They keep saying the right side of the track but the right side of the track is 90% of the time where the early pace comes from. Shoemark trailed the leader and then pressed the button. He got it right..
Luke Harvey going report pre racing.... fast far side, fast near side, the one place you dont want to be is in the middle...
Yesterday's ride by Saffie was picked out by Ruby. She was drawn low and ran extra lengths to go to the stands side. In the Jersey the Stands side were down several lengths after just a furlong or so yet veered as a load of sheep towards the stands. Not only weren't they on the pace they ran a lot further. It's where the early pace comes from that matters. The jockey have to make a quick judgement where that is going to be. Sometimes you have no choice.
They would have had to be paying the first ten places for me to have got anything back on my each way donkey in the Hardwicke Stakes; it never went a yard. I was delighted that old globetrotter Rebel’s Romance got the job done for Charlie Appleby as at least he won’t keep getting asked about his run of Royal Ascot losers again for a while now that the count is back to zero. With Al Riffa and Ghostwriter filling the places, the form has a solid look to it, although the way that the race was run gave the impression that the leaders were going too quickly early as the winner dropped back from the leading pack. I am sure that Ascot will be delighted with the foreign 1-2 in the Queen Elizabeth II, although they might have preferred them the other way around. Aidan O’Brien’s Storm Boy effectively ended up as the lead horse for the Japanese runner-up Satono Reve on the stands’ side but the winner Lazzat was in the group in the middle. I knew I had done my money when Inisherin started getting pushed along with two furlongs to go while the owner’s other runner was still on the bridle. The race had quickened at that point Another excellent effort in defeat for Flora Of Bermuda in third but the front two pulling three lengths clear, even with the winner hanging left in the final furlong, suggested that the front two are somewhat better than the rest under these conditions. If any horse was going to go on a lap of honour at Ascot, it was always going to be a French one! My memory fails me for when was the last time that the French had one of the best sprinters in Europe. They have barely won their own Prix de l’Abbaye in the last fifty years and Lazzat won’t be putting his name on the role of honour at Longchamp. More likely he will be going back to the Prix Maurice de Gheest. I wonder what Buick thought he was doing on Spy Chief in the Jersey – maybe they decided it had no chance so just bolt out the gate and try to lose them! Connections of the winner Noble Champion will be delighted to have had such a quick pacemaker dragging their horse along. Nothing in the stands’ side group ever got into the race and the favourite was just a staying on third from the centre group. Given the huge pace gap between the centre group and the stands’ side group, I wonder how much that watering of the track by Ascot has now disadvantaged the horses drawn high or was it just brain dead jockeys in the stands’ side group thinking they would stop in the centre?
Before the Jersey Stakes, he had found somewhere near the seven furlong start where the going was soft enough that he had to strip to his boxer shorts.
If the pace map is right there should be a nice cluster prominent from 6 to 13 Valiant Force stands side alone
If you're a punter and we all are, you want shooting for having a bet. All this bowlocks on ITV saying the CoC has done an amazing job on the ground. He hasn't and they need to invest in a new going stick. Why, after the first race cant an updated going stick report be given and after the 3rd... 'we put 5mm of water on the track'.. they dont tell you where they put it and as I said above, that inbred Harvey stating you dont want to be down the middle. The saving grace, if at all, is the there are one or two on the must watch list.
Well it was all centre in the Wokingham. They can't have watered since the Jersey. Though I don't disagree with your comments about watering. But don't get me started on that.
Thoughts from today.... 1. British sprinting is absolute garbage brought about by breeding to average sprinters... I think I heard Mehmas is 0 from 100+ at RA. I expect Coolmore will look at this division. 2. Lazzatt... great visual impression, but do we get carried way when GET IT's time was 0.10 second slower though carrying 2lb less. They both raced in exactly the same lane. That being said, does that make More Thunder at least a Group 2 animal. (6/1 favourite for the Bunbury Cup a Newmarket in 3 weeks time).. 3. Following on from my comments on the state of jockeyship... the cream rose to the top. Oisin was unlucky that two of his were withdrawn at the start. 4. Godolphin could be in for a dry summer with Appleby... 5. Dont get me started on being honest with the public..
