Review of the day

Considering I managed to tip a decent priced winner on 3 of the 4 days – and that across the festival, the tips made a reasonable profit, I can’t help but feel it ended up a week of what could have been…

Things were never going to get any worse than Lil Rockerfeller yesterday – but Balnaslow ran him an honourable second, this afternoon !

It’s not very often that you see a 50/1 shot jump from fence to fence – and clear the second last still travelling strongly, with a 2 length lead.

But that’s precisely what happened with him.

He traded at 1.3 in running at that point – and provided he jumped the last, you would have thought he was a certainty to at least place.

He did jump the last - but his jump was not fluent – and not only did it cost him ground, it also cost him momentum.

And though he kept battling to the line, he was run out of the places in the final strides.

Sometimes, it’s hard not to think that someone is trying to tell you something…

I actually thought the days ‘hard luck’ story had occurred in the second race of the day.

Wakae was a mere 33/1 shot in that contest – but was still a dozen lengths clear turning in.

In fairness, it was always possible that he had gone off a shade too fast – and he was reeled in on the approach to the last.

It was still a very big run…

Any Drama didn’t run quite so well, in the following Albert Bartlett hurdle.

I was right to take on Death Duty – I just chose the wrong horse to take him on with.

In fairness, the winner, Penhill, wasn’t an easy one to find.

In the Martin Pipe hurdle, both Thomas Campbell and Castello Sforza ran reasonable races – with the former looking like he could probably do with stepping up even further in trip.

And then ofcourse, there was the winner - once again in the final race of the day.

I would have preferred it to have been Velvet Maker – but I’ll accept Rock The World.

He travelled nicely behind the leaders – and found plenty when asked by Robbie Power…

It was quite a day for him, as just a couple of hours earlier, he had won the Gold Cup on Sizing John.

It looked an open contest before hand – and I felt Sizing John would need to improve to win.
However that was always a possibility – and he ultimately won very impressively.

Minella Rocco plugged on for a gallant second place.
I put him up in the forum a couple of months ago (along with Lil Rockerfeller !) – so hopefully a few of you were on him…

Hopefully a few of you were on some of the other winners this week, as well…

I know a lot of you rely on the tips, but there were ‘winning’ mentions in the shape of Cloudy Dream and Special Tiara – plus a winning eye catcher in Road to Respect.

I was also positive about Un de Sceaux, Flying Tiger and Nichols Canyon.

And yet it feels like a week that will be remembered for the two that got away: Lil Rockerfeller and Balnaslow.

There are always fine lines – it was just a shame we couldn’t get on the right side of one of the really big ones.

There’s always next year, I guess 

TVB.