Nine meetings, twenty one bets, and a fairly even split between the ones we are leaning on and the ones we are taking a swing at. Eleven of today’s picks are 3/1 or shorter. Ten are bigger than that. On a Friday in mid August that feels about right, because the summer cards are deep and the prices reflect it.
Doncaster is where we have the most going on. Four picks across the afternoon, starting with Echalar in the two o’clock at 8/1 and running through to Berlinetta in the 4:45, who is the only one of the four we are doubling up on. In between, Age Of Baroque at 10/1 and Squealer at 8/1 are both the kind of prices where you only need to be right occasionally. We are not pretending all four land. We are saying the Town Moor card is worth the ammunition.
Newmarket’s July course gives us three, and the one that reads best is Mister Mojito in the five o’clock. He fits a profile our form work has backed hard in handicaps of this sort, and there is a track angle underneath it too. Newmarket suits Kent better than most places, and Loughnane goes better here than his overall numbers would have you believe. That combination is worth more than the 9/4 suggests.
At Newbury, Tryfan in the 4:20 is the one to talk about. He ran to within a length of a horse who went on to win a class 4 at Salisbury back in May, then went one better and won himself last time out. Now he drops in grade off the back of that. Callum Rodriguez rides Newbury better than he rides most tracks, so the booking is not incidental.
The evening
Perth gets our biggest stake of the day. The Last Cloud at 5/1 in the 4:05 is the three point play, and there is nothing else on the card we are that committed to. Beyond that, the evening drifts to Lingfield’s all weather, where we have four spread across the card from 5:13 onwards, and over to Ireland for Tassarolo and Rakki at Tramore. Market Rasen closes us out at 8:04 with No More Bolero.
Yesterday was one of those days. Five bets, no winners, but three of them ran into a place. Sequel Star and Zatsgood at 11/2 apiece and Fifty Nifty at 9/4 all got there or thereabouts without getting their heads in front. Frustrating rather than damaging.
Today the shape is different. More bets, more meetings, and a proper spread of prices from odds on out to 10/1. That is the sort of day where the longshots earn their keep, or they do not.