Southwell: Going off the rails

It is unusual to see horses three abreast challenging for the prize in the final throws on Southwells fibresand, Being on two horses of the three challenging almost in a straight line only to end up with second and third sums up our last three meetings. With a scarcity of opportunities of late added to the mix, life has been a little subdued and done little to add to what has been a good August for us.

To add insult to injury The Actuary top rated Cosimo de Medici who opened at 12-1, also our highest rated on the Southwell card made light work of the Class 4: 6:45 returning at 11-4. In the previous race Akeed Dubawi showed its 'Sires' superiority as anticipated in my post Surface, Sires, Statistics and Southwell. Unfortunately the price was skinnier than expected opening at 6-4.

With another meeting today at Southwell I can report that times returned yesterday suggest the course will be running very close to standard, but it was noticeable that the closers in larger fields were all coming from middle to stand side. It is well documented that the rail much rides deeper but it would appear from yesterdays races that we have a much wider strip of testing fibresand than usual off the rail.