Clever. Guess it pays to do your homework.wearthefoxhat wrote: ↑Fri Jan 13, 2023 7:54 amCrumpets wrote: ↑Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:34 amAnybody smell shenanigans on the 14.50 at Catterick yesterday? Yorkshire National..
Bushypark backed heavily from 4s to 3s. Except he'd been pulled up in 4 of his last 5 races. Of course he won this one handily.
Looks like his 2nd place finish, last time out, was his staged "return to form" race; so as to make yesterday look less suspicious..
I did a Google, and the exact same thing happened with the exact same horse a couple of years back. Much more dramatically backed in, but the same story; dreadful form followed by an easy win. There was talk of an investigation the last time it happened...
Such 'weird form'
Only thing I can see is it's Hurdle form doesn't translate to it's Chase form. Eased in the Handicap ratings, then stepped up in trip considerably. It's a tactic used by Sir Mark Prescott on the flat when obtaining a handicap mark for the first time.
Not cheating as such, just bending the rules in your favour. Gordon Elliott used to do it when the irish Handicap mark was allowed to be used over in the UK. He farmed the big UK handicaps for years until they changed the rules.
Think I remember the Swiss national football team using a similar methodology before big tournaments...
Organise games against teams who supposedly had an inflated ranking, thus gaining 'easy' points against valuable sides. Which then gave them a decent seeding for tournament draws.
But yeah, there's green shoots I think.