Some decent jump racing this weekend

This is the 331st edition of the Wayward Lad blog.

No selections on Wednesday but we could have a selection on Thursday and almost certainly will do on Friday if events pan-out well.

There is a decent “jumps” meeting at Ffos Las on Thursday & Friday as the jumpers start to warm-up for the new season ‘proper’. Like most humans I am a creature of habit and, this time last year, I had a couple of wagers at the Ffos Las meeting and then another at the Cartmel meeting on Saturday. What I like to see is that the same trainers who were involved in those races last year are involved this year too – and with some of the same horses.

I am particularly drawn to the class 2, 3m 1½f chase at Ffos Las on Friday at 4:50pm, and the 3-mile handicap hurdle (class 3) that follows it at 5:25pm. There are also a couple of interesting races at Hamilton on Friday evening, including the Lanark Silver Bell; a class 3 handicap over 12f worth £20,000. This is likely to be very competitive and we could be able to find some value in this race. The afternoon meeting at Newmarket on Friday holds the class 3 Piper-Heidsieck “Rare” Handicap over 1m 6f & 175 yards. This race has been an excellent pointer to the Cesarewitch (run on October 8th this year) and as I write 14 of the entries are also entered for the Cesarewitch. One that catches my eye is John Gosden’s improving 3yo, Manifestation.

The racing on Saturday looks fairly uninspiring and, looking at the races and entries, the best opportunity for a wager could well be at the Windsor meeting. That said, I will also be paying attention to the racing at Cartmel over the jumps.

I was hoping to be able to announce that I had re-joined the horseracing owner’s fraternity this week, having purchased a share in the syndicate run by Bechers Brook (Robert Gibbs) – see adjacent link to his blog – in the horse KING OF CASTILE. However, Robert decided he wasn’t for us and so the horse was quickly sent back to the sales where he was bought by trainer Jim Best. He happens to train at stables near to me at the old Lewes Racecourse in East Sussex. As such, I will be keeping an eye on him over the next couple of months as I am expecting the horse to be subject to a gamble as some stage this winter. In fact, there are a fair few decent East Sussex trainers over the jumps, and I am inspired to make my local trainers a feature of my winter horseracing blog.

Readers may have noticed that I have started a duplicate blog using Wordpress (link is adjacent) and the intention is to transfer totally to Wordpress from 1st October. By this time I hope I will have learnt how to use that platform to best effect. In the meantime, if fellow bloggers want to include a link to the Wordpress page on your own blog, please do.

Thanks for reading this blog to all new visitors.
I hope that readers of the blog get as much enjoyment from it as I get from writing it. 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.

Betting on horseracing should be a pleasurable experience - never bet more than you can afford to lose.

Thanks from Wayward Lad.