Review of the day

No joy with either of the tips this afternoon – and I ended up just grateful that I’d ‘listened’ to Ruby and eased off the staking with Roi Du Mee.

Ruby’s judgement was spot on – he was outclassed !

Mind you, the entire field were outclassed behind the most impressive winner of a distance chase that I’ve seen all season.

If Last Instalment arrives in the same form on Gold Cup day, he’ll take some stopping.

My suspicion is that he wants ground on the soft side – but as the current top 3 in the betting want it quick, that’s not a bad place to be (particularly with the weather as it currently is !).

The days other tip, Supreme Bob, ran a nothing kind of a race at Exeter…

He eventually plugged on for fourth place - but at no point did he look like wining.

Don’t expect to see him tipped again in the immediate future…

So that was it for the Tips – but it was quite an interesting day for the Top Picks…

Now I would be the first to admit that the Top Picks haven’t set the world alight so far this season – however, I do think there is some mileage in the theory behind them…

What I’m trying to do with them, is find horses that have been over-backed early (so are no longer at attractive prices when I issue the tips) – but which I believe are the most likely winners of the races…

The 3 horses I put up as Top Picks this morning, Bailey Green, Fingal Bay and Tarabela were available at best prices of 4/1, 3/1 and 11/4 when I sent out the tips this morning (I know, because I backed them !).

Come the off, they were 6/1, 9/2 and 5/1 - and that was their conventional SPs, which I’m sure could have been beaten with a little effort…

So, I was right in my view that they were under-priced this morning !

I was also right, in the case of Fingal Bay and Tarabela, that they were the best horses in the race (Bailey Green was the best horse in his race as well, he was just running in the wrong race !).

A 9/2 and a 5/1 winner, will certainly help the Top Picks balance sheet – but also show how difficult it is, when you have to tip horses in a fixed window and are therefore realistically only able to take the prices available at that point in time…

Anyway, a good day for the Top Picks – but not such a good day for the mentions…

In fairness they were all quite speculative (apart from Don Cossack) and Tiger Roll ran a very good race to finish second in the opener.

Good as Gold also ran pretty much as I expected – whilst Icelip showed a deal of promise in the bumper (though he will need to learn to settle if he’s ever to win a race).

The weather is still casting a shadow over things, with tomorrows meeting at Plumpton needing to pass a second inspection in the morning...

I'll take a proper look at the cards this evening and will advise around 8:00 tomorrow morning, on whether there will be any tips.

TVB.