Cannot view Saturday's Irish Gold Cup on youtube. As this would seem to be the last trial for the Cheltenham Gold Cup can anyone help me by uploading the race. Cheers.
If Mullins fails to win this years Gold Cup one would have to question whether he is capable of aptly handling a Gold Cup horse.
I'd question his ability with chasers in general, the guy hasn't won either of Cheltenham's premier chases. They say Mullins is the best trainer around, but I'm far from convinced that he is. He's just got the best ammunition currently. Nichols for me is a miles superior trainer, and would be the man id call up if I owned a high class horse.
I am not sure I agree with you in terms of Nicholls, just look at what a mess he has made of Saphir Du Rheu and now he is doing it with Ptit Zig. I think the interesting point about trainers and the horses they get is that they look for different things. Paul Nicholls always talks about them being chasing types, but Mullins doesn't seem bothered if they aren't chasers in the making. Look at Hurricane Fly for example, he was never going to make a chaser, but he got him and made him a star. All of the top trainers have quirks, and the one I am not keen on is Nicholls attempts at making the next Big Bucks. One or two bad chase runs and they are back over hurdles.
Neither Saphir Du Rheu or Ptit Zig are all that talented. SDR was just hyped up because of his owners, that's not Nicholls fault after all. Just look at the big race wins Nicholls has to his name, he's won all the championship races at the festival and 3 of them he's won multiple times, compare that to Mullins who's only won 1 of them despite having loads of attempts. Dodging Bullets last year is a prime example of how much improvement Nicholls can get out of a horse with limited ability. No other trainer could have won a champion chase with that horse. We'll see how Mullins gets on this year, as he looks to have the ammunition to put some of his shortcomings at the festival right, but I wouldn't bank on it.
So new sponsors Timico are offering a £250k prize to punters as part of their sponsorship of this race. All you have to do is name the correct finishing order of the entire field.
I say Nassau, old boy, that's illustrious company you're keeping! Yeah, he said he'll go for the CGC if the owner agrees. Ol Sherwood seemed somewhat miffed that Mother Nature had intervened and ruled out Kelso.
He struggles to get horses jumping fences and there are some alarming pieces of data around his ability to get novice chasers to step up their form when joining open company. There's probably just enough competition this year to take him on albeit with the horses in the yard he should be winning.
He's got two very different styles in Don Poli and Vautour that's for sure. Gold Cup looks a good race and I hope Vautour does make it and answer the stamina question once and for all
