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!

©

'Dodgy Jumpers Can Stay At Home' Blog & Updates - Aintree Day 1 (12 April)

The first day of the Aintree Festival  and I shall be looking for 'horses for courses', proven jumpers and horses who either didn't turn up to Cheltenham this year or weren't given a hard time there if they did (I can forgive a horse who may have pulled up as they could well have been looked after for Aintree).  


I have come to the conclusion that although a good horse may perform equally well at both Cheltenham and Aintree but NOT within a month of each other.....I still haven't forgiven Oscar Whisky for his annihilation of (my favourite horse) Peddler's Cross.  As for horses who are dodgy jumpers (why does Giles Brandreth always spring to mind when I hear that phrase?) then they may as well stay at home!  


Big Bucks must surely be the banker of the day meeting (special concession  - above notes don't apply as he is not a mere horse but a monster hurdling machine!).  The enjoyment of watching him racing without one second of worry or concern about his jumping is one of life's pleasures.  Some may argue that he had to work a bit harder than he has in recent months/years at the Festival this year to beat Voler La Vedette but that's insulting the runner up who ran a brave (and career best race) and also the rest of the field, who were top quality opposition.  Big Bucks will always do just enough and Ruby knows him so well that he is always aware of what there is left in the tank and when to press the button.


PaddyPower are refunding bets if second to Riverside Theatre in the Aintree BetFred Bowl at 15:05 ....what does this tell us?  Well, he did have a hard won race at the Festival and he isn't Big Bucks!

A couple of my trackers emails have come through this morning so I'll share the one that has a chance!  Fidelor was heavily backed exactly a week ago for a Hereford Class 4 20f Hurdle ( G/S, G) and was a late NR.  He's running today at Newton Abbot in the 16:40 which is a class 4 19f hurdle on good ground and I think he's worth an each way before the price is gone. The other is Lyvius in the 14:30 (jury's out!)


I can see Ruby/Nicholls having a good day today. Paul Nicholls has left the ides of March well behind him and is now churning out winners at a rate of 56% over the past fortnight!


Only the one winner today (wasn't hard to find!) but I feel sure this would have been two if Folkestone had managed to run their card!  Loss of -8.75 unfortunately :(

	Aintree	First Choice	E/W or Forecast Choice
1	14:00	Big Bucks 1st
2	14:30	Countrywide Flame 2nd
3	15:05	What A Friend UP	Nacarat (EW) UP
4	15:40	Boxer Georg (EW) UP
5	16:15	Takeroc (EW)  UP

Notes:

1/            Big Bucks at 1.20 (1/5) isn’t going to make anyone rich but 20% is a hell of a lot better return than the banks interest!

	Newton Abbot	First Choice	E/W or Forecast Choice
1	16:40	Fidelor 2nd

	Folkestone	First Choice	E/W or Forecast Choice
1	17:05	Sherman McCoy Ab

I'll keep adding through the morning (incl Aintree) as I conclude each race - much thinking and pondering in progress................

Saturday Hennessy Day Selections & Results - 26 November

Cue Card got mugged yesterday (but then he was giving 7lb to Bob's Worth), Ranjaan was comprehensively beaten by Urbain Di Sivola (Hugh Tayl or tipped this up) and most definitely needed the experience, Mono Man hit the last flight and that did for him ....and my list of "next time outs" is growing ever longer!  
Paul Hanagan had four rides at Wolves after a well deserved 3 weeks holiday ....and won on three of them - including a 16/1 shot, demonstrating why he became champ for the 2nd year.

I have made progress with my Xmas wishlist (The RP calendar being at the top if you recall)......someone with very neat girlie handwriting has added "subtle like a wrecking ball" to the bottom.....so at least I know it's been read.  The only problem is that everyone else in the house thinks it's a great idea to have a list on the fridge and now my list is struggling for white frontage space.


Edwina Currie turned on our towns Christmas Lights last night (Friday) - apparently there was a teenage FaceBook plot to egg her.....I've had to explain to my two teenagers what the egg connotation was about which sort of leads to the impression that no other teenagers won't know either!




Hennessy Gold Cup


In big races, before looking through each horses form I like to take a quick look at previous winners and see if I can glean any useful stats from this.   

1. Eight of the past ten winners have been aged 6 or 7 which clears half the field
2. Look for a top trainer - smaller stables don't have such a good record
3. The biggest priced winners in the last 10 years has been 25/1 (Pipe trained Madison Du Berlais in 2008)
4. This either wants to be the first outing of the season (since March or April) or the 2nd run following a seasonal debut within 28 days (28 Oct)
5. Only three of the past ten winners haven't won either here or at Cheltenham before (i.e. they're solid good jumpers!)
6. Just three SP favourites have won in the past 10 years

........stats alone would narrow it the field down to Aiteen Thirtythree (11th), Wayward Prince (PU), Great Endeavour (4th) & Billie Magern (PU) (if he shortens in price).  I'll pick my 'proper' final form pick in the morning (see below)....but I'm erring towards Aiteen Thirtythree

1833 was a good year for (1) abolishing slavery and (2) the factory act which laid down the law re. working hours and child labour

Peddlers Cross will win the first at Bangor today - he is my favourite horse so the result is not up for discussion!  It would take Godzilla wearing a tutu and speaking Klingon, descending from a blue cloud with a giant robotic claw to pluck him from the racecourse to stop him winning (only my opinion of course!) 1st of course!

7 races and 5 winners - some were short enough but I combined a few (quite a few!) and made some decent returns today.  On level win only stakes however it returns -1.34.

	Newbury	First Choice	Danger
1	14:05	Titan De Sarti UP	Rumble Of Thunder UP
2	14:35	Big Bucks 1st	Sparky May UP
3	15:10	Aiteen Thirtythree UP	Great Endeavour 4th

Notes:

1/             With question marks over Empire Levant (turned out very soon) and Rock On Ruby & Dream Function  (both better over  further?)I’m going with these two (RofT would be first choice if not for stable not hitting form yet)  

2/             A buying money race (same notes apply to Big Bucks as to Peddlers Cross above!)  – looking for the runner up is the only challenge and I’ll take the chance that Sparky may will settle better – after all Kieran Burke knows the horse as well any anyone!

3/             Only worry with Aiteen Thirtythree is that all wins have been in smaller fields but with Ruby aboard to help, this really isn’t much of a worry at all and is proven over this distance.  Great Endeavour should stay, his fail at Aintree over this distance could be put down to the run coming only 3 weeks after falling the prev outing.

	Newcastle	First Choice	Danger
1	14:20	Celestial Halo UP	Overturn 1st
2	15:30	Hey Big Spender 1st	Categorical PU

Notes:

1/         Binocular has looks disenchanted with racing the past couple of outings, this is more Celestial Halo’s distance than Overturns

	Bangor	First Choice	Danger
1	14:25	Peckhamecho (nap) 1st	Zahirah Moon UP

	Towcester	First Choice	Danger
1	14:45	Valid Point 1st	C’Monthehammers UP

A very good day for a few multiples!