Tragic News

Captain Hurricane died of a heart attack this morning on the gallops.  He had recently been transferred to Tom Dascombe and was doing his first serious piece of work this morning.  He ran a bit flat and the jockey decided to get off and walk him back to the stable – a few minutes later he keeled over and died …

Analysis

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 …

Hard times

A poor run yet again from Captain Hurricane, finishing mid division.  Pete showed yet again what a master he is with 2yos. The ground this week has been very hard, and a lot of horses have struggled with it.  I think that when it is as firm as this it becomes a bit specialist and there can be value siding …

The moment of truth

Captain Hurricane is napped by Tony Lewis in the 3.45 at Haydock today.  He is also the spotlight selection, and Emily Weber describes it as “the moment of truth” after a long haul.  It may be a fair description – if he can’t show up well today then it may be that he never will. I’ll be backing Strategic Mount …

French double

I had a long chat with Pete today.  It’s all systems go for Winker on Sunday week in the Prix Morny, and he’s working extremely well.  I don’t see anything beating him – if he wins we may go for an extremely aggressive 2yo campaign with him. The best news he had concerned Bouguereau.  Pete was on his way to …

Captain my captain

After yesterday I’m really going to struggle to ignore Ryan Moore’s rides.  I watched his face after a couple of his wins – he seems to show no trace of emotion and he reminds me a bit of Lester Piggott.  It’s a fairly obvious comment but I think he’ll turn out to be pretty special. Captain Hurricane goes again today, and …

Shawhill today

Shawhill goes up to York to run in a competitive little listed handicap.  She’s the outsider of five, and I fancy her to go very well. There are a lot of imponderables here; She’s never raced on ground as soft as this … or over a distance as long as this Last time she won she was on a mark …

Hurricane warning

One I forgot to mention – Captain Hurricane runs on Friday at Newmarket.  He’s been pretty useless for a long time now, but I think that there’s a decent chance he’ll come right one day and when he does he’ll be a seriously well handicapped horse.  He got to a point where he was so aggressive that no-one wanted to …

Eazy Peazy

I’ve been waiting to write that headline for a long time.  Major Eazy’s win at the fifth attempt on Saturday night was long overdue, and at last we have confirmation of something we have believed for a long time – he is a proper racehorse. Every jockey who has sat on ME has told us that he is a quality …

Ascot looms…

…and I’m beginning to get excited.  Winker is extremely well and we’ve been arguing the toss with Pete all week as to which race he’ll go for.  It’s looking like we’re going for the Norfolk on Thursday.  Major Eazy will run in the Windsor Castle on Tuesday, and Frankie is taking the ride.  He’s run in the best 2yo company …