Friday's Sticky Selections & Updates - 27 April

April showers, huh?  Have you noticed at Punchestown how all the unplaced horses have been wearing the same colours sort of greyish brown?  

Ted Walsh on Wednesday:
 "I can think of loads of days like this. It's only because everyone's got so soft. People ride out in this every day of the week with no problem in the world".

We should have six meeting on Friday in UK and Ireland - Punchestown are inspecting at 8am but short of a hurricane, earthquake of invasion of horse-eating aliens from Mars, I can't see imagine racing will be called off there.  Chepstow is in Wales - they're used to rain in Wales and the rest of the meetings could be sponsored by Solvite, such will be the state of the turf!

I must mention Sir Michael Stoute's two Friday runners:  Strident Force (Sandown 14:55) and Counsel (Doncaster 16:30) since when I do, they tend to win!  This blog is of course exclusively responsible for his recent upturn in form 

There are a couple of races tomorrow where Richard Hannon has a couple of runners.  Sandown 13:50 has Graphic and Kid Suitor and Sandown 14:50 has Dubawi Gold and Libranno.  Keep an eye on these as it's surprising how often the outsider of his pair will win!

Looking ahead to Saturday, Joe Fanning is booked to ride one runner at Ripon (15:30 Eternal Heart for Mark Johnston) and then travel to Haydock for the evening meeting....very interesting!

A bit of a long shot for my nightly nap with Wicked Wench in the first at Sandown.  She shoudl be taken straight to the front and I'm hoping that her stamina will be put to good use in this field and she can stay there.  She's 4lb out of the handicap but the booking of Silvestre de Sousa will make up for it.  It'll be sink or swim - not literally I hope!

Wicked Wench
Sandown 13:15
UP (sunk)

Two winners but not enough to stop a loss of -5.43

	Sandown	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	13:15	Wicked Wench (EW) UP
2	14:55	Clare Island Boy UP

	Doncaster	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	15:20	Pearl Secret 1st	Electric Qatar (EW) UP

Notes:

1/         Pearl Secret should easily take this but Electic Qatar has been gelded since his last run and Fallon has an impressive  21% win rate riding 3yos at this track so I think is worth a speculative ew

	Plumpton	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	18:50	Minella Mistake UP
2	19:25	She’s Humble UP
3	19:55	Diamond’s Return 1st

Notes:

2/           Back over the big obstacles and running in a small field (all wins have been in single figure fields), She’s Humble should be hard to beat in this!

How much are we all looking forward to watching Hurricane Fly at 17:30?  I can't wait and quite expect a Walsh family 1-2 with Katie taking second on Thousand Stars.

Waterlogged & Punchestown Day 1 & Updates - Tuesday 24 April

It's very fitting that three of today's meetings (Folkestone, Newcastle and Newton Abbott) have been abandoned the day after my kitchen emulated these courses in becoming waterlogged.  My trusty old washing machine finally gave up and spilled it's inky blue contents (jeans wash) across the kitchen floor.........now, about that drought and hosepipe ban ?!

Punchestown Festival kicks off on Tuesday with the going set to be soft to heavy in places.  Michael O'Leary (he of Ryanair and who thinks the Irish prime minister is a gobshite) will no doubt have one or two winners in his Gigginstown House Stud colours:  Sir Des Champs and Trifolium 2nd should win without breaking into much of a sweat....although his Ferris Bueller only managed second today at Cork in a beginners chase.  I announced this in my kitchen / swimming pool last night and daughter immediately came back with "was it his day off?"

Why is there not a  bookies yet called EasyBet ?

Nightly nap  (I have a feeling the ladeez may appreciate this video more than the chaps!)

Lost Highway

17:05 Wolverhampton
3rd
NB:  Wow!  This has been hammered - got on at 3.64 last night and is now 2.36

Big sigh....too many 2nds for a profit today  - 10.07

	Wolves	First Choice	E/W or Forecast Choice
1	15:20	My Kingdom 2nd	All Right Now (EW) UP
2	15:55	Hit The Switch UP	Leyte Gulf (EW) UP
3	17:05	Lost Highway (nap) 3rd

	Punchestown	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	15:40	Boxer Georg 2nd	Clonbeale Vacation (EW)UP
2	16:20	Trifolium 2nd
3	17:30	Sizing Europe 1st
4	18:40	Sir Des Champs 1st

	Southwell	First Choice	E/W or Forecast Choice
1	18:00	Bring Sweets UP	Lava Steps (EW) UP

1/           It could be a coincidence that Bring Sweets has never performed as well in small field (he looks to need a pace to go at) but if it’s not, I’ve an each way saver on Lava Steps. 

	Towcester	First Choice	E/W or Forecast Choice
1	18:20	Upthemsteps 1st

There are one or two racehorse trackers available in cyberspace which can be used to send an email to you when a certain horse is running.  They are all free and the best one I've found is on the At The Races website.......I generally use it for horse which became a NR when it's been heavily backed or if I've napped it on here - much easier than keeping a list and trying to remember to check each day!

Sir Michael Stoute had a winner at long, long last at Windsor Monday evening.  

Opinion won at 12/1 

The latest in the medieval cross saga is that the council sent forth a group of brave and fearless scaffolders to build a climbing frame around it so that it can stay vertical until such time as they have concocted their plan to make safe the aforementioned stone cross and no doubt  bill the VW driver's insurance company around 50K for the work.  

Name of the Day has to be Thefriendlygremlin

Sunday's Irish Selections & Results - 05 February

Perhaps I'm just a born optimist (you have to be to follow horseracing sometimes!) but I really thought that Musselburgh would avoid the below minus temperatures that the rest of the continent seem to be afflicted by.  So it's back to the drawing board with my selections and a fresh look at Punchestown - although I have a big red reminder to take note of any runners with the money coming  and join in!!


The definition of optimism has to be Imperial Shabra who is running against Big Zeb and Sizing Europe - he's never even won a chase before.....but you never know, strange things happen in racing as someone pointed out to me on Twitter, I am watching only but just for the record I think that Big Zeb will prevail.


With Sandown and Musselburgh lost this weekend - four of the eight runners of the  Musselburgh 15:00 (Creekside, Kie, Lyvius, Scoglio,) all hold entries for the (proper Cheltenham!) Triumph - it must be an absolute nightmare for trainers plans!  

At the moment, a Walsh/Mullins Lucky 15 looks a good bet (always each way then at least you usually get you money back !).  They are:

13:20  Allure Of Illusion 1st (dh)
13:50  Simenon 2nd
14:20  Sergent Guib's 3rd
15:25  Up The Beat  2nd


e/w Lucky 15   -  30 pts stake returned 60.18 pts 
(I didn't have to work this out as this was my actual bet with Paddy Power!)

Selections will dribble on throughout the morning/early afternoon

	Punchestown	First Choice	E/W or RF Choice
1	13:20	Allure of Illusion 1st	Present Potential (EW) 3rd
2	13:50	Simenon 2nd
3	14:20	Really Unique (EW) 2nd
4	15:25	Up The Beat 2nd	Droim Toll (EW) UP
5	15:55 *	Heads On The Ground (EW) UP

5/             Scotsirish 1st and Garde De Champetre 2nd are likely to have the first two places wrapped up so hoping for a 3rd

A winner, two profitable places and a very profitable L15 makes a tidy profit today of +27.54

Three McManus runners in the 15:25 (all with different trainers) and 15:55 (all with Enda Bloger)!  Take note of which the £££s goes for shortly before the off!

My nightly nap was Kie ("if you mix up the letters in one of them") but at least we had a good tune to listen to, if not a good each way bet to come in for us!

Kie = Ike