Wednesday Review

A terrible day really for the ‘best bets’ and probably just as well I am taking a break for the next few weeks. I think in future when Cheltenham finishes I am just going to take a month off as I think I’m suffering from burnout and missing too many things !

Warwick 2:50 West End Rocker 
Well West End Rocker finished a fair 2nd but was out-speeded by what I felt was the main danger Shining Gale. Charlie Mann is definitely a trainer to stay on the right side of over the next few weeks.

Warwick 3:25 Enfant De Line 
Unfortunante, had no chance as the tack broke and Choc had no option but to pull up but at least the lay of Gold Award in the same race proved successful. Given that ones defeat I feel sure we were cheated of a winner here but that is the way it goes.

Chepstow 3:50 Craven
Should probably have left Craven out as he did his usual, get there early going well and then faded. Surprised the jockey let him stride on as early when he did and he was lucky to hang on for 3rd although the winner was even more fortunate as the 2nd tied up badly in the run in.

Lingfield 4:10 Sir Liam 
Well I felt this was one of the worst handicaps of the day and so it proved. Sir Liam ran pretty wide but then found little and was very disappointing. Perhaps I should be concentrating on the better class events of the day.

   Kempton 7:20 Akhenaten and Mastery
Both of these met nightmare runs with Akhenaten almost having to be pulled up. Kempton is a nightmare of a track if you don’t get a run or miss the break as Mastery did. I thought the latter would get there but just a couple of necks off the win, Mastery will definitely be one to watch next time as he was really unlucky here, just as unlucky as the runner-up although you wouldn’t know it from listening to the commentators.

Kempton 8:20 Luberon 
Was nowhere near ready for this seasonal effort and although he wasn’t helped by not being able to dictate due to the free-running stablemate Scintillo was just different gravy here and won with consumate ease.

As far as the lays go…well we had one winner out of 4 but I expect this will go in ‘waves’ and the crucial thing is it’s not too disastrous as you never lose quite as much as you will win in the long term I feel, but I’m going to have to re-analyze my backing strategy for when I return. I certainly need to have some more structure around my whole betting approach.

Today’s lay results…

War 14:20 Lay 15 Lindeman @ 1.36 –5.40
Che 14:40 Lay 15 Mount Benger @ 1.53 –7.95
Warwick 15:25 Lay 15 Gold Award @ 1.86 +15
Kempton 19:20 Lay 15 Dunes Queen @ 1.38 –5.7

Daily Total –4.05
Overall Running P&L +12.65

The only highlight for me was when I performed some detailed analysis tonight in the last 1/2hr and realised I had missed a race from my ratings. On the last race at Kempton where I figured that Johnston’s Tartan Gigha was a really good bet, was clear rated and I can only apologise for this oversight as I was busy packing for London etc. I felt today had been frustrating so I took some of my Cheltenham winnings and put it on Tartan Gigha. Thankfully it came in for a return of 1100 quid profit so at least I have some spending money for the next few weeks. When I get back I am going to setup an MSN messenger group so I can get this kind of info out as soon as I get it or possibly look to utilise Twitter a bit more for this kind of late advice.