Cheltenham Handicap Shortlists

[Morley Street]

Main target is the National. Ultima or Midlands National on the way.

Yard had a virus over Christmas. Needs to perform at Exeter.

Thanks Boopa... definitely one I want to keep on side, be interesting to see how she performs on Sunday. Tempted with 12s NRNB for the Ultima ahead of the run as no doubt she’ll be cut if showing up well.

[boopa]

Definitely nrnb. He thinks she needs soft ground hence the Midlands National option.

[jono]

The link between hurdle and chase ratings
Races over hurdles and chases present different challenges. We therefore produce separate handicap ratings for each discipline.

Most horses making their debut in chases have already raced over hurdles. To avoid starting the qualification procedure over fences from scratch, we apply a horse’s hurdle rating to handicap chases. However, it must start over fences in a novice event, either in a weight-for-age contest or a handicap.

Where a horse continues to race over hurdles and fences and therefore holds a published mark for both codes, each mark is reassessed whenever it runs. Its performances in each discipline may be taken into account for either rating. Of course, this applies as much to dropping a horse’s mark as it does for increasing it.

Some horses do not revert to hurdles once they go chasing, so after thre consecutive chase starts we delete the hurdle rating. If such a horse is entered in a hurdle, we will provide a figure at this point. This is also available to trainers at any time on request.

Doesn't look great does it...

The optimist hopes that Elliott has been in touch and got this figure on request at some stage and it is not the 160 'default'. There's no doubt the comment from Elliott was made in relation to that 142 at the start of the year. However I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't quite aware of the rules either. In the past i've always assumed most trainers, especially an operation as large and as good as Elliotts would have race planning / entries/ ratings etc locked down. We've seen that may not be the case though. Mullins recently thought Ballyward was entered in the RSA. Waiting Paitently and Coneygree both accidently missed entries to the BetVictor and King George and so on...

160 would be madness. There's only 2 horses in England that are rated higher - Buveur D'Air (172) and Paisley Park (168).
Gordon and co could be in for a shock if not.

Anything below 150 and I would be happy...IF a figure can be produced rather than taking his current chase mark.

[Rhinestone_Cowboy]

Doesn't look great does it...

The optimist hopes that Elliott has been in touch and got this figure on request at some stage and it is not the 160 'default'. There's no doubt the comment from Elliott was made in relation to that 142 at the start of the year. However I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't quite aware of the rules either. In the past i've always assumed most trainers, especially an operation as large and as good as Elliotts would have race planning / entries/ ratings etc locked down. We've seen that may not be the case though. Mullins recently thought Ballyward was entered in the RSA. Waiting Paitently and Coneygree both accidently missed entries to the BetVictor and King George and so on...

160 would be madness. There's only 2 horses in England that are rated higher - Buveur D'Air (172) and Paisley Park (168).
Gordon and co could be in for a shock if not.

Anything below 150 and I would be happy...IF a figure can be produced rather than taking his current chase mark.

To be fair though Jono GE never mentions Cheltenham, and with my understanding being that TS will retain a favoured hurdles mark in Ireland, giving GE the benefit of the doubt he may well have meant a big handicap hurdle in Ireland

[Kevloaf]

To be fair though Jono GE never mentions Cheltenham, and with my understanding being that TS will retain a favoured hurdles mark in Ireland, giving GE the benefit of the doubt he may well have meant a big handicap hurdle in Ireland

They could well go for a Gold Cup for the day out and won a huge handicap at Punchestown....

I hadn't thought about that.

Pretty sure scooby did.

Annoying when he's right haha

[FaugheenTheMachine]

Betfair are on a stable visit at Gordon’s today and there’s a video going up later which includes discussion on The Storyteller; might want to get your fingers over the cash out button depending what Gordy says

[Rhinestone_Cowboy]

They could well go for a Gold Cup for the day out and won a huge handicap at Punchestown....

I hadn't thought about that.

Pretty sure scooby did.

Annoying when he's right haha

The other thing to bear in mind is say he gets rated 150 over here and they do think about running in a Festival handicap, would his performance there then impact his rating in Ireland? If it did, and bearing in mind he might get rated as low as 144 over there, GE will need to be pretty confident that TS will go close off 150 at the Festival or risk scuppering his Irish mark and not winning anything. What a minefield ... haha!

[charlie]

Betfair are on a stable visit at Gordon’s today and there’s a video going up later which includes discussion on The Storyteller; might want to get your fingers over the cash out button depending what Gordy says

Thanks for this info, fingers crossed!

[Rhinestone_Cowboy]

Thanks for this info, fingers crossed!

Yeah good to know, one thing I’m placing a bit of hope on is that PP/BFSB price cut from 20s to 12s...we’ll see

[JackieMoon33]

Flawless Escape entered in the Pertemps Qualifier at Musselburgh on Sunday. He’s been given a mark of 136 and will need to run in order to get qualified unless they go for Punchestown instead. I’m personally not a fan after he bombed in the Martin Pipe when favourite last year.

[jack1092]

I've been pestering the handicappers a little lol BHA's response on TS below:

Hi Jack,



As this horse is Irish trained we don’t have any published marks for him at present. We only give marks to Irish horses when they are entered for a race over here or connections inquire as to what their mark would be in GB.



We keep our own ratings for all Irish jumps races. Therefore, when an Irish-trained horse is entered for a race over here, we use our own ratings to formulate a handicap mark for the horse in question rather than rely on the Irish handicap mark.



Regarding hurdle/chase ratings, we can (and do) take account of form shown in the alternate code when assessing a horse. So a horse’s hurdle mark could move up or down depending on how it gets on over fences, and vice versa.



Hope this helps.

Andrew

[Scooby91]

Flawless Escape entered in the Pertemps Qualifier at Musselburgh on Sunday. He’s been given a mark of 136 and will need to run in order to get qualified unless they go for Punchestown instead. I’m personally not a fan after he bombed in the Martin Pipe when favourite last year.

Thanks
Id be interested in him. On his 3mile hurdle run in the DRF handicap hurdle last year it reads well.

[Scooby91]

Thanks
Id be interested in him. On his 3mile hurdle run in the DRF handicap hurdle last year it reads well.

******
Just seen his price. Not at them odds I wouldn't be

[JackieMoon33]

******
Just seen his price. Not at them odds I wouldn't be

He’s only recently been added to the Pertemps market and someone has gone straight to SkyBet NRNB and screwed the price up.

[Innoko]

Lots of blue for The Storyteller..