A disappointing result in Ireland last night and not up to expectations.

 

There are 6 Meetings in the UK today, all on the Flat and one in Ireland at The Curragh. With some rain due over there and relatively small fields by Irish standards we'll abstain in Ireland today. The UK Meetings are headed by the AW Fixture at Newcastle where the principal race is The Northumberland Plate at 3.10pm. The other 5 UK Meetings though have alarmingly small fields, no doubt due to the prevalent Good to Firm Going and Windsor and Newmarket have no handicaps or any races with double figure fields, Lingfield has one that is "all age", Doncaster has a couple with exactly 10 runners, Chester has one with exactly 10 runners. Most races are less than 8 runners with 8-9 runners , only needing one non runner to leave us with a sole win and sole place option. It's also more often that not the case that the smaller the field, the more tactical the race becomes and no surprise therefore that on such days we see a lot of short priced top of the market results. I'd intended to cover this issue off tomorrow, but it seems more relevant and pertinent to do it today. What we will do tomorrow though is to explain where we will increasingly start to look for good value tip races, away from handicaps, until the handicap field sizes return to more backable quotas.

 

Having explained the problem therefore, the outcome is that we will focus on just the ONE tip race today. There are a couple of other AW races at Newcastle that we could consider, but we are then hostage to too many races on one surface at one venue, and the proofing history over 14 years clearly tells me that very rarely does that deliver a positive outcome.

 

Patience is a virtue and our chances will come , some rain and some better Good ground without the risk of jarring is surely not too far away, after all the Schools are breaking up in Scotland already and we know that means 6-8 weeks of Autumnal weather!