Equinties - pain for Pauling

Gm Equinauts

If the tracks aren’t frozen, they’re flooded - this jumps season has been a right old shambles.

We really hope Wincanton survives it’s inspection for tomorrow though because we think there are a couple of really nice bets there!

Let’s dive in.

HEADINE ROUND UP

MORE PAIN FOR PAULING

A few years ago, Ben Pauling was a joke, his horses always too easy to take on when nestled nicely in the middle of a race card. Between 2019 and 2022, he barely scraped past the million pound marker in prize money.

Fast forward to today and you’d get wrecked betting against him. He’s racked up over a million in prize money last season, in fact, his last two seasons were nearly better (in prize money) than the last 8 seasons combined. He’s a trainer completely transformed since building his new state of the art training facility in the Cotswolds and we are big, big fans of his.

His skyrocketing trajectory through the training ranks hasn’t come without problems though. Not to say he’s going through some Icarus moment having flown too close to the top, but there have been moments this year which will really have tested his fortitude.

Last season, his biggest owners, the Megson family, ripped out all of their horses as a result of golf club gate and it would be fair to assume it pains him to see every time a horse repping those famous pink and purple silks wins. BLUE BETTY look promising yesterday and SIXMILEBRIDGE looks a potential star for his new trainer Fergal O’Brien:

Pauling’s pain was made worse yesterday when it was announced THE JUKEBOX MAN suffered a season ending injury, kiboshing all his fans’ hope of Festival success.

A day is a bloody long time with animals and it was only on Sunday the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase was shaping up to be a proper, proper race.

Whether you liked BALLYBURN or not, his presence in the division was notable, and seeing him around Cheltenham against THE JUKEBOX MAN and DANCING CITY in a three-way battle would have been some sight.

When looking at potential British-trained winners at the Festival, THE JUKEBOX MAN deserved to be put on the list based on what he’s done this season. He was good in the John Francome and he justified his odds in the Kauto Star, so for him and Harry Redknapp to be denied a chance at a Cheltenham novice chase is fairly gutting.
This does open up a bit of a door for the Brown Advisory.

Pauling was planning to keep HANDSTANDS away from Cheltenham for Aintree, but might he go to Cheltenham for the Browns instead?

He’s entered in the Scilly Isles on Saturday, as is JANGO BAIE who would be a fascinating runner in the Browns if he stays the Sandown test this weekend, and he would have enough time to ready for Cheltenham.

The Festival would be HANDSTANDS’ fifth run of the season, so maybe that’s too many off what would be a five-week break. JANGO BAIE would be fine considering it would be his third run of the season, but he needs to prove to Nicky Henderson that he would potentially stay three miles.

One of these horses should go to the Browns, and Saturday will tell a good tale.

As for Pauling, we imagine he feels like he’s swimming against the tide at the moment but the cream always rises to the top and we’re damn sure he’ll be dominating British racing over the next few years.

SIMILAR PREP

All-weather win to Aintree, has it been done before?

Fergal O’Brien nearly completed the double that almost no one is talking about last season as he won an all-weather bumper at Lingfield with TRIPOLI FLYER before finishing second in the Grade 2 Aintree Bumper three months later.

Well, could lightning strike again for O’Brien? That’s because ex-Pauling mare BLUE BETTY, sporting the Megson silks, won on rules debut on the all-weather in a two-mile Newcastle bumper.

One thing O’Brien likes to do with his bumper horses is hold them right up and let them pass rivals for education. We’ve had our fingers stung by this before with the likes of SIOG GEAL and STRONG RUN, but that didn’t happen yesterday.
She won, and she won quite impressively - as predicted in our bumper preview. That said, she was odds on at the time of writing - had she been her 7/4 SP at the time of writing, we’d have published a good bet on her. Unbelievble drift.

She wasn’t keen, she was just held up in plumb last, saving all the energy she needed, and Woods barely had to ask her any questions. She travelled so sweetly and bashed through horses to get through a gap with two furlongs to go.
From there, she quickened up like a good horse and booked her ticket to the Aintree Grand National Festival.

Why Aintree? Well, O’Brien said: "I'll have to speak to the owners, but the idea beforehand was if she ran well here then Aintree would be the place to be. It's only January but she may well have a break before then as she's been on the go for a while. She's a lovely mare who has always shown plenty at home and was very impressive there."

She looked good yesterday and she was already a talking horse thanks to O’Brien on the Unbridled podcast, so she must be well-regarded at home. Nice horse for Fergal, a bitter sight for Ben.

CALLED OFF

Away from the track, we feel like this news should be shared as it has been a big topic in the sport over the last week: trainers signed up to the PRA were going to boycott televised interviews at Sandown on Saturday, but that has been called off in the “best interests” of the sport.

Firstly, we got a bit more insight yesterday on which trainers were signed up to the PRA, and they included some really big names.

But, for the benefit of clarity, this doesn’t mean that every trainer on the list wants to be paid for interviews. We’ve seen, for example, Dan Skelton support this view, but there are PRA members who are signed up for this new initiative without having a firm view on the paid interviews matter. Case and point, Noel Williams.

We see why the PRA has been set up and we see why this event has occurred. To try and force any change in this sport, you need to do something fairly dramatic, for example, boycotting televised interviews with just a small amount of time for the TV stations to respond. Ultimately, a lot of the PRA’s reasoning behind making this change is to make the sport more professional, akin to football.

Before you jump to the conclusion that this is just an attempt at an easy smash and grab, the chap behind it, Peter Savill, owns Plumpton Racecourse where there is always very decent prize money - so we imagine whatever his reasoning for this attempted coup was for the good of the sport.

That said, their decision to try and boycott TV interviews hasn’t gone down too well on the face value of it and have had to draw stumps.

This story won’t be over, but is a matter that will probably be put on hold for the time being.

RISK ON

No bets (as of yet) for Kempton but we do have three for tomorrow, two at Wincanton should it survive the weather.

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