Ugh. My hopes and dreams from Friday lie crushed and broken.
Marine Boy‘s run was too bad to be true. He’s a lot better than that – in a sense I’d have been more concerned if he’d been beaten a couple of lengths. He scoped clean after the race and he trotted up fine – we couldn’t see anything wrong. I think the long trip up to York, 48 hours in an unfamiliar stable and a long trip back (he’s not a great traveller) may have taken a toll. It may have just been greenness of a young and inexperienced horse. We plod on with him hoping for a better show next time, which will probably be the Mill Reef.
Winker‘s result was depressing. I’ve never seen him as a sprinter as I don’t think he has the physique for it, but I was hoping I’d be wrong. He missed the break which didn’t help (he doesn’t like the stalls) but he caught up. The simple fact seems to be that they were going too fast for him. I think he needs 7f to a mile, although I doubt he can feature at Group 1 level in his current form.
Bet Noir ran vaguely ok and can progress further. Scrapper Smith was pretty woeful, but Pansy Potter ran an encouraging race and she might be progressing now. To cap the miserable weekend of sport Swindon lost 3-1 at home to Colchester – the stats suggest that they were fairly beaten.
It’s been a terrible year for the Comic Strip Heroes – no winners at all. I had very large bets on both Marine Boy and Winker – in Marine Boy’s case it was my biggest single bet ever. I’ve wiped out nearly half of my profit for the flat season in a single weekend. The most thought provoking thing is that I have decent profits to wipe out – it hasn’t felt that way.
Still no point in being miserable. Roll on the Mill Reef…