Tottenham edge past West Brom to keep pace atop the table. Harry Redknapp's men will definitely need to grind out such kinds of results if they hope to challenge the Manchester teams for the title.
Meydan racing starts on Thursday and Godolphin look to be taking matters very seriously this year. Both bin Suroor and Al Zaroori are loading up the gates. I am not sure about the overall strategy of the Blue team here. Starting their best horses so early in Dubai will obviously rule them out for the important late European races of the year. The global picture regarding the goals of the stable has been fuzzy for some time; global domination does not seem to be top of the agenda anymore.
The Thursday card looks very competitive and I look at Honour System to offer the best forecast of the night, in the second handicap race. The Godolphin outfit has won in a handicap race at Meydan last year and the race looks within his grasp. Dettori takes the ride and I put a Place recommendation on the King Best gelding.
Place: Honour System
Showing posts with label bin Suroor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bin Suroor. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Al Zarooni v/s Bin Suroor - a tale of 2 performances
Real Madrid are just running riot against overwhelmed Villareal, and unless the second half shows a change of cataclysmic proportions, this is going to be an easy good recommendation on the Los Blancos.
The general observation over the past years has been that many juveniles that showed great promise in grooming stables such as those of Mark Johnston and Andre Fabre, became flops when they joined the parent Godolphin operation. Many other potentially good 2-year olds that were outright acquired at a high price from other stables also did not do themselves justice once they joined the Dubai stable. Fingers were mainly pointed at trainer bin Suroor (BS) for not only failing to bring on the newcomers properly, but also for wrecking their careers as well.
This year, Sheikh Mo decided to go with 2 trainers and gave his confidence to Al Zarooni (AZ), who was attributed about half the stable and a load of new 2-year olds as well. The results so far are astonishing to say the least. I look at the trainer statistics on the Racing Post today and the numbers don't lie;
Mahmood Al Zarooni 78–389 20% 51 46 46 £1,455,771 £1,839,382 +131.61
Saeed Bin Suroor 48–343 14% 56 40 39 £418,305 £819,341 -112.66
Al Zarooni beats the bin Suroor in every single category. The story so far is that while AZ was winning prestigious Group 1's at Royal Ascot on high-class Rewilding, BS was tasting Group 1 glory in lesser-fancied places like Italy or Germany with old stalwarts like Campanologist! The likes of Blue Bunting and Rewilding that have carried the flag proud for Godolphin this year have all been under the care of AZ.
It is arguable that AZ's dominance can be attributed to the fact he was given the better crop of horses than bin Suroor this year. Only the insiders of the stable would know that for sure. But his better strike rate also demonstrates that he is more likely to get the horses spot-on when he readies them for a race, than his counter-part.
It is worth of note that Godolphin used to command a strong contingent running Stateside under the care of BS. This year, their incursions on that side of the point has been rather tepid relative to previous years. There is no doubt that bin Suroor's influence has diminished on that ground as well.
Whether these are the results of Godolphin politics or Sheihkh Mo's decisions, it will be interesting to see how all this folds out. The main interest for a punter is that when you look at a racing card, check the trainer first. In these current times, the odds are that an AZ-trained horse will give a better performance than a BS-trained one.
The general observation over the past years has been that many juveniles that showed great promise in grooming stables such as those of Mark Johnston and Andre Fabre, became flops when they joined the parent Godolphin operation. Many other potentially good 2-year olds that were outright acquired at a high price from other stables also did not do themselves justice once they joined the Dubai stable. Fingers were mainly pointed at trainer bin Suroor (BS) for not only failing to bring on the newcomers properly, but also for wrecking their careers as well.
This year, Sheikh Mo decided to go with 2 trainers and gave his confidence to Al Zarooni (AZ), who was attributed about half the stable and a load of new 2-year olds as well. The results so far are astonishing to say the least. I look at the trainer statistics on the Racing Post today and the numbers don't lie;
Mahmood Al Zarooni 78–389 20% 51 46 46 £1,455,771 £1,839,382 +131.61
Saeed Bin Suroor 48–343 14% 56 40 39 £418,305 £819,341 -112.66
Al Zarooni beats the bin Suroor in every single category. The story so far is that while AZ was winning prestigious Group 1's at Royal Ascot on high-class Rewilding, BS was tasting Group 1 glory in lesser-fancied places like Italy or Germany with old stalwarts like Campanologist! The likes of Blue Bunting and Rewilding that have carried the flag proud for Godolphin this year have all been under the care of AZ.
It is arguable that AZ's dominance can be attributed to the fact he was given the better crop of horses than bin Suroor this year. Only the insiders of the stable would know that for sure. But his better strike rate also demonstrates that he is more likely to get the horses spot-on when he readies them for a race, than his counter-part.
It is worth of note that Godolphin used to command a strong contingent running Stateside under the care of BS. This year, their incursions on that side of the point has been rather tepid relative to previous years. There is no doubt that bin Suroor's influence has diminished on that ground as well.
Whether these are the results of Godolphin politics or Sheihkh Mo's decisions, it will be interesting to see how all this folds out. The main interest for a punter is that when you look at a racing card, check the trainer first. In these current times, the odds are that an AZ-trained horse will give a better performance than a BS-trained one.
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