Trip to Ayr Races 13th March 2010

On Saturday past I may my first visit to the races in over 6 months. I have been to Ayr on four occasions before but each meeting was either the Ayr Gold Cup or Scottish National so the quality of racing was high. This time though despite it being a Saturday afternoon card where often you can expect a card of a high standard, this was not the case. I had a good look at the seven race card on the Friday evening and quickly realised that winners would be extremely hard to come by. I managed to highlight one or two fancies but nothing that I was particularly confident about.

As I may have mentioned in previous posts my friend Alan lives not too far away from Ayr so I drove down to his and then we caught a train into Ayr, the racecourse being just a ten minute walk or so from the centre of town. We invested in club enclosure tickets as they were only £2 more expensive than the Grandstand for this meeting and once again I have to say the facilities are extremely impressive. I would have to say facilities wise Ayr is head and shoulders above the other Scottish racecourses I have visited. Take the toilets for example which are immaculately kept and also offer Racing UK and Sky Sports news on various TV’s throughout the area. Unfortunately the price of club enclosure tickets is around £18 more when it comes to the big meetings but people do pay for that so who am I to argue about the wrongs of this.
Anyway onto the racing where the card kicked off with a 2 mile novice hurdle. Having looked at the form extensively I found it hard to have confidence in either of the favourites Drussel or Si Bien but was unable to find any potential dangers further down the field either. Therefore I decided that while Drussel was the likeliest winner, the Irish raider was too short at the offered odds of around 7/4. He did go on to take the opener in fine style but I had no regrets about sitting out this race.

The second race was a small field handicap chase where I expected Cast Iron Casey to bounce back to form. I expected odds of 8/1 but due to a combination of a key non runner and strong market support only 7/2 was available which I reluctantly took. My selection ran a decent race, finishing 3rd but was never really placed to challenge behind the winner Quito de Tresor who built a commanding lead and managed to hang on grimly in the end to land the odds for favourite backers.

The third race I did manage to identify Knockavilla as a good bet at 7/2, despite him have a trio of second place finishes to his name. I suspected a flat two miles would bring out the best in him. I would have to say having seen him travel well and then find nothing, eventually finishing third, that I would place as much trust in him as I would in Tiger Woods at a Victoria’s Secret party.
The fifth race was the most interesting for me when I looked at it at the start of the day. I liked the look of the Pauline Robson trainer novice Humbie and also was interested in Solway Ally who had shown improved form when second 2 days earlier at Carlisle. Unfortunately there were a swarm of non runners in this field including Humbie and this meant Solway Ally was sent of 5/2 fav. I was tempted to back the Liz Harrison trained seven year old but the odds coupled with the uncertainty of how much its run 2 days prior had taken out of it made it hard to play. My decision was made tougher by the fact the stable girl for the horse, who was leading her around the paddock was my pick of the paddock! Of course I don’t need to tell you that Solway Ally won and didn’t carry a penny of my hard earned cash.

Other races on the day included a competitive 2m4furlong handicap hurdle won by the Irish Raider Ramsden Boy at big odds, a 4 runner staying chase won by the 5/4 favourite Seize and the closing bumper won by the 25/1 Jim Goldie trainer outsider Wyse Hill Teabags. I wisely avoided the handicap hurdle and chase races and took a small interest in a Chris Grant trained newcomer in the bumper who ran a decent race but never looked likely to find me the elusive winner.

Overall I only played in three of the seven races, which was unusual for me but probably the right move in end despite a couple of potential selections going in. I did have a fair sized bet on Knockavilla but again a valuable lesson was learned and I really hope the new discipline I have shown recently separate blog to follow on that) will lead to a profitable time over the next few months.

After the racing it was off out in Ayr for a few drinks and a bit of nightclubbing, although given this is a betting blog I don’t suppose many readers will be too keen to read stories of my near miss in trying to pull a stunning nineteen year old. Back down to Ayr in just over 3 weeks for the Scottish National where I will be hoping for more luck on both the punting front and in bagging myself that nineteen year old. Happy punting.

