On the Swindon front: I was extremely pleased to see Town sign the sponsorship deal with Fourfourtwo the other week. The first I heard of this was through a friend of mine at Haymarket – Fourfourtwo were looking for a shirt deal and they had Swindon on the shortlist. They had a series of meetings with Nick Watkins and team, and …
Update
Having rung around this morning I’m not recommending Scrapper Smith now. I think he’ll run well enough, but Pete likes his a lot, and I very much doubt we’re the better horse at the moment. South Central is supposed to be something pretty special against Skid. I prefer Kensington Oval to Dr Faustus in the 4:55. I see my blog …
Bullydoyle
A good day’s racing today, but one that has left me more concerned than ever before about the state of the game at the top level. It seems to be standard these days for Ballydoyle to have multiple entries in every group one to be run in the UK, and this is a situation that needs to be monitored carefully. …
Risk strategy
It’s been a busy week and I’m glad it’s over. It was my father-in-law’s funeral yesterday and we had all the guests back to the farm – it was a pleasant do in sad circumstances with a fair bit of work getting ready for it. It was also Betfair’s strategy week and I attended as much of that as I …
Fit for a King
I had hoped for three runners today but I’m down to one after the two Maxes pulled out. He’s a good one though – King’s Head runs at Aintree tonight, and if the rains stay away I see no reason why he won’t go in again. He’s fit and well. Nine days break isn’t a lot, but I don’t think …
Guineas thoughts
The 2,000 comes around, and it’s not as strong a race as it might have been. Several leading fancies, Winker included, have fallen away and no surprise packages have emerged. The ground will probably be genuine good ground, which will suit most but not Raven’s Pass. The big question for me is whether I can get away from New Approach. Everything …
Max on target
Max One Two Three did an important piece of work this morning, and was scoped afterwards. She worked really nicely and scoped clean – we are now bang on for the 1,000. She will have one more piece of work early next week and that will be it. She is a very decent filly with a real turn of foot – …
A tale of two seconds
I was a bit down yesterday thinking about the number of second places I have, so I checked out the stats. The stats are poor for horses running in my name – 3 wins, 7 seconds, 6 thirds from 39 runs. If I include all horses I have a piece of the figures are 22-30-14 – not great but not a disaster. …
Highs and Lows
It’s a big time of year as an owner, and there are highs and lows. Aintree was ultimately a real mix, and there was a lot of good and bad on Saturday. I didn’t go up as I was at AFC Wimbledon for a match that my wider family were sponsoring in memory of my great uncle, who owned the club in the 60’s …
The big day approaches
The big day approaches, and unusually for me I don’t have an ante-post position in the National. In my younger days I was crazily obsessive about the race – it got to the point where I was so tense beforehand that I could barely watch it. A couple of times I can remember watching the race on TV peering through the door …