Review of the day

It’s always disappointing when a horse you really fancy gets beaten – and the performance of Sophonie today was disappointing…

That said, it was not a complete surprise. I had surmised that she was having breathing difficulties – and we were counting on the tongue tie sorting them out.

If it had done, I am confident that she would have won – but it didn’t and she ended up well beaten…

Such is life.

I still think she was a good bet at the price on offer this morning. Ultimately, we got well over 3/1 on a horse that was sent off a very strong 13/8 favourite.

That is huge in terms of a percentage shift – and at the front end of the market.

There will always be risks when you are backing horse (particularly over jumps). We took a risk with the jumping of Valmari on Wednesday and got away with it – we weren’t so fortunate today…

With Sophonie failing to get home, it was left to Memorabilia and Bobby Dove to fight out the finish, with the latter showing a good attitude to get up close home. He is clearly improving – though he ended up with very little to beat…

Earlier in the afternoon, Bertenbar ran an odd race…

I quite liked his chances – and thought he was a fair price - so I was amazed to see him available at nearly 20 on Betfair half an hour before the off – and to hundreds of pounds…

Experience has taught me that when a layer on Betfair is prepared to offer double the best odds available with the bookmakers, then they are rarely wrong in their assessment…

Bertenbar looked a little distracted when asked to line up – but ultimately jumped off fine and travelled very nicely on the rail in fourth or fifth place.

In fact, approaching the home turn, I was optimistic that he might be able to pull off an unlikely victory – as he and the eventual winner, were travelling much better than the rest of the field. However, within a few strides, he was beaten…

It looked to me as if he didn’t stay – but I don’t really believe that to be the case. Maybe he didn’t stay in the very soft ground – that is a possibility.

The other possibility was that he was just short of a bit of work (and someone knew that to be the case) – and as a consequence he didn’t get home…

I wouldn’t write him off completely on the back of this run – but I would be wary about following him in the future.

Over at Sedgefield, Shadows Lengthen won the novice chase in convincing fashion. I think it is fair to say that we were a little unlucky with him last time out.

Whilst Dougie Costello took a very strange route on Along Came Rosie – giving up the outside to absolutely no-one !

In fairness, it is easy to knock a jockey when unusual tactics don’t come off – and his tactics failed in quite spectacular style ! However, I would always applaud initiative from a jockey – and the money behind the horse suggested that she was certainly trying today.

On to tomorrow then…

TVB.