What the fupp is Aidan O'Brien doing?

mike65

Another O'Brien/Murtagh shortie fails to land the spoils despite being perfectly capable of doing so. After Masterofthehorse (ha good name!) yesterday comes Frozen Fire again held up for no apparently tacticaly sound reason.

admiralofthefleet

add drumbeat to that, he didnt do too bad on him but left it slightly too late again. dont get me started on masterofthehorse

Trafford Lad

I had a double on Drumbeat and Frozen Fire...grrrr....Really not sure what the story is with them at the moment but its not good. Bolger & Manning all the way for the next while anyway.

admiralofthefleet

Trafford Lad wrote: »

I had a double on Drumbeat and Frozen Fire...grrrr....Really not sure what the story is with them at the moment but its not good. Bolger & Manning all the way for the next while anyway.

maybe the stiff track at chester didnt suit

smelltheglove

have to concur with mike..masterofthehorse that really pissed me off! had a decent win bet on him and he really should have done it but ah sure that the risk we run i guess

Shan75

One thing I've really learned over the years is never back an AOB horse first time out unless it's a Group 1 race.Some horses need a race to bring them to the boil and horses are sometimes trained with a future race in mind.It's up to us to decipher which ones to back.

Besides Masterofthehorse strikes me as a dodgy enough customer that I would steer well clear.Drumbeat you'd imagine was being lined up to win but is just not good enough and Frozen Fire was in a race that turned into a bit of a farce and anyway as he ran by far his best race at the Curragh I suspect the tight and turns of Chester wouldn't particularly suit him.If they decide to go the distance route he'll presumably end up in the Coronation Cup on Oaks day at Epsom.Epsom will probably not suit this horse.They could of course decide to go for the Tattersalls Gold Cup on Irish 1000 Guineas day at the Curragh over 10f.

Either way I'd expect to see Frozen Fire in particular and Masterofthehorse perform a lot better next time out.

phantom_lord

anyone know where i could watch a replay of Frozen Fire's race, can't seem to find it anywhere.

Shan75

phantom_lord wrote: »

anyone know where i could watch a replay of Frozen Fire's race, can't seem to find it anywhere.

Only place I know of is the racingpost.com website but you have to pay 20p to watch a replay.:(

applehunter

Leopardstown on Sunday.

Fame and Glory is the one Ballydoyle will have really been looking forward to after a week of mediocre trials.

Taking the High Chapperal route. No reason for Oxx horse to turn the form around.

chinguetti

From what i saw of the French Guineas, Johnny didn't ride the best race of his life when he drove Westphila up the back of the two in front. You'ld hope he's getting all his bad rides out of the way in one week for the year.

Fame and Glory looked quite classy today but the Dante might tell us more during the week. The 3 y o Irish generation looks good thus far.

Morgans

Murtagh at Chester.

Frozen Fire - would have been beaten whatever way the race was run. A strong galloper (and a thinker) needs a long flat straight and a strong pace to be seen at its best. Form of Irish Derby is very very messy and had ran very ugly at tight Epsom last year. Easy to say now but was one of a number of bad short price favourites from O'Brien over the last month. Definitely no fault of Murtagh there. He could have made the runnning definitely, but would have only played further into his opponents hands. I think O'Brien wanted to give his horse a run before the Tattersalls Gold Cup or maybe Ascot, he wasnt fully tuned up, and would have liked his horse to have 8 runners in the race to get a proper prep into him. But he needed the race and was allowed to take his chance even when the shape of the race went against him. Horse seemed to lose his action up the straight as well when beaten.

Masterofhtehorse - again I dont really think that Murtagh got this nearly as wrong as a lot of commentators believe. Yes, he was a long way last, but clearly didnt expect the winner to be quite as good as he was. (Given a very good ride) He watched the dangers and beat them well, but was never going to get to the winner. Just caught a tartar, had Murtagh thought the stablemate was a danger he might have been closer, but he didnt. If the race was run again next week, I'd take 6/4 about the winner upholding the form. At fault to some extent but to me an understandable mistake.

Drumbeat - didnt find an awful lot when in the clear and had his chance, beaten in a driving finish and I dont think the horse is that great.

