There is some decent racing today, and much of it is my sort of stuff – I’ve spent some time looking through it all. I’m a creature of habit and I have a structure to my analysis.
I like to go through the card twice – once the night before (to get the juices flowing) and in more detail at around lunchtime on the day. On my first pass through I scribble down notes as I go, and generally I narrow the card down to three or four races. The next day I just concentrate on those races, getting into the detailed form of the principals. I usually make a few phone calls. Often as not I can’t find enough time – updating my blog makes it quite tough.
One of the benefits of doing it slowly is that it helps me to isolate my emotional weak points. There are certain horses that I want to win or see beaten. Maybe there’s a horse that beat one of mine and I want to believe that it must be outstanding to have beaten my animal. Maybe I backed it unsuccessfully last time and I feel it somehow “owes me”. Whatever the case going through the card twice seems to help me identify these biases and get them out – there is no room for emotion in analysis.
The other benefit of a gap is that it allows my mental processes to chug along quietly in the background for a decent time period, and perhaps recall into memory any relevant data that might be lurking in the back of my mind. Sometimes in life it is best to be quick and decisive, but there’s no benefit to that approach here.
My notes from last night; Strategic Mount (3.10 San) looks strong. Heaven Sent and Marozi both interesting. Bauer, Aphorism at Chester very similar – Halling 4yos possibly coming right now. Galient interesting – big gap in middle of season. Captain Hurricane runs Ripon.
My thoughts now;
Strategic Mount – trip short, ground probably right, high in the handicap. Price (7.0) higher that I would have expected. Despite trip reservation will back, but in moderation.
Heaven Sent – consistent and the class horse in this field. Looks a division above the rest of them, and none of the oppo look likely to spring a big surprise. Price short but so it should be – she feels like an odds on shot to me. Days best bet.
Marozi – struggling to get comfortable. Backed him last time and was impressed, but don’t feel I have any unusual insight here. I’ll leave him out.
Bauer, Aphorism – short prices but I like this sort of reasoning and I’m inclined to go along with it. I may have a saver on Galient.
I’ve ended up with a small collection of favourites – not generally my preferred way to go but sobeit.
I won’t back Captain Hurricane today – perhaps he’ll perform a bit better if he doesn’t have the weight of my money on his back.