A CAVEAT: THE most famous race in the world does not do it for me.
I have not backed a winner of the Grand National, unless you count Hedgehunter the year before.
My relative ambivalence is more to do with it being a handicap, now in many respects a high-class handicap chase like any other high-class handicap chase, horrible races to solve as a punter.
The National which gave the small trainer the chance to dream is now a classier race, the fences not what used to be. All of this would of course be obsolete were I to have an involvement in a horse running in it.
Still, the Tiger Roll weight debate is compelling beyond sporting considerations. The little horse returns Sunday week at Navan with a view to Aintree.
Michael O’Leary’s spats with ex-British head of handicapping Phil Smith were box-office, pitting as they did two stubborn men prone to outlandish comments against each other. The John Smiths Grand National, the Ryanair boss famously scoffed, had become “The Phil Smith’s Grand National”.
Smith, retired in 2018, endured (or revelled in) a tough job in handicapping Irish horses. What irked me was the lack of consistency and the baffling reasoning.
Tuesday next, Smith’s replacement Dominic Gardiner Hill and his team announce the weights for the 2020 National, now sponsored by Randox Health. Gardiner Hill is more publicity-shy than Smith, recalling the accepted sporting norm: the less you notice the referee the better.
Gardiner Hill makes rational arguments. He comes up against Michael and Eddie O’Leary, who are on the cusp of history in Tiger Roll’s quest for a never-done-before three-in-a-row.
Michael probably has enough to do but his racing manager is aghast that Tiger Roll is somehow rated higher than Delta Work, given that one is a lively Gold Cup contender and the other would not even be considered for the race.
“He’s a pound below Tiger Roll! A rating of 172 is too high, it’s false and unfair to a little legend; he was handicapped to my mind on what he did in a hurdle race at Navan and winning the cross-country race at Cheltenham,” Eddie told The42.
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“We’re stuck on 172 which is far too high, so it depends on how much he compresses the weights as he has for some years now for the better horses. If he is too high that’s that and he’s retired after Cheltenham. We have to look after our Tiger.”
O’Leary talks of our Tiger almost like a family pet, a paradoxical amusement given tigers do not exactly make pets, not to mind Gigginstown’s ruthless approach to the game in general. That said, if you cannot be a little soft about a horse like Tiger Roll you may as well check for a pulse, and he is special to everyone involved with him.
In the words of Gardiner Hill, the National is the only “bespoke handicapping” race in the calendar. “There is now a widespread view that horses at the top are no longer at a big disadvantage,” the race’s website reads.
“In part, it’s due to a new formula for handicapping the National devised in 2001. Essentially the handicap has been compressed, decreasing the gap between the top- and lowest-weighted horses, creating a more competitive race.”
Phil Smith explained this as so: “Looking back over the history of the race, we realised that the highly weighted horses had a moderate record, so we thought something needed to be done to try to not overburden the better horses.”
Smith felt the classier horses needed a bit of leeway, classier horses being Gold Cup-type horses. Tiger Roll has a couple of problems here.
He’s up to an official rating of 172, which seems harsh (11lb above his weight last April). Whilst he is top weight, he is not the type of horse the handicapper aims to compress, given his record (first, first) in the race.
The weights compression, according to the National website, “includes form – a horse’s recent/previous performances and the course: the so-called ‘Aintree Factor’. This begs the questions, does the horse like the track? Is (s)he proven over long trips?”
In this bespoke handicapping, Gardiner Hill and his team could argue that Tiger Roll could be more liable to the ‘Aintree Factor’ handicapping than compressing weights. Clearly he will not be any higher than 172, but I don’t get the feeling he will be much lower.
I am guessing he will get 170, if not that 169. If Eddie O’Leary is to be believed, that may mean Tiger Roll will not run in the race, bow out at Cheltenham after the cross-country race and eschew the chance of history.
Bristol De Mai, with a rating of 170, is another candidate for compression, the fact that he is a 50/1 chance rendering him exactly the type of horse Smith would be inclined to give a little help to. Tiger Roll thus could easily be giving one of the best chasers in training weight.
Michael O'Leary. PA
PA
O’Leary has watched enough good horses be given a chance down the years and his argument that the rating of 172 is fanciful certainly has weight, pardon the pun; imagine, too, were the handicapper to compress the weight of one of his “classier” rivals, Anibale Fly.
JP McManus’ steed has run deplorably so far this season and is now down from 167 in Ireland to 158. He might have lost the ability to move but he was fifth in the National last year when rated 164 and he was well-backed, three weeks after finishing second in the Gold Cup.
The notion of Tiger Roll giving a stone to last year’s Gold Cup runner-up seems a little bit absurd, so you can see Eddie O’Leary’s argument to an extent. But, as he acknowledges, it’s not the handicapper’s job to make Tiger Roll’s bid as easy as possible.
“I just hope he’s fair on the horse, otherwise he won’t run,” O’Leary adds. Weight and see and so on. Is it a case of Gigginstown calling the handicapper’s bluff or the opposite?
Anibale Fly, incidentally, is 33/1 for the Grand National. I have never backed the winner of the race.
Dundalk is no Aintree but a winner is a winner and hopefully Lansing, a major eye-catcher on debut and who makes plenty of each-way appeal in the Restaurant At Dundalk Stadium Race (3.22), can do the honours.
Naas and Punchestown host jumpers this weekend. Gavin Cromwell, who had two double-figure-odds seconds in Grade 1s at the Dublin Racing Festival, is persevering with the frustrating Tashman and he could be very interesting at a price in the Naas Adare Manor Opportunity Handicap Hurdle tomorrow.
He travelled really well here just under a year ago, probably his best run (similar ground), and he is now 5lb lower in a weak enough race.
