Cheers Oddy! My usual bolthole in Ayamonte and then Seville,Valladolid and Bilbao before going stateside to Chicago,Boston and NY...great fun but bloody expensive! Might have to consider joining the rat race again...
The Great Gatsby still ran green (even though he was off the bridle a long way from the finish) so ran on well to finish second, the one to take out of the Acomb.
Just a wee break then sounds great, love NYC, need to get back there again soon, love just swanning around Manhattan. Also once visited Bedford Ave area of Brooklyn, just about the craziest place I've ever been -kids chasing busses on skateboards, a guy sat outside a bar with a big sign on the table "Free Advice" and just a really fun atmosphere. Went down to Croatia myself, can honestly say they do a half decent Merlot down there for about a fiver a bottle
Never made it to Brooklyn Oddy...sounds bonkers...did you get any advice?! Croatia is somewhere my wife really wants to go...definitely on the radar. Telescope prevails and a nice run from the second who was not surprisingly very green...interesting to see how these two progress toward the back end but both look like next year will see them in a better light.
Telescope went some way to fulfilling his reputation and won well in the end, but there's no way I'll be backing him in the Arc.
Sir Barney will be raising a glass to Telescope this evening I fancy. Dex - best free advice I ever got was "Never put off until tomorrow, that which can be done today. If you do it today and like it, you can do it again tomorrow".
FFS how can Declaration Of War win the Juddmonte International? Toronado clearly didn't give his true running, and Al Kazeem also wasn't at his very best. Wouldn't surprise me at all if form was reversed the next time they all meet.
Cracking ride from Joseph O'Brien. It wasnt the most surprising result for me, i said in the race thread that he was the interesting one for me. Was kept too far back in the eclipse before flying home and needed to be ran closer to the pace. He was today and he ran a good race. Not convinced Al Kazeem was at his best but taking nothing away from the winner, he did it well
He is relatively lightly raced,only two more runs than Trading Leather,and obviously he enjoyed the fast ground. AK couldn't act on proper fast ground,which shows his limitations and Toronado never showed up. Interesting to see what the assessor makes of it but hard to enthuse about the overall merit of the form.
True Reebs and a lovely run from JB's colt who is as tough as old boots and the benchmark the h'capper will use when calibrating these races.
Watching the first race at York it was obvious how dusty the ground was and, therefore, firm, so expect the taps to be on tonight. Treaty Of Paris assisted the bookies in the Acomb, under a good ride from the front by James Doyle. Godolphin’s First Flight was particularly disappointing. Not a bad effort from The Grey Gatsby on only his second start. Telescope beat his own generation after disappointing against his elders; but it was a good effort by runner-up Foundry on only his second start. The race does not look like great form as the winner was really only staying on. The Gordon Stakes form was totally let down by the Godolphin pair. Declaration Of War reversed Eclipse form with Al Kazeem but how much was that down to the firm ground? The flat course was more in the winner’s favour but it is hard to say that the favourite would have overcome Trading Leather. Toronado was not going from a long way out so whether he stayed was not a factor. If the winner had not also run in the Sussex Stakes we would be wondering about it now as the first two have not advertised it.
Buick rides like he's just starting out sometimes. If you watch from the start he fights Willie Wag Tail to stop him going forward so he can take him to last, then decides he wants to be up with the pace so asks him to go around the field mid race (always a terrible idea) so gets to second and ends up having ran his race between 8 and 3 furlongs out and has nothing left. Personally I blame the silks as they are Jamie's silks and I have recently worked out some strange happenings to do with Silks. Once Hamdans are donned all power in a finish leaves the body (See Hills and now Hanegan), those silks of Jamies ensure all tactical common sense gets left in the stalls, the Greens of Mark Johnstons patron ensure that the horse gets super strength leaving the gates and can do nothing about the horse front running and setting it up for others (see Glorious Goodwood) Whilst those Khalid Abdullah silks, once they are donned the horse becomes class and sure to win their races.
