Look-back at the Weekend of 21st-23rd October

A cracking weekend for followers of the blog, with 2 wins @ 8/1 and 7/1 from just 3 selections.

I must admit that I thought THIRD INTENTION would be pulled-up after he clouted the 3rd fence, but full marks to his jockey Aidan Coleman for giving the horse plenty of time to settle down before bringing him back into the race.

After he jumped the 5th-last fence I really thought we had a chance as he was motoring and, while the field was bunched at that point, I'd already seen distress signals from the riders of some of the other horses.

The race went much to plan (apart from that 3rd fence blunder) and, when you look at the performance from the 7/4 fav Three Musketeers, you have to wonder what were the punters on him basing their opinion on.

I knew Royal Regatta was well-handicapped but didn't have the soft ground he desires, and he ran a cracker, and is one to keep an eye on when the rains come. Similarly, God's Own was the 2nd-best horse in my book but was suffering from ratings inflation. I thought he ran as well as ever and this was a great trial for the Tingle Creek in December. Smad Place also ran a cracker and that run was as good - if not better - than his seasonal debut last autumn.  However, this year he will go into the Hennessey Gold Cup with a rating of OR167 and not OR155, and I just cannot see him winning the race with that rating. He's good, but he's not Denman.

Away from the main selections, there was also plenty of information providing successful wagering opportunities if you wanted to take them up. You could have layed Three Musketeers to lose in the race won by Third Intention, or at Wincanton on Sunday you could have layed the 11/8 fav I'm In Charge in the 4-runner race at 3:30pm. Even on Saturday when I concentrated on the opening race at Cheltenham there were other options that a reader of the blog could have taken from the narrative, such as laying the 5/1 fav  Henryville, or even putting a few runners from my shortlist in a combination forecast (Coologue, Keltus and say Cogry in 6 x £5 straight-forecasts would have returned £350.35 for a £30 stake).

It looks quiet for the next few days, so I will take the lapse in activity to focus on updating the alert list with any that caught my eye over the weekend, and to lay the foundations for next weeks assault on the bookies.  As we saw with Forgotten Gold in the veteran's chase on Sunday, fitness is the key at this time of year as, if a horse isn't race fit, without fitness it doesn't matter how good the horse is. 

By my calculations, the blog is showing £93.13 profit on advised stakes of £100 on 8 selections this autumn.