TORONADO PROBABLY NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR GUINEAS A strong wind cannot make a horse run faster than it's mechanically capable of going. But it does make it easier for them to sustain their top speed for longer. This, I think, is what explains the unusual situation that prevailed at Newmarket last Thursday when four of the seven winners made all or almost all the running. The wind was reportedly coming from the West which means it was across as well as behind the runners. But it clearly affected the speed of races because a class 3 ten furlong handicap won by a tearaway pace-setter was run in a time just 0.26 of a second slower than the course record set by New Approach in the Champion Stakes (a course record that was also wind assisted). In the circumstances I think we have to be rather wary of the apparent good form shown by the front running winners on the card. This is especially true for TORONADO (32-pace adjusted 38), the all the way winner of the Craven Stakes. Toronado was allowed to amble through the first five furlongs in 62.26 seconds before sprinting the final three furlongs in a near miraculous 32.93 seconds. If we allow 1.7 seconds for the standing start that means he was travelling at a rate of 12.11 seconds per furlong for the first five furlongs and 10.98 seconds for the last three furlongs. I do not know the precise strength or direction of the wind or how to quantify how much it was aiding the front runners. So I've left Toronado's pace adjusted rating untouched at 38. The fact that he earned a rating of 37 from me as a two year old suggests I may actually have his rating right. However there are other factors that make me worry I may be rating Toronado a tad high. The first is that Toronado's only serious rival among his three opponents was Dundonnell who missed work due to a bruised heel three weeks before and was probably unfit. Tawhid also needed the run according to his trainer. So Toronado really only had to beat Havana Gold, who surely needs longer. The second is that only one of the last 21 winners of the Craven Stakes to run in the 2000 Guineas scored. The third is that the form of the two pattern races Toronado won as a juvenile have not worked out very well. In fact the horses the beat in those contests have run a total of thirty times since without scoring a single win between them. Of course this is one of those occasions when I could be horribly wrong. Newmarket is the only track in Britain or Ireland where race times are seriously and routinely affected by strong winds. So I just don't have enough data to even guess at its effect, let alone how strong it was for individual races. Runner up HAVANA GOLD (28-pace adjusted 34) stayed on to take second in the closing stages after briefly getting outpaced. Previously I've been a bit dubious about his prospects of staying longer than a mile despite the face the has the build of a ten furlong horse. The thing that's troubled me is the thirty wins scored by his dam, her siblings and her foals have all been over a mile or less. However Havana Gold looks and runs like a ten furlong horse so I'm now inclined to say he will stay when he gets the chance to run that far which will apparently be soon. It's worth noting that if his saddle hadn't slipped in one race and one photo had gone his way Havana Gold would have won all six of his starts prior to this loss. Consistency like that makes me suspect he's likely to prove better than the Group 3 class ratings I've been able to award him so far. DUNDONNELL (28-pace adjusted 34) started to shorten his stride soon after the three furlong marker, which is pretty bad considering the pace had been rather slow to that point. I recognise he was unfit because a bruised heel caused him to miss work. But I'm now worried that the big edge in maturity his US pedigree gave him at two has evaporated and that's why he ran so moderately here. I can't leave the Craven without noting the amazing record of Richard Hannon in the contest with horses that earned Racing Post ratings of 100 or more over seven furlongs as two year olds. 1990...Tirol............................WON 9-2 2000...Umistim.......................WON 8-1 2001...King's Ironbridge.........WON 12-1 2003...Hurricane Alan.............WON 9-1 2012...Trumpet Major.............WON 9-2 ...........Crius.............................second 2013...Toronado.......................WON 8-11 ...........Havana Gold..................second HOT SNAP ONE OF THE BEST FILLIES IN YEARS HOT SNAP (40) clocked an extraordinarily fast time when winning the Nell Gwyn Stakes. I rated it the best performance by a three year old filly before May in all the time I've been making speed ratings. There can be no question that Hot Snap is not just Group 1 class but one of the best fillies of the past decade or more on this performance. Trainer Henry Cecil will never replace Frankel but it looks like he's found himself a worthy new flag bearer for his stable. Early on in the race victory didn't look that likely because Hot Snap was clearly having trouble going the early pace. She was being rowed along in last place of the fourteen runners. However when stamina