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Captain's Blog - 25th August 2011

I have a day off today and am looking forward to taking it easy and relaxing before emabarking on a busy Bank Holiday of studio work for . My schedule will take me to the studio on Friday and Monday and it will be good to be part of the new format on Racing UK where we have a presenter and pundit in the studio when we have more than one meeting.

Many thanks to those of you who emailed the studio last night and took part in the tipping competition. We received some interesting missives and the hot topic seemed to be the amount of Racing in the calendar. Most of you seemed to feel that there is far too much Racing and that quality has been sacrificed for quantity. I would certainly agree that from a punters point of view it is impossible to keep on top of all the form all the time if you want to have any sort of life as well. The sheer volume of Racing, however does provide punters with many more opportunities than they have had previously and to be honest you do not have to keep up with everything that is happening because you can choose to specialise. For example in the winter you could decide to ditch jump racing and just concentrate on the all-weather and if you want you could narrow that category down to one or two tracks. It is a question of adapting to your own strengths.

We did receive some emails calling for stronger Racing in midweek and for there to be less of a concentration of big races on a Saturday, I can see why some would like this but in reality it is not going to happen, however I would like to see Sunday being utilised much better than it is currently.

We also heard from some who are fed up with concerts being held at Racecourses. The tenure of their argument was that concerts put the admission prices up and those coming to see the concert simply get in the way of the serious minded racegoer. This may well be the case but there are not enough serious minded racegoers out there to keep Racecourses economically viable so concerts are here to stay and I have no problem with that.

No joy with what, put simply, was a shocking selection yesterday. Many apologies.

Today's Selection

2:30 Lingfield - Mattoral