If Different Gravey learns to jump he could be a bit of an animal. Still won well in the end despite given ground away at nearly every hurdle.
In the 4:45 at Sedgefield will take a chance with Be A Dreamer. It will be only his third run over fences and is still learning, but might go well in this moderate-looking event.
6:10 Chelmsford - Angelina Ballerina 16/1 small EW on this one, seems a bit overpriced if coming back to form. Danger could come from Jazri
Really impressed by the debut victory of Welsh Gem in the Chelmsford opener. Mike Murphy I think has only ever had one first time out winner prior to that and she did it with ease. She's an absolutely huge horse given she's a young 3 year old filly and I think the yard have a really, really nice horse on their hands. He's my favourite trainer and I think he'll show how good he is if he gets a few more good horses in his small string.
Happy to take on much talked about Vosne Romanee in the next with Stonecutter at 3/1, C&D winner lto and think he will go in again.
Note to self....stop betting at Chelmsford. Ridiculous amount of kickback and you cannot come from off the pace!
Not sure stonecutter would've caught the winner but the ride he got from James Sullivan certainly didn't help his cause.
Stick/Barney/anyone interested: I did mutter along those lines last week in relation to Ridgeway Storm's race at Chelmsford, and I've been sporadically working on a long draft thread around this general topic. Summarising, the thesis is that if you're going to bet seriously on artificial surfaces - and I do - then you need to throw out the traditional analytical tools like recent form and official ratings, and base a strategy much more tied into trainers' and owners' entry patterns; which track draw-biases are temporary and which are permanent, and (possibly most significant of all) which UK winter jockeys are intelligent enough to pick the right tactics for the right horse, bearing in mind that about 80% of AW beasts are usually not very talented, not very consistent, psychologically unpredictable, or all three. My incomplete Work In Progress suggests that the number (of qualifying jockeys) is actually shockingly small. If I got round to completing the draft, would anyone want to read it ? I don't want to bore everyone, and it would be quite a long piece. In the meantime, write this down: do not, at least for the foreseeable future, take Kempton, Lingfield or Wolverhampton form to Chelmsford.
Id go as far as to say that all weather racing is the toughest to make consistent profit on. Not just Chelmsford, I find the form way more unreliable than any turf racing flat or jumps
But typically it is just the same horses running each week against each other...well at Dundalk at least and with a little effort it can be pretty straightforward to follow as long as you can allow for some discipline which eludes me mostly!
That is the problem for me, because they run so often they are never in top condition for any race. They just seem to run them every week and hope for the best. Higher grade horses are better prepared for there races, so the form is usually more consistent. This is only from my experience mind, I know others do well on the all weather
