2024 Novice Chasers

[FinalFurlong91]

Reading Nicholls' stable tour on Sporting Life – anyone else tempted by Hermes Allen for the Turners? Even regarding Captain Teague, Paul says: "Whatever he does over hurdles will be good, but he will be some chaser next season. He is as good as the likes of Hermes Allen."

Nicholls describing him as not the biggest was enough to put me off him without seeing him jump

[Benjy23]

Nicholls actually names the BANC as the target for Stay Away Fay in the SL tour today. Maybe an obvious plan A but had seen NHC mentioned previously.

[opatcho]

Reading Nicholls' stable tour on Sporting Life – anyone else tempted by Hermes Allen for the Turners? Even regarding Captain Teague, Paul says: "Whatever he does over hurdles will be good, but he will be some chaser next season. He is as good as the likes of Hermes Allen."

Yeah, I know it’s been mentioned on here that Hermes looks small, and with SAF being aimed at the Kauto Star and BANC, I think I may have to start confiding backing Hermes for the Turners

[Bonjers]

I can easily see Hermes getting a Conti style novice season with the Scilly Isles and then a step up to 3m at Aintree being the main targets.

[charlie]

Nicholls actually names the BANC as the target for Stay Away Fay in the SL tour today. Maybe an obvious plan A but had seen NHC mentioned previously.

I loved that from Paul. He named the exact route which you do with the good ones - Exeter debut - KS novice chase - BANC

[Benjy23]

I loved that from Paul. He named the exact route which you do with the good ones - Exeter debut - KS novice chase - BANC

Yea, it's exactly what you hope for from a stable tour. And basically never get from anyone other than Nicholls.

[opatcho]

Fair play to Nichols, but… it’s a lot easier when you only have 2-3 grade 1 novices from last year, and out of those… they’re going chasing this year, with Kempton on the cards and the Turners or BANC being the only play

[Benjy23]

Fair play to Nichols, but… it’s a lot easier when you only have 2-3 grade 1 novices from last year, and out of those… they’re going chasing this year, with Kempton on the cards and the Turners or BANC being the only play

Not sure I follow this logic to be honest. If you have 10 grade 1 novices going chasing this year is there suddenly more Grade 1s available at Cheltenham than the Arkle, Turners or BANC?

[HesTheOne]

Not sure I follow this logic to be honest. If you have 10 grade 1 novices going chasing this year is there suddenly more Grade 1s available at Cheltenham than the Arkle, Turners or BANC?

I’d say it’s more so Paul doesn’t have the issue of trying to plan his novices on different paths and targets i.e avoiding each other. It’s pretty easy circles to circles squares to squares for Nicholls.

The Mullins bingo/vagueness largely comes down to him not 100% knowing where they could go given there’s 7 million odd horses running around his gallop

[Benjy23]

I’d say it’s more so Paul doesn’t have the issue of trying to plan his novices on different paths and targets i.e avoiding each other. It’s pretty easy circles to circles squares to squares for Nicholls.

The Mullins bingo/vagueness largely comes down to him not 100% knowing where they could go given there’s 7 million odd horses running around his gallop

I'm sure Mullins has got more ideas than he's giving away, let's put it that way.

[Istabraq]

Last of the 10s gone Mister Policeman.
Best price 8/1 (Arkle)…

[opatcho]

Last of the 10s gone Mister Policeman.
Best price 8/1 (Arkle)…

Very short now, very short!!!

[Rooster Booster]

I’d say it’s more so Paul doesn’t have the issue of trying to plan his novices on different paths and targets i.e avoiding each other. It’s pretty easy circles to circles squares to squares for Nicholls.

The Mullins bingo/vagueness largely comes down to him not 100% knowing where they could go given there’s 7 million odd horses running around his gallop

It’s actually a lot more down to the vastly different personality types they have. I have mentioned this a number of times before in an attempt to help manage people’s expectations but I am failing miserably i think but I am happy to give it another go.

PN is VERY structured, strategic, planful. He has very clear thought processes driven by strong logic and reason. He is pragmatic almost to a fault and highly analytical. When he uses these strengths he can see paths very clearly and help others to see these pathways too.

This allows him to build long term plans and help others execute on those plans. We have seen him do this successfully many times and as punters we would be wise to take note when he lays out these plans and we see these plans successfully start to unfold in front of us. This has been, is and always will be a winning strategy for him, it is where he is at his best and there is nobody better at this imo. Dan Skelton has learnt this and we see similar traits in him.

What he may not be as good as is being spontaneous and reactive. He is not great at letting things emerge and building emerging plans rather than longer term ones. Often he comes across as being quite obstinate and stubborn and I see this frustrating this forum from time to time. If he was not like this we wouldn’t have his strengths either. A way to look at it …He is a Z to A person . He starts at Z (say the king George for bravemansgame) and he works back from there and he will if you like stubbornly stick to that plan even if it seems to others that he is ignoring opportunities that emerge along the way or making sub optimal short term decisions.

WM is much more intuitive, spontaneous, he has a sort of strategic thought process but it is emerging strategy and not planful strategy. He operates in the world of possibilities, he considers many different options and understands the importance of reacting and responding to new data points if, as, and when they emerge. In his mind very little is certain or fixed until all the data points have been considered. This helps him reach his Z by reacting and responding with flexibility and deftness to any and every new data point that emerges. This is what makes Willie the genius that he is. There is nobody better imo at using new and emerging data points and changing paths if necessary.

Because we on FJ are looking to make financial investments as early as possible we are looking for something as close to certainty as early as we can get it. This is not something we should expect or even want WM to do. When he is at his best he allows his natural strengths of embracing possibilities, open mindedness and his emerging elements to dominate. When he fights these instincts he can get a little dogmatic about a horse (typically when he is invested emotionally) and this is when he can make sub optimal decisions imo. The more we want him to be certain and precise the more we will stifle all the things that make him the genius that he is.

We have to embrace these strengths that make these individuals true greats in their chosen fields. The next time we get frustrated by PNs stubbornness or lack of flexibility or refusal to deviate from the clear path he has set down for his better horses we should remind ourselves that if he wasn’t like this he would be half the trainer he is now.

The next time Willie does our head in by changing his mind for the 12th time we need to remind ourselves that no matter how frustrating that is for us as long term investors, if he listened to us and gave us the certainty we crave he would be far less successful.

There is so much more to this than I have put but I’ve likely bored you enough already , but perhaps as a starter this may be useful to some I hope.

[HesTheOne]

Rooster Booster good post and I agree with your observations on different personalities. I would add surely the stock they have to run and the personalities we see are correlated.

Mullins definitely does a Z-A plan for his many of his stars we see that in the tour just can’t expect everything to be laid out when there is so many variables for that yard.

On the point in question, if Nicholls ran Closutton I don’t think we’d get any more antepost direction when you’ve 5, 6, or 7 grade 1 chasers to plan for with the added aim of avoiding each other.

[Fouroverthrutwo]

Marine Nationale apparently makes his chasing debut at Navan on the 18th November:

https://twitter.com/GingerJoeRacing/status/1717237451473690720