Review of the day

Well, not a Saturday to write home about - but at least the victory of Royal Regatta got a monkey of our backs…

I’ve lost count of the number of times that Richard Johnson has dug me out a hole – and it was the same again today, as he forced Royal Regatta home at Newbury.

The horse was a bit novicey, on his chasing debut – but as I’d hoped, his class saw him through.
I would expect him to improve for the run – and progress on to better things…

Dickie got a double up in the very next race, when somehow getting Bertie Boru home.

In fairness, the win was more down to Phone Home, who idled and gave the race away on the run in. But you really don’t want to be doing that when Dickie Johnson has got the bit between his teeth.

Noble Legend ran very disappointingly.

He made plenty of mistakes and was pulled up before the home straight. 

As I said this morning, I felt he was a value call to beat Bertie Brou (who was 6/1 at the time).

At the off, it was 7/1 Bertie Boru: 9/1 Noble Legend. That would have been a trickier call to make…

The Hennessy was won in determined style, by Many Clouds…

This was a bit of an irritating result for me, because he was my long term fancy for the race.

However, he was tipped by Pricewise before I posted in the ante-post blog – which completely shot the price.

I ended up tipping The Druids Nephew, who ran a quite amazing race…

Davy Russell decided to chart an inside course on him – but it soon became clear that the horse didn’t appreciate being crowed at his fences.

After a shocking blunder at the final fence in the back straight, Davy switched him to the wide outside, to give him more room.

It was a very pronounced move – and obviously meant the horse had to run further than all of his rivals.

It therefore speaks volumes for his ability that he managed to come there cruising rounding the home turn.

Unfortunately, his efforts then took their toll – and another bad blunder at the second last sealed his fate.

This is one seriously talented animal however – when everything drops right for him, he will pick up a very big race. Mark my words !!

I was astonished by the betting in the final race on the Newbury card.

Monetaire and Solar Impulse were backed to pretty much the exclusion of everything else.

Whilst I could give them both a good chance based on form – the market movements did look to have been over-done.

Well, they might have looked that way – but the market was spot on.

The two of them had the race between them, from the second last, with Monetiare ultimately coming out on top.

I felt we were a bit unlucky when he was beaten at Cheltenham last time – I think today proved that.

Rio De Sivola ran a fair race – travelling well enough and threatening to get involved rounding the home turn. However he was beaten soon after that…

Earlier in the day, Treat Yourself had run quite well at Fairyhouse – but was yet another one on the afternoon who was let down by his jumping.

He had a good position early – but a series of slow/big/untidy jumps saw him fall back through the field until he was almost last.

To his credit he made up ground down the back straight – but was always playing a game of catch up.

My feeling is that he needs a little bit further. Maybe 2m4f will see him in a better light.

Finally, in the same way as The Druids Nephew, Noble Legend and Treat Yourself had been let down by jumping errors, Indian Castles chances were also undone by a series of poor jumps.

He made mistake after mistake and was eventually pulled up.

The staggering aspect of this race, was the SP of the winner, Hey Big Spender.

He had won the race twice before - and whilst he looked to have a task on today, he had run well on his seasonal reappearance.

He was a 6/1 shot this morning – but was returned at 12/1.

At that price, I would have taken a chance on the old-timer bouncing back to his best - but unfortunately, that was never an option for me.

TVB.