The Cheltenham Festival

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Elf On A Shelf

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You can forget the rest of the Festival now! Watching Tiger Roll Bob round the Cross Country chase leaving them all in his wake will be the best sight of the week! What a cracking little horse he is!

5 Festival wins going right back to a 4yo winning the Triumph Hurdle. A National Hunt Chase and 3x Cross Country Chases to his name along with 2 Grand Nationals and a plethora of other wins to his name!

He truly is the King of the Festival!
 
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Elf On A Shelf

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Nicnac said:
Absolutely incredible. And don't forget the girls with Rachael yesterday and Put the Kettle On earlier.
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Pft! Those lasses (human and equine) are on the upgrade. Tiger Roll coming back to form after everything that has gone on will be the biggest talking point of the week regardless of what has gone on before and will come after until last race Friday! He truly is the King of the Festival!

I mean no disrespect to the other horses in the slightest BTW! They will have other years too but this one belong to Tiger Roll!
 
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Crazy_cat_lady

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Hope they retire him now, he's done more than enough let him retire on a high and get to enjoy a well deserved retirement. There's plenty of other jobs he can have fun doing

Unfortunately it doesn't sound like they will, plus given the greedy owner, no chance
 
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Put the Kettle On was the highlight for me today. Love it when the mares stick it to the geldings. She was just so tough! Her will to win was incredible. Aiden Coleman’s words were so well said. Brilliant racing today.
But why do the Irish have all the best horses?
 
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Elf On A Shelf

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McGrools said:
But why do the Irish have all the best horses?
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Because they see them in the yards and point to points first and snap them up before the Brits get half a look in. Plus most of them are bred over there. And it's a numbers game.

I remember someone asking Mullins where he gets all his good horses from and he said - you look at pedigrees, you buy enough of them and hope that some of them turn out good enough. Nothing special really.
 
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McGrools

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Elf On A Shelf said:
Because they see them in the yards and point to points first and snap them up before the Brits get half a look in. Plus most of them are bred over there. And it's a numbers game.

I remember someone asking Mullins where he gets all his good horses from and he said - you look at pedigrees, you buy enough of them and hope that some of them turn out good enough. Nothing special really.
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Thanks Elf. They are giving us a sound thrashing this year... so far. Hopefully a few English winners will come in over the next few days. Hoping the Gold Cup comes to the home team x
 
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As much as I loved seeing Tiger doing what he loves, Heaven Help Us was the story of the day for me too. Paul Hennessy walking her in after saying "She's my Enable". How fabulous.

So sad for Kings Temptation, looked as though he landed awkwardly at a previous fence which I imagine caused something to give further down the course, RIP beautiful boy.
 
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Elf On A Shelf

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Correction to my previous post - GE has missed 4 winners which would have made him leading trainer at the moment. Black Tears was the other one.

I won't get to see much if any other Festival today as I am at that wonderfully delightful (please read Biggest Hell Hole On Earth instead) place that is Hexham today with 7 runners. Blah.
 
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Elf On A Shelf

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Parrotperson said:
Elf!!!! Dissing my local track!! Nought wrong with Hexham on a sunny day........
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No except that fact that everything is on a hill ...

Today was a grand day to be fair, warm but not sunny. Stable yard going - resurfaced with grit that got in your boots and refused to leave no matter how many times you shake it out, the turf was bare, heavy, tacky mud. Still the horses ran mostly well enough with Big Bad Borris finishing 2nd by a head ...
 
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yep. I'll concede everything is on a hill.....

But its a lovely natural amphitheatre so always good viewing

Well done Big Bad Boris!!
 
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Northern Hare

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Parrotperson said:
Elf!!!! Dissing my local track!! Nought wrong with Hexham on a sunny day........
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Another vote for Hexham Racecourse, but only on a sunny and still day! I cycled up past the Racecourse on Sunday and it was so windy I nearly got blown off my bike!

We went to Hexham Racecourse last year for the same Cheltenham meeting as today's meeting. When we got out of the car you could hardly stand up, and the rain was like standing in front of a pressure washer! They did a test prior to the meeting being abandoned, and that was for the course officials to see if they could hold one of the screens up that they use to screen a casualty on the course - and they all nearly took of down to course!
 
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Northern Hare said:
Another vote for Hexham Racecourse, but only on a sunny and still day! I cycled up past the Racecourse on Sunday and it was so windy I nearly got blown off my bike!

We went to Hexham Racecourse last year for the same Cheltenham meeting as today's meeting. When we got out of the car you could hardly stand up, and the rain was like standing in front of a pressure washer! They did a test prior to the meeting being abandoned, and that was for the course officials to see if they could hold one of the screens up that they use to screen a casualty on the course - and they all nearly took of down to course!
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I was there that day ... it was incredibly obvious that the racing could not go ahead! We were all hands on deck to get horses unloaded safely - it didn't matter which was round you parked your truck the wind still got you. People were holding ramps, doors and partitions whilst others were taking the horses off. Once one truck was done we all moved onto the next one. The clerk went out to check the course, the hurdles were barely staying in the ground and then they declared that racing was to go ahead but they would omit the fences with 60mph gusts and keep in the ones with 50mph gusts ... because the wind follows exactly the same course every time... it was then a paramedic that came into the weighing room and asked about the green screens so that caused a mad panic and dash out to the home straight to see about the screens. They pulled every member of fence staff from the entire course to hold these screens - 28 people in total - and they couldn't hold them. And if you needed another set of screens at the same time you were screwed. Plus you can't pull every member of fence staff to one place quickly. So they finally abandoned 30mins before the first race. And so the loading process began again with everyone chipping in to help hold doors and partitions so no one got decapitated. It was just ludicrous!

I have been at Hexham when it has been abandoned before the 2nd race due to rain - there was a puddle of standing water in the dip down the back and the clerk was out standing in it, on TV, saying it's not that bad when 2 ducks swam past him and he admitted defeat.
 
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Hi Elf!

How amazing that you were also there last year! It was really interesting to hear your memories of the day - I did really feel sorry for everyone on the racing side of things as getting horses ready in that weather must have been so difficult!

I guess it says a lot that the Racecourse provides an indoor shelter by the Parade Ring for the horses in a barn.

This was a photo I took after the horses had been out in the Parade Ring, but the rain had started, so everyone went inside to cover, before the Meeting was sadly announced as abandoned.



IMG_20200312_134719768.jpg
 
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Interesting to see how Willie Mullins gets his horses! Aren't there tax breaks for breeders and lots of farmers have 2 or 3 brood mares, so there is a wide choice.

Point to points in Ireland seem to be the nursery for potential NH hunt racehorses, whereas in the UK they are where the older/less successful, NH throw outs run (with some notable exceptions). If a horse goes from point to point to NH racing in the UK it is newsworthy, whereas it seems to be the norm in Ireland.
 
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