We know that experience on the surface plays a big part in the winner finding process at Southwell but yesterday 50% of winners having had no previous and with the exception of Nurse Dominatrix gave no clues to their potential based on breeding.
Dazzlin Bluebell (6-1) was my only top rated winner but did not make it through to becoming a selection and I felt a little hard done by as I watched La Estrella first give a hefty bump and then lean all over 2 point selection Pendragon for the best part of the trip up the straight. While everybody eulogised over La Estrella’s 13th win on the surface I was listening out for the klaxon of the stewards, but nothing!
I had two interests in Wolverhampton’s card the rest would be talent spotting and you could be forgiving for thinking we were still at Southwell as horses yet to be raced on the surface filled the first four places in the first race. I didn’t get to see the preamble to the 17:00 but understand that selection Al Udeid was at minimum, extremely unruly at the start to the point where it drifted like a barge. Having watched the race you would also be aware, to be polite, that it was carrying a little bit of condition.
Having backed Icebuster at 7-1 yesterday afternoon in the 18:30 and seeing an SP of 3-1 did the reverse of filling me with confidence for the race. Sat out the back alongside one of the two subsequent winners, Icebuster was never put under a drive and never found the gaps at the right time. Call me a skeptic but whether this was intentional by James Millman I will leave to your imagination.
The rest of the meeting struck the familiar recent pattern of bigger the gamble, bigger the failure as Fergus Cameron plays with the surface with reckless abandon in his effort to see how wide a variation he can get from one day to the next.
Dazzlin Bluebell (6-1) was my only top rated winner but did not make it through to becoming a selection and I felt a little hard done by as I watched La Estrella first give a hefty bump and then lean all over 2 point selection Pendragon for the best part of the trip up the straight. While everybody eulogised over La Estrella’s 13th win on the surface I was listening out for the klaxon of the stewards, but nothing!
La Estrella (nose band) bumps and leans all over Pendragon but no stewards enquiry
I had two interests in Wolverhampton’s card the rest would be talent spotting and you could be forgiving for thinking we were still at Southwell as horses yet to be raced on the surface filled the first four places in the first race. I didn’t get to see the preamble to the 17:00 but understand that selection Al Udeid was at minimum, extremely unruly at the start to the point where it drifted like a barge. Having watched the race you would also be aware, to be polite, that it was carrying a little bit of condition.
Having backed Icebuster at 7-1 yesterday afternoon in the 18:30 and seeing an SP of 3-1 did the reverse of filling me with confidence for the race. Sat out the back alongside one of the two subsequent winners, Icebuster was never put under a drive and never found the gaps at the right time. Call me a skeptic but whether this was intentional by James Millman I will leave to your imagination.
The rest of the meeting struck the familiar recent pattern of bigger the gamble, bigger the failure as Fergus Cameron plays with the surface with reckless abandon in his effort to see how wide a variation he can get from one day to the next.
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