Sunday 25th October

No doubting the highlight yesterday both on the Track and also in terms of some profit was FRODON, a stunning brave classy performance. The fact that "the greatest trainer" PFN mentioned The Gold Cup as a target has shocked some, personally, why not??..the Horse is going to be lumping weight around in Handicaps so why not go off level weights against allegedly "the best" in a race where you can often find many more fancied horses fall by the wayside as the season progresses. 
 
Frondon was a second successive winner for David and the Elite Service, for the second day running though the "big handicap race tips" bombed, having discounted Captain Tom Cat who won at a better price than expected on Friday, and having made HONEST VIC the final one to miss the tips yesterday (e.g 4th choice) and seen the price drift to 12/1, it's more a case of wrong market assessment and also may be trying too hard to find value, than any fundamental analysis issues, but very disappointing nonetheless and something we will work on in the coming days in terms of the clarity of the strategy.
 
Those who managed to get the 5th place enhanced odds on FIRMANENT despite the non runner making a field of 15 (we all knew it would happen!!); will have had the consolation of 1/5th of the 25/1 SP return, but we can't and won't count it as profit as it would have been unavailable to many after the non runner. The Oddschecker Prices and Offers though are very much worth looking closely at.
 
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With the Clocks having been turned back, wish someone had told the cat and dog who were chasing round downstairs at 5.30am, a reminder that start times will be earlier than we have been used to, so less time for staking, so I will endeavour to have tips out for 8am when possible on a weekday, 9am and a Saturday and no later than 9.30am on a Sunday.
 
Lots of good Racing today, Wincanton though suffers from Good to Firm reducing fields, nothing of real note that Sean wants to attack at Galway or Wexford but he tells me a host of races he will watch very closely for some future form pointers specifically younger Hurdlers and Novice Chasers, so we'll have a bash on one race at Aintree and one at Hexham. Ian did go very close to tipping OLDORANGEWOOD in The Old Roan Chase at 1.57 but just thinks the horse will need this run and will come on a stack for it.
 
So Robin will attack a pair of Races, the 1.22 at Aintree and a horse in his long term Tracker up at Hexham at 12.55.