It has been a tidy little week with Pendra winning yesterday and Wonderful Charm today. These good novices from top stables in weekday races, a shade of odds on if you like, are the bread and butter of this, the best time of the year to set about putting money on horses. I only wish we could have had the nerve to unleash obscene sums on The New One and Wonderful Charm because confidence was enormous, defeat unthinkable and they won as routinely as they should have. But it is horse racing, you see, and things happen. The penury and disaster lying just around the next corner for the unwary gambler are a part of the louche glamour of it and so you don't just go whacking on unseemly amounts at odds on, you take great pleasure in seeing performances like The New One and you look forward to what might come about at Cheltenham next year.
But if I'm alright, Jack, then level stake followers of the nap so far are not and so we must set about remedying that unfortunate state of affairs.
One thing we could do is go for the 4/1 about Aidan O'Brien's standard issue entry for the Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster which this year is called Century. It is almost too good a price, really, and we will have to swerve it at the risk of some heartache by 4 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
Shutthefrontdoor looks solid enough at Aintree where A.P. goes to ride for Jonjo, which partnership advertised their good form with winners at Carlisle yesterday but the exchanges are only showing 7/10 in a 4 horse race and we must do better than that.
The Paul Nicholls machine is moving smoothly into action and although Potters Cross would have won me money two weeks ago but for jumping badly at two of the last three hurdles and was marked down as one to back again, let's hope he doesn't quite get it right tomorrow either because Caesar Milan is the nap in the Chepstow 3.35