Best of all time

Four runners today – Major Eazy goes at Goodwood, Marine Boy goes at York and both Pansy Potter and Bea Menace go at Newbury tonight.    I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get something out of today’s lot.  Major Eazy carries top weight in a handicap – he’s big enough to shoulder top weight and there’s a general feeling that he’s …

Darth Jackson

Quaker Parrot ran a fair race, finishing in the pack – stepping up to that level was a big ask.  Tom won the race with ease with his other runner, Don’t Tell Mary.  Tom tried to buy this filly at the sales but was outbid by David Redvers – he went up to Redvers after the sale and said he …

Plenty to build on

A nice run yesterday from Peintre D’Argent, who looked like the winner a furlong out but failed to get home – she traded 1.53 in the win market and 1.01 in the place market.  When she emptied she emptied quickly and finished fifth, but there was plenty to build on there. David Probert took the ride.  I didn’t go, but …

More questions than answers

A runner at Chepstow today as Peintre D’Argent comes out for the Pro-claimers. I saw her a couple of weeks ago when I went up to Manor House Stables.  When we claimed her she was very skinny – Nicky thought she might have an ulcer and we put her on the course of anti-ulcer drugs.  She’s filled out a lot …

From one extreme to another

More disappointment yesterday as Max came nowhere in her listed race.  For her it was a case of going from one extreme to another – two weeeks ago she ran on firm and found it too quick, whereas she appeared not to handle the heavy at Haydock yesterday.  Again I’ll shrug and draw a line through it – it was …

Massive hole

I’m having a busy time of it at the moment with heavy schedules every day this week, and the blog’s fallen behind again.  It doesn’t help that my house is a building site, but we’re getting to the end of that. Tifernati ran on Sunday, and ran a stinker.  Jamie felt that there was something seriously wrong with him – …

No good excuses

A busy day today with no time to blog, so just a quick one. It was a pretty desperate weekend with some of my best hopes for the season running poorly with no good excuses.  Marine Boy ran a respectable fourth on Friday, but I’d hoped he was better than that.  Tom’s analysis was fairly sober – “he’s probably not as good …

Hoping

Marine Boy goes today in a listed race at Newbury.  It’s been frustrating but I still believe in him – clearly the market is losing faith and his price gets ever longer.  The overnight rain (assuming it came) is a positive for him – he doesn’t mind how soft it gets. He’s been disappointing lately but there are no indications …

Keep on believing

I had a big day planned yesterday with four runners at Warwick. I’d done my homework on the racing the night before and booked up a car for the day – I also had my blog post written but I held back as I wasn’t sure if Maxwell Hawke was going to run. Warwick were calling it good to firm …

Road trip

I’m just back from a road trip to Chester. I caught the 10:10 from Euston with Mick and David O’Reilly, one of the BF lawyers and a fellow pro-claimer.  We caught a cab at the other end, which we shared with a couple of old Irish boys – we had to walk the last bit. As we approached the course I realised …