I’m looking out of my hotel window here at Town Moor and it’s not very nice at all. When I checked the Metoffice report yesterday morning, no rain was forecast for this week. Guess Gump must be the Weatherman as it’s persistently coming down now! Anyways it’ll take more than this rain to dampen my enthusiasm for a race today.
Patience is the keyword for us today people, we have to wait til the 4.45pm before we get involved, by then the rain may have gotten into the ground or it may just be making the surface loose, we’ll wait and see. The first day of these festivals is all about finding the best ground, the best route, the best draw position, and as no-one knows at the moment , then we have a chance. There’s nothing worse than these jockeys panicking about the draw and messing up a race, as we constantly see at Ascot!
I’m never afraid to split my bets in a race or do more than 1 horse, and that’s the case today. There are 2 stand out horses in this 4.45pm for me – Regal Dan and Secret Art. 7f is a specialist distance in racing, rather like the 400m in athletics and I like horses that have won over it when studying the form, both these 2 have done that.
Firstly let’s look at Regal Dan. He won at this meeting last year in a valuable 2yo handicap over 7f, so we know he likes both the course and the distance. He started this year with a 2nd at Newmarket over 6f before an excellent run at Ascot, in a race that has produced 4 winners. He then ran in a hot 6f handicap at Newmarket before being drawn in the car park at Goodwood and running well to finish 3rd. It’s interesting that R. Moore keeps the ride from Goodwood so take the 17-2 at Bet Victor.
Secondly Secret Art, who has a lot of interesting form too. His Sandown win over 7f has produced 7 winners and is rock solid form. He has run well in defeat afterwards, but he makes more appeal from a stats point of view. Over the last 5 seasons, his trainer R. Beckett has a21% strike rate with his 3yos at this course, has a £31 profit with his 7f runners and if you backed every 3yo horse J. Crowley rode for him then you would have made a £102 profit. Sounds good to me. He is available at 12s with Ladbrokes.
