Equinties - the Adonis effect

Gm Equinauts

We’ve said it before this season and we’ll say it again, this season has been a total wipe out for NH meetings - frost and water-logging both equally to blame for the constant abandonments.

Wincanton’s meeting today the latest victim of the ridiculous weather, which is a shame as there was a nice bumper scheduled to close the card.

Not long until Cheltenham anyway. And on that note, a reminder to all ‘freemium’ subscribers…

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Now, let’s dive in.

HEADINE ROUND UP

HANDICAP WEIGHTS

The Cheltenham handicap weights lunch is a weird thing, isn’t it? Unlike the United canteen, it’s a free lunch (shock) where the handicappers reveal the marks for Cheltenham. that are widely available on the internet moments after midday, and they are only there to answer every question with the same answer. “Well, he was rated this in Ireland, and we thought he should get an extra insert amount.” Nice one.

Next.

The day does get a few trainers in the room with Britain’s media personalities so they can reveal a few of their handicap chances at the Festival, and this year was no different.

One contender who could become a plunge horse is PIC ROC for the Jack Richards Novices’ Handicap Chase. Ben Pauling highlighted him as his best handicap chance (he was visibly sweet on him) and he’s also been tipped him up by RP personalities.

The combination of these two things has seen him shortened in a few points to 16/1, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see him go single figures after declarations. After all, he is an unexposed seven-year-old trainer by a mustard operator.

The Twiston-Davies were back at it, and although we have mentioned it before, it’s worth noting that they now believe BROADWAY BOY is one of their best chances of the meeting.

Having been super-bullish on POTTERS CHARM at the start of the season, their enthusiasm for the horse was tempered by his big underperformance at Cheltenham last time out, but that fire has clearly been reignite by some recent home work because the bullishness is back in the form of their ‘he should win it’ declaration. Bold.

Of the Irish handicap marks, it’s hard to go into every one as it ends up turning into a bit of a rabbit hole. What we will say is that their Fred Winter runners have been royally ruined; LAKOTA BLUE got 8, TOTAL LOOK (a Racing X horse) got 7, ROBBIES ROCK got 7, and OUT FOR A STROLL got 7. Considering the best juveniles are, so far as we know, in Britain, this seems harsh.

ALL IMPORTANT CHELTENHAM GOING

Speaking of Cheltenham, we got an update about ground conditions. This deserves its own section because, well, ground is the single most important thing when betting on horses.

If you think it isn’t, you’re not very good at it.

A horse may well be chucked in for a Cheltenham handicap, but if they need decent ground and it buckets it down, you can kiss the docket goodbye!

So, what are the conditions at Prestbury Park? If they were to race today, it would be soft all over and the cross country course would be soft, heavy (in places). Beautiful.

However, and this is a big however, we think we could be in for proper spring ground for this year’s Festival. Don’t let today’s misery cloud your judgement, there is no rain scheduled between now and next Tuesday, and temperatures are lingering around that 10 degree range for the next week or so.

Long-range forecasts predict around 6mm between the Friday and Saturday before the Festival and maybe a touch on Monday, but that won’t change conditions too much one would imagine.

That could well keep the ground around the good to soft area. A sprinkling of rain, five millimetres specifically, could hit the track on the Wednesday of the Festival as well which could be interesting.

But, especially for the first day of Cheltenham, be prepared for ground around good to soft, if not a touch quicker.

What are we hoping for? We hope it f*cking buckets down.

THE ADONIS EFFECT

The name Adonis, borne from Greek mythology, is used in more modern times to describe a handsome, athletic man typically vain about their good looks.

Almost as if it casts a spell over it’s victorious trainer, Kempton’s Listed juvenile event and namesake to the ‘ideal of male beauty’ has, in recent years, has had the bizarre effect of flattering a trainers vanity by allowing them to think they have a Gold Cup horse on their hands.

Last year, Paul Nicholls said KALIF DU BERLAIS could be a Gold Cup horse for the future and now 12 months on, as if love drunk by his horses performance, Ben Pauling has too, uttered the blue riband event when referring to Saturday’s winner MAMBONUMBERFIVE!

