Irish Grand National 2018

djPSB

piplip87 wrote: »

Was looking at the trainers championship and no matter the result, Mullins still is by far the best trainer with a winning strike rate of 33%. Elliotts strike rate is abysmal at just 18%. I suppose if you win 70 egg and spoon races at 10k each it makes the difference.

Fair play to Gordon. But not great seeing 13 horses from one trainer in a race.

Limestone1

djPSB wrote: »

Fair play to Gordon. But not great seeing 13 horses from one trainer in a race.

Yeah - is this a record ? He really seems to be throwing everything at winning the trainers champioship

Motivator

Good and all as it is seeing the brilliant Grade 1 animals that Gordon and Willie have, it’s destroying Irish Racing. It’s no coincidence that the rise of both stables in the last 5 or 6 years has coincided with the fall in attendances.

13 horses from one yard, with 10 running in the same colours is nothing short of a joke. In my opinion, the big days and Festivals have lost their appeal and they’re just benefit days for Gordon and Willie. It’s not their fault that they’re so good but Gigginstown are just taking over nowadays. Give me a small Friday night in Kilbeggan or a Tuesday in Sligo in the summer. Gigginstown will be represented but they won’t have half the runners on the entire card.

McManus at least sends his horses to a huge number of Irish trainers and he keeps a lot of the smaller yards going.

djPSB

One would think there should be a limit of 5 horses per race for a trainer/owner.

piplip87

Motivator wrote: »

Good and all as it is seeing the brilliant Grade 1 animals that Gordon and Willie have, it’s destroying Irish Racing. It’s no coincidence that the rise of both stables in the last 5 or 6 years has coincided with the fall in attendances.

13 horses from one yard, with 10 running in the same colours is nothing short of a joke. In my opinion, the big days and Festivals have lost their appeal and they’re just benefit days for Gordon and Willie. It’s not their fault that they’re so good but Gigginstown are just taking over nowadays. Give me a small Friday night in Kilbeggan or a Tuesday in Sligo in the summer. Gigginstown will be represented but they won’t have half the runners on the entire card.

McManus at least sends his horses to a huge number of Irish trainers and he keeps a lot of the smaller yards going.

Its hurting the small trainer too much. At least with the flat, O'Brien sends his all around the world, and the English boys do send over their big names as for Mullins and Elliott putting 6 or 13 in a race is brutal.

Change the trainers championship to strike rate but they must have 600 runners to qualify. It might make them pick their races a little better.

Hopefully some of the English Horses come over for Punchestown. Good ground may entice some of them over.

Gavin "shels"

Gavin shels wrote: »

Taking Folsom Blue & Sutton Manor (my trend pick)

Gutted with Folsom Blue again ... Welsh GN postponement, Irish GN hampered extremely badly.... 3rd time lucky wherever he goes?

NinetyTwoTeam

Pathetic how the commentators on rte were singing the praises of the handicapper and saying it was a great race. It was rubbish, as all GN's are. the 2 most likely/deserved winners got taken out of it bc Bellshill got tired at the last and less than half the field get home. favorite and others all gone in a heap. just a bookies paradise race for suckers.

ANDREWMUFC

Yep these grand national races are sh*ite. Pure novelty races that are complete lotteries

posturingpat

NinetyTwoTeam wrote: »

Pathetic how the commentators on rte were singing the praises of the handicapper and saying it was a great race. It was rubbish, as all GN's are. the 2 most likely/deserved winners got taken out of it bc Bellshill got tired at the last and less than half the field get home. favorite and others all gone in a heap. just a bookies paradise race for suckers.

How could they not praise the handicapper? To have such a tight finish after such a slog is a wet dream for the handicapper. As they went by the line the first thing I said was the handicapper will be delighted with himself (and rightly so)

danganabu

NinetyTwoTeam wrote: »

Pathetic how the commentators on rte were singing the praises of the handicapper and saying it was a great race. It was rubbish, as all GN's are. the 2 most likely/deserved winners got taken out of it bc Bellshill got tired at the last and less than half the field get home. favorite and others all gone in a heap. just a bookies paradise race for suckers.

Or just maybe they actually know what their talking about!!

