Sunday November 11th

No Selections

Now we can finally concentrate on the Sand and the Jumps. Today I have just a few Hereford thoughts. I have lost my best race at Market Rasen as non runners have killed the race I was most interested in and the Bumper at Hereford has been ruined by a non runner as well. Its a pretty dismal betting day after all this but treat it as an irrelevant first day of the new season and Tomorrow we can start some more "In depth" sand study that I havent been able to commit to over the last couple of months because of the Flat season. I will start to find some form now
all the distractions are gone. Nothing doing today. Tomorrows message at 11am.


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T O D A Y S R A C I N G


I didnt get the finale I wanted yesterday with Account Bet ENFORCE. She ran well in 4th place and I personallly feel that at the price of 9/1 she was worth a Bet but she just failed to get our stakes back and that concludes the 2007 Flat Season. Whilst on paper it has been a Good season it did go out with a Whimper. The last two bets lost. We had a quiet October. It just illustrates that there will be times that I get out of form and times when I am in form but not consistently and there are times when the game is just too hard and the Racing just too unreadable. Thats why its a long term game. You need to view these things over Seasons and not Weeks or Months. The last season has been a very succesful one and Now My Job is to make the 2008 Jumps season the same and I intend to do that.

One thing I will not be interested in this season are Jumps Races that are too full of risk. Races where there are no clear angles. Races that are just tactical and open to so many outside factors that they cant be realistically nailed down. I am not interested in big previews without Bite. When i dip into the National Hunt it will be for a good reason and I am happy to wait for those times as the Sand will offer plenty of other oppurtunities. Today we have Little Choice. Market Rasen and Hereford have fast ground and small fields and only a couple of races made any kind of appeal so its not a long message.

HEREFORD and MARKET RASEN have some horrible little races with short priced horses and weak opposition and doubts
about what is fit and well. Neither meeting has a long statistical history so you are in the Dark. HEREFORD has the best card but thats not saying much and I would be inclined to stay there.


Hereford 1.10 - 1/2 Sowdrey, 6/1 Correy, 8/1 L´Oiseau De Feu, 12/1 Stafford Will, 14/1 Crickie Pitch, 16/1 Ten Black.

Couldnt oppose SOWDREY who is both unraced and Odds on in this 3 year old hurdle. Mainly down to the lack of opposition. His rivals are weak. CORREY is a filly beaten miles in her last 2 starts. L'OISEAU DE FEU may not stay
by Stravinksy who hasnt got a good record with his jumping recruits so far and I suspect thats down to stamina limitations.

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Hereford 1.40 - 5/4 Soviet Sceptre, 3/1 Football Crazy, 11/2 Brave Bugsy, 14/1 Yenaled, 16/1 Ballynattin Buck, Kadam, Willy, 25/1 Trackattack, 33/1 Lisbalabbey Lad.

I would prefer SOVIET SCEPTRE over Football Crazy from the Market leaders only because Football Crazy has yet to prove he hasnt "gone" and its far more likely that he runs a stinker than Soviet Sceptre. Neither make huge appeal. KADAM has been a well backed gamble and that has to be interesting on his first run in 548 days. I have no idea about what's expected with KADAM but the following comments were found regarding his current wellbeing and plans

"Kadam is a half brother to former top two mile chaser Kadarann who amounted over £250,000 in prize money when trained by Paul Nicholls. Kadam has won two hurdle races from twenty starts for Paul Nicholls. He is a good looking chasing type measuring over 16 hands. He broke his maiden tag at Newton Abbot in March 2005 and followed up at Chepstow one month later. Since then he has had eighteen months off through injury but is still only seven years old.He is now fully recovered and we now aim to target him for novice chases this autumn. He is currently doing plenty of work at home and is going well. The target is to get him on the track around October/November and have fun hopefully picking up a few races along the way."

Thats a pretty upbeat assesment but of course we have no idea how fit or prepared he realy is or how he will run but it has to bring him into the race as a Player and the market supports pretty significant and I have found winners of identical races that have defied the sort of absence he has. BRAVE BUGSY must be a player but horses with 1-2-3-4 career runs in these races dont score well. There has been 42 of these 20f selling hurdles in October- November -December. Horses with 1-2-3-4 runs like BRAVE BUGSY have a weak 3-128 record and all 33 that ran at Hereford Lost. Those that came from 2 Mile races had a weak 1-51 record and in all 42 selling hurdles there wasnt a winner than came via maiden hurdles. I couldnt have inexperienced hurdlers like LISBALABBEY LAD or YENALED.

