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Celebrations are very awkward and I am going download the "unsee" app tomorrow -
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By PeterLambFan · Posted
@Brodie what are you more impressed with? There punting ability or there celebrations when they win? -
Totally Irrelevant, it is Out The Gate punting an unrestricted amount of money at full odds with no slashing of odds, for a group, not individuals! if it is 300 people punting at the same time then the odds would be slashed accordingly. It is about the liability to the TAB for each bet and it is just a continuation of how the TAB treats some very loyal punters poorly, whereas others get favouritism! This policy of treating punters differently has gone on for a long time but does not make it right, and if you knew the full story then you would understand more! -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
TOKYO, Japan — Under the vast, silent stand of Tokyo racecourse the best horse in the world enjoys a saunter around the turf track which will become his stage for the final act of a tremendous season. Calandagan (Gleneagles) will encounter an altogether different atmosphere on Sunday when that same grandstand will sing with the anticipation of around 100,000 racegoers come to bear witness to one of the world's great horse races. The passion with which the Japanese fans approach racing means that the Japan Cup is more pilgrimage than sports event and an 18-strong field which boasts the last three winners of the Japanese Derby means that the home team will have plenty to absorb them beyond this sole international visitor. But it is a compliment to the race and of vital importance to its global standing to have attracted the Aga Khan Studs' representative, who will bid for a fourth consecutive Group/Grade 1 victory after winning the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud and then emulating Brigadier Gerard by taking both the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Champion Stakes in the same season. Just think, this time last year Calandagan was branded a bridesmaid horse. Now, after a racing year which began in Dubai and has continued through three trips to England as well as one performance on home turf in Paris, here he is in Japan, looking perky of mind and a bit more substantial of body. It would be a stretch to call Calandagan physically imposing, but in his talent he has imposed himself on the racing scene to a degree which makes it now impossible not to barrack for him. That his trainer Francis Graffard is similarly talented is beyond dispute to even casual racing observers these days. There's barely been a major meeting this year where he hasn't popped up and made his presence felt. Such is the strength in depth of Graffard's Chantilly yard that Calandagan has to battle internally to be labelled as stable star. But even in a season in which Zarigana and Gezora handed him French Classic victories before the latter delivered Graffard a longed-for first Breeders' Cup success, and Daryz capped the domestic season with his Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe win, it is Calandagan who stands out, and the very nature of his gelded status means that his trainer can take a different approach to his racing season. “My only focus for him is winning races,” Graffard says after watching Calandagan and his travelling companion Le Nomade complete half a lap of the Tokyo turf in a swinging canter. “I don't have to plan what will happen after racing, and what distance he should be racing over to be commercially interesting for a stallion career, or things like that. You only do it for the horse and for the sport, and I think that's why I like these geldings – I think they are great for the sport.” He's been here before of course, just last year, with Goliath (Adlerflug), who will be heading instead for Hong Kong next month. Goliath finished a creditable sixth last year behind Do Deuce (Heart's Cry), but the fact that he too is a gelded King George winner is where the comparison ends with Calandangan, according to their trainer. “The two horses are very different, so I have had to prepare them completely differently,” he says of the challenge of keeping a horse at his peak this late in the year. “I do it according to the horse, not to the race, and I know how to get Calandagan to his best. So that's what we are focused on, and the preparation has been right for Calandagan but different to last year.” Having settled upon the Japan Cup as a target with Princess Zahra Aga Khan after Calandagan's King George victory, Graffard said that the pressure was off when using the Champion Stakes – a revered Group 1 in its own right – almost as a prep race for Tokyo. “We said that this was where we wanted to go over the autumn and I was looking for a race to get him ready for the Japan Cup. The only suitable race for that was at Ascot in the Champion Stakes. It sounds a little bit silly because it was a very, very strong race, and the horse would need to be a champion that day. And obviously, winning the Champion Stakes, he proved to be the best horse in Europe anyway. It was a risk to prep for the Japan Cup in the Champion Stakes in England but I didn't have much pressure, because if he was beaten, it's okay. You take a risk, and I think it's very good for the sport, and I'm lucky because my owners have complete trust in me.” Nemone Routh and Francis Graffard at the Japan Cup press conference | Emma Berry Graffard is clearly relishing the luxury of knowing that, soundness and willingness permitting, Calandagan will be in his stable for some seasons to come. “We have got to know him well,” he says of the four-year-old. “But horses change, they mature, and we have to adapt all the time, but that's why this job is so interesting, because they're all different, and you have to go with their way. And with a colt, as they get more mature, they get heavier, and there is a line where they start to think more with their body, thinking about another job. So with a horse like Calandagan, it's much easier, and you can really train him as an athlete.” An athlete is exactly what Calandagan looks this unusually warm autumnal morning in the Tokyo sunshine, pointing his toe under his regular rider Jeremy Lobel. The only trace of the well reported former antics of his days as an enfant terrible is in the wearing of a hood – more familiarity perhaps than necessity these days. Nemone Routh, racing manager for the Aga Khan Studs, is in Tokyo already along with her colleague Pierre Gasnier ahead of the arrival of Princess Zahra Aga Khan for the big race. Success breeds success has long been the simple catchphrase of the operation's marketing division, and in a year in which it lost its figurehead with the death of His Highness Aga Khan IV in February, it can also now be said that the succession is breeding success. Princess Zahra Aga Khan, who has long played a key role in the development of the Aga Khan Studs, doubtless wishes that no such official changing of the guard had been necessary, but in the inevitable passing of familial duties from one generation to the next the horses – and those charged with their care – have not let her down. “Really, we couldn't dream of a year like this,” Routh says. “For the year to finish with us having the world's best horse, trained by Francis – and also a quick shout out to Daryz, who is the third-best-rated horse in the world and who won the Arc – and for it to fall in this difficult year at the beginning, and for the horses to perform at the top level throughout, it's indescribable, really. “We're very proud of the year that we've had. And it's wonderful to come here with such a good horse who's at the top of his game and who seems to have travelled very well. We're under no illusions that it will be difficult. It's a hard trip for a horse to take at the end of the year but he seems very well and we're very confident in his abilities.” During the press conference, Graffard referred to the things over which he had no control – the post position draw and a race start which takes place right in front of what will by Sunday be a grandstand humming with excitement. “I'll be happy with any number less than 10,” he said of a starting position, and by the afternoon another bounce of the ball had gone his way with a draw in stall eight. The rest now is up to Calandagan, to keep calm and carry on winning. The post ‘We Couldn’t Dream of a Year Like This’: Calandagan Team on One Last Push for the Japan Cup appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article
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