Mullins will be the first to admit that races such as this are his limit. The one that will have gone in to the notebooks was Gentlemansgame who ran a fine race in receipt of weight but with apparently 3 things against him - inexperience (this was only his second run over fences), fitness (first run for 276 days) and the trip (has last 5 runs over hurdles were around 3 miles). I think he would have caught Easy Game in another furlong but I am not sure he wants those extreme trips just yet and would stick around 20-21f with him. Connections have swerved Cheltenham with him so far so I don't think they will be gearing his season around that. If they want to stick to open company I think he would be a very interesting runner in either the Clonmel Oil Chase or the John Durkan Memorial next up. Surprisingly Envoi Allen looked a little ring rusty and made one serious mistake that cost him a few lengths. He did fight his way back into contention but ultimately his effort petered out. I'm sure he will come on for that and will have bigger targets at Christmas and the DRF before hopefully trying to defend his Ryanair crown.