I rated BALLYNATTI BUGSY as statistically very strong - but that doesnt take into account his dreadful recent form and I have no idea what chance he has of putting that behind him with a recent run and he is a Mystery to me. Given the profiles of all of these I would probably have to shortlist KADAM and SOVIET SCEPTRE as "Most interesting" but it does really depend on how much Improvement Football Crazy makes if any from his last run and just what sort of shape Kadam is in.

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HEREFORD 2:10 - 5/2 With Speed, 3/1 Magic Clover, Melvino, 11/2 Sir Monty, 9/1 The Cayterers, 16/1 Thistle, 33/1 Secret Cavern, 40/1 Star Berry, 50/1 North Fleet, Rhetoric

You have 4 rank outsiders so just 6 horses fighting for the 3 places. I didnt like WITH SPEED when he was looking like he was going to be a short price. Now he has drifted out and looks weak in the betting you do run the risk of him becomming a big price. I dont like his profile myself. He Fell on his only start. You wont find a 4 year old winner of a similar race win at this time of year having fallen last time out and overall I felt he had a weak profile without being able to say he was a negative. I didnt like THE CAYTERERS either. He is from a sire thats bred just one National Hunt winner and there has to be a stamina question mark from a sire that never bred a winner on the Flat at 10f or more. SIR MONTY is unratable as he is unraced. Trainer trends are the refuge of the Helpless at times but if you want to use Peter Bowens record in Maiden Hurdles as a guide they suggest that his horses in maiden hurdle races should be avoided at this time of year. They are 0-24 between October and January. I thought MELVINO had a good chance. He wasnt fluent on his debut but run well. Had a hard race and he is the sort that could win this if nothing with ability races. You have to give the Argentinian recruit MAGIC CLOVER full respect from Paul Webbers. He should stay and will love the ground but again he is unraced and a mystery. There has been money for THISTLE each way. I rate him statistically fine. He has a sound chance of a place
and if the unraced horses dont shine its not impossible he could win. So you can see its open. If you look at the 11 Maiden Hurdles that HEREFORD has hosted at this time of year - which is not a safe thing to do statistically they show once raced horses as weak and horses like MELVINO - WITH SPEED - SIR MONTY and THE CAYTERERS had a 0-43 record - and I think I am comfortable opposing these 4 horses without really being able to say they shouldnt win. MAGIC CLOVER has to be shortlisted and its also interesting that 6 of the 11 Hereford races went to unraced horses. Given so much circumstantial evidence I think I would shortlist 2 horses. These are THISTLE and the unraced MAGIC CLOVER but quite what wins will depend on the strength of the unraced horses which we cant know about. I dont feel I can take the race much further.

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HEREFORD 240 - 4/6 Warrior Drive, 7/2 Marine Life, 4/1 Hoh Nelson, 14/1 Eyes To The Right.

Horrible little race. My gut feeling is that although you can criticise all of these the best option may
be to forgive WARRIOR DRIVE his last run and side with him. There is no point opposing short
priced horses just because they are short priced and he has far more chase form than anything else in the race and I feel he has the most solid profile. He would have to be the choice

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HEREFORD 3:10 - 9/2 Vicentio, 5/1 Hill Forts Henry, 11/2 Dundridge Native, 7/1 Missy Moscow, Pound Sign, 8/1 Commanche Dawn, The General Lee, 10/1 Little Rort, 14/1 Mrs Bridge, 16/1 Fleur Babe, 20/1 Fox ´N´ Goose.

This is a handicap hurdle over 3m 2f. There wasnt many I could categorically say wouldnt win. I dont really like
POUND SIGN as I feel he is far from certain to stay on breeding and I hated the fact he steps up from 19f to 26f.
DUNDRIDGE NATIVE failed what I would consider to be 3 "Circumstantial" statistics. None of the 3 stats She
fails are good ones or reliable - but She fails them all and I will assume that a collection of problems will engineer her downfall. These are the fact that in 108 similar races in October and November - No Mare won first time out having been Chasing. No Mare came from 20f or shorter to win a race like this and that Mares having their 1st run of the season didnt score well (1-39). Its Circumstantial but she isnt for me. The 4 year old Filly FLEUR BABE fails a host of trends as you'd imagine but shes an outsider and that doesnt help much. HILL FORTS HENRY has a sound chance on form but the 377 day break has to be a worry. He is a horse thats ran badly on all seasonal debuts he has had and I dont see why I should select him when he hasnt shown he can win after a break. There are plenty here that are fine statistically and it is open but I have to come down on the side of VICENTIO. He has improved to a modest level on each of his 4 runs this year and he isnt badly handicapped and you would expectmore improvement today. His best form shows him capable of winning a race like this. His stable had a winner yesterday and he may well be hard to kick out of the frame with 2 of his biggest rivals unraced in a long time. I feel the best option may be an each way bet on VICENTIO at about 7/2

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