The actual run itself going the "wrong" way after almost a year's absence was not that bad on the face of it imo.
However the way in which Denman travelled and jumped appeared to me to lack any sort of sparkle whatsoever.
Unfortunately my impression is that he's gone, I hope I'm wrong as he was awesome last year.
this is where i am
I read Nichols comments on the racingpost website after and he didnt seem at all optimistic about the horse coming on enough for the run in time for Cheltnham, seemed pretty pesemistic actually.
I dont thik the 4/1 is good E/W value at all, the way i see it the horse completely turns himself around and will run them into the ground like last year or if on par with what we saw yesterday will be pulled up, i just cant see them giving him a really hard race if he's not right getting beat 30 lenghts into third by Kuato and some other horse, i think he'll be P/U by then if the jocky sees thats going to be the case, i'd back him to win or not and forget about the E/W value the way i read it cos he'll either trounce em or be walking back a long to the stables a long time after the winners crossed the line.
It's not surprising, Nichols said that they couldnt have run the horse for months after the Cheltnham race how hard it was for him, then having the respiritory problems he's had it's difficult to dee how the horse could come back to anything like what it was producing last year, though it's such a warrior and beast of a horse i was willing to give it a chance and see how it ran yesterday, IMO we got our answer.
TBH i think theres still a lot of question marks about Kauto, esp at chaltnham, i'll have to dig out a bit of value from somwhere i think this year, maybe Exotics turn to finaly do the Business!
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