A lot of excitement both here and across social media generally with Skelton's two novices this week.
Fair enough but It's barely mid October, we've seen no other GB novice chasers of note, and the Irish are yet to show their hand.
Dare I say, it's all a bit presumptuous?
Its always going to happen, happens every year. Both runs were largely meaningless, and I personally couldn't care less about them as I think they mean absolutely nothing.
I fancy kabral du mathan for the arkle because I think hes a very good horse, and probably has more ability than the likes of old park star and sober glory. But the amount I fancy him hasn't really changed much after yesterday. Its nice that he didnt fall and put in some good leaps, made nice shapes etc. But so did jimmy du seuil on his chasing debut. It can be easy enough to make nice shapes when its basically a schooling session with no other horse interested in winning and no horses upsides him putting pressure on. All it really tells us is he's decent at jumping when theres no pressure on him, which is nice but probably always likely anyway.
Sinnatra I didnt really have on my mind, so his performance is similarly meaningless to me. He jumped nice enough, and possibly had a bit more to beat than kabral, but was still a poor race. Lot of people talking about how Skelton didnt move on him, but he hasn't struck me as a horse that finds a lot when asked anyway, so not sure the winning distance would have been a whole lot more if he was asked.
Also on a side note, while I was watching the kabral race the fences didnt look overly challenging to me? Maybe someone a bit more familiar with the course would know more, but on the one viewing I seen of them they looked small enough, so not sure they are the greatest test either, but maybe just might have been the camera angle.
Basically at this time of year these horses are going to keep shortening for doing nothing, so im backing some of them who I know are going to shorten with the idea of laying off my stake, maybe before they even run if they get short enough, or after they win a nothing race. Narciso has is another example of this. I dont particularly rate him highly, i just thought he was decent, I wasnt hugely impressed with him last season and dont know why some people seem to think he's the second coming, but nevertheless they do. So people are going to keep bigging him up, and hes trained by mullins and owned by jp, so he'll keep shortening. Wouldn't surprise me if he was 5s or 6s for the arkle before he even runs, which is insanity, but it happens every year. And if he wins a nothing race against horses who have no interest in getting close to him, he'll probably be 3/1. So its a good idea to get him backed at double figures, even if like me you dont particularly fancy him at this stage.