The handicapper has given him a chance. Will his British compatriots give one to Tiger Roll?
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Weight and see: Michael O'Leary hoping handicapper gives Tiger Roll a fair shot at history
A CAVEAT: THE most famous race in the world does not do it for me.
I have not backed a winner of the Grand National, unless you count Hedgehunter the year before.
My relative ambivalence is more to do with it being a handicap, now in many respects a high-class handicap chase like any other high-class handicap chase, horrible races to solve as a punter.
The National which gave the small trainer the chance to dream is now a classier race, the fences not what used to be. All of this would of course be obsolete were I to have an involvement in a horse running in it.
Still, the Tiger Roll weight debate is compelling beyond sporting considerations. The little horse returns Sunday week at Navan with a view to Aintree.
Michael O’Leary’s spats with ex-British head of handicapping Phil Smith were box-office, pitting as they did two stubborn men prone to outlandish comments against each other. The John Smiths Grand National, the Ryanair boss famously scoffed, had become “The Phil Smith’s Grand National”.
Smith, retired in 2018, endured (or revelled in) a tough job in handicapping Irish horses. What irked me was the lack of consistency and the baffling reasoning.
Tuesday next, Smith’s replacement Dominic Gardiner Hill and his team announce the weights for the 2020 National, now sponsored by Randox Health. Gardiner Hill is more publicity-shy than Smith, recalling the accepted sporting norm: the less you notice the referee the better.
Gardiner Hill makes rational arguments. He comes up against Michael and Eddie O’Leary, who are on the cusp of history in Tiger Roll’s quest for a never-done-before three-in-a-row.
Michael probably has enough to do but his racing manager is aghast that Tiger Roll is somehow rated higher than Delta Work, given that one is a lively Gold Cup contender and the other would not even be considered for the race.
“We’re stuck on 172 which is far too high, so it depends on how much he compresses the weights as he has for some years now for the better horses. If he is too high that’s that and he’s retired after Cheltenham. We have to look after our Tiger.”
O’Leary talks of our Tiger almost like a family pet, a paradoxical amusement given tigers do not exactly make pets, not to mind Gigginstown’s ruthless approach to the game in general. That said, if you cannot be a little soft about a horse like Tiger Roll you may as well check for a pulse, and he is special to everyone involved with him.
In the words of Gardiner Hill, the National is the only “bespoke handicapping” race in the calendar. “There is now a widespread view that horses at the top are no longer at a big disadvantage,” the race’s website reads.
“In part, it’s due to a new formula for handicapping the National devised in 2001. Essentially the handicap has been compressed, decreasing the gap between the top- and lowest-weighted horses, creating a more competitive race.”
Phil Smith explained this as so: “Looking back over the history of the race, we realised that the highly weighted horses had a moderate record, so we thought something needed to be done to try to not overburden the better horses.”
Smith felt the classier horses needed a bit of leeway, classier horses being Gold Cup-type horses. Tiger Roll has a couple of problems here.
He’s up to an official rating of 172, which seems harsh (11lb above his weight last April). Whilst he is top weight, he is not the type of horse the handicapper aims to compress, given his record (first, first) in the race.
The weights compression, according to the National website, “includes form – a horse’s recent/previous performances and the course: the so-called ‘Aintree Factor’. This begs the questions, does the horse like the track? Is (s)he proven over long trips?”
In this bespoke handicapping, Gardiner Hill and his team could argue that Tiger Roll could be more liable to the ‘Aintree Factor’ handicapping than compressing weights. Clearly he will not be any higher than 172, but I don’t get the feeling he will be much lower.
I am guessing he will get 170, if not that 169. If Eddie O’Leary is to be believed, that may mean Tiger Roll will not run in the race, bow out at Cheltenham after the cross-country race and eschew the chance of history.
Bristol De Mai, with a rating of 170, is another candidate for compression, the fact that he is a 50/1 chance rendering him exactly the type of horse Smith would be inclined to give a little help to. Tiger Roll thus could easily be giving one of the best chasers in training weight.
O’Leary has watched enough good horses be given a chance down the years and his argument that the rating of 172 is fanciful certainly has weight, pardon the pun; imagine, too, were the handicapper to compress the weight of one of his “classier” rivals, Anibale Fly.
JP McManus’ steed has run deplorably so far this season and is now down from 167 in Ireland to 158. He might have lost the ability to move but he was fifth in the National last year when rated 164 and he was well-backed, three weeks after finishing second in the Gold Cup.
The notion of Tiger Roll giving a stone to last year’s Gold Cup runner-up seems a little bit absurd, so you can see Eddie O’Leary’s argument to an extent. But, as he acknowledges, it’s not the handicapper’s job to make Tiger Roll’s bid as easy as possible.
“I just hope he’s fair on the horse, otherwise he won’t run,” O’Leary adds. Weight and see and so on. Is it a case of Gigginstown calling the handicapper’s bluff or the opposite?
Anibale Fly, incidentally, is 33/1 for the Grand National. I have never backed the winner of the race.
Dundalk is no Aintree but a winner is a winner and hopefully Lansing, a major eye-catcher on debut and who makes plenty of each-way appeal in the Restaurant At Dundalk Stadium Race (3.22), can do the honours.
Naas and Punchestown host jumpers this weekend. Gavin Cromwell, who had two double-figure-odds seconds in Grade 1s at the Dublin Racing Festival, is persevering with the frustrating Tashman and he could be very interesting at a price in the Naas Adare Manor Opportunity Handicap Hurdle tomorrow.
He travelled really well here just under a year ago, probably his best run (similar ground), and he is now 5lb lower in a weak enough race.
The handicapper has given him a chance. Will his British compatriots give one to Tiger Roll?
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