The "Oh My God, How Long?" Blog

I hang my head in shame that this is the first blog since the beginning of November!

In that time:

·        Richard Hughes became champion flat jockey for the first time

·        Frankie Dettori has been given 6 months ‘rest’ from the racecourse and is currently to be found inside the Big Brother house.  

Frankie lines up with the other runners

·        Barney Curley has voluntarily retired from training horses and is now devoting his time to his DAFA charity for Africa

·        John McCririck has involuntarily retired from his position as resident misogynist on TV and is now devoting his time to suing C4 for several million for alleged ageism.  

·        Kauto Star has retired from racing and now spends time practising bouncing in time to music 

·        Paul and Clive fell out

·        Big Bucks and Al Ferof were both discovered (on the same sad evening) to have tendon injuries ruling them out for the rest of the season

·       Frankel is now happily ensconced at Banstead Manor Stud ready to share his ‘£125k–a-pop’ lovejuice with 130 mares in his first season (I did the maths – it’s 16 ¼ million!)

·        Silviniaco Conti has announced his arrival on the NH scene in style (he’s a personal favourite of mine for 2013 so gets a mention!)

·        I vow not to leave my blog neglected, forgotten and forlorn for quite so long in future!

PS   You may remember the handiwork of the bad driver/bad SatNav combo on the 19 April!  The car insurers settled months ago BUT this is how the medieval cross now looks today.  

The delay is now due to the council.  The moral of this story is "if you want something doing don't give it to a committee"....if you look hard enough, in the middle of those pick up sticks is a 12ft high stone cross!

©

Saturday's Super Spectacular Selections & Results - 03 March

Nostradamus studying the entries for the Triumph?

The blog post title is my attempt at positive thinking!  

Talking of which (thinking that it), my bedtime reading is a stack of Cheltenham Festival guides.  This has resulted in my waking thought on morning #1 being Al Ferof, morning #2 was Simonsig and morning #3 an unnamed  Donald McCain trained beastie running in a handicap!  

Now if these three (well two and a concept!) win then I could be on to something - Nostradamus eat your heart out.  More sensibly, my subconscious has been filing my form study whilst asleep and these names have made it to the front....hmmmm

Back to the more rational and difficult method of selection by research and study!  Is anybody still reading....? Given that the two Doncaster selections on Friday were both winners, this is the course that I'll most likely concentrate on for Saturday.  
The last time I looked closely at thje Doncaster card on a Saturday, the top line of my 'sheet' found 4 out of 5 winners on the top line (despite my talking myself out of them in a couple of instances - e.g. shouldn't have stayed, so I'll put these up in the second column as well as my 'considered' choice in the first column (if different) which means I then run through a 'must-have' checklist of several points.  Should be interesting!


A terribel day (relatively speaking!) with a minus -7.3.  It didn't help that Doncasters later races turned into bumpers with the home straight fences being omitted but even so....must do better!

	Lingfield	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	13:40	Blueberry Fizz 2nd	Super Frank (EW) UP

	Doncaster	‘Considered’  Choice	Top Line Choice
1	14:20	Corkage 1st	Sir Harry Ormesher UP
2	14:55	Five Star Wilsham UP	Five Star Wilsham UP
3	15:25	Junior 2nd	Junior 2nd
4	16:00	Pittrodie Star UP	Amron Lad  2nd
5	16:35	Takeroc 3rd	Quicuyo UP
6	17:10	Loden UP	Loden UP

1/         Sir Harry Ormesher’s ‘no-show’ LTO was worrying and he ran so badly that it’s enough to put me off.  Noel Fehily (on Kangaroo Court) whilst a most excellent jockey, has never won a hurdles race here in 14 attempts and (can you believe it?) has never race ridden KC. Corkage has never been unplaced here (4 runs = 2 wins, 1 2^nd, 1 3^rd) and although tight between him and KG, he has the better record in class races.

2/         First one that matched both columns!

3/         Ditto

4/         Amron Lad would have a question mark over this longer trip.  I don’t think too much should be read in to Aland Island’s Triumph entry as you can get 50/1 about him and he also has a few alternative entries leading up to Cheltenham so obviously connections aren’t convinced he’s good enough (plus Tim Vaughan’s yard is 0/25 in recent days (cold enough by anyone’s standards)

5/         Neither selection has won off a mark this high before – the extra weight may be too much for Quicuyo whereas Harry Derham’s 7lb claim will make a valuable difference

6/         Both columns – just a slight Q over the galloping course as he had his best results on sharp tracks but I can see no reason to think he won’t perform here

My nightly nap is an anagram and runs in the 16:35 Doncaster:          RAT COKE!

It's heart warming to see that Lingfield has named their first two races "Hey, Hey We´re The Monkees Handicap" and the second is the "In Memory Of Davy Jones Selling Stakes"