Good morning all,
Thankyou all for your positive feedback yesterday, Rory and I are considering all your comments and it looks like the vast majority are in favour of us putting early bets up as long as there’s some structure to it. We will let you all know how it’s going to work shortly.
Today, there’s nothing of interest at Ayr for us but we are, for the first time in a while, going to have a couple of bets at Southwell. We’ve been monitoring the situation there for the past couple of weeks and hopefully things are starting to return to something like normality, so if we concentrate on those who should be on the front end, we ought not to go too far wrong.
Today
2.00 Southwell – 1pt win Glenbuck Lass (general 9-2, 5-1 Stan James a standout)
3.40 Southwell – 1pt win Robert The Painter (12-1 Betfred, Corals, Ladbrokes)
2pts staked
Southwell
2.00 – Unibet Offer Daily Jockey Specials Handicap (6f)
With Alan Bailey looking like he’s turned a bit of a corner (1 winner and 4 placed from last 6 runners) it might be time to give Glenbuck Lass a chance in a weak looking affair. She’s raced mainly at 5f and 7f in recent starts but it could well be that 6f may bring out the best in her. A running on fourth over 5f here in December, she’s shaped well in two races since that simply haven’t been run to suit her. At Kempton in early January she was held up well off the pace in a race that suited those on the pace, and then on her latest start the opposite happened – she chased the pace, which collapsed, and those held up filled the first three places. In the hope that she goes forward again from stall 3, she could prove too good for these.
Hab Reeh is consistent and is running himself into form but looks short enough for a horse with a poor win record. Money for First Excel would be interesting, as he’s unexposed and Roy Bowring knows the time of say here, but the way he was sticking on over 7f last time suggests he might need a bit further.
3.40 – Ladbrokes Handicap (7f)
The general thinking in these good class handicaps is that you need something proven on the track, but there surely comes a point when a horse has won so many here they become badly handicapped (as happened Dubai Hills here, who is at least slipping back down the handicap, and may be happening with Ian’s Memory and Philba now)) and it opens the door for those with lesser experience on the surface to shine, That could be the case with Robert The Painter here, a rare runner at Southwell for Lee Carter (1 winner and 1 placed from 6 runners) and a habitual front runner – one that’s more than capable of opening up 6-8 lengths on turf fields. If applying that run style here he could have plenty of these in trouble early on and they may not get back at him.
His chances of taking to the surface look good – sire Whipper has a 16% strike rate and a slightly better than expected winner to runner ratio than is expected. Good to see Joe Fanning keep the ride too, as he obviously knows the horse well, having ridden him on his last two starts,
Regards
David & Rory