Gavin "shels"

Gavin shels wrote: »

Down to 6 which meet the trends...

Mall Dini
Jetstream Jack
Call It Magic
Sutton Manor
Westerner Point
Killaro Boy

Out of the 6 trend horses just one finished - Call it Magic in 7th.

longshotvalue

I love National Hunt Racing, but there is just no way that race should have run yesterday. It was a tough watch all the way. Id hazard a guess that most of the courses that had racing put off in the uk yesterday would have had better ground. The finish that they were all saying was great was actually a shameful watch and fodder for all the nutters that want to ban racing.

I mean for feck sake just run it next Saturday or something.

I'm usually a willie apologist, but id have to question running cheltenham horses on that ground so soon after the festival just because of a stupid trainers championship that means nothing. Same goes for the likes of Maldini who had a hard race at cheltenham as well.

EICVD

Some ****e posted on this thread the last few pages.

antietam

I backed Bellshill with a few Euro as I firmly believed he was the class act.Mullins is not happy that a "bright light"caught his eye[Bellshill] at the last where the jockey said"he still had a ton in hand and I could not see from this light".Mullins has now put a team of investigators in place to investigate this incident.

antietam

Nulty wrote: »

Don't think I've seen a horse stop as fast as Forge Meadow there

Maybe Kate broke off the relationship with Joseph that was so strong last year to Jessies detriment.

supremenovice

antietam wrote: »

Maybe Kate broke off the relationship with Joseph that was so strong last year to Jessies detriment.

Care to elaborate?

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

antietam

ziggy wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

That is the trainers prerogative I would Imagine but you with superior knowledge might tell Willie Mullins that he is clueless.As I recently posted there some very brilliant posters with serious knowledge on this site and then again there are you.

ziggy

This post has been deleted.

finglashoop

antietam wrote: »

That is the trainers prerogative I would Imagine but you with superior knowledge might tell Willie Mullins that he is clueless.As I recently posted there some very brilliant posters with serious knowledge on this site and then again there are you.

Where is this investigator quote?

I did see mullins said he would review the tape as the horse may have been distracted by someone in a high vis vest, jockey said he felt he had plenty left in engine.

BumperD

Interesting article by Blake on this debate about domination of the big two owners and trainers

http://www.attheraces.com/blogs/kevin-blake

selectamatic

I find the bright light story a tad convenient especially since it was David riding.

That said I'm a sour punter who had arkwrisht backed e/w so perhaps that's colouring my opinion.

Anyone know how many places Ladbrokes were paying on?

Francie Barrett

BumperD wrote: »

Interesting article by Blake on this debate about domination of the big two owners and trainers

http://www.attheraces.com/blogs/kevin-blake

Have you ever read as much fawning, self-servicing rubbish in your life. Of course Kevin Blake won't criticise the status quo, he is dependent on access to these big hitters in order to have a career. His suggestion that all trainers need to do to get horses into their yards is have a Facebook page is just beyond contempt.

famagusta

That's exactly right. He's too afraid to call it like it is. Races like the Ryanair at the weekend are not good for racing. The normal punters will get turned off with a gang of giggy horses in every race

maximo31

Francie Barrett wrote: »

Have you ever read as much fawning, self-servicing rubbish in your life. Of course Kevin Blake won't criticise the status quo, he is dependent on access to these big hitters in order to have a career. His suggestion that all trainers need to do to get horses into their yards is have a Facebook page is just beyond contempt.

Tony Mullins not too impressed with it either. Having it out with him on Twitter!

BumperD

Elliott has become very popular due to success on the track just like Mullins before. I’m a little shocked reading the responses here, what do you want communist style leveling to reward mediocrity in terms of trainers and their results?

I acknowledge it’s far from ideal in fact a little disastrous in terms of two trainers dominating but let the others up their game rather than punishing success, seems completely ludicrous to suggest we start that and alien to everything any straight thinking person should be aiming for imo

Motivator

BumperD wrote: »

Elliott has become very popular due to success on the track just like Mullins before. I’m a little shocked reading the responses here, what do you want communist style leveling to reward mediocrity in terms of trainers and their results?

