Jalupen made the prickly comment "mate it was a terrible race..." not me.

I was making the point that the horses Jalupen has criticised are not as "bad" as he is saying, and he brought his own horses into the conversation, which didn't make sense as they beat his horses. I have said they were not the best horses in the league but are not bad.

Endless Nights would have a good chance, but was behind a "bad" horse Andratx in the prince of wales, so it's not that simple. Mystic Lake has two 3rd's in Group 1's and is pretty consistent, would be unlucky if he doesn't get a win. Court Minstal doesn't appear any better than Mystic Lake.

I didn't know form was a thing in the league kit. My trials are usually pretty consistent, but maybe I need to look further into it.

Driving Henrietta is a mare unfortunately, but has been a good one. I somehow forgot to export her at 3yo but is a decent 10f horse at 4yo. So she won't be back next season.

I know the horse won the race fair and square, I was trying to work out what has gone wrong since.

Seems like pace, track and form are the most likely explanations so far. Thanks to those offering educated comments.

I think you should watch the prince of wales race again and particular Endless nights. For her to even finish 3rd showed her talent. Would have won by far if not repeatedly baulked. In fact she would have won most of races if not for inteference. But that is racing.. Probably if she was in the dubai cup the result would have been different. So I would enjoy the result and be happy people didn't place there horses well. I know from trials how much better Endless Night is than Mystic Lakes

the comment was not supposed to be prickley dan it was how i saw the race if you don't like the answer don't ask the question.Oh and "bad" horse thing is really "prickley"btw

It is "bad" in quotation marks because you said they were bad, not my words. I would not call them bad. I am entitled to my opinion about your opinion, it's called a discussion, it's what forums were designed for. I'll agree to disagree.

I didn't say anything bad about Endless Nights. Her Winter Derby performance wasn't particularly impressive against a weaker field (even Jalupen would agree surely), ridden wide admittedly. Only very marginally quicker race time than the Dubai World Cup. Has not ridden on dirt since, will be interesting to see how she does in bc classic, she will be one of the favourites for sure.

when you trial do you run 4yo up races and 3yo up races ? cos there can be massive differences in results i've got a 4yo miler that never loses in 4yo up tho another 4yo (cabuchon posted)beats him and the 3yos hands down in a 3yo up race as leon says trial trial trial

For this season, I only trialled 3yo's against 3yo's and 4yo's against 4yo's. 4yo was more of an afterthought, the idea was that some good 3yo's could come back the next season at 4yo.

For next season I will trial 3yo against 3yo, 4yo against 4up and 3yo against 4up. I will also consider adding a pacemaker, like Dua Lipa to some trials.

Totally understand why you want to work this out, but I suspect you'll go mad long before doing so, you will never get to the bottom of it, any more than I can explain why my chaser 'When the Demon Comes' sometimes runs like Denman and sometimes like a donkey. And I have been there so know precisely where yours heads at 'Shock To The System' season 9, won the World Cup and then went missing, ok he also won the Price of Wales and only raced G1's, but he kind of went from wonder horse to also ran in a similair, if slightly less spectacular way.

My thoughts:

1 - It is not an uber beast, the horse on paper looks ok, but the potential is low, not entirely a bad thing in isolation, but speed etc is decent not stand out. You likely saw his absolute best week one.
2 - It is an odd race, always has been, until the breeders cup it is the main big dirt race, but more than that, it also tends to get an odd field as many send horses elsewhere for maiden wins rather than throwing them into the top races with the big boys week one. That was likely extended this season as no one really had much of a clue of how things would measure up or rather how their horses would measure up, who knew these old timers would make good flat horses?.
3 - It got a great ride, you likely had everything fall into place for him precisely, likes dirt, track specialist at his peak time of year and in a race that was run exactly the way he needed perhaps with lesser competition.
4 - Confidence, does not get talked about but I am personally a big beleiver in its effect, and having trialled on the SO6 racekit before that got called out as a bad thing and an abuse of position, I beleive it does play a part in the league form. Slumps can last.

I would not dwell on it, just take it as a major positive, many folks would like to win that race and never have, and just breed the boy into a long happy retirement.

Josh

each to their own and all that but I will never have a pacemaker in any of my trials
you want to replicate the league conditions and who exports a horse with pacemaking instructions
unless your mad in the head no one does.

I think the reason I have been fairly successful this season is because my horses adapt on the job
if there is no pace in the race they adapt if you have a Mabs Cross type (Who is a top class front runner)
they adapt.

I have a few things that I do with breeding and trailing that I will disclose at the end of the season maybe will
help newbies. I'd say some of the things I do no one else does so I will do a write up. The major part of it is filtering
the rubbish very quickly and saving alot of time working on horses that will always be useless.

Dan you have an excellent base to build on work on what you have & experiment with gambred sires you will be
a huge player next season.

I agree Paul, a pacemaker who is only there to do that and has no chance otherwise will likely give false results, a genuine front runner is a different matter. I don’t put anything in my trials unless it deserves to be there on merit.

I've got exactly the same thing as this with the Golden Shaheen winner. It's probably even more bizarre as it is now rated 80. It's barely been in the picture since in Handicaps, it's come nearly last in a handicap off 85 I think with perfect conditions

When she won it though I almost knew it was a freak result, the rest of my sprinters were terrible at the time, and my trials at home had just surpassed them all by a distance. Think as they say, it's just one of those things, I imagine it's just that everything came right for this pair at the time, and they are better on that specific type of dirt.

I've got her running off 80 on the dirt in handicap, so technically if she is better on dirt she should hose in this week, she wont though

GET ON she has to win

She did win

looks to me like she just prefers dirt, and everything fell right on that day, given shes only won a group1 and an 0-80 in that order, and they're the only 2 races she's finished in the top half, and the only 2 on dirt, it's probably similar with yours Dan

Congrats on the win. No such luck for my horse, Always Dreaming came last in the race 17 0-85 handicap, he was one of the horses drawn wide but it was still a poor performance. I guess confidence and form is very important in the league or he only performs in Dubai.

Dan you might want to check out R39 senator wins a 22 runner 0-100 by 2l drawn 16 off 10st pj's horse that finished 2nd to yours was 7th off 10st beaten by about 4l which kind of vindicates my bringing him in as i stated he was about 7l in front of sketchy .....its a funny old game

Congrats, it was a nice win. But Andratx was 6th in the Champion Stakes, Mystic Lake was 2nd in the Darley. So I think my point still stands.