Review of the day

There was no joy today – but I think we can count ourselves a little unlucky not to have at least come out level…

That we didn’t was due to the fact that Duke Des Champs made a mess of the second last at Ascot.

That put him on the back foot – and try as he might, he couldn’t quite reel in Masterplan, who held on by a short head.

I guess we’ve experience worse losers – and the winner:runner-up balance during December is currently (and unusually !) in the favour of the former. So maybe we were due one of those…

In fairness, I would only ever have rescued the day, as Duke Des Champs was put up as a saver to Sebastian Beach.

That one performed very poorly – and finished well beaten.
I’ve no idea what happened there…

It was a similar story with the days other tip, Brave Buck.

As I expected, tipping him early resulted in a price crash.

I’m always worried when that happens, but the horse remained pretty steady in the market - and was actually very well backed in the final few minutes before the off.

He also seemed to be moving nicely in the race – and was under 2/1 on BF, with over a circuit to go.

But he quickly went from travelling with purpose to not travelling at all – and he was pulled up in the home straight.

That left the race at the mercy of the other confirmed mudlark, Armedanddangerous – and he showed good determination to hold off Bus Named Desire.

There wasn’t much joy with the mentions, either:

Ink Master was too free in the novice handicap chase and was a sitting duck down the straight. He will need to learn to settle in his races if he is to fulfil his potential.

Yanworth was very impressive in the novice hurdle – a race in which All Set to Go, just didn’t perform.

Finally, I kind of got the Noel Chase right, with the 2 potential top notchers filling the first 2 places – but things would have been very different, if Amore Alato hadn’t fallen at the last.
He’s a horse who had been on my radar this season, but he’d been disappointing in a couple of lesser chases.
Well everything came right for him today – and he would have caused a real upset if he’d not met the last all wrong.

It will be interesting to see whether he can gain compensation next time out…

Just a reminder, that as it’s a Friday, I will open the tipping window at 6:00, in case there are any tips I can issue in tomorrows big races.

TVB.