started to become an issue in the closing stages she surged through down the rail and swept past the top class Sky Lantern to score impressively and full of running. The 1000 Guineas should be a formality for Hot Snap if my ratings are any guide. So the 5-1 currently being offered by the bookies looks incredibly generous. What is more interesting to speculate on is what Hot Snap does after the Guineas. Hot Snap got outpaced early and is by Pivotal, who has produced more middle distance sorts than the sire of her half sister Midday, a top class international mile and a half performer. So I think there's little doubt she will stay the Oaks distance. Logically therefore she should run in the Oaks after the Guineas. And, assuming she's as good as I rate her, then her obvious end of season target, given Cecil's preference for British races, has to be the Champion Stakes, now Britain's most valuable race. No doubt if Hot Snap takes the Guineas and the Oaks there will be a lot of talk about the possibility of her emulating Cecil's Oh So Sharp by completing the fillies Triple Crown in the St Leger. It's an intriguing idea but I'd rather shoot for the money in the Champion Stakes and I suspect her connections will be inclined the same way. Runner up SKY LANTERN (38) was held up and surged through from the rear with the winner but simply couldn't go with her in the final furlong. In a normal year Sky Lantern would have been an impressive, clear cut winner of the Nell Gwyn and be a deserving favourite for the 1000 Guineas. She looks to have a big chance of at least running second in the race and would be good enough to win it if anything went wrong for Hot Snap. So the 12-1 plus the bookies are offering about her looks an each-way steal. Sky Lantern's biggest chance of adding a Group 1 win will probably come in the Irish 2000 Guineas, assuming Hot Snap skips that race and she gets the fast surface she needs. She looks a specialist miler to me so all the big fillies races over a mile are obvious targets for her.
There is absolutely no way Toronado is as bad as that Guineas run. He finished utterly legless, going backwards. This guys analysis is hilarious. You cant point out a tailwind as the reason for an emphatic front-running Craven win and simulatenously ignore the headwind on a hold up Nell Gwyn win! On the one hand he looks spot on with Toronado, on the other he gets it SO WRONG with Hot Snap. People are saying that Toronado can't have had coughing as an excuse, but that Hot Snaps burst blood vessel is a valid one Hot Snap ran the day before Toronado where the wind was the opposite way. She was covered up off a strong pace and she flew past tired horses. There will never be a genuine superstar sired by Pivotal on good ground. End of story.
We get it TC. You like Toronado. Give it a rest please for the love of god! I think you are blinded by a bet here. Toronado is a group 2 horse. He beat nothing in the Craven. He beat sod all last year. He's never won a grade one. He probably never will. The time he ran against the best miler he was so knackered he walked the last furlong.
My bet is long gone. There is no way he will run in a Derby now. Don't worry about that, I've lost enough times before to worry about pride or getting defensive of a losing bet. It's more the analysis behind it and the fact I think you will see him win top races in the future. You're right- the form isn't there. He has only run in a Group1 once and he finished 4th of 13. However, can we dismiss Toronado out of hand in one argument, but say Dawn Approach will win the Derby having beaten a 150/1 95-rated horse by 5 lengths on the other? Do we dismiss Mars, Cristoforo, Moojahim, and Garswood as nobodies? Some people say Olympic Glory is the best Hannon horse over 1m now that Toronado has disappointed, but the Moojahim form suggests otherwise, and Toronado has finished in front of them all in the Guineas despite emptying the tank quicker than a porn star on a nudist beach. The issue I have is the contradictions. I cannot help but think he was not right and I will stick by that instinct unless he consistently proves the doubters right. Until then, I will leave it at that and I'll STFU, before I start to grate on you all!
Top class just has to much horsey love for Tornado, he's been touting him for a while, as the Derby winner, so it's perfectly understandable that he is the only one leaping to his defence with blinkers on. Tornado is a decent horse, but that is about it, he is no superstar, and he and the Hannon propaganda got there cummuppance in the Guineas. Stuffed out of sight just as i predicted he would be! Ffs High Chaparel is a breeder of Donkeys, and that's why he never has and never will breed an English classic winner
People have said that Toronado coughing sounds like a fake excuse, people have said that Hot Snaps burst blood vessel is a valid excuse, I dont think anyone has said both as you are suggesting. The difference between these two cases is, the Hannon team have previous for hype and excuse, while no one from Cecils yard was bigging Hot Snap up beforehand, and as of yet, I dont think the excuse of a burst blood vessel has even been made public.
