Wednesday's Selections (& Kempton Evening) - 22 February

Demonstration of Dense

I love this time of the year....the CheltFest rumour mill is gearing up and about to go into overdrive and the stories and interviews reported in the Racing Post become entertaining (in a Hans Christian Anderson kind of way!).  I have to say that in the past I have found proclamations, explanations and statements coming form the general direction of the Paul Nicholls stable to be occasionally "a little difficult to interpret" (that's me being diplomatic) ...or perhaps I'm just dense.  He may yet just have his best Cheltenham ever this year!


Thank the Lord that the BHA now have Paul Bittar in charge.  A man who has big enough cojones to back track a little (a lot?) and haul the draconian whip rules back towards the boundaries of common sense......now to work on the financial penalties!

Silvestre De Sousa will be riding exclusively for Godolphin this coming season alongside Frankie.  After his success in Dubai in riding for them, Godolphin would have been crazy not to have signed him up (I think you'll find that this blog predicted this a while ago!! Here and here) There's nothing like a good dose of smug to start the day....but to be honest, it didn't take a genius to work out if you'd seen the way he rode the Godolphin second and third strings!

It was a better day for the blog selections yesterday so with my best strike rates for Wednesdays racing being Doncaster (40%) and Ludlow (37.93%), these are the two meetings that I'll concentrate on.  I do have a note to myself to back the money horses at Punchestown as they generally prevail !!!

	Ludlow	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	13:35	Musnad (EW) UP
2	14:05	Secret World UP
3	15:40	Amtired 3rd

	Doncaster	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	13:55	Eagle Rock 1st	Aubern Lady (EW) UP
2	14:25	Quentin Collanges 1st
3	15:00	Oscar Nominee 1st
4	15:30	Atouchbetweenacara 2nd
5	16:05	Patsy Finnegan UP	Ely Brown (EW) UP

1/         This should be between Eagle Rock and Ardlui.  Eagle Rocks 2^nd (beaten ½ length) in a grade 2 on only his second outing over hurdles coupled with Bourne franking the form of his last race on Saturday gets my vote over the penalised Ardlui.  I’ve put Aubern Lady up because I’ve noticed some early morning £££ which I would usually ignore if the horse has been owned by a syndicate but in this case, the horse is owned by breeder and has a decent but unknown jockey booked…well it’s not the bottom of my list!! (only a few pennies each way mind!)

5/         Patsy Finnegan is an ex blog nightly nap.  He’s reunited with Choc Thornton who has paired up with him eight times previously – resulting in three wins and three seconds.  I am hopeful of at least a place!  Distime will go off favourite but I’m not entirely convinced that this longer trip will help (breeding says no).  Ely Brown however is a C&D winner whom Charlie Huxley rode to a decent second LTO (in a class higher) and although up 5lb for that, I think could repeat if not better that performance in what is essentially a weaker race.

I have very quickly cast my eye over the Kempton card this evening - not house and mortgage stuff mind but I'll have a few pennies here and there in each way multis and single!

	Kempton	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	17:30	Estonia 2nd
2	18:00	Edgewater UP
3	18:30	Last Sovereign UP
4	19:30	Trecase 2nd
5	20:00	Clear Praise 1st	Earlsmedic 3rd
6	20:30	By Implication UP	Inquisitress (EW) UP

A handful of winners today but a loss of -5.85

Nightly Nap is a double hint tonight (This is so easy I must be going soft in my old age!) :

Eagle Rock

Doncaster 13:55

1st