Racetrack Wiseguy

As Rod so memorably sang on the other side of Maggie May, 

I still look to find a reason to believe 

and, having got myself comfortably in front in early January and thought the cash machine was back in order, it isn't. All one wants to do is survive. We all know it's a mug's game but we refuse to believe that we are the mugs so it must be all the others. And they are, I promise you they are.

One is pleased to see the lengths they go to to save important races these days. It deflated last Saturday that Cheltenham wasn't possible but we now have the Cotswold Chase at Sandown and the Cleeve Hurdle in Yorkshire, at Wetherby. Who ever heard of such a thing.

 

It isn't entirely acceptable to caring vegetarians to say there is 'more than one way to skin a cat' but it isn't quite so bad to say that one might solve a horse race not by liking one horse but by not liking all the others.

Even given the hard uphill finish at Sandown, I still don't see a mere 3 miles as being far enough for Santini to be in front at the end. If the classic distance of long distance horse races over fences was more like 4 miles than 3, Santini would have been Arkle but it isn't. They are all tremendous horses and I would love to see any of them win but it's not a race to put money on when in a position like Fulham's and trying to find a sensible way back before it gets hopeless.

I'm not in the least bit surprised to see Hitman (Sandown 1.50) take over as favourite for the Scilly Isles. He was only bettered by a brilliant performance round there by Allmankind last time and he had us worried for most of the way. Paul Nicholls seemed to think he could reverse that form next time. I know he always says that but Hitman takes its place in how we do it tomorrow.

Many of us were impressed by, and grateful for, what On The Blind Side (Wetherby 2.30) did last time and one doesn't desert one's friends when one can't see any other friends one would rather have despite desperate figures, by his own high standards, in the last 14 days. They apply to the stable rather than the horse and the stable are still trying.

It is best to stick to the big races sometimes with horses that you like to think you know something about. At least then you know it's your fault that you lost.

2021 will show a profit or I'll make sure I don't lose. It's early days yet. This hardly matters.

Donald Trump will forever be remembered as a loser and we all saw how much that hurt.

All we have to do is decide how to allocate the modest cash across two selections to both safeguard our position if only one wins but put ourselves in front if they both do. It's jump racing. There is no such thing as a certainty. 

Maybe by 2.40 we will have had two losers but we can live with that. We won't keep insisting on Steward's Enquiries when we quite came 10 lengths back in third.