Thursday's Meetings Sedgefield N/H 9 Races 12:20-4:30p.m. Chelmsford A/W 8 Races 12:40-4:15p.m. Beverley Flat 9 Races 1:00-5:05p.m. Lingfield(E) A/W 9 Races 3:20-7:30p.m. Bellewstown(E) Flat 8 Races 3:40-7:15p.m. Tipperary Abandoned Racecards At The Races Racing Post Sporting Life Good Luck
DAKOTA GOLD 9/2 Beverley 3:30 This represents the best chance this horse has been given all season. Just too high in the ratings to be winning in handicaps and not quite up to group races but this test today looks perfect.
I like Peter Niven's mare Misty Mani in the Sedgefield bumper. Comes from a family the yard have done well with and the booking of Brian Hughes is eyecatching
I got a good tune out of Dakota Gold last season but he has been a bit below par for much of this one. It is not just that he has been hamstrung by his handicap mark, he simply hasn't been running to form. That changed last time however and after runs rated 95, 96, 91 on Racing Post figures for his first three starts, he was rated on 109 for his 2 length seventh placing to Staxton in the Great St Wilfred at Ripon and that was much more like his best form. Dakota Gold had won the Great St Wilfred last season from an official rating of 99, so with his lack of sparkle earlier this season and running from 8 lbs higher in the handicap this time around it was perhaps no surprise he could not pull off the double in the Ripon sprint. He goes on the soft ground and has a good chance of getting back into the winner's enclosure. I would like to have seen him finish a bit higher up the field than he has done so far this season though and the run of 5697 is a bit off-putting. I discussed Major Jumbo recently and again the problem is that he doesn't win as often as you would like. He will probably run a sound race again and have excellent place prospects but at 5/1 it's more or less a money back job if he only places. First time blinkers are on and his best strike rate is on good to soft and he should be at home on the ground, Makanah has run to promising levels in three starts this season and has a chance of coping with the move to listed company but the worry for me would be if he will thrive on soft ground. Keep Busy has been progressing this season and ran a personal best on RPR's last time out. Two poor runs at 6F aside, she has run well every time at 5F and as the youngest horse in the race, she id probably open to further improvement. Not too much to find with most of these, she runs off 8st 9lbs and won't mind the ground here, so I thought she was worth betting on at 7/2 against older rivals who are tightly knit on their official ratings. I took Dakota Gold to fill the forecast spot. Major Jumbo was next best. 3.30 Beverley Keep Busy 7/2
Pardon me but at times I think you are too RPR obsessed. Trust what you see with your own eyes. The horse has been keeping company slightly too rich for him but still running good races. Keep Busy is the only 3yo in the race and the WFA makes him the favourite. 3yo's won this four times on the spin in the noughties but have drawn a blank since 2010. It would take an extraordinary effort for a 3yo to beat these seasoned campaigners but best of luck.
Just a small e/w for me today on dear old Haafhd's daughter Simplystic in the Bumper at Sedgefield (16:30).
Horrible race to watch, two went badly wrong. Misty Mani was clueless , will definitely be better for the race.
Well done stick, I missed him today but backed him a couple of weeks ago and ran pretty well. 11/2 cracking price too. Reason on missing was ruining a great walk play golf
I narrowed it down to two and picked the wrong one. Dakota Gold was a drifter but he stayed on strongest to win it. I don't think any of his earlier season efforts would have given him a chance today but clearly stated that his latest effort was a return to form. I am not sure why you would need to take issue with my method of selecting horses. Surely it is each to their own. You have a big following here and get plenty of winners. Not sure why you just can't be happy with that but hey ho. Trends sometimes pay off but sometimes they don't. I have always felt that trends are the lazy man's way of eliminating runners without adequately studying the form. In its own it is ridiculous to think a horse cannot win based on its age, when others of the same age have won in the past. I am not a RPR obsessed person by any means. I have fiercely criticised them many times on this forum and I think some of their figures are ridiculous. The thing they have going for them is that they at least offer a figure of some sort to judge a race by when the official Handicapper is unwilling to put a rating forward. In short, you put your view forward today and were proven to have picked the correct horse. I assessed the race and narrowed it down to two but preferred the filly because she had been finishing nearer to the fore in her races this season. I gave Dakota Gold every chance and hardly detracted from you putting him up. It's a ****ty forum if people cannot have a different viewpoint. Watching today's race, I felt Keep Busy was just about going to come through and win it after running on quite well for pressure. In the end her run just flattened out as Dakota Gold kept on that bit stronger and Keep Busy dropped to 3rd. Sometimes in this game you study and get paid, sometimes you study, get a good fist of it and don't get paid, Mine were 3rd and 1st in that order and I expressed a concern that Major Jumbo was only a place player and not a win prospect. He was the disappointing one in the end. Most of my analysis was done without RPR's and they are only there as an extra guide to what sort of ballpark the contenders have been running to in recent times. Winning is everything in the end with punting but I believe it is worth studying horses and not just deciding that they will win but also ascertain WHY they will win. I read the race afterwards win or lose to see how my expectation of how the race would shape actually compared to what transpired. It is my belief that if you can visualise a race before it happens and then see it working out roughly as you felt it would, then you can separate out when you collected by judgement and when perhaps you picked a winner but not for the reasons you had truly envisaged. I am happy with the way I assessed the 3.30 Beverley today and would approach another race using the same methodology. Well done with Dakota Gold, as I said, he was back to something like his best at Ripon.
I don’t take issue with how you pick horses at all. Today you mentioned the RPR to judge Dakota Golds form this season, I took issue with that and I posted my response before the race.....I could have looked stupid. I always look at trends. In racing history has a knack of repeating itself.
