2023 Novice Hurdlers

[opatcho]

Cant recall Mullins being so bullish about a horse

[Altior]

Can recall Mullins being so bullish about a horse

He must be getting State Man and Vauban off the bit at home or something I've never seen Willie so openly honest in his appraisal for one of his own.

[YoungHustler]

Its not a weak division and you have no substance to your argument. Facile vega might be a weak favourite and I think that's what you really mean but I'm not going to put words in your mouth

Outlaw has clearly said its a weak division based on HIS opinion and ratings.

[DenmanSacre]

Its not a weak division and you have no substance to your argument. Facile vega might be a weak favourite and I think that's what you really mean but I'm not going to put words in your mouth

This time last year we had Constitution Hill, Jonbon, Dysart Dynamo, Sir Gerhard and Mighty Potter looking very good over 2m. Has this year's crop as a collective looked as good?

[AaronLad]

This time last year we had Constitution Hill, Jonbon, Dysart Dynamo, Sir Gerhard and Mighty Potter looking very good over 2m. Has this year's crop as a collective looked as good?

Constitution Hill is the best novice from any year i can recall therefore incomparable.
Dysart dynamo had won on debut by 19 lengths, gaelic warrior won by 86 lengths. I'm not saying gaelic warrior will stay at 2miles but his seasonal reappearance was 2miles.
I think there's at least 2 novices trained in Britain who LOOK as good if not better than Jonbon over hurdle at 2miles, Luccia and Rare edition are the 2 that spring to mind.
Sir gerhard had done less this time last year than facile vega (hadn't won a grade 1 over hurdles) and had a loss on his record.
mighty Potter had been beaten in the Royal bond, by statuaire. We have an unbeaten royal bond winner going straight to the supreme in marine nationale this season.
We still have the could be anythings, impaire et passe and artctic bresil two that would come under this category.
At the end of the day its a game of opinions, I was very surprised by the weakest division comments, it's one thing having an opinion it's another having an argument to back it up.

[CJW]

I've only just watched the full Facile Vega race and I think willie summed up the performance perfectly in his post race interview. Anyone that hasn't seen both should definitely check out the interview also.

[Quevega]

Constitution Hill is the best novice from any year i can recall therefore incomparable.
Dysart dynamo had won on debut by 19 lengths, gaelic warrior won by 86 lengths. I'm not saying gaelic warrior will stay at 2miles but his seasonal reappearance was 2miles.
I think there's at least 2 novices trained in Britain who LOOK as good if not better than Jonbon over hurdle at 2miles, Luccia and Rare edition are the 2 that spring to mind.
Sir gerhard had done less this time last year than facile vega (hadn't won a grade 1 over hurdles) and had a loss on his record.
mighty Potter had been beaten in the Royal bond, by statuaire. We have an unbeaten royal bond winner going straight to the supreme in marine nationale this season.
We still have the could be anythings, impaire et passe and artctic bresil two that would come under this category.
At the end of the day its a game of opinions, I was very surprised by the weakest division comments, it's one thing having an opinion it's another having an argument to back it up.

good stuff.

[Lobos]

Supreme hopefuls Jet Powered and Firestep both entered in same race at Newbury Saturday. Think Nicky will be heartened by Vegas 'underwhelming' performance yesterday.

[CJW]

Supreme hopefuls Jet Powered and Firestep both entered in same race at Newbury Saturday. Think Nicky will be heartened by Vegas 'underwhelming' performance yesterday.

It's a funny game but that's why we love it. I'd say nicky would be as impressed as willie was. Well maybe not,

What I mean is, its funny how a performance can be perceived so differently.

[Lobos]

It's a funny game but that's why we love it. I'd say nicky would be as impressed as willie was. Well maybe not,

What I mean is, its funny how a performance can be perceived so differently.

There was nothing wrong with his win but it didn't blow people away which is what I think we were all expecting. I think Willie was expecting more as well and he did seem a little flustered after when interviewed . Perhaps he was just undercooked a bit.

[DenmanSacre]

Constitution Hill is the best novice from any year i can recall therefore incomparable.
Dysart dynamo had won on debut by 19 lengths, gaelic warrior won by 86 lengths. I'm not saying gaelic warrior will stay at 2miles but his seasonal reappearance was 2miles.
I think there's at least 2 novices trained in Britain who LOOK as good if not better than Jonbon over hurdle at 2miles, Luccia and Rare edition are the 2 that spring to mind.
Sir gerhard had done less this time last year than facile vega (hadn't won a grade 1 over hurdles) and had a loss on his record.
mighty Potter had been beaten in the Royal bond, by statuaire. We have an unbeaten royal bond winner going straight to the supreme in marine nationale this season.
We still have the could be anythings, impaire et passe and artctic bresil two that would come under this category.
At the end of the day its a game of opinions, I was very surprised by the weakest division comments, it's one thing having an opinion it's another having an argument to back it up.

