clearly the best horse in the race?

Dont think you can say that rich to be honest, it was a very messy race, there was the winner and 19 bad trips

I was on Saint Baudelino and I thought he was very unlucky not to win after a terrible trip from start to finish, i guess everyone who backed anything was watching their own more and will feel they did not get a good trip!

terrible race

Watched it a few times now, compared to Saint Baudolino, Imperial Monarch got a lovely trip UNTIL they turned in, although he had to check badly and switch, he wasnt making much ground on the bridle and got badly outpaced for 5 or 6 strides once off it, not a chance in hell he should have won this race, he lacks the change of gears that is neccessary to win a French Derby although he will probably make a nice stayer.

Fair play to the winner, he didnt exactly get a perfect trip and done well to win going on at the finish, but I think if the horse who finished second hadnt been smashed about on numerous occasions and had been able to run earlier he would put the race to bed.

Id be very confident that Saint Baudolino is the best horse in the race at around that trip.

When it comes down to it Coolmoore are scared at the moment of Frankel's impact on the breeding for them next year and they need a horse who can match up to him on hype and all this shouting about him being the best horse he has ever trained and by putting Triple Crown Winner on his CV is IMHO the only way they will be able to compete with Frankel next year as putting (Sea the Stars Double (e.g 2000g Derby Arc winner) probably won't help them beat Frankel at stud next year.

After watching the race twice Imperial Monarch was clearly the best horse. Ground he made up after meeting trouble was impressive and Joseph has had a bad one there l think. 20 horses and he trys the rail run!! After great ride yesterday total opposite today.

All the talk has been Frankel Vs black Caviar but to me a pointless race as 1 horse has to run against its strengths but Frankel Vs Camelot at 1m2f....Now that is a race l would like to see, in fact love to see. I would still sway for Frankel but surely for all racing fans this would be an awesome race and would fetch a hell of a crowd wherever this would be.

I don't care who the best horse was and who should have won. The boss and I have had eyes on Saonois for a while now and just won a shit tonne of money.

8th beaten 5 lengths - clearly the best horse in the race?

taking into account the fact that half the field have been cost numerous lengths, and your reckoning that he was "clearly the best" you must think that having to check and switch round the field cost him 10 lengths?

dont be absurd, horses running on when a race is finished can deceive you, you have been deceived by a slow horse

Nothing Joseph Obrien could have done, sitting on a 2 mile horse in a French Derby, the horse's cruising speed put him in the position he was in, even if he had got the perfect trip from there, it would still have took him an eternity to quickien and he wouldnt have got there.

The horse who finished second gets the the perfect clear trip from turning in and he would have took his jockey to front on the bridle and then used the turn of foot and that would have been enough to beat that field.

IM is potentially a decent stayer in the making but he was never going to win a group 1 at 1m3 round a sharp track, he needed every yard of 1m2 in bottomless ground at Sandown to get to a horse who was beat 11 lengths in the Derby.

Thats why he was a place lay today, that and Obriens 0 from 23 in the race, rich the stat man

Imperial Monarch certainly finshed the race the best but as Doc Hay says there were a few that encountered some very poor runs. All in all the form is worthless and they could run it 100 times and they would all probably win at least once and its impossible to try and make too many judgements about who should have won.

Refering to the ride IM received then I have to agree with MWesty as it wasnt O'Brien's finest moment. I doubt he would have got up to win, but he should have never even tried to get a run up the rail as that was clearly a dead end. Although he wasnt the only jockey on the day to make some strange decisions and a lot of the others were vastly more experienced than him!

When i talk about football i try to be one of those people who doesnt "wear red tinted goggles' - for example i congratulated city on winning the league whereas some other fans are just bitter and biased

I believe some people on here are bitter against the o brien stable and this impairs their judgement!

Imperial Monarch was clearly the winner of that race without any trouble!
Camelot smashed that derby - i dnt think o brien gave him a particularly good ride, he raced very wide and left the horse a lot of ground to make up around tattenham!but the horse has so much class that he couldnt lose barring a freak accident!

As for the leger, please stop talking about it as if it is a top class race which camelot will struggle in - look at the past few winners of the leger, they are not group 1 standard and the fact that the 3yos are not particularly good, camelot has a 'gimme' for the triple crown'

Alot of people on here do let their dislike of coolmore effect the view of their horses, I am not one them, I do not dislike coolmore in the slightest, I have been one of the people on here backing Camelot right from the start. I call it like I see it and for me, IM has given a false impression of being really unlucky, just because obrien had his arse in the air does not mean the horse was going to quicken up instantly and come through and win that battle, if he was travelling that well obrien would have been taking tugs to stop running up the back of horses alot sooner than he had to. For me the horse does not have the speed for Group 1 level at the trip and there dosent seem to be anything in the french press about him being incredibly unfortunate not to win like the bollox being spouted over here, look how long it takes him to pick up on the outside ffs. Hes a good horse but hes a stayer, hes by galileo out of a slip anchor mare, he was never going to win that race in a million years and its sounds like most of you backed him cos use dont seemed to have noticed the adversity of any other runner in the race.

The best two horses at the trip have finished first and second, and I would take the second all day long, how he managed to get second I dont know.

Run that field at the Curragh over a stiff 1m4 and Imperial Monarch will win, but today was an intermediate trip on a sharp track and he just dosent have the gears for it.

last im saying on it cos apparently he was clearly the best horse in the race and should have won easily and im just tripping balls and the french press have totally missed the boat aswell.

I didnt have a bet on the race

Imperial Monarch would only be the winner in your eyes with a clear if the others all received the same amount of trouble that they got. There were plenty going better at the time and although it ran on well, a lot of jockeys looked after their horses, if Imperial Monarch ever meets French Fifteen over 10/11 furlongs again, I wont be backing IM

sorry mate but that is so wrong

he gets hampered coming into the home straight worse than any and makes up loads of ground being pushed out. If that was any other trainer than O'Brien, everybody would be saying how unlucky the horse was too lose. A lot of the blame should lie at the hands of the jockey and I haven't changed my mind about him being way off the standard needed to be a 'top jock' .

After the interference O Brien still rode it to get its best possible position, Ektihaam and French Fifteen's jockeys accepted defeat and just cantered in behind, they were both travelling better than IM at the time of the inteference.

I actually agree with Doc on this one, the trip did for IM. It is definitely a decent animal that will come into his own over further

I didn't bet on the race either, was waiting for a price on IM and didn't get one so in reality I should be glad he was beaten.

The difference between his trouble in running and Saint Baudolino was the the latter didn't lose any momentum. Imperial Monarch lost 5 lengths at least in addition to a number of seconds rousting along to get his mind on the job. Saint Baudolino thereafter got first run on the winner and had he been good enough would've won.

Having rewatched it the winner travelled extremely nicely into the lead and was good value for his win.

yeah rich, Saint Baudolino didnt lose a yard of ground, very good

described in the french press as having "remarkably finished 2nd"

you seen Guyon having to take tugs 6 or 7 times in the race because he had nowhere to go when his horse would have been making ground on the bridle, IM was not making ground on the bridle, he was not running into slower horses, that is the difference.

if you want to talk about trips from start to finish, SB got messed about 10 times more than IM who's lack of a gear change cost him more ground than anything else.