Review of the day

I think this afternoon demonstrated perfectly, just why it is so difficult to pick winners at the moment.

I’ve been going on recently about how few suitable races there have been to tip in – and when a suitable one appears, as it did at Ludlow this afternoon, the weather comes along and completely messes things up !

It’s not as if it was a particularly easy race to fathom in the first place – but when I looked at it yesterday, the going was forecast as good to soft (6.1 on the going stick).

I knew that there was a possibility of some rain this morning – but I didn’t realise that the ground was going to become almost bottomless as a result.

When I went through the race last night, the first two horses I eliminated were Global Power and Five Star Wilsham – both on account of the ground being too quick.

And what happened, they finish first and second, in a slow motion finish…

In fairness, the days tips, Whats Happening plugged on himself to take third place – so I can’t really have any complaints about him getting beaten.

He handled the ground fine – just not as well as the two in front of him.

In truth, he probably would have been outpaced if the ground had been as quick as I expected – the bottom line is, he wasn’t good enough…

The mentions had a decent day, which yielded 2 firsts, a second, a third and a fourth, from the 5 selections.

The winners were Rubi Light, who outbattled Arnoud in the mud at Thurles: and Norse Light, who also battled on bravely to win the finale at Ludlow.

Also at Ludlow, Trickawaay was undone by the way the race unfolded.

He was taken on for the lead by Key to the West and that softened him up, making him vulnerable to the late challenge of  Gallery Exhibition.

Toon River finished a creditable third at Thurles, a race which I hope will be the final one of Whatuthinks career (he’s clearly had enough of the game).

The only real disappointment on the day, was Vole Au Vent.
I quite fancied her in the Thurles opener, but she never really featured.

Maybe she didn’t handle the heavy ground – she had certainly shown a lot more when I watched her on her penultimate run at Naas.

TVB.