I acknowledge it’s far from ideal in fact a little disastrous in terms of two trainers dominating but let the others up their game rather than punishing success, seems completely ludicrous to suggest we start that and alien to everything any straight thinking person should be aiming for imo

In fairness it’s very difficult to expect other trainers to “up their game” when the likes of Gigginstown and JP are buying horses for €400,000. The powerful owners are going to send the horses to the powerful yards and while I get that, it’s very frustrating as a racing fan to see that.

The average owner can no longer compete because even average animals are now fetching €100k+ at the sales and for those able to source the odd decent horse for small money they’ll end up getting an offer they can’t refuse off the big operations. A local lad to me here in Cork had a pointer that he bred himself. It won a ptp and he ended up having to sell it when an offer came in. He wanted to keep the horse but had to sell it on as he just isn’t wealthy enough to pass up a potentially one in a lifetime deal. I haven’t met him since to get the full details off him but I’m interested to see what happened and how the deal was done. He’s happy it’s gone to a big yard and they’ll hopefully get the best out of it but all he wanted was to keep it himself and have it in training locally.

BumperD

Well I’d say he’s very happy to trouser the cash, buy a new one with some of the profits and see can he keep a new one in training for fun.

Regrading the prices, I agree 100%, the prices are getting a little out of control and beyond the reach of most bar a small few. I don’t know the solution but certainly punishing successful trainers is one I would be totally against. If Elliott was able start 10 yrs ago from nothing and I see olly Murphy off to a flyer already in the uk, there is surely an opportunity for others? That I’m certain of. Sure you can look at the results of some top trainers in the uk with the firepower they have it’s shocking (don’t name names here as it’s not necessary), equally, some big owners are paying through the nose for bloodstock who are also mentioned here and I’ve no idea how they’re results are so poor, again surely an opportunity.

danganabu

BumperD wrote: »

Well I’d say he’s very happy to trouser the cash, buy a new one with some of the profits and see can he keep a new one in training for fun.

Yeah I would see the massive increase in prices as the silver lining to be perfectly honest, surely when a few are willing to pay above and beyond the real value for an asset it is a benefit to the small man at the end of the supply chain i.e. the breeders and the point to point handlers and owners.

I agree with your over riding sentiment Bumper and that of Kevin Blake that punishing those that are successful is not the answer (mind you I would agree with some sort of a cap on number of entries from one owner in a race) and I do think a lot of the discontent, not all of it mind but a lot, is owing to the fact that the two owners dominating the Irish scene (Gigginstown primarily and Ricci to a lesser extent) are both shall we say not very likeable!

Joe_ Public

Read some of that twitter exchange before it started to get silly and have to agree with Tony Mullins. Author is living on another planet with regards to that article. Mullins has been in the business all his life so, with the greatest respect, I'm inclined to hear his view before the authors. Also like to know what the likes of Charlie Swan, Joanna Morgan, David Wachman etc would make of that piece? If only they'd tried harder, set up a twitter account etc

Reality is, and he gets to it towards the end, you can make it to the top if you are focussed, single minded and just incredibly driven enough to make it your life. Henry de Bromhead and Ger Lyons on the flat are examples of that. But where would Henry be now if it hadnt been for the Potts patronage? And as hard and driven and admirable as Ger Lyons is, the reality is the best he can hope for is for a few leftover crumbs from the top table. How many want to strive so hard in their lives for that much limited success? Not many I would say.

It seems also that people are equating genuine concern for the competitiveness of Irish racing with disdain for both Mullins and Elliott and what they have achieved. Which is abject nonsense. It's both possible to admire what they have done and still feel concern at the way racing is going. I attended nearly every Cheltenham festival in the 90s and still feel chills when I think of Danoli and Dorans Pride and the heroic efforts of the Bowes to win a Stayers with the great Istabraq conqueror Limestone Lad. My abiding memory of this year (Gold Cup apart that is!) is the RUK interviewer catching Elliott with "well Gordon here we are again, you must be happy with that?" and signing off the same interview with "well done Gordon, I'm sure we'll be talking again." No slight at all on a great trainer, but I cant help but be ever so slightly weary of it all.