General Chat

[EnvoiAlien]

Friday morning most likely,I doubt they'd have him stabled on course for 48hrs.

[HesTheOne]

Off to the DRF for the first time and also planning to visit the Irish national stud to see me old pal Faugheen, just wondering oif anyone has been and done the "Irish racehorse experience" there and how they found it? Looks like a laugh if nothing else.

It’s like an interactive walk through building of all things horse racing, they won some awards for it & only a fiver too worth a go.

National Stud is fantastic place to see

[Muswell]

Agreed I pop in pretty much every year

[Faugheen]

It’s like an interactive walk through building of all things horse racing, they won some awards for it & only a fiver too worth a go.

National Stud is fantastic place to see

Cheers for the reply, looking forward to it.

[archie]

Friday morning most likely,I doubt they'd have him stabled on course for 48hrs.

Willie commonly travels his Saturday runners over on the Thursday and boards them at Aintree overnight to Friday. With the weather issues at Ascot he might have held off this time though.

[jack1092]

https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/edouard-monfort-willie-mullins-taught-me-that-horses-can-take-a-lot-of-work/?fbclid=IwAR33SpFdZQuLPi8aqMlX1panOHwZcCDQcf-4CLuFjCf2lO_evrNJ2cD0MyI

Nice enough Friday read for those interested in WPMs links in France...

[EnvoiAlien]

Willie commonly travels his Saturday runners over on the Thursday and boards them at Aintree overnight to Friday. With the weather issues at Ascot he might have held off this time though.

I never knew he took them to Aintree enroute,it'd make sense to do something like that as it cuts down the time stuck in a horsebox considerably,I assumed he wouldn't take them to a course 48hrs in advance as it's a fair amount of time to stable one away from home,also some courses don't even have someone available to get a box ready for you so far in advance of raceday,but getting a box ready yourself doesn't take 5 minutes.

[HesTheOne]

After Kevin Blake’s comments on the mares chase, If you could remove a race or 2 what would you choose?

NHC to be a 150 handicap was a good suggestion I seen, let the strong guns take the BANC route if they are of that quality.

Mares Chase and Hurdle to take place on trials day instead, with the winners taking on the geldings at Cheltenham was a good suggestion too.

scrap the 2.5 mile novice chase and keep the novice chase options for Cheltenham 2m or 3m. Arkle and BANC would benefit tremendously for it.

[Dandrew99]

scrap the 2.5 mile novice chase and keep the novice chase options for Cheltenham 2m or 3m. Arkle and BANC would benefit tremendously for it.

And our heads... scrap the Ballymore while we're at it too and this Mullins bingo stuff would be a piece of cake

[Istabraq]

After Kevin Blake’s comments on the mares chase, If you could remove a race or 2 what would you choose?

NHC to be a 150 handicap was a good suggestion I seen, let the strong guns take the BANC route if they are of that quality.

Mares Chase and Hurdle to take place on trials day instead, with the winners taking on the geldings at Cheltenham was a good suggestion too.

scrap the 2.5 mile novice chase and keep the novice chase options for Cheltenham 2m or 3m. Arkle and BANC would benefit tremendously for it.

I would guess there are fair few in the game that agree with Blake, but there's zero chance they bin three races that have only been introduced in the last dozen years having already binned that pointless 20f nov handicap chase someone thought was a good idea.
There are many in here closer to the games inner circles than me but I'm guessing the investment in the mares programme is viewed upon as a big success ?

If I had to get rid of any race it'd be the Grand Annual, 0-35, horrific race, can't stand it, bin it !
Unless Third Time Lucki obliges...

[ToniC]

After Kevin Blake’s comments on the mares chase, If you could remove a race or 2 what would you choose?

I’d change little to be fair. Probably make the mares hurdle & Chase 155 max OR or something like that. Get rid of one of the plate/ultima/Kim Miur and bring the novices handicap back. Not sure how this new set of rules for the pertemps will work out but it deserves a chance I guess.

oh and the foxhunters can go. Replace it with a mares bumper

[Istabraq]

I’d change little to be fair. Probably make the mares hurdle & Chase 155 max

Mares hurdle is a G1, you'd restrict it to horses rated 155 or less ?

[Quevega]

Been through this before. But I like chatting about it.


1. The Mares hurdle and Chase on trials day is a good idea, and mares novice hurdle I'd add. This is also good as their is not really a major mares race at Dublin, aside from a handicap hurdle and bumper race,.
So get rid of all three and run them on trials day (with a bonus offered for winning again at the festival).

2. Bumper limited to 5 year olds. encourage more to go hurdling earlier so we see those go chasing earlier etc etc


3. Remove both mid trip novice races and make them 0-145 handicaps instead, for novices only.

4. Make all other handicaps for non novices.

5. Lose the Martin Pipe as it effectively would be the new novice hurdle handicap at 2m 4f.
Lose the NH chase altogether. No longer a good race as not enough qualify or enter.

6. To replace the NH chase - Make a new race for veteran chasers over 3m 6f, with qualifying criteria of 10 or above and horses with festival records (i.e must have finished placed at a previous festival), could also be amateur riders. This would also please the safety squad. Nice Nostalgia for festival goers also.

I think that would mean we are 4 races down, so could go 6 per day.

My most revolutionary idea which was very popular last time was to also make the festival a 2 x weekender, with the festival held over 2 weekends in March,
And if the races were spaced properly this would allow some of the really good novices to go for the older generation the week after if they fancied it.

This would maximise exposure for the sport and prolong the interest as the build up to weekend one and then the following week towards weekend 2 would boost coverage and interest by a lot.

Could be Friday/Saturday both weekends so that they can get some corporate monies.

Not ideal for 4 day festival goers granted, but that's just 60k people per day (and probably less than half of those will have travelled far for the full 4 days), So maybe 30k people inconvenienced, compared to the TV audiences gained then that's minimal.
And some might like a few rest days off the guinness anyway.

Be better for the groundsman and potential rescheduling also.
And the town would benefit even more.

[ToniC]

Mares hurdle is a G1, you'd restrict it to horses rated 155 or less ?

I suppose you’d probably have to make it a grade 2 or something? If they’re genuinely good enough they should run in the champion/stayers hurdles imo.

[ToniC]

Oh and make the 4 miler the 4 miler again!!!! Including getting rid of the silly qualification criteria