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With such market confidence behind Jangoe Bai the best value by far is backing him at 16s for the Gold Cup.
I’ve been wary of trainer talk almost all my punting life, but listening to Joel Parkinson talk about Konfusion on the Nick Luck show, he seemed reluctant to tempt fate by saying just how good they think this horse is.
More than happy to back Golden Ace.
I see Lee has taken Nemean Lion out – that’s two weekends in a row he has missed big races and he holds no other entries at the moment. I wonder if we will see him at Cheltenham on Trials Day?
Will Il Est Francais show up in his Kempton form?
Will Gaelic Warrior be over his Durkan exertions?
Will Fact To File see this out in stamina and in spirit (I suspect he’s a wee bit soft in a hard finish)?
Will The Jukebox Man handle the faster pace?
How will Banbridge take to first time visor?
And can Jangoe Bai and Djelo find the 7 to 10lbs improvement needed?I have a terrible record in this race and should know better but at 14s, Djelo appeals as the EW value.
moehat. Sportinglife recently altered their login procedures giving 3 ways to login. I just stick to my original Sportinglife login, though you can use a Skybet account as they are all under the same banner, with Timeform too.
As Tony Calvin says on his Bluesky feed, utterly ridiculous to have the final decs for a historic race and big betting handicap just 24 hours before.
Race is here. https://www.sportinglife.com/racing/replays
Didn’t drop the bit till three out and got tired from there. Keen running took some toll, but suspect he wants a long break after a very hard race last time. Excellent technique all in all. Hope he finds form again and is not soured.
From a long stale memory, I think Aintree once had 17 flat meetings. Mrs Topham reportedly regarded them as little more than a nuisance. She wouldn’t spend a penny on facilities that were close to falling apart, leading to what would become an annual question: will this be the last Grand National?
Nemean Lion had a Long Walk entry. I wonder if he’s in here on the same basis as at Newcastle – to pick up the pieces in a potentially small field. His best ratings have come at around the 20f trip so connectionsl look a bit unlucky in having a good horse who excels at a ‘bad’ trip. He had an off day in The Stayers; they really ought to give him another bite at a three-miler just to see. Nowt to lose.
Feel like I’ve followed Monbeg Genius all my life but will reluctantly leave him this year as I don’t think he quite sees this out.
Spent an enjoyable 90 minutes looking through the top half of the field so far and Git Maker is my choice from them: looks like Snowden’s been following a recipe that will come nice and ready to serve here on Boxing Day.
will take a look at the others tomorrow.
For the myriad words written about Kempton and the health of our sport in general, one fact had me stopping and puondering. Steve Prior, who runs a marketing agency, messaged me saying he used to work with Kempton and their biggest income stream was from regular antique fairs.
Think about that. It sums up the whole sport. Despite all the capital investment in tracks, were it not for Levy and media rights money, the vast majority of tracks would have to close.
Without bookmakers we do not have a viable sport. The parties who snort from the trough appear to have no interest in changing this scenario. None will raise a head from that trough long enough to plead with the others for collective action. They’re driven by fear of the inevitable – the trough will dry up – so they need to get their share until it does. After that, who cares? And,it seems, before it the same applies – who cares?
I blogged on this yesterday, mostly in response to Lydia’s reply to one of my posts on X: Lydia strongly believes that a commercial case can be made for Kempton’s contribution to racing in general via the facilities (racing-wise) it provides for the development of good horses.
……………
The threat of closure looms again after Jockey Club CEO Jim Mullen claimed last week that the future of Kempton is now out of his hands. A deal was done in 2018 with house builders Redrow, who have the option of building there. That option expires in 2028. Redrow reportedly have no current plans to execute the option.
Mullen says the Jockey Club has costly investment plans, mainly for Aintree and Cheltenham, though all tracks are expected to benefit. The Club owns:
North
Aintree
Carlisle
Haydock Park
Midlands & East
Huntingdon
Market Rasen
Newmarket (both the Rowley Mile and July Course)
Nottingham
London
Epsom Downs
Kempton Park
Sandown Park
South West
Cheltenham (home of the Cheltenham Festival)
Exeter
Warwick
Wincanton
The Jockey Club has for some time nurtured plans for building a track at Newmarket for all weather racing.
Jack Keene reported in The Sun on December 17th:
With the government set to relax planning laws and the threat to Kempton ramping up, Amy Starkey, who was appointed the Jockey Club’s ‘Project Newmarket Director’ in May, has been driving plans for a new all-weather track forward.
She has made presentations to Jockey Club members and various racing stakeholders around the proposed new racecourse, which would be situated on the large expanse of land behind the grandstands at the Rowley Mile.
The floodlit all-weather track would replace Kempton’s 54 Flat fixtures, were Kempton to close, while the plans for Newmarket also involve building new homes and a country park.
The Jockey Club declined to comment on the Newmarket project.
Jim Mullen, speaking this week on the Nick Luck podcast, said that Jockey Club Racecourses must be lean and fit before it begins investing, hence the plans for some redundancies. Should we assume that this drive for a lean and fit organisation has included a detailed consideration about the wisdom of closing Kempton. Does it make commercial sense? Does it make sense for an organisation whose very existence, as a non-profit group, is premised on investing in racing?
Does investing in racing mean racing in general or only in the tracks owned by the Club?
Reactions to the proposed closure of Kempton have been mixed except from those working in the industry, who, on the whole, condemn it in the strongest terms—“Jockey Club should hang its head in shame.”
The protests seemed, to me at least, more emotional than practical. The King George VI Chase, first run in 1937, is dear to the hearts of long-term fans. But professionals also value Kempton for its flat, right-handed layout and its provision, consistently, of decent ground in the depth of winter.