Cheltenham 2010: JCB Triumph Hurdle

The JCB Triumph Hurdle is the opening race on the final day of the Cheltenham Festival and is run over two miles and a furlong. It is exclusively for four year old novices and there are eight hurdles to be negotiated. Last year’s winner was Zaynar, under Barry Geraghty (right).

The first trend of note is last time out form. Of the last sixteen Triumph Hurdle winners, fourteen had won their previous start and the two that failed, Celestial Halo and Paddy’s Return, both finished second. Eliminating those whose last time out result is worse than second place allows us to significantly reduce the field.

Next comes experience. Of the last twenty Triumph Hurdle winners, just three had run fewer than three times over hurdles and 15 of the last 16 had won at least two races.

One of the leading fancies for the race, Mille Chief (pictured left), will not take his chance. Trainer Alan King ruled out Cheltenham after revealing a training setback, stating that “90% [fit] is not good enough”. This leaves me with thirteen to pick from.

These days it’s very difficult to win the Triumph Hurdle without a decent recruit from the flat or a French bred horse, which tend to be schooled in jumping much earlier. Just one of the last twelve winners had a flat rating of lower than 80 (Spectroscope, whose OR was 73) and nine of the last ten winners were by a Group 1 winning flat sire. We can use all of this information to thin the field to just six: Alaivan, Anak, Barizan, Bothy, Notus de la Tour and Son Amix.

It is worth nothing that all of the last ten Triumph winners had been off the track no longer than 45 days, by the time the race came around. Going with that, we can further eliminate Barizan (not seen since November) and Notus de la Tour (last seen at Plumpton in January).

All of the last ten winners had won at Class 3 or better, a feat yet to be achieved by Son Amix or Barizan, leaving me with just Bothy and the market leader, Alaivan. It seems likely that Bothy will be running in the Fred Winter Juvenile Novices’ Hurdle instead, which probably explains the 50/1 best price for the Triumph Hurdle, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for any news with regard to this. In the meantime, it looks like I’ll be backing Alaivan (right).

I’m not really a big fan of supporting favourites at Cheltenham, but eleven of the last sixteen Triumph Hurdle winners were in the front four in the market, which is a boost. Due to the big fields that are so common with the Triumph, it’s not really worth lumping on. The minimum bet at a best price of 9/2 (Paddy Power, Betfred) seems about right.

JCB Triumph Hurdle
Friday 19th March, 13.30
Alaivan – 1 point win

Nunthorpe Preview

I couldn’t let York’s Ebor Festival pass without writing something, so I’ve decided to preview the feature race of the final day, the Group 1 Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes. This looks a decent renewal, with three previous winners of the race lining up alongside the highly thought of winner of the Norfolk Stakes, Radiohead (above). The race is one of few opportunities for the two year olds to take on their older counterparts and it is Brian Meehan’s chestnut colt representing the young guns tomorrow, in a field of seventeen.

Taking my usual trend based approach, the first thing I notice is that Group form seems important, with eight of the last ten Nunthorpe winners having won a Group race, the other two having finished runner up. Mythical Border and Excellerator can be ruled out using this trend.

I should point out that I’ve excluded last year’s race for “last ten winners” purposes, as it was switched to Newmarket due to the flooding at York.

The age range of the last ten winners varies from two to nine years old, but Bahamian Pirate, the nine year old who took the Nunthorpe in 2004, is the only winner of the race older than six since the race was moved to York in 1980 and it could be argued that 2004 was a weak renewal anyway. There have only been a couple of winners in that same time period aged two and a couple more aged six. One of the six year olds was Borderlescott at Newmarket last year, which we are excluding anyway. So of the renewals run at York, 86% of winners were aged three to five, allowing us to chalk off Reverence, Tax Free, Benbaun, Borderlescott (above), Dandy Man, Mythical Flight, Moorhouse Lad and Radiohead.

Current form is also important, as half of the last ten Nunthorpe winners won their previous race, with a further three making the frame last time out. Using this trend, we can eliminate Equiano, Amour Propre, Look Busy, Ialysos and Art Connoisseur, leaving us with just two – Kingsgate Native and Captain Gerrard.

