Will Paul Nicholls win the National with this horse at 50/1

Recent horseracing hasn’t been up to much and, at periods like this, I find it difficult to motivate myself to analyse the racing on offer. I’ve been thinking about where to go next with the blog as, despite my efforts utilising twitter (on which I have over 400 followers, and a lot are horseracing fans) and regular daily updates of the blog, some days I don’t get more than 100 site visits.
A few months ago (Sept/Oct) the blog was hitting new highs in visitor stats nearly every week but, since the snows came before Xmas, visitor numbers have dropped about 40% and now average about 150 a day. As a lot of the visits are less than a second in duration (must be something to do with web-search software) I reckon that there are probably less than 50 regular readers at the moment – maybe even less than that.
As such, I’ve decided to keep the blog going till after the Grand National meeting in April and then I may change the theme of the blog.
From a personal point of view, I get a lot of satisfaction in interpreting the antepost markets and punting on the major handicaps, and that is probably the way I will go with just a weekly blog update during the summer months.
I have lost my love of the flat racing season in recent years, as horses don’t seem to run as much anymore, nor “mature”. I remember (during the 1970’s & 80’s) that you could follow a decent 2yo thru’ its 3yo season and then onwards as a 4yo and 5yo as it matured into a solid handicapper. Nowadays, a whole host of horse’s in the OR90 – OR110 range seem to disappear abroad (Hong Kong? South Africa?), not to mention those in the OR70 – OR89 range that become hurdlers. As such, as a punter/spectator of horseracing, I don’t build-up a relationship with the horses that compete on the Flat as I do with those competing over the Jumps.

I’ll be reviewing my Cheltenham Antepost Portfolio today and will advise of any adjustments to that portfolio tomorrow.

There is no news about the deaths of the horses at Newbury last Saturday, and that (IMO) suggests that an explanation is a lot more difficult to find than was first thought.

The Grand National weights were published yesterday, and what great reading they make. I have had tremendous good luck in the race with “gut-reading” of the entries, going back to Maori Venture in 1987 (obtained 50/1 antepost, and it won at 28/1) and culminating in Mon Mome at 100/1 (told everyone who would listen, and posted a thread on Betfair on the Tuesday before the race and again on the morning of the race). Having looked at the list of runners, one horse immediately caught my eye being a Grade 1 chase winner, having won 2 of his 5 starts over 3-mile, and who races off a mark 3lb less than his last win which was in the Grade 2 Cotswold Chase – TARANIS who is 50/1 as I write and will carry the magical weight of “11 stone”.

From the Horse Alert List comes ABSOLUTE SHAMBLES for the 2m7½f h’cap chase today at Leicester. Dropped 4lb from his last poor effort to OR84, he wears a visor for the 1st time. This is his visit to the “last chance saloon”. If he can repeat the form of his win over 3-mile at Huntingdon last season off OR88 then he will easily take this race apart. Currently 20/1, I’d rather have an ew punt on him than the fav Donald Will Do who is 11/2 who has only won once from 31 chase starts and, while that win was at Leicester (where he’s run 11 times), it was over 2m4f 110yards. The last few times he’s run over 21f+, he’s been tailed-off (08Nov10); tailed-off (18May10); well btn 2-out (14May10); tailed-off 4-out (19Feb10) – that’s not my idea of a fav for this race over nearly 3-miles.

The blog remains “down” 4.70pts for the month.
No selections today.

Thanks for reading this blog to all new visitors.

The blog takes a lot of effort to maintain and I hope that readers of the blog get enjoyment from it too. If you have had a successful wager on the back of what you’ve read here, then please make a contribution as an expression of thanks. Feel free to tell those who you think may find the blog of interest and value and, if you are a regular visitor, please add the blog to your list of favourites.
Thanks from Wayward Lad