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Monday 19 October 2015

That Monday Morning Feeling !



Well although I didn't put up a selection on Saturday I steered you towards two winners in Adrakhan at 9/4 and Work In Progress 8/11F both trained by Dan Skelton. When I updated the blog on Saturday the latter was at least available at 7/4 so it gets us back in a positive state of mind.

I'm not sure Paul Nicholls is in a positive state of mind at the moment as since Abidjan and Simon Squirrel won his results have been 273B2PP84115476124P3. The three winners were each a little bit fortunate in that the main rivals fell in two of the contests and in the other there was a dubious reverse in placings by the Stewards. Nicholls will be hoping his fortunes take an upturn as we approach November as he now says the plan has always been to have them ready for then and he has plenty entered up this week at Exeter and Cheltenham.

I would imagine the mood is a bit different over in Warwickshire where Dan Skelton form figures read 4F343370434127215122135P221. That's five wins and six seconds from 16 runners since 14th October so he is really moving into top gear. He set himself a target of 50 winners last season and picked up 73 and this season the stable have ambitions to train a 100 winners. They only have ten runners entered up to this Friday at Cheltenham, several of which we haven't seen so far this season so it will be interesting to see how they get on.

Neither stable has any runners today and I will post a further blog later on when I know which horses have been declared for tomorrow.

Thursday 1 October 2015

Looking Ahead



The Prix De L'Abbaye is a race I've often missed seeing on television as it's usually run before 1.00pm BST.... but not this year. This years running takes place at 3.40pm and it will be the race after the Arc which has been moved forward to 2.55pm.
Twenty Four horses remain in the line up of which only TWO are French and the fav Mecca's Angel will be in receipt of 4lb from the colts.
Paddy Power have actually pushed her out to 100/30 from 3/1 - (so time to invest some more if you can) - but it looks as though they have intentionally skewed the market in order to try and get their own Sole Power closer to the head as they have him at 4/1 (7's with Ladbrokes) - unfortunately guys the price wont make him go any faster !
My each way selection Maarek has been cut into 14's from 20s by Paddy Power but you can still get 16's with Coral, Skybet and 888Sport.

Rangali, one of the two French runners is interesting, he was 2nd beaten a head by Move In Time in last years race when he was a 3yo. Total Gallery was the last 3yo winner in 2009 and prior to that it was Carmine Lake in 1997. 
Rangali went off at 16/1 last year and was a length clear with a 100 yards to go before being pipped on the line and the chances are his season will have been geared towards running well here once again. There is however a bit of confusion between the bookmakers as to what price he should be - he is generally 20/1, but Ladbrokes and others have him at 16's, whilst Coral stick their neck out at 33's.

As of yesterday the going remained Good to Soft, although officials expect it to be Good by Sunday.
Hopefully we will have some quotes from connections over the coming days and I will do another post then.

RANGALI - 0.25 point each way @ 33/1 with Coral