If I had to pick just one of these two, I would plump for Kingsgate Native (right). Admittedly it’s the favourite (best price 11/4, William Hill) and that might seem a little cowardly, but half of the last ten winners of the race have been favourites, with a further three coming from the front three of the market. The other two were priced 12/1 and 16/1 so it’s clearly not a race for shocks, which counts against 40/1 (Totesport) Captain Gerrard, but the other factor is the draw, as stalls 1-8 have provided seven of the last ten winners and the jolly is drawn in seven, whilst CG will break from 14.

However, I don’t have to pick just one. Quite a few times now I’ve written previews for the blog and whittled it down to two, before choosing the wrong one, much to my embarrassment. Captain Gerrard was only beaten a length last time out by Borderlescott, who won this race last year (admittedly at Newmarket) and has won over course and distance. 40/1 does seem to be too big, so tomorrow I’m going to back Kingsgate Native AND have an e/w saver on Captain Gerrard.

Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes
Thursday 21st August, 15:25
Kingsgate Native
3 pts win (11/4 William Hill)
Captain Gerrard
0.5 pts e/w (40/1 Totesport)

As you may be aware, I went to the first day of the festival with the missus and we had a good day out. As we had been in York for a few days before that, I'd not looked at any form whatsoever, so all stakes were kept to a minimum and we only had the one winner between us, when I backed Elusive Pimpernel at 4/1. Laura had a near miss with Hamish McGonagall, which she had backed each way at 6/1, but sadly there were no repeats of her 16/1 winner on her only previous race meeting. It wasn't about that though, I was there to watch Sea The Stars (we didn't bet in that race, obviously) who really is impressive and broke the course record in winning the Juddmonte International. Monster.

Nice to see the North beating the South in the football match that was organised in aid of the Injured Jockey's Fund. Dettori went from hero to villain, after opening the scoring for the South, but later missing what would have been the winning penalty in the shootout, as the North won 4-3 on penalties (3-3 in normal time). Great banter.

I do like York. I've been four times now and it's easily my favourite racecourse of the ten or so I've attended.

Apologies to Scott, who posted about an hour ago. Don't overlook his greyhounds post below this one.

Dom

Scottish Racing Festivals 2009

Whilst many choose to venture down to Cheltenham and Aintree for their respective spring festivals I decided to venture off the beaten track and take in both the Ayr Scottish national meetings and the Perth Festival. I have been a regular attendee of the Perth festival for a few years now but decided it would be worthwhile to make a week of it and also take in the 2 day Ayr meeting the weekend before. The two day Ayr meeting began with a 7 race card on the Friday. It was a tough card to find winners on but fortunately I pulled off a couple of decent priced ones with Grand Theatre winning the opener at 14/1 before Tell Henry obliged in the 5th race at 9/1, a race in which I had also backed the 18/1 second. For the Friday we had paid the extra cash for the club enclosure which proved money well spent as the facilities were first class and one of the bar maids serving on the bar proving an ideal candidate for the future Mrs Walsh. It was however unfortunate that the course had decided to charge £40 for this enclosure on the Saturday, a rise of £16 from the Friday and this forced us into attending the main enclosure for the 2nd day.


After an enjoyable first days racing, the action didn’t stop there as the racecourse had arranged for two bands to play after racing including Irish band The Saw Doctors. A lot of racecourses could learn a lot from this as many people stayed on until the bands finished at 9pm although by this time many were wandering around “green” by this stage but everyone was impeccably behaved. It was then back to a few bars and a bit night clubbing in local town Irvine before heading back to my friends flat.


So onto day two and the quality of racing really picked up from day one with the Scottish National, Scottish Champion Hurdle and the Future Champions Novices Chase the highlights and all the top trainers, Nicholls, Henderson, King and Pipe having runners on the card. However with the increase in quality brought an increase in competitiveness and I was unable to find a single winner on the 8 race card with many of my selections running well below form including Coe and Medermit. I had arrived expecting to enjoy the Saturday card far more due to the increased quality but as it turned out the racecourse was just too busy for my liking with over twenty thousand being in attendance. As a racing fan I like to be able to view horses in the paddock, wander around the betting ring to view the best prices and get a good spot in the stands but unfortunately this was not all possible on the Saturday. This however is not the racecourses fault and I came out the two day meeting with high praise for the course and to be fair I still had an excellent day despite my lack of success. The atmosphere was again fantastic and my friends, who aren’t really racing fans all had a crackerjack of a time. We all ventured into the packed town centre afterwards where we had a few more drinks before calling it a day.


