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Sometimes this game is impossibly difficult Nath, at rare moments it is easy. Today was one of those – Hugo Palmer with a 3 yr old Group 1 horse in a Group 3 race against his elders. My only frustration is to miss another 3 year old in the next – Wedding Vow was a big price.
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
Sometimes this game is impossibly difficult Nath, at rare moments it is easy. Today was one of those – Hugo Palmer with a 3 yr old Group 1 horse in a Group 3 race against his elders. My only frustration is to miss another 3 year old in the next – Wedding Vow was a big price.
I felt Home Of The Brave had a great chance today but didn’t expect him to win as he did. I am not sure how yielding the ground actually was but I suspect Gordon Lord Byron needs more cut. He went off a silly price after being 3/1 earlier, a mugs bet at the SP.
I couldn’t fancy Wedding Vow as a maiden, even though Brooch looked very vulnerable after a stinking run the time before, Dermot Weld is also having a pretty quiet month by his standards.
I really believe Jessica Harrington is missing a trick with Bocca Baciata and has placed her really badly following a very promising start to the season in the Salsabil Stakes. I expected her to head for the Oaks after winning a 10f contest on yielding ground but instead she headed for the Irish 1000 Guineas.
It was particularly galling to see Jim Bolger’s Pleascach win that race, having finished behind Harrington’s filly in the race over the longer distance. Jack Naylor headed to Epsom instead and cut no ice before a better effort in the Irish Oaks.
For some reason Jessica Harrington saw fit to take Bocca Baciata to Ascot in a fruitless attempt to cope with the likes of Time Test on lightning fast ground conditions that were never going to suit her filly. That seemed a crazy decision to me and there are a lot easier gigs than that option.
Again, instead of trying the Irish Oaks, won by Hugo Palmer’s improving but hardly yet stellar, Covert Love, Bocca Baciata gets dropped in trip to 9f today instead. Watching her today was watching a filly who clearly needs at least 10f on softish ground and who is surely worth at least a try over a mile and a half. She got going all too late today and would have been second in another stride.
It is surely not coincidence that her best performance came when she faced the biggest test of stamina of her career and it is pretty sad to see the horses who finished behind her that day, Pleascach and Diamondsandrubies winning Group 1 and Group 2 races, whilst the winner is away on one wild goose chase after another in unsuitable races.
Maybe Harrington will take the hint eventually, just as the penny has finally dropped with William Haggas that the Leger is where Storm The Stars belongs.
Keep firing those winners in Joni and keep an eye out for Bocca Baciata now running over further on soft and being tailed off to make me look like a clown!
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
£6,042.08
I am sure there is a big win in her this year Steve and you are absolutely right – she is crying out for further. Trainers are oh so fallible I suppose. Though one trainer who can do no wrong at the moment is Hugo Palmer. He has won with 7 of his last 9 runners – an incredible streak. I really see this man as the next big trainer in this country. As I have mentioned before the write-ups on his website are superb and pointed me to several winners this week. He is a very good communicator and seems to have that lovely instinct which I so loved about Henry. He wrote a very interesting paragraph on the riding of Abtakany last week. I was reflecting today (as us sad racing folk do!) how that poor performance put me off lumping more on Covert Love on Sunday so reading those comments restored my faith before going in a bit heavier on Homeofthebrave.
It is also very clear to me now that the 3 year olds have a huge advantage this year with their wfa. Whether that is because they are particularly good or the older horses are particularly bad I am not sure but they should be backed almost blindly for now.
Speaking of streaks I am on a good one myself at the moment going over the 6g mark with my SDS bet looking good for another thousand odd. Someone asked me my percentage profit the other day so I thought I’d work that out up until now.
Stakes – £17,480
Returns – £23,522.08
Profit – £6,042.08
% profit – 34.56%"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
Well done Joni, keep it going.
It’s rare to find a trainer who will be as honest as he can about how his horses are running, sometimes they are quick to pull the blinds down over a particularly talented horse…John Gosden and Shalaa spring to mind, luckily I kept the faith in that one, he’s one to keep an eye on and Mark Johnston in RP’s Stable Tours…not a mention of Lumiere amongst his unraced juveniles update
I never keep a tally of my wins and losses but my set aside account for my racing bets is showing a small profit this year thanks to horses like Western Reserve, Shalaa and Trip to Paris.
I always think that form starts to take a turn around this time of the year so looking out for some of the improvers to do good, I’m sure you have one or two of those up your sleeve
Keep giving those bookies a good bashing Joni..
Jac
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...Thanks Jac and glad to hear you are in profit!!!
Just a little one tonight on Peace Prize who is expected to go well for the most in-form stable in the land.
£50 win Peace Prize – 11-4 – 8.20 Windsor loser
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
Sometimes you just HAVE to back a horse because it would KILL you if you didn’t and it won. This is the scenario for me and that bleedin donkey Satellite who runs tomorrow evening at Sandown. I almost wish I didn’t look at tomorrows runners just now but I did and I saw that he is now running off 83, has stepped up in trip and has been backed. He SHOULD win this by 10 lengths but I wouldn’t blame people for thinking me nuts and not backing him. As I say I just HAVE to back him. Another one I feel I should back is SDS’s last ride at Catterick Quickaswecan. He has dropped down the handicap like a stone and has been sold since his last start. He has been heavily backed tomorrow and I think someone knows something. Neither horse should be trusted and I am not putting the house on either of them.
£40 win Quickaswecan – 10-3 – 4.30 Catterick winner
£40 win Satellite – 7-2 – 8.15 Sandown loser
£20 win double"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
£6,065.42
I promise that will be the last time I back him!!!Good old SDS marches on though!!!
