Review of the day

Federici ran his heart out at Hereford this afternoon – but just couldn’t get home in the bottomless ground.

I wondered this morning how bad the ground would be – and it turned out to be as bad as I’ve seen in a long time.

Pre-race, I wasn’t sure he would handle it – but in fairness, he seemed to handle it fine – just not as well at the 2 Kerry Lee trained runners: Goodtoknow and Mountainous.

The former cruised through the race, tracking Federici - and from a long way out, he looked the most likely winner.

Federici maintained an advantage to the second last, but once Goodtoknow had gone past, his race was over.

He couldn’t even manage to negotiate the final fence and take third place - which seemed a bit harsh, considering how well he had run…

It was a similar situation in the other races of interest, at Hereford.

Rebel Beat travelled really nicely in the opener – but didn’t manage to get home; whilst Alcala travelled even better in the novice handicap chase.

He traded odds on in running, after jumping the fourth last – but was an exhausted horse, when he fell at the second last.

The ground was also riding a lot softer than I expected at Leicester.

In the opener, Ballinvarrig and Mister Grez both bounced back to form – and put their in-form rivals in the shade.

Lost Legend was well backed - but was just about the first horse beaten.

Milord ran a strange race in the handicap hurdle – looking likely to be tailed off, before finishing with a relative flourish to take fourth.
I’m really not sure what to make of that performance.

Finally, Templehills took at crashing fall at the fifth fence in the handicap chase; whilst Crosspark unseated in the same race – and Tanarpino just ran flat.

The race was won by Bells N Banjos, who had drifted to a fair price, particularly considering there were some notable non runners (including the early favourite, Fingeronthepulse).

TVB.