While the King George is the diamond event at the track, Kempton hosts numerous other graded NH races:
Grade 1 Races
King George VI Chase
Kauto Star Novices’ Chase
Christmas Hurdle
Desert Orchid Chase
Wayward Lad Novices’ Chase
Grade 2 Races:
Dueling Grounds Juvenile Hurdle
Adonis Juvenile Hurdle (February)
Pendil Novices’ Chase (February)
Ballymore Leamington Novices’ Hurdle (January)
Grade 3 Races:
Lanzarote Handicap Hurdle (January)
Coral Handicap Chase
Coral Racing Club Handicap Hurdle
(the above list from Claude:AI: I have not double-checked them)
Broadcaster and journalist Lydia Hislop, a strong supporter of Kempton, said today on X: “The value of Kempton to top-class jump racing has not been evaluated in any spreadsheet, I am willing to bet. This is not an emotional argument I am making; it is a commercial one.”
And this returns us to the lean and fit claims made by Jim Mullen. Has the commercial impact of closure been reliably evaluated in that specific instance – “to top-class jump racing”? Do the ripples from Kempton’s NH fixtures spread far enough across the sport to deliver a commercial ‘trickle down’? If so, is Mullen willing to cut off that supply on the basis that there is no measurable financial benefit to the Jockey Club via the Kempton coffers?
If a convincing commercial case could be made that all of racing benefits financially from Kempton, might Kempton have a stay of execution in exchange for the track billing all other NH courses by way of a tax on the Kempton Trickle Down?
That sounds to me like a very tough vessel to launch and keep afloat, but there are few commenting on this subject who have the rounded experience in the industry that Hislop has.
If it’s true that Mullen believes All Weather at Newmarket is a better proposition than all weather at Kempton, it brings the sport no further forward, because it deepens the reliance on bookmakers, though that argument itself is probably pointless as racing has so many eggs in the bookies’ basket, one more won’t matter.
The sport should at least try to diversify. Mullen wants the best from each asset, yet racecourses, on the face of it, present one of the worst business proposals you could imagine. Take Aintree: the venue covers 270 acres and has five grandstands: the core business uses these assets to the full on 7 days each year.
In what universe does this make sense? And it is not at all uncommon in the sport. Even triple that number of racedays, and it leaves these huge, expense-hungry businesses effectively idle for 90% of the year.
Other events take place—weddings, conferences, some have golf courses, car boot sales, exhibitions, but these must contribute a tiny percentage of total income.
Look at the advantages the Jockey Club would have in, for example, setting up a nationwide car hire business. Driving schools. Green gyms. Office space rental—this is a potential big earner: how many hospitality boxes sit empty when they could be rented out to businesses at various levels? A premium deal, perhaps including a package for each raceday to entertain clients?
Leasing space for Travel Inn type hotels. Providing business hubs, pop up shops/offices. The land could be used for flight schools, for hire to local authorities for training purposes, management away-day companies, team building.
I’m certain half a dozen innovators bouncing ideas around could suggest a raft of income streams to make those empty acres and vacant buildings much more commercially viable.
With millions in media-rights cash flowing into racecourses, they’ll never be in a better position to invest in diversification, which is one of only three strategies any business has (market penetration and market development the others, and we’ve made a pretty poor fist when trying those two). Far too many businesses fear diversification. I worked at Aintree in the mid ‘90s. After my first Grand National in 1994 I recall seeing the invoice for temporary tentage – it was hundreds of thousands. I proposed that Jockey Club Racecourses set up their own tentage company, given it would be easily able to justify such an investment with the number of tracks it had. The answer was: ‘our business is to run racecourses’.
More all weather tracks are not the answer, especially when bookies are assuring us racing is dying as a betting product (without mentioning the stranglehold they have on clever punters).
The Jockey Club ought to widen its thinking on Kempton, on its tracks, and on its obligations to the sport. Radical change is needed. What Jim Mullen seems to be promising is more of the same.
Gaelic Warrior had a much harder race than Fact To File in the John Durkan, I’d say. Fact To File had a conventional ride until the business end of things, whereas Gaelic Warrior looked to be choke out from the start. Hard to blame a jockey in the heat of battle throwing everything there is left at the winning post, but to squeeze another ounce from a horse who’s been headed can add to what damamge has already been done. And Gaelic Warrior, based on that run, makes things worse for himself as he wants to give it all – head carriage reminds me a bit of Denman.
Who knows, he might well have the constitution to bounce back, but I wouldn’t bet on it at those odds. And just looking again at the finish made me wonder if Fact To File is a wee bit of a shirker?
Djelo’s jumping will be an asset. The change of tactics at Huntingdon (took it up at the sixth) seemed to suit him very well and he’s relatively unexposed at the trip. Only 7, well proven right handed, and it wll be to his advantage should it come up soft. I think he will be my bet EW.
Looking deeper at my assumptions that Fox would excel in long distance chases … not the case.
Strike Rate
Chases2m to 2m2f:16.48
2m to 2m5f: 12.78
3m2 to 4m: 10.39
3m2 to 4m4: 11.43Hurdles
2m to 2m2: 9.17
2m to 2m4: 9.2
3m to 3m5: 11.4I had assumed that the more fences in a race the more his horsemanship would count. The figures suggest his specialisation is the faster run races where, perhaps, mistakes carry a much higher penalty to your chance of winning. That too makes sense, and I should have considered it. When I was young, Johnny Haine was a star hurdles jockey. Once established, I believe he only rode in hurdle races. It looks like Lucinda would do well with Fox on the chasers and a modern day Johnny Haine on the hurdlers.
Am obliged to the excellent Chris Bagnall at Horseracebase for the stats.
