Equinties - Racing League week 3

Gm Equinauts

Ngl, I’m loving this morning. I really am welcoming this change in weather with open arms.

Where normal people might see rain, I see opportunity.

We have two months left of the flat season to be able to bring the heavies out. Lfg!

I’m jacked to the tits. Let’s dive in.

Headline roundup

The Racing League: Week 3

It’s Thursday which can only mean one thing - the Racing League IS BACK.

The most loved/hated event meeting in the racing calendar is here for week three of the 2022 season, this time they are racing on the all-weather up at Newcastle and big Frankie Dettori is even making the journey (probs a helicopter) up.

After making his RL seasonal debut 14 days ago, Dettori makes the trip up for three rides at a course where he boasts a 24% SR – he rides POSTMARK, the horse he won on in week two of the Racing League, ZAMAN JEMIL, and CUBAN BREEZE all for Jamie Osborne’s team in red.

POSTMARK victory lto, he is up seven pounds:

Frankie’s flying dismount for team