As for Mordins analysis, he has forgotten more about racing than most of us will ever know, and he puts a lot of time into studying racing worldwide, not just in the UK. He called Toronado spot on, and while he might have went over the top about Hot Snap, time will tell, he wasnt far off saying Sky Lantern would win if anything went wrong with Hot Snap. It wouldnt be the first time someone overrated a horse now would it?
Richard Hannan and his dumb ass son are an embarrassment to the integritey of all British trainers. They are both a laughing stock, with there continious excuses every time one one of there hot pots gets stuffed! Tornado is a hound who was stuffed by Dawn Approach as I predicted he would be. Similar to Canford Cliffs, the biggest hound, of all the hounds, who was stuffed out of sight by Frankel. But ofcourse those Hannon idiots couldn't just take the defeat like men, they had to phantom up excuses!
Shergs, although I agree with you re Dawn Approach (very classy) to call the Hannon's a laughing stock is a tad over the top. If I were a trainer I'd be looking to protect my owners and the horse as much as I could. He's hardly going to say after the race, "yeah he's ****, reckon he's Group 2 at best now, no excuses"! In fact if memory serves correctly after the race, Hannon Jnr actually said he wasn't sure what happened and didn't have any excuses! Your in danger of becoming too synical, as a matter of fact I loved Canford Cliffs and his defeat to Frankel is no shame seeing as Frankel beat everything he's ever faced! The excuses were because the wanted to protect his stud career, after all racing is a business!
Just lifted this from the Racing Post BHA Handicappers Blog: FOR THOSE suffering withdrawal symptoms having being carried along on the wave of euphoria created by Frankel over the last couple of years, the imperious display of the 'new kid on the block' Dawn Approach in Saturday's Qipco 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket came along at just the right time, writes Dominic Gardiner-Hill. The Champion two-year-old of Europe last year with a mark of 124, Jim Bolger's colt extended his unbeaten record to seven with a five-length demolition of the opposition and now looks the probable star of this summer. In truth it is not the easiest race to get a handle on in terms of ratings, with Kevin Ryan's Glory Awaits (beaten in a Doncaster nursery off 87 last September) appearing to excel in blinkers for the first time and running way above his pre-race mark of 95 in finishing second. For me the key to the race lies with eighth-placed Don't Bother Me (pre-race 103) and eleventh-placed Correspondent (92) running pretty much to their marks in being beaten ten lengths and 15 lengths respectively - working up from these two I have Dawn Approach returning a figure of 125, Glory Awaits 114, Van Der Neer 110 and the disappointing Toronado 109 in finishing fourth. I could conceivably have used Van Der Neer (114) as a guide, with Toronado performing just 1lb shy of his two-year-old mark of 114 but to me this drags up Don't Bother Me and Correspondent beyond previous levels and has Glory Awaits on 118 - good enough to have won two of the last ten renewals which I believe unlikely at this stage! At 125 Dawn Approach's performance would have been good enough to win 16 of the last 17 runnings of the 2,000 Guineas, the exception being Frankel's stunning 2011 renewal, so he is certainly something worth looking forward to in the coming months. Mystery of the race was the performance of the much-vaunted Toronado - I expressed myself a fan of the horse after his impressive comeback victory in the Craven and allotted him a mark of 121 for that success but whichever level you use for Saturday's race he came nowhere near reproducing that. To the naked eye he appeared a non-stayer, backed up by the fact that his time for the final furlong (14.20 secs) was the slowest amongst the first eight horses home and in essence he lost six lengths on Dawn Approach through that last furlong. For a horse touted as a possible Derby candidate this seems unlikely and I cannot believe his finishing position is a true representation of his ability - I can see him proving himself the second best horse in the race by the end of the season but for the time being I have dropped his rating 3lb to a new mark of 118 after revisiting the Craven.
