Review of the day

Whilst Minellaforleisure never threatened to win this afternoon, I have no regrets about putting him up as a tip...

A good part of my rationale was that he was running in a race where there were question marks against the markets leaders.

I felt he had a fair chance of causing an upset – but unfortunately, it was fellow outsider Ravens Tower, who was the ‘shock’ winner.

He wasn’t one I particularly fancied, as I felt Minellaforleisure hurdles form was much stronger.

However jumping fences is very different to jumping hurdles – and whilst Ravens Tower looked a natural, Minellaforleisure was much more ponderous.

Perhaps he’ll improve for the experience (Raven Tower had already had a couple of goes, in the spring), because he’s not one I would want to give up on completely, based on today runs…

For the ‘official’ mentions, it was a day of hitting the woodwork…

Between them they managed three seconds and two thirds – not bad if you are backing EW I guess, but at the prices, I doubt many were doing that !

In fairness, I did say this morning that they needed to be treated with caution – I just hope you all paid attention to that bit !

At Lingfield, I felt Anteros was probably the best horse in the race – but exaggerated waiting tactics left him with too much ground to make up.

Strange Bird ran a cracker on her seasonal reappearance – but couldn’t quite cope with the heavily punted Albatross De Guye.

The huge drift (from odds on to 9/4) and subsequent desperate run of favourite, Mr Bachster, left a bit of a taste in the mouth (even if it could be rationally explained).

Tesor de Bontee was another who travelled like the best horse in the race – but he folded tamely up the straight; unlike the well backed Doctor Phoenix, who ran on very strongly.

At Huntingdon, I am Colin did remarkably well to finish third in the novice handicap chase, considering he attempted to take most of the fences home with him.

If he can improve his jumping, he is likely to be a completely different proposition.

Whilst Forthefunofit, was doubtless unsuited to having to make his own running – and ended up just setting the race up for the Nicky Henderson trained Bivouac.

Finally, at Sedgefield, Distime showed that he wasn’t just a theoretically well handicapped horse – he actually was a well handicapped horse – when he stormed away with the handicap chase at 2:50.

His chances were so obvious, I’m almost embarrassed that I didn’t tip him – I just felt that the fact he was sold for £4K during the summer, said more than the form book did…

A case where reading between the lines, back fired…

Finally, despite being backed into an incredibly short 5/4 (I took 10/3 last night !) Aniknam just couldn’t get the better of Almost Gemini in the handicap hurdle.

It’s difficult to know where the winner produced that performance from: Whilst connections of the second must be cursing the fact the ground had dried out...

TVB.