Review of the day

I have to say that I found the results of the 2 races involving todays tips, tough to take…

Whilst on the one hand, both horses ran really good races and therefore justified me tipping them; or the other hand, they were both beaten pointless…

Again, I can accept that, but what I find more difficult to accept, is the improvement shown by the 2 horses that beat them…

In the Cork Grand National, Unoccupied was hammered into 4/1 favouritism; travelled and jumped really well – and then battled his way to the line.
Without Sword Fish in the race, he would have been a really worthy winner.
However, Swordfish was in the race and despite being seemingly exposed, he found phenomenal improvement to win doing hand springs…
He is likely to be handed a significant rise in the weights for his victory  (I would expect a stone, at very least) – though I’m sure the 32K Euro first price will act as some consolation for his owners…

At Huntingdon, the victory of Lookout Mountain, felt even worse…
I put him up as a mention at Wetherby on Friday – and he ran a fair, if unspectacular, race…
He was 4/1 early that day – but then drifted out to 7/1…
Just two days after a hard race, I honestly thought he would be withdrawn today (which is why I didn’t mentioned him). However, connections were clearly much happier with the early price on offer and the 12/1 had shrunk to 5/1 at the off…
As I said this morning, it was an uncompetitive race – and if you could find a well handicapped horse, it was there for the taking…
Well, despite how it looked on Friday, Lookout Mountain was clearly a very well handicapped horse: he cantered through the race and absolutely hacked up.
Night Alliance ran a highly respectable race to finish third.
He may well have hung on for second if he’d absolutely had to – though the 3m2f trip did seem to stretch him a little.
Next time out, over half a mile less (and possibly fences), he will take some beating…

The moral of the two stories above: however confident you might feel, you are always likely to be a step or two behind the JP Macmanus and John Magnier…

Earlier in the afternoon, Snowed In ran an absolute stinker at Carlisle.
Maybe the experience over fences has affected his confidence. Whatever, don’t expect to be seeing his name in the write-up in the immediate future.

The favourites for the 2 small field novice/intermediate races at Carlisle, were indeed turned over. However it was not by either of the mentions…
Knock a Hand ran a good race to chase home the impressive Many Clouds. On this showing, Knock a Hand should have a future over fences.
Violin Davies didn’t run as well behind Cloudy Too. She seemed to blow up about half a mile form home, which left me wondering why connections had chosen to travel so far for her debut…

The stayers chase was won most convincingly by Global Power. If he can go on from this, he could pick up another nice chase or two this season.
The mention, Kris Cross, ran a fair race to finish third and should have little problem wining a chase himself.

At Huntingdon, there was drama in the novice chase, when hot favourite Smad Place unshipped Robert Thornton after the final fence.
In truth, his jumping to that point had not been great – and on this showing, the RSA chase looks a bit of a pipe dream…

Strawberry Hill ran a sound race in the handicap chase – but found a few too good.
The winner wasn’t one I had identified this morning, but Gandalf, a previous 15 chase maiden.
In fairness, he had shown some decent from in the past and off a reduced mark came good with avengence.

There is little I can say about the run of Top Show in the finale…
On this evidence, Dean Ivory should stick to training sprinters !

Finally, at Cork, Sizing Rio was an impressive winner of the novice chase.
His cause was helped enormously by the withdrawal of favourite Felix Younger, However, he won so impressively you had to wonder whether he would have won regardless.
Maybe we’ll find out in the fullness of time….


At the moment, I’m considering not tipping tomorrow.
It been a very intense 3 days – and I do feel like I might benefit from a day off, to stand back and reflect on things.
It was always my intention to start the season slowly – and build up and that is still what I plan to do.
I feel that the last 3 days have pretty much brought me back up to speed, so expect to see the staking start to increase from here on in.

I’ll make a final decision on whether tomorrow will be a blank day, first thing in the morning – and advise accordingly…

TVB.