Gaelic needs to be seen again as his win is difficult to rate as it wasn't really a race. At the moment, he's still the same horse that failed to win a handicap off 129 when he had the run of the race and has been stated to be aiming for the Ballymore.

Jonbon had won a grade 2 comfortably from a proven low 140s horse in Colonel Mustard, a grade 2 bumper winner, a comfortable winner of the same race Luccia won this year and another grade 2 novice hurdle winner. I'm not Jonbon's biggest fan but that Kennel Gate form is leagues above anything Luccia or Rare Edition have done this year.

Sir Gerhard won his maiden very very easily with an RPR of 135 - better than FV put up on debut and he was only rated 3 pounds lower than FV as a bumper horse.

There are still horses that could be anything but the way Willie is talking about FV, they don't think they have one that can beat him so some may want to discount his other ones in this division.

I actually really like Arctic Bresil and hopefully he shows he's a good one in the Moscow Flyer. It may be in a months time that we have seen Arctic Bresil, Impaire et Passe, Quais de Paris, Jet Powered, Authorized Speed etc come out and put out bigger performances and that turns this from a potentially good division to a division with more substance.

At this time though, they aren't as good as last year's 2m division which looked top class.

This year's class does however look collectively better than the 2021, 2019, 2018 and 2017 divisions so I wouldn't particularly say it's weak. 2022 was a good division for me and they could end up as good as the 2020 division with Shishkin etc.

[CJW]

There was nothing wrong with his win but it didn't blow people away which is what I think we were all expecting. I think Willie was expecting more as well and he did seem a little flustered after when interviewed . Perhaps he was just undercooked a bit.

I didn't get that impression with the interview, the opposite in fact, willie broke the race down well and was calm enough, smirking when mentioning Danny thought he'd pass him, quoting Paul let out a inch of rein and just galloped away.

[DenmanSacre]

There was nothing wrong with his win but it didn't blow people away which is what I think we were all expecting. I think Willie was expecting more as well and he did seem a little flustered after when interviewed . Perhaps he was just undercooked a bit.

I'd agree with you. He didn't find that much after the last and I think they will be surprised how close Il Etait Temps got.

If Jet Powered etc beat Il Etait Temps by 4 lengths, we wouldn't be impressed.

[Lobos]

He's had two races now where he's just looked 'Good'.... yesterday and at Punchestown when he had to fight off Redemption Day. That may well be good enough to win the Supreme but I don't think as many now will be looking to avoid him. He could easily blow us away again at the DRF though as that'll hopefully be a stronger race/pace.

[charlie]

Willie said after the race 'I think Facile Vega will learn an awful lot from today', but I'm not so sure about what a novice learns in races that are effectively a gimme. It's certainly a tick in the plus column that he likes to get on with it as he could pop off in the Supreme and not see a rival, but, and it's a big but, what happens when he does? We don't know (and nor does Willie) how he'll cope with something coming upside him down the hill at Cheltenham. He might keep finding and just be a superstar, he might fold like wet tissue paper, we don't know and its because we don't know that I find 11/10 is far too short. He's a good hurdler but you'd be ballsy making a case he's better than that. At 11/10 this far out I want mustard jumping.

After that performance I think there are some interesting horses in behind FV that are worth talking about. Even at this early stage it's probably not unreasonable to assume FV is going to want to make the running in the Supreme and play catch me if you can tactics. Thats going to suit a horse with lots of natural pace that has tons of stamina in their pedigree. For that reason I think Arctic Bresil is interesting. I was confident he'd be a Ballymore type but Henry said 'he has a lot of pace so we will stick to two miles' and he's off to the Grade 2 Moscow Flyer over 2m in the middle of January, so target looks fairly nailed on. I thought he was worth way more than the winning margin on debut, given that he missed a few jumps and travelled far too keenly early on. He was uncomfortable going the crawl they went and it turned into a bit of sprint which he relished. To win the way he did off the back of that suggests there is a serious horse in there, and his breeding and price tag would certainly suggest that too. I think that 33/1 is too big and if you're worried about FV then 16/1 in the W/O market is also fair. Personally, I'd take the former as I think FV is ripe to be shot at and AB was just as good as most the others quoted ahead of him on debut. If he improves he could turn into a serious rival to FV and the market is crying out for something to put their head above the parapet and be that horse.