It was my 60th birthday (or fifty-tenth) on Friday 8th, and all-in-all it has been an interesting week for me and my horseracing. After a day at Ascot where fate prevented me from having a 10/1 winner with £25 on (Capeland), I was at Plumpton on Monday and met with similar ill-fate.
I started the day off with a nice win on Paul Nicholls hurdler Calva D'Auge - Nicholls went into the meeting with 3 wins from 8 runners in the past 5 seasons at Plumpton in hurdle races. Nicholls sent 3 hurdlers to the track, but only one went off the fav (Get The Appeal) and that one was well beaten. Too be fair, I thought his form was weak, so he had no money of mine on him, but I had no idea what would win the race. Unfortunately, having shortlisted his 3rd hurdler Dan McGrue - the 7/2 fav in the RP betting forecast - I overlooked him for the Gary Moore trained Not Never, who I thought had a lot in his favour. Sure enough, Dan McGrue won well at the rewarding odds of 13/2.
Nicholls is now 5 wins from 11 in hurdle races at Plumpton.
I thought I had a good-priced winner in Tzar De L'Elfe in the 3m1f novices handicap chase as he was cruising along and looked the most likely winner until he tried to pass the leader 4-out and had his jockey nearly knocked out of the saddle. He almost stopped and lost all momentum, but the way he finished suggested he was unlucky. Maybe next time.
Onto Saturdays racing, and I'm having another go at finding a successful winning double.
We have meetings at Aintree, Wincanton and Kelso and - as usual - I'm sticking to handicap chases of Class 3 or better. I'm keeping away from the novice chases for the time being until the form gets easier to interpret, I'm not one for betting on reputations.
At Aintree, the 2-mile Class 3 handicap chase at 1:30pm looks tricky. However, the next race on the card looks better, and I'm really taken by the overnight fav CEPAGE. This horse does not have many miles on the clock, but he goes well fresh, and was last seen chasing home Frodon at Cheltenham in December, and that was his only race last season. If he can repeat that run he will be tough to beat even with top-weight in this handicap. There are a lot of holes in the opposition, and (sometimes) the best value is in the favourite. I think he could start at 9/4 and so you should take the early odds if you are reading this on Friday evening.
CEPAGE is trained by Venetia Williams, and she has already had a winner this season, in fact she's had 4 winners from just 13 runners in the past 14-days. When the mud is flying it's the time to follow her runners, and tomorrow she has only two out from her stable; Cepage at Aintree and ENOLA GAY at Wincanton in the Class 3 Conditional Jockeys handicap chase over 2m4f run at 1:15pm.
I like ENOLA GAY; he's a C&D winner which is an advantage, but he's also looked capable of running to a much higher rating than OR123. It's possible that he had a breathing problem (he's been 2nd 4 times from 9 starts in chases, winning just once), and over the summer he's had a wind operation. This could be the time to catch him to snap up the value, as this race does not look to be that strong on paper.
I've taken the early odds about this pair:-
Wincanton 1:15pm ENOLA GAY @ 4/1
Aintree 2:05pm CEPAGE @ 9/2
I'm on for a £10 win double.
I hope to be back on Sunday and update you on another event this week, which was both good (and bad) fortune at the same time - but that's how it is with horseracing, and that's why we love it.
No comments:
Post a Comment