We’re calling this the Adonis effect because in our minds, there is no way in hell MAMBONUMBERFIVE is a bloody Gold Cup horse and we’re sure in time, Pauling will be recognising he is in fact not a Gold Cup horse, a bit like Nicholls has admitted KALIF DU BERLAIS isn’t quite what he thought he was when winning the Adonis.

Fine, MAMBONUMBERFIVE looked nice on Saturday but the race was shocking (on a pedigree basis) and probably fell apart a bit with MONDO MAN blowing his chances early on.

More, he achieved an RPR of just 116 for winning a Grade 2!

We don’t think the form of the race will stand up in time, and this may have a small knock-on effect on LULAMBA for the Triumph Hurdle, but despite the numbers and the (lack of) form, Pauling was quite complimentary of him this week, as he said: "He's got a lovely easy way of going and I think I was slightly deceived by how well he went at home and actually he wasn't fit for Cheltenham.

“That twinned with the fact he pulled too hard meant he fell in a hole.

"We gave him some proper graft off the back of that and I was delighted with the horse on Saturday. That has put us right back on track to have a tilt at something better but I've never had a juvenile like this.

"He looks like a Gold Cup horse already with the size and strength of him. He's a big, rangy, gorgeous individual and he really isn't going to be at his best until the year after next, but he's got plenty to work with for the time being as well."

Is he bred to be a Gold Cup horse though?

We know some industry people say ‘buy the horse not the page’ but really that only works if you have no budget (the page/pedigree is the key to everything!). This horse clearly has an imposing frame for Pauling to make such remarks but is his pedigree right - does he really have the engine required to be that of a Gold Cup contender!?

He’s by BORN TO SEA, who in turn is by sprint sire INCINCIBLE SPIRIT.

Bar a couple of Frenchie’s jumping over bushes entire, proper NH horse’s typically descend from a lineage of the greatest slowest flat horses – the stayers! Without any research or stats, and using on the horses that come to the fore of our minds first as examples, the likes of sire’s SHANTOU, FAME AND GLORY, ummm OSCAR, and let’s go for a stallion most recently sent to stud, JACK HOBBS all have the honours of staying pots such as the Derby’s, St Leger’s and Gold Cup’s to their name. And that’s not to mention all the staying sires King GALIEO has produced - we don’t have enough time to list them all.

GALOPIN DES CHAMPS is by German sire TIMOS who only ever raced over a minimum of 12f and TIMOS is by SHOLOKHOV who bumped into one in the Irish Derby of 2002.

“But BORN TO SEA placed in an Irish Derby too” we hear you cry, yes, he did but it was as weak as p*ss with only 5 runners as was arguably CAMELOT’s worst performance and still won easily. BORN TO SEA won only one race at 6 furlongs!

MAMBONUMBERFIVE’s pedigree and temperament was good enough to put him to the fore in a weak juvenile race full of flat oriented pedigree’s but we think there’s a next to zero chance that will lead to a Gold Cup. They’re slightly different demands on pedigree’s (please note our sarcasm here). You should be looking at Cheltenham’s novice staying events for that!

Anyway, who are we to p*ss on Pauling’s parade? He hasn’t trained many successful juveniles and is allowed to get excited! We just thought some context is required because we really, really believe trainers, especially NH trainers, don’t care much for a horse’s pedigree and simply train what’s in front of them. Of course, that’s fine if they want to waste runs, time and money ‘finding out’ about the horse but they could quite easily study the lineage to make more informed decisions and stack the odds of success in their favour.

Want to know a trainer who is bloody good at knowing their horses’ pedigree? Shaggas! He keeps leather-bound books at home filled with notes on all his horses pedigree’s and historic ground form. That’s why he’s one of the best trainers in the world and we love backing his horses.

RISK ON

Yesterdays bets both lost - JUMPER MADRIK jumped too badly to get involved and WALLACE OLINGER, the gamble of the day, was beaten all too easily for a 4/7 SP shot. We did say small stakes but annoying none the less, apologies.

Today we like:

Not much. The strong fancies were in the slop at Wincanton and although Bangor is heavy, the fields are terrible. There are a couple of horses at Wetherby we’re eyeing up but will watch the market and post on X.

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