A part of our British culture, but watched five minutes of the Cheltenham racing today.
Am not a fan.
Struck me that it is nothing more than cat food on legs.
Rather cruel.
We could live without it, or at least retire the horses to a decent rest home.
One thing that strikes me in all this is that Cheltenham tends to have a lot more fatalities of horses than other courses.It may be because it is highlighted more because it is this four day festival but I think it is a lot to do with uneven terrain and the sighting of the fences and also the horses have been very highly trained for their particular race thus putting more strain on the legs.
AG; some horses have natural speed, others stamina and, if you're lucky, some have both. Those with natural speed will come to the fore in the finish of a steadily run race, those with stamina will excel when the pace is a fast one. The way to get a speed horse beaten is for the lead horse to set a good gallop. The way to get a stamina laden horse to be beaten is to set a dawdling pace. That is why some trainers will use pace-setters to dictate the race will be run to suit their more fancied horse. Tactics.
grumpy; a lot of the runners at the festival were coming off breaks of 3 month and more. And, before each race, the horses go through a rigorous check up by the course veterinary staff. Two runners yesterday were withdrawn because the vets did not think them fit enough. If they are over-trained prior to Cheltenham, they will not win.
Sean Dyche sends The Clarets out with the message, "Keep it tight at the back, draw them in and wait for the counter attack." Tactics. 5 minutes i and we go a goal down (hopefully not today) and those tactics go out the window. The many pitfalls of being a Burnley fan. Yes, could have been a lot worse but i'm going to knock those bookies bow-legged next year. You just wait and see :-)
Yes grumpy, but being super fit does not mean being so over trained that he leaves all his best work at home. It means being trained to peak at the right time. Which is why i nearly always discard Cheltenham winners from my bets at Aintree, a few weeks later. If they've had to pull out all the stops to win at the festival, then they've apparently already peaked.
AG; rub it in, why don't you. I think that's the NINTH goal we've shipped in the 90th minute or beyond.