Review of the day

Today was a day with a bit of everything !

Tips that performed well – and tips that performed poorly.

Horses that I did well not to tip – and horses that I should have taken a risk on...

In terms of the tips that I did issue, then pride of place went to Chef D’Equipe at Sandown.

I had quite fancied him – but when I saw how hard he was pulling in the early stages of the race, my enthusiasm for him quickly waned !

It says much for his ability – not to mention his jumping – that he was still in with a shout, approaching the Pond fence.

I was pretty sure he would back out of things at that point, considering the energy he must have wasted early in the race.

But not a bit of it.

Despite looking held approaching the penultimate fence, he found a second wind from somewhere – and 2 splendid leaps at the final 2 obstacles, helped him just about get home in front.

Little Jon also put up a decent effort in the same race – and you have to think that his winning turn will come round sooner rather than later…

Cloudy Too was the other tip to run at Sandown – and he also ran really well.

In fact, I don’t think he was capable of running much better than he did – so he was never going to be able to win !

He missed out one fence on the first circuit – but apart from that, his jumping was good.

He possibly didn’t quite last home, as well (he lost out on third place on the run in) – but by that point, his race was over.

Again, I suspect he is capable of winning a slightly lesser event, sooner rather than later…

Unfortunately the 2 tips away from Sandown didn’t run quite so well…

At Chepstow, Chef D’Oeuvre set out to make all – but could never get away from his rivals and was a sitting duck up the home straight.

When put under pressure, he jumped his hurdles as if they were fences – and was soon beaten.

His stablemate Shantou Bob ran much better – and briefly looked as if he might win.

However, Flemcara was always travelling strongly and just about managed to withstand his late challenge.

Tinos Tank was the biggest disappointment of the day.

I knew that even tipping him was dangerous – and despite being backed in to 3/1 at one point, he was out to 13/2 at the off (8/1 on BF).

Part of me wonders if it was me tipping him that caused the poor run ! (because connections couldn’t get a price and so decided to wait for another day). Whatever, he never really featured – and certainly didn’t run close to the form he showed last time.

I’ll save judgement on him until he has run again (when I won’t be tipping him !).

In terms of the Mentions: then Angels Antics was disappointing at Sandown – maybe her recent hard race at Haydock, took its toll.

Similarly, Famous Milly was disappointing at Chepstow – but that was more likely because she simply wasn’t good enough.

Whilst Our Merlin ran really well, up in grade, in the last at Sandown – just finding Call me Lord a bit too good.

Finally, I decided to pass on the Welsh National as I thought it looked a bit too tricky – however, as the runners entered the home straight, I knew I’d made a mistake !

Final Nudge and Bishops Road were 2 of 5 horses which had broken from the pack and appeared to have the race between them.

Final Nudge was going incredibly strongly - though there was always a chance that he had done too much too soon.

And that was how it turned out – as Raz de Maree powered through the Welsh mud and ran them all down, between the final 2 flights.

I couldn’t bring myself to tip him, simply because he was 13 years old – just 3 years younger than his jockey, the brilliant James Bowen !

I certainly paid a penalty for being ageist !!

TVB.