Review of the day

Quito du Tresor ran really well this afternoon – but ultimately, he wasn’t good enough.

Entering the home straight, nothing was going better – but he just couldn’t go through with his effort.

Whether it was the aging legs – or the poor stable form – it’s impossible to say. Whatever the reason, all he could do was plug on, for third place.

At his age, there is an argument that he is best left alone. However, given the right circumstances (again !) – and better stable form, there’s a chance he could tempt me in again...

Tap Night is one who probably couldn’t tempt me in (in the short term, at least) – as after leading to the home straight, he was soon beaten…

He may only be 9 – but he does look to be in terminal decline.

In the same race, Teo Vivo ran much better.
He was extremely weak in the betting (SP of 10/1 – 14 on BF) – but belied the lack of confidence. In fact, if he hadn’t jumped his hurdles as if they were fences, he could have gone very close indeed.

He could be one to look out for next time.

In the final race on the Musselburgh card, Broom Lane raced prominently until fading out of things up the home straight.

He was also quite weak in the betting, making you wonder why connections had bothered travelling such a long way for a run…

Over at Newbury Beware the Bear did indeed show himself to be a well handicapped horse.

Ultimately, he only won by a length - but he was value for a fair bit more than that.
It’ll be interesting to see how far he can go…

It will also be interesting to see how far Three Faces West can go.

He won a weak race last time - but was backed to win a much stronger race today - and the money proved to be well placed.

Under a typically aggressive Richard Johnson ride, he forced all of his rivals into mistakes and ultimately won well.

Life in handicaps could be tricky for him from this point on, however…

Drumacoo fell early in the contest, showing once again, that you simply can’t chase down prices on horses over fences.

There is too much uncertainty involved to be taking 2/1 or less in any remotely competitive chase (Barney Dwan showed the same, yesterday).

Finally, there was no issue getting Starkie at my pre-race target price of 6/1 – but that was because his trainer had gone on TV and said the horse had little chance of winning !

It’s not easy to legislate for that kind of thing when you are looking at a race in the morning – but clearly it will be factored into subsequent market movements.

And sure enough, his trainer was right – and the horse ran no kind of a race.

It was won by Cepage – a Venetia Williams debutant who was weak in the betting (possibly because he was sweating badly).

In fairness, it did look this morning, like a race best left alone – and I’m glad I did just that (provided you ignore me napping Starkie in the forum competition, that is !)

TVB