Quote:
Originally Posted by NoChanceToDance
The long layoff never seems to affect the Godolphin horses, surely you know that more than most. Yes, it is his first time against his elders, but that's more due to the fact there is limited opportunity for a 3yo of his level to have run against older horses in the UK.
I'm scratching my head a bit when you say the form of his races has turned out to be rather weak. When he won his maiden, he did so easily with two horses pulling well clear of the rest. The second horse is now stakes placed. He also won his small field handicap with plenty to spare at the line. The 2nd and 3rd placed horses have been highly tried since that race and both stakes placed also. His latest start in a very competitive Gr3 has really been franked. The slightly surprsing winner of that (even though always highly regarded by the trainer) won a decent Gr2 in France. The horse who finished 3rd was an honest listed / Gr3 galloper who has since finished 4th in a Hollywood Park Gr1 (unsure of that form). Fact is, he's a stakes horse running around in a handicap off a mark of 104 
If Godolphin have high hopes for him, he really needs to be winning well today, and he should in my opinion. |
Of course I recognize how well Godolphin does off the shelf, but they can't all be treated the same, and I firmly believe the path to a successful Carnival is finding the right times to play against them. In the 2011 Carnival, by my count, there were 17 occasions where a Godolphin horse went favored in a Carnival race and didn't win...sometimes one of their others won (indicated by *)...but in the races they didn't...the int'l tote payoffs were...
$18.00
$14.80
$16.40
$27.20
$35.40
$14.80
$11.60*
$21.60
$24.60*
$27.60
$75.60
$10.80
$21.40
$17.20
$23.40*
$59.40*
$8.80
Godolphin bought Pisco Sour, so clearly they like him. Alkimos beat Maali before the Ascot race, and he came back to run up the course in the Tercentenary, albeit over ground likely softer than he preferred. If you want, you could even use the Laajooj performance from last week to frank it. I thought Laajooj's past races, beaten Namibian, stood out more than what Alkimos's second behind Pisco Sour did, where he later defeated Colombian and Glaswegian.
Opinions are wonderful in this sport...