Review of the day

Well, Venetia might not be able to win every race that is run (I saw at least 3 of hers get beaten this afternoon) but she does seem to have an uncanny knack of saddling the winner of the races that I choose tip in…

Obviously it needs to be kept in perspective, Riddlestown was a 14/1 shot today, whilst her Browns Brook was a 6/4 chance – but all the same, it happens with such regularity that it does get a tad annoying…

Ofcourse, there’s an easy answer – just save on the Venetia horse in any race that I tip in – I’m sure that shrewd ones amongst you are already doing that ;)

Anyway, suffice to say, Riddlestown ran no sort of a race today.

It’s difficult to be sure why – but the suspicion must be that he simply didn’t act on the heavy ground (he would have been in good company if he didn’t).

He’s handled soft OK in the past (even soft at Huntingdon) but as I’ve said before, there is soft and soft – and indeed heavy and heavy.
Whatever, he didn’t seem to appreciate it one jot !

That said, even if he’d been at his peak today, I doubt he would have got within hailing distance of Browns Brook – though he might well have finished second, as the rest of the field looked next to useless.

Mind, perhaps they didn’t act on the ground either…

Two more who didn’t appear to act on the ground were Alco Sivola and Memberof – they were already beaten when the field entered the home straight…

Henry King seemed to handle the ground OK – but as I suspected, the distance of the race was at least half a mile too far for him…

I guess his mark might reduce as a result of the run – but he had a hard race in the process…

Over at Doncaster, Mr Gardner was a late drifter – and got a ride that suggested to me, another 5lb off his rating was the main aim.
He’ll probably achieve that and is in danger of becoming extremely well handicapped.
When he appears in a lower grade race on decent ground, expect us to be on him.

Thunderstom race a decent race – but did appear to find the ground a bit quicker than he wanted…

Taking him to the one place in the country where there is quick ground, when he needs soft, seems a bit of an odd thing to do. But mine is not to reason why, I guess…

And so it was left to the pin job, Everaard, to try and salvage something from the day…

The funny thing is, when I first looked at the race, the horse that caught my eye was Viva Steve. However, I felt there was just a bit too much guesswork, considering he was an 8/1 shot.

If he’d been a 20/1 shot (his SP) I might have taken a chance – and then I would have felt gutted, as Everaard came chugging by to win as he liked…

Still, at least I now have a tool to help combat the recent poor form – expect to be hearing a lot more from the lucky pin ;)

TVB.