A weak day on Saturday with no winners – costly as I felt good about a couple of my picks and got stuck in. It was the first day of the flat when I really spent time checking out the form and annoying to have decimated my account.
I’ve put it right since with a series of winning bets. On Sunday I backed Fame and Glory at Leopardstown – he looks like the right sort of stuff for the Derby. Brian has a big opinion of Crowded House who is also the right sort of animal – he’s an athletic type and he should handle the Epsom bends. I’m not really an ante-post punter but these two both feel like strong Derby types and it might be a good plan to back them both.
I had a Swindon board meeting today and took a driver. I had time on my hands coming back so I got stuck in to the Racing Post – three bets three winners put my account right. I don’t like to aftertime but there were a couple of interesting points;
Kings Ace was having his first run since being gelded today – he’d shown some ability last season, but had looked a difficult type, running in snatches and having to be visored. He’d fallen to a nice mark – Kings Best colts are often tricky to deal with and gelding can work the oracle. It seemed worth taking the gamble that he’d be ready to deliver first time up – the price was holding up well, which I took as a positive.
Mastoora, a fairly pricey 3yo filly was making her debut for Willie Haggas at Folkestone. Owned by Hamdan Al Maktoum, she is no doubt being viewed as a broodmare prospect, but she hadn’t run at 2 despite her breeding suggesting she would be an early type. If she had been a colt I would have left alone – a colt that has done nothing on the racecourse has no value from a breeding perspective, so all colts have to come out and have a go. Fillies don’t – they can retire unraced to stud having never run, and many do. If a well bred filly makes a late debut then she must have some ability – she would only damage her value otherwise.
Good and bad on the breeding front. Shawhill, having failed to get in foal to Selkirk has failed again with Bahamian Bounty. She was covered again last night – fingers crossed. Baldovina is in Ireland with her foal, and has been scanned in foal to Red Clubs – the stud report that her foal is particularly nice, the second such report we have had. She might prove to be a bit of a bargain buy – her dam was a group winner and her only sister has won a group 2 in Japan and came fourth in the Japanese 1,000 Guineas this month.
Two runners at Epsom tomorrow – Tifernati in the 3:05 and Hector Spectre in the 5:25. Tifernati has been recovering from an operation to remove a large wart from his bum – I won’t show the pictures as they might disturb those of a weak constitution, but I’m glad it wasn’t me. I have high hopes for him as he’s a lovely looking type, but he’s had a long time off and might need it. Hector Spectre is going to be race ready and could run well.
The next important run is Winker, who runs in a listed race over 7f on Saturday at Leicester. We’ve got no explanation for his bad run last time, but he’s still going well on the home gallops and we just have to hope that the last run was a one-off.