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
£25ew Clever Cookie – 50-1 – King George – loser
Rain
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
£25ew Clever Cookie – 50-1 – King George
Rain
Hammering it down here in Oxford. I reckon it will be run on soft ground tomorrow. My 50’s for Clever Cookie has disappeared and he is now into 12’s/14’s. Who’s a Clever Cookie hey?!!!
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
Fascinating to watch the betting for the KG. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ground ends up heavy as there is still plenty of rain to come and that would surely mean the fav withdrawn. As it is he is now as long as 10/11. Clever Cookie into 8’s in a place.
With all this rain around and with more forecast for Sunday I have gone in on Solow for next week’s Sussex. I think he would give Gleneagles a great race whatever the conditions but if it is softer then good I expect him to win it well.
£200 win Solow – 7-4 – Sussex
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
So if Golden Horn does run I think he will struggle to win on that ground. With Clever Cookie on board I have added Eagle Top at 7’s. He has never run on the surface but his breeding suggests he’ll be fine on it and I found it interesting how angry the stable were with the tactics in the Hardwicke. They REALLY expected him to win that and I think he is a cert to finish in the first 3.
I have also backed the Peril trained by the excellent Simon Crisford. This one hacked up a couple of weeks ago and I think is still very well handicapped.
I have also had a fun Lucky 31 on 5 of Mark Johnston’s as his horses are in superb form.
£50ew Eagle Top – 7-1 – King George – placed
£80 win Peril – 10-3 – Ascot 4.25 – winner
£2 win Lucky 31 – Sixth Sense (9-4), Rah Rah (11-2), Bizzario (10-1), Ravenhoe (6-1), Street Duel (2-1)"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
I’ve gone in again on Eagle Top. The more I see of the Hardwicke the more I think he was the one most inconvenienced not just during the race but in the straight where he was denied a clear run. If you look at his action I think he will also be less inconvenienced by the soft ground than some of the others and with Romsdal likely to take them along at a reasonable pace, I think this race will suit him much better than the Hardwicke. I really can’t see him being out of the first 3 at any rate.
It is still “will he, won’t he” with Golden Horn and I suppose they will wait and see what the first couple of races throw up. I personally think he will really struggle to show his best on this ground. He may still be good enough anyway, he is certainly a brilliant Group 1 horse taking on mainly Group 2 horses with a huge weight advantage. But we have seen in the past what adverse ground can do to even the very best horses. John Oxx refused to run Sea The Stars on it and I suspect that John Gosden will end up making the same decision.
£75ew Eagle Top – 7-1 – King George placed
£10 combination f/c Eagle Top, Snow Sky, Clever Cookie loser"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
£6,155.47
A small profit on the day thanks to Peril but it could have been oh so different but for millimetres. You win some you lose some and I really thought Eagle Top had got it won 100 yards out but the winner was brave and had that rail to help him. Still, no harm done and it was a great race to watch if not a great race in terms of quality. As Stevie said in his usual hilarious way on the Big Races thread Clever Cookie would have been more suited to the Boat Race but it was fun to watch that 50-1 melt into an incredible 9-2!
As for Golden Horn, the best trainers always talk about doing the right thing by the horse. It was a favourite saying of Sir Henry and JG said exactly that when interviewed on Racing UK. It amazes me how some people on this forum are so short-sighted and clueless and immediately start throwing their arms up in the air moaning about how cowardly or unsporting it is. I have to console myself with the knowledge that these are exactly the type of people who haven’t the brains to work out the true picture and who are also probably the mug punters who keep the bookies happy. Golden Horn might well have won today but that bog like going at Swinley Bottom would have taken plenty out of him and it would almost certainly have affected the rest of his season. A couple of years ago Aiden O’Brien decided to let Camelot run in the Irish Derby despite the heavy going. It was good for the crowd on the day and good for the race but not the right thing for the horse. Camelot won an atrocious renewal in atrocious conditions. But he was never again the horse that won so brilliantly at Epsom. In fact many people are happy to ridicule the horse and Aiden for calling him his best ever and point to the fact that his form never really measured up, which it didn’t. But it might have had he not run in that race. Aiden has spoken of his regret about that decision since and I took his decision not to run Gleneagles in the Derby as an indication that he had learnt from that mistake.
John Oxx didn’t run Sea The Stars on soft ground, Henry didn’t run Frankel in the Derby. This was not because they were cowards or unsporting, it was because they absolutely knew that this was not doing the right thing by the horse. Yes Frankel eventually ran on heavy ground but it was his last race and he was a Galileo who had won on soft ground before – not the same as GH. He has 4 more possible races to run before he retires and I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran in 3 of them. John Gosden made a tough call but the only call he could really make and I actually would have thought less of him if he had decided to run. It was very disappointing but it was disappointing that we got 35mm of rain not that a sensible decision was made. JG did the right thing by the horse and I am pretty sure that will also end up being the right thing for racing as GH wins his final 3 races in great style. In my opinion of course.
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
Well done joni,in profit yet again and your tips have helped put a few quid my way too,im new on here you have probably been asked this before,a fabulous £6000 profit and i see you often quote prices at various bookies,personally i use mainly betfair as most bookies have limited me to less than £10,i have done some arbitrage betting which the bookies frown on,but i have never taken more than £500 profit in one bet,do you still find it easy to bet with the bookies online,or do you go in the betting shops.
Hi Kaiser. Good to hear from you and welcome to the forum. I do virtually all my betting online unless I go to the track. There are 4 bookies who won’t take my money but plenty who do and I obviously go where the best value lies. My fav is Bet365 who offer incredible deals and who still give me a £10 free bet once a month no matter how well I might be doing. I also like Paddy Power and Laddies who don’t seem to mind if you do well. Hope this helps and hope you continue to contribute.
"this perfect mix of poetry and destruction, this glory of rhythm, power and majesty: the undisputed champion of the world!!!"
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