Tweet

racing news / tanya's blog /

Tanya's Blog - 11th November 2010

What on earth was going on from about 3pm yesterday, did the globe start spinning in the opposite direction? An hour of madness started when Medermit ‘refused’ at Huntingdon – I don’t think we’ll ever get to the bottom of what happened. Wayne Hutchinson believes he could have seen one of the groundstaff, something spooked the horse, he has never shown recalcitrant tendencies before. A small blip, no consolation to odds-on backers, and more surprises were to follow when the race played out to a stewards’ enquiry with the placings reversed between Sergeant Pink and Harry Tricker. To add to the woes Tom Scudamore’s saddle had slipped on Sergeant Pink which made the horse harder to steer in such a tight finish.

If that wasn’t enough no long after, conditional jockey Chris Timmons with Bangor’s 3.40 seemingly at his mercy as he was clear on Jeanry, decided to upstage what had happened at Huntingdon. He dropped his hands after the last accentuated his error by looking over his shoulder both ways and then sacrificed the race to Matt Griffiths and Monsieur.

It left the majority of those watching numb, goodness knows how it felt if you backed Jeanry. But one thing we do know is no matter how much is said or written about the matter until a reasonable deterrent is put in place it will happen again and again. This is one reason why people are being driven away from betting on our sport and the funding is going through the floor. The industry doesn’t take these matters seriously enough.

Filthy weather today which has the potential to soften the ground at Cheltenham, the decs for Friday and the BetVictor Gold Cup will filter through around 11am on what will be a fabulous three days racing.

Ludlow on this afternoon and here’s hoping it is much calmer than yesterday. I still can’t tip my hat let alone a winner over the last couple of days and I need to put that right before Cheltenham. My colleagues Tom and Kerry Lee may well be at the course this afternoon assisting their father trainer Richard Lee and I suspect Rifleman will put in a good run at 2.00 and may be worth a dabble each-way.

Rougham fell at the fourth last at Exeter last time, exactly at the same time as Celestial Halo. Ludlow’s 3.00 is the ideal time to get his confidence back.

POINTERS

Emma Lavelle has had five winners from her last six runners and she has one runner at Taunton today

Nicky Henderson has had five winners, two seconds and four thirds from his last 17 runners.

Nicky Henderson is worth following at Ludlow as his last 32 runners at the course has provided 12 winners

Donald McCain jnr has had three winners from his last five runners

Jason Maguire has had four winners from his last six rides

Paul Nicholls has had eight winners from his last 19 runners

After Paul Moloney had ridden five winners on the bounce his luck hasn’t been that good on his next five rides the nearest he has got to the winner is 62 lengths

Always check out signposts, today page 30 of the Racing Post, it flags up that Steve Gollings has had three winners from his last five runners and saddles one runner at Wolverhampton