Thursday's Thawing Selections & Updates - 02 February

An interesting stat (borrowed from the Guardian website yesterday/Tuesday) is that of the 14 winners from the November Cheltenham Open Meetings, none won at the Festival meeting and yet seven Festival winners had been beaten back at the Open meetings.  Now added to my to-do list is to watch carefully all the losers from this meeting before March!  In the overall scheme of things, this is not the worst job in the world!

Is it only me who thinks that Kempton on a Wednesday evening is getting more and more like Dundalk on a Friday night!  It used to be that you could find at least one form horse or favourite that would come home first but lately it has been a case of look at the draw (good?), look at the trainers (do they or their owners like an 'investment'?) then take a look at the jockey booking and try somehow to figure out if andhow the three components slot together. 


On the plus side, I managed to pick Emerald Royal and Ocean Legend for the Guardian Talking Horses comp (and for once backed my three picks in a trixie,the winning double partpaying a nice return).  The comp that the guys run every week day is good fun (with some fab prizes) and which I persistently keep chipping away at. To be honest, I have more chance of collecting a gold clock at the end of 50 years service than ever winning but I try !

Poor show today with just the two each way selections placing (that;ll teach me for picking some goddawful races to look at and then talking myself out of my topline!).  Even they shortened dramatically and the SPs were far less than were available at the time of posting. -2.45 today 

	Wolves	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	15:20	Ad Vitam UP	Prickles (EW) 3rd

1/             Prickles may well have been my first choice if Derek Shaw had managed a winner amongst the 14 he’s sent out in the past fortnight.  My Mate Les the other worry but I think needs to come down in the weights a little first

	Clonmel	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	13:40	Noble Pageant UP
2	14:10	Is Herself About F
3	15:10	Spring Wine UP	Up The Girls (EW) 2nd

Wolverhampton15:20

To be honest, the racing tomorrow isn't great and the tracks aren't anywhere near the top of my successful strike rate list (Wolves is best with 30.19%).  I'll put up one or two selections in the morning but will more productively spend my time looking forward to Fridays racing.