It’s very much toys out of the pram time. It’s the obvious race to run the horse in and the sensible prep route for March. The handicapper probably believes the horse didn’t run on merit last time, it certainly wasn’t a performance you could equate to the Festival win last year. A JP horse not running on its merits.....go figure.
Sorry old bean but I completely disagree, I think its perfectly valid for them to pull him out before declarations for this reason. The horse won this race last season off 139, and then was rated by the handicapper 152 before the festival. At the festival he sluiced up, but he beat Tiger Roll who could feasibly have been on an off day (much like in his race last time out), yet the handicapper then decided that Easysland went from a good high end handicapper into a horse of Gold Cup standard, he put him up to 167!!
He then ran two lengths behind Potters Corner (151) off handicap marks, and both were well beaten by horses out of the handicap. Now my issue here is you either have one of two positions -
1 - Kingswell Theatre and Beau Du Brizais ran to a mark much higher than their handicap marks. Both ran from what was in theory 145 last time out, the former is now 140 and the latter 135. If you believe this point then surely they both should have been put up above the 145 mark that they ran from?
2 - KT & BDB ran to their normal handicap marks or slightly better. This is what the handicapper seems to think. He has put KT up to 140 from 128 and BDB up from 132 to 135. So both ran under the weight they carried (5lb and 10lb respectively) so surely Potters Corner and Easysland were too high in the handicap and should be put down? Potters Corner only got dropped 1lb and yet Easysland stays at 167!! (I can't confirm this mark but that is what it looks like on the RP)
Now, given Easysland ran on strongly and Potters Corner is a solid yardstick for handicapping, you would have to say that he ran some sort of race, it wasn't as if they gave him a blow out run. The handicapper actually rated Easysland run at 153, a stone worse than his mark.
So why didn't the handicapper relent? I have no idea.
If I owned Easysland I would be in the ear of Cheltenham racecourse suggesting that if they want the best Cross Country horses to run in their races they need to change them back to stakes races. Perhaps a fairer system would be penalties for winning/placing in previous Cross Country Chases?
