posted Aug 11, 2008

If the Sheikh will not use Coolmore stud horses then he could at least leave the majority of his horses in the UK instead of shipping his whole string to Dubai for no reason. Surely hiring an assistant to Bin Suroor and leaving the majority of the string in the UK would be beneficial and just take the horses for the Dubai carnival back to the UAE.

Clearly spending ridiculous amounts of money doesn't work and also he is regularly buying American dirt bred horses and then running them on turf which clearly doesn't work. I think a serious rethink is required or Godlphin will continue to underachieve.

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posted Aug 12, 2008

They are not horsemen .pure and simple .

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posted Aug 12, 2008

It's a shame the way godolphin have fallen so far behind coolmore,but I think they need a change in personnel with regards to training of their team.
If you look at this in a similar manner to say the prem league how many managers would survive the last 3/4 years of underachievement this lot have provided with all the resources they have had at their disposal?
OK they have had many of their potential stars injured ,but i'm coming to the conclusion that it must be the way they are training these animals they all seem to be injured on the gallops.
I mean just off the top of my head,
Dubai Destination (beat the Rock easy as a two year old missed his three year old season and you all know what the rock went on to acheive)although he did come back and win a g1 at four.
Ibn Kaldoun eay winner of the racing post trophy beating the irish derby winner again seemingly out for the year
creachdoir another grade 1 winner again injured and out possibly finished as a racehorse.
Ramonti last seasons flag bearer you guessed it injured.
Now this cannot be all about bad luck for godolphin,whilst all the luck at getting horses primed for their g1 targets is all with coolmore the only horse that i can remember of theirs that did not turn up at the party for their intended g1 was yeats,their are possibly others.
So in my eyes the trainer has to take some/most of the blame.

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posted Aug 12, 2008

Do you want to know one of the stupidest things anyone can do to do with horse racing in 2008?

Comparing Ballydoyle and Godolphin.

How on earth are Godolphin anywhere near Ballydoyle's league?

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posted Aug 12, 2008

The problem with Godolphin is that they have too many horses in training at the moment:
The purpose of the Godolphin operation was to have the “elite” horses together, and I’m sorry but having 200+ horses in one yard does not constitute an elite bunch if you ask me.

I also don’t think that their policy of not using Coolmore stallions has had as much of an effect as people like to think. The problem is with the mares that they are breeding from! You cannot seriously say that stallions of the calibre of Cape Cross, Singspiel, Halling, Green Desert are not top quality, but the quality of some of the mares is in serious doubt.

When I worked for Darley a good few years ago (in 2001) the staff all commented that a broodmare cull was needed – too many of the mares had failed to produce decent runners or had been useless on the racetrack in their own right. Don’t forget that 50% of the DNA comes from the mare, so you can’t say that the stallion is the be-all-and-end-all.

From what I know of the current situation at Godolphin, there are several assistants who deal with most of the training anyway – even Saeed is not super-human enough to be able to personally oversee the training of 200+ horses!

In my opinion they need a total restructure: have up to 100 horses in the yard (Ballydoyle have about 150, so this is not an excessive number) and every one of them must earn their place each year. If a horse fails to win in black-type company (listed, G3, G2, G1) then he is sent to one of the other trainers (Jarvis, Brittain, Johnston) the following year.

The Sheikh will continue to buy yearlings in the USA as there is a larger pool for him to choose from. Yearlings by stallions such as Kingmambo, Storm Cat, Gone West, Mr Greeley, etc are in high demand with European buyers, and you need to go to the American sales if you want to purchase one. He also has a large breeding operation in the USA, with some 150 foals born there each year. A number of these foals are brought to Europe to race and as a result you will always see a lot of American bred horses in the Godolphin ranks.

Racing is a fickle game - one minute you are up, the next you are down.
Godolphin will be back, the only question is how long will it take?

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posted Aug 12, 2008

ready or not coolmore horse get injjured too its just their strength in depth is amazing. mt nelson missed nearly all the racing as a 3 yr old.

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posted Aug 12, 2008

In my opinion, i just think Godolphin got greedy. A few years back they had some right good horses but as they were sent to stud, they seemed to buy double and treble the horses to replace them and in the end, these horses were very average. Godolphin's image was to be an operation where the elite of racehorses were trained. I think its now time to weed out the yard, get rid of the average horses and start to work more closley with the better horses who will the most prizemoney. It has been well documented that they have injuries in the yard but the answer is not to replace them with average horses. I expected better!

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posted Aug 12, 2008

DeerParkLord ,they'd be left with nothing to race (rio de la plata apart)if they got rid of all the mediocre horses in that stable as i've stated before the three most talented horses in the yard are injured

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posted Aug 12, 2008

I'm going to keep this short: Godolphin should move more of their horses to America.

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posted Aug 14, 2008

I would like to see a limit on the number of horses a trainer can enter with the same owner. You can't help but feel sometimes when APOB enters 3/4/5 horses from messrs Smith,Tabor,Magnier that they can ultimately affect the outcome by 'tactically' ensuring there main competitors don't get a clear run. I can see the value in a pace maker for the main horse as it's commonly seen, especially in France, but do the G1's need to be flooded with 3rd, 4th or even 5th string runners?

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