Anyone who wants to see Murtagh's poorest ride of the week, for me it was on Empowered in the last race of the meeting. Got up to dead heat, despite Hughes riding him to sleep, despite easing off in the final 50 yards thinking he was beaten. Dreadful ride yet "won".

conZ

You're not far off there at all Morgans. About time someone started talking sense around here. Jesus.

Regardless, found an interesting article from last year with Murtagh - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/racing/article4188097.ece

minty16

Not a hope. Frozen Fire was as shocking a ride as I've seen. He is an out and out stayer, so to hold him out the back was a bad decision. He had without question the best stamina in the race and Murtagh should have taken the running.

Drumbeat was just a poor tactical ride, he left the horse too much to do but he would not have anticipated the far side keeping on so well, no huge fault but not an A standard ride.

MasteroftheHorse was a weird one, although JM would not have even been thinking about Golden Sword being good enough.

On a brighter note, Murtagh gave Age of Aquarius a fantastic ride, and he was terribly unlucky on Westphalia( not that I think he would have been good enough anyway)

EDIT: What Murtagh said-Murtagh said: "There were five non-runners, I spoke to Aidan (O'Brien) and he said just drop him in and get him relaxed. Probably the way the race was run did not suit my horse. What can I do? Go on, get beaten and disobey all my orders or do what I'm told."

cson

And who do you think would be more qualified to comment on how Murtagh rides; His employer the Champion trainer, or a keyboard warrior like yourself?

Morgans

There appears to be several posters who know better than Aidan O'Brien what is best for Frozen Fire. I suppose that is fair.

Also interesting to note that out and out stayer Frozen Fire is entered in the 10f Tattersalls Gold Cup, Princess of Wales Stakes, Eclipse and Irish Champion stakes.

The two opponents against Frozen Fire at Chester were better suited to a slowly run race than Frozen Fire. I think that is beyond doubt, but to me Frozen Fire didnt let himself down on the ground and the turns - he did make an effort to join the leader and winner 3f out, but ended up being beaten in 1/2f. Horse will come a ton for the run but to me isnt any great shakes, the other two had race fitness on their side and easily said now of course but given the shape of the race, Frozen Fire was a ridiculous price.

RichieLawlor

minty16 wrote: »

. He is an out and out stayer, so to hold him out the back was a bad decision. He had without question the best stamina in the race and Murtagh should have taken the running.

How do you figure FF is an out and out stayer. thats not true imo, ran a shocker in the St Leger when he plainly didnt see out the trip, Everything went his way to win the Irish Derby, The horse is just a monkey plain and simple

kingshankly

there is no doubt frozen fire isnt great the irish derby he won wasnt great with all sorts of shenanigans happening.but was disappointed with his interview afterwards when he said he was "following instructions" to drop the horse out,surely johnnie is capable of thinking for himself as things wernt going to plan.there horse would probably have never won the race but one thing for sure he would of have had more of a chance had he made it the way things went he was a 50/1 shot.
no doubt his worse ride was empowered when he was clearly on the best horse but richard hughes rode him silly.

minty16

cson wrote: »

And who do you think would be more qualified to comment on how Murtagh rides; His employer the Champion trainer, or a keyboard warrior like yourself?

Don't be ridiculous. A forum is for people posting their opinions, You don't have to be 'qualified' to comment, thats one of the stupidest things I've heard. You think he gave him a good ride so, yes?

mike65

kingshankly wrote: »

there is no doubt frozen fire isnt great the irish derby he won wasnt great with all sorts of shenanigans happening.but was disappointed with his interview afterwards when he said he was "following instructions" to drop the horse out,surely johnnie is capable of thinking for himself as things wernt going to plan.there horse would probably have never won the race but one thing for sure he would of have had more of a chance had he made it the way things went he was a 50/1 shot.
no doubt his worse ride was empowered when he was clearly on the best horse but richard hughes rode him silly.

I wouldn't blame Murtagh he was only following the orders of his employer had he taken the inititve and still not won then he'd been in trouble with both the public and O'Brien. My quibble (I wasn'nt on the horses in question btw) was that A'OB seems to be using high profile races as schooling opportunities. I could even be checky and suggest he wasn't unhappy to see these horse 'underperform' in front of the C4 cameras with a view to the future.

Still we'll see what happens over the next few months.