I then headed north to my parents house in Dundee to set up base for the Perth Festival which would take place from Wednesday to Friday. I had planned to attend Wednesday and Friday with Thursday being pencilled in if the opening day proved to be a successful. The three day festival has often clashed with the Punchestown in recent years but with the Irish festival falling a week later this year it proved to Perth’s benefit with some high quality horses entered and again all the major trainers having entries.


On the opening day I had picked out a couple of horses in Chicago Grey and The Market Man that I was quite confident in. Chicago Grey did the business for me at 5/2 in the first race but I had lowered my bet from my initial plan anticipating a long week ahead and this was to prove to my detriment somewhat as The Market Man was to prove a major disappointment in the novice chase. With six races having passed and only one with a winner it was left to Solway Minstrel to save me for the day in the closing amateur riders handicap hurdle. At 7/1 this one looked a big price running off the same mark as it had when I had witnessed this horse winning at Ayr the previous Friday . I was almost counting my winnings as this one travelled up strong between the last two flights and looked a certain winner but unfortunately as the line approached the race from the previous Friday appeared to tell and my selection was run out of things close home by the Sue Smith trained And Whatever Else. Again despite another unsuccessful day it was another enjoyable day. Perth is a completely different course to Ayr and everything on a much smaller scale but there is an undeniable charm about the place and having initially been under whelmed with the facilities after visiting Ayr I was soon reminded that Perth isn’t about any of that. Perth is all about the horses and atmosphere and a knowledgeable crowd.


I decided to skip Thursday card and watched those on TV before I made my way back for the final day of the Stan James sponsored festival. This was to be the yearly “scoop troop” visit after last years inaugural venture on the Friday. Unfortunately Dom was unable to attend this year with work commitments back down in Sheffield. So it was left to myself, Scott and Kenny to represent the troop for the day. We kicked off the day with a couple of beers in Perth pub “The Foundry” before taking the bus down to the course. The Friday of the festival is traditionally the busiest day of the week with many people opting for a 3 day weekend. This again proved to be the case with a large crowd in attendance. Having looked at the card in advance I had decided this would be a small stakes only day as the card was incredibly competitive. The first three races passed without a winner for any of us with the 2mile novice chase proving a particular disaster for Scoop Trooper Scott, who having advised us he was backing Salford City returned from the betting ring with cash still in hand advising “11/4 is widely available” and was informed by me that it was “bound to go 3/1.” Needless to say having returned from the bar discovering Salford City was now a 6/4 chance it romped home with Scott not having a penny of his money on him.


By this stage we had all pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact we were destined to ship further cash for the rest of the day. This was to change dramatically though with the running of the Press & Journal Highland National. As regular readers will know myself Scott and Kenny had all backed Laertes to victory in this race last year and he again lined up in this years renewal. It looked a fiercely competitive race and despite him being apparently completely out of form we all decided that we were obliged to back Laertes at his price of 14/1. With a circuit to go it didn’t look too promising for us as Laertes was being given reminders but his credit he responded in style and after a tremendous jump 5 fences from home it became clear that Laertes was the likely winner of the race. By the time the remaining runners turned from home it looked as if the horse just had to jump to win the race and this proved the case as the horse stayed on up the home straight to score comfortably, much to the delight of the three of us. I must say I have won more money many times before but the memory of Laertes’ victory is possibly my greatest racing moment to date. Thanks must also go to the Perth secretary Sam Morshead who arranged for us to have our photo taken with winning trainer Chris Grant who proved to be a top class gent.


After the high of Laertes win we all but lost interest in the remaining races and instead opted for a few celebratory drinks. This continued once we arrived back at Perth and then in Dundee late into the night. This ended what had been an absolutely fantastic week of racing. I would thoroughly recommend any readers North or South of the border should sample these festivals in future years. Whilst not carrying the glitz and glamour of the big festivals, those with a strong interest in racing simply cannot fail to enjoy the fayre on offer at either venue. Roll on Ayr and Perth 2010.