A good day for George Baker and an equally good day for us

Less than a handful of selections for Tuesday across the two cards at Southwell and Kempton Park but we still managed to comfortably put the disappointment of Monday behind us. It wasn't the best of starts with our sole Southwell selection Cousin Khee (opened 15-8) being out battled by 6 times course winner Kingscombe in a head bobbing finish. Given the narrow margin of defeat, I feel that being ridden for a large part of the 2 mile trip, scraping the paint off the rail where the track rides notoriously deeper played a major part in Cousin Khee’s undoing.

Kempton Park started equally disappointingly with Highly Likely (opened 11-2) being highly unlikely, able only to show an extremely short burst of speed when asked for an effort taking it in to third before fading in to 5th behind Gracefilly in the 5:10.

On the 24^th October we had the good fortune to be on Innoko when winning at 11-1. On that occasion Innoko hit the front and just held on from the fast finishing Bridge That Gap over 9f. It was no less uncomfortable last night for Innoko (9-2) as we witnessed the reverse scenario with our 2 point selection running down the favourite McBirney and George Baker in the final strides over 11f.

Having deprived George Baker a treble with our success with Innoko in the 6:40, we were onside with our final selection on the Kempton Park card. Stonefield Flyer (opened 13-2) who could put the cherry on top for subscribers. Stonefield Flyer travelled ominously well into the straight where it was worked to the outside to deliver its challenge but appeared to be somewhat reluctant to go by the leader Another Try. It took all the urging and galvanising that George Baker could muster to drive Stonefield Flyer to a ¾ length victory. A good day for George Baker and an equally good day for us.

As we are back at Kempton Park this evening with interests in four of the eight races. Having had four of our top rated win from six races last night should hold us in good stead if the status quo is maintained. But this is racing and no two days are the same!