Thursday's Ludlow Selections & Updates (Profits) - 01 March

Happy New Month - And What a Brilliant Month It Will Be !!

February blog selections made a profit of +18.81 with a 21.77% strike rate (34.62% for naps).  Hoping for even better in March.

Splendiferous start to the merry month of March with a +13.39 profit (148.78%) and a winning nap.

	Ludlow	First Choice	E/W or FC Choice
1	14:30	Dark Shadow 1st
2	15:00	Tiger O’Toole 1st
3	15:30	Hawk Run UP (4th)	Jomade (EW) 1st
4	16:00	Fairoak Lad UP (4th)
5	16:30	Tara Rose (EW) 2nd
6	17:00	Our Jasper UP (6th)

3/         I have put up Hawk Run as first choice but on reconsidering, I’m not entirely convinced that he’ll be happy without any juice in the ground – I guess we’ll find out by 15:40!

Nicky Henderson has a 41% strike rate in chases at Ludlow and 34% in hurdles 

Dark Shadow 

Ludlow 14:30

1st

How about this for the most beautiful horse you have ever seen:

Sleeps to Go.......

RIP Davy Jones 30/12/45 - 29/02/12

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

Thursday's "Only Two Days Left Til the Weekend" Selections & Updates including Meydan- 05 January

Hayley Turner was reunited with Rose Aurora yesterday and came away with her ankles intact this time.....but alas not a winner.  

Meydan Carnival has it's first meeting today (Thursday).  I enjoy the racing there and have followed it since the very first race (and have religiously kept my stats and draw bias records from it's inception).  It takes a couple of weeks to get a feel for it again but then I usually find that my selections for Meydan work well.
I love the fact that I can watch high quality racing in winter and still recognise the trainers' and jockeys' names! 

Just three winners today and a reminder that for the first 2-3 weeks of the Meydan Carnival, it's best to follow trainer and jockeys and not so much the form until things settle down !! 

	Sedgefield	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	12:40	Saga De Tercey 2nd
2	13:10	Realt Mor 2nd
3	15:10	Hellfire Club F

Notes:

1/             I can imagine that Judiciary will struggle on soft

	Lingfield	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	13:20	Brimham Boy UP
2	14:20	Rosoff 1st

	Ludlow	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	13:30	Forty Five UP (3rd)
2	14:00	Credit Swap (EW)  UP
3	14:30	Alasi 1st	Jacalou (EW) UP

Notes:

1/            A previous nap when it was headed near the finish last time out – can make amends today 

2/            Good a Grams And Ounces is and even with the rider’s claim, too much weight!

3/            Just a niggling picky doubt over Alasi stable form recently (0 winners from 13 in past fortnight and nothing closer than 4L)

	Wolves	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	16:40	Marcus Augustus 2nd

Notes:

1/            Jamie Spencer getting down to 8st 10lb for this ride.

	Meydan	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	14:30	Capponi 2nd	Secretive UP
2	15:05	Honour System 1st
3	15:45	Mutayaser (EW) UP
4	16:20	Zero Money (EW) UP
5	17:00	Quick Wit UP	Canwinn (EW) UP (5th) Famous Warrior (EW) (4th)
6	17:35	St Moritz (EW) UP
7	18:15	Moran Gra (EW) UP	Regal Parade (EW) 2nd

Notes:

2/         I don’t think any winner on Tapeta at Meydan over 11f has ever been trained by anyone other than Suroor or Cumani – maybe once! 

3/         Dreadful race to try to work out but I’ve gone for something with a high draw here over a mile and the best of the bad bunch (IMO)

5/          I'm spreading myself about in this.  Start Right has been tipped up and has obvious claims but I don't like low draws over a mile on the tapeta here and think this may go to an bigger price so I'm on three (!)  Canwinn, Quick Wit and Famous Warrior - all e/w

6/         I can’t decide between Derbaas and Mahbooba and they’re too short to dutch so am on my 3^rd pick for e/w

Nightly Nap is Saga De Tercey in the fist (12:40) at Sedgefield tomorrow...there is no way on earth that I could give you a clue that would remotely give even an inkling of which horse I'd selected but I did learn that Tercey is a place in France to the West of Paris!!!!

More selections in the morning.....................

It's been 3 days since I started "measuring food" and I haven't mentioned it once (until now!).  All I shall say is that it's a good job that we no longer have a dog, that the cat we do have can jump high and the horses I study and watch can move very very fast.......if my selections all start having a similar food themed name, then I'm in trouble!