October
AugustCheers for Cheers
Like Ray Connors (8/8), I would like to reply to Barbara Mercer (1/8, 8/8) on the Bindi Cheers debate.
In her second letter, Barbara states that Bart Cummings or Gai Waterhouse would not be asked questions about their horses because they would not give a two-year-old such a rigorous campaign.
Well I back up Richie Callander (1/8) on this one.
Let’s imagine the horse has raced 20 times but does not do any hard training during the week. Let’s say that it averages 1200m per race. That’s 24km covered at race pace as a two-year-old.
Now let’s say a horse runs 10 two-year-old races but trains hard three times a week, except in race weeks, when it trains hard twice and races once.
Okay, 1200m times 10 races is 12km. Let’s say training is 800m, three times a week for 26 weeks (six months). That is 68 workouts at 800m each, which equals 54.4km. Plus 12km in races equals 66.4km. That is a lot more than 24km.
Now I was watching tvn at the time Lucky Elmo came into the yard at Randwick on July 25 and the horse was still not at his peak in condition because, I assume, he had not been trained as hard as some of the others.
While looking through the form guide I noticed that Lucky Elmo had won more than $130,000, more than three times the bank of any other horse in the race — not bad for a horse who is, I think, two or three lengths off those he was racing against.
Maybe if he was trained to death and in peak form it might be up to that level.
But who has more of an idea?
The stewards, maybe? Me, the punter? No, I would go with the trainer, Bindi Cheers.
It’s a shame that a trainer with a different style is being subjected to this sort of rubbish from the stewards and the public for trying to do something different.
In England they run first starters over 2400m. To me that is strange, but it works.
Do people find it strange that Veiwed won the Melbourne Cup even though he raced only two days prior? No, beacuse that is something we’ve been brought up with, but I was watching a UK channel and the racing experts were amazed that such a thing could happen, as they were when Choisir won two big races in England within a cople of days.
I don’t believe anybody but the owners has the right to question Bindi about the training and racing of Lucky Elmo, who I might add is still good in condition and picking up plenty of prizemoney for those lucky enough to own him.
via e-mail