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Captain's Blog - 12th September 2011

Another week and hopefully a week where we are not blighted with so many second place finishers here on the blog. We made seven selections last week and five of them finished second. Most of them were each way selections so we did not do too much damage nonetheless the whole week was a frustrating one. In this game second is not good enough I am afraid.

I am back in the Studio today where I will be joined by Nial Hannity. We will be analysing all the action from Mussleburgh whilst our on-course guys will be at Kempton. It should be a busy and interesting day. We will be bringing you eight races from north of the border and eight from Kempton as well and hopefully we can help you find a winner or two along the way.

Masked Marvel was a worthy winner of the St Leger on Saturday. There has been some criticism of Olivier Peslier flying around following his ride on Sea Moon. I know he got blocked in against the rail for a few strides but with the best will in the world surely a clear run would merely have secured this horse second place. It would be completely unfair to judge Peslier on this ride alone, he is world class as his record over the years proves and giving him grief for what happened on Saturday is unfair. Our French racing correspondent Claude Charlet rates him one of the best in the world let alone France, and he knows his onions!

Strictly come Dancing has started on BBC1. It is not something that interests me, but when it starts I always feel that Christmas is just around the corner. I feel this because our local friendly neigbourhood estate agent always has a party to celebrate the final at his house around Christmas time. In truth the festive period will be here before we know it and more imminently there will be some top class jump racing to take in soon. I will be looking ahead to the season this week here on the blog and hopefully I will have put together ten horses to follow by the end of the week.

Al Furat showed a huge amount of improvement when winning at Redcar last time and he can continue his progression at Mussleburgh today. He is an unexposed stayer who is ahead of his mark.

Time to head to the office.

Today's Selection

3:20 Mussleburgh - Al Furat