That said, a small racing syndicate I’m involved with has done the unthinkable and booked a jockey on my say-so - I may have to re-think all my racing ideals if things go belly up tomorrow evening (assuming, of coure, that other members of the club haven’t already hunted me down)!

I like Morana a lot - he clearly has a decent engine and he also looks durable - he isn’t a heavy type and he has siblings that have had long racing lives.

Equipedia,

I do have a say. I like Alan for a lot of reasons. He’s honest, straightforward and cheerful, he generally has an opinion. He doesn’t shy away from breaking bad news (i.e. telling me that a horse is useless) which means I can believe him when he likes one. He thinks about a horses education and progression and not just the next race.

I suspect he didn’t ride the best race on Morana - he said beforehand that he was showing a lot of speed at home and he might have ridden with too much confidence. I think he passed the post with plenty in the tank. It was a difficult ride as he didn’t settle, and those ones are easily misread.

Obviously we’re not privy to what Morana does at home, but there’s plenty of stamina on both sides of his pedigree and he showed enough over a mile at Sandown to suggest that a comparatively sharp seven furlongs wasn’t going to be ideal. It seemed odd then that Munro decided to counteract the lack of early pace by…well…not going any quicker. He effectively set the race up for Awesome Act who, it must be said, had shown plenty of speed two outings previously at Newmarket.

Had Darryl Holland or even Richard Hills been on board, I have no doubts as to what the result would have been.

Do you like to have a say in who rides your horses, Bert, or do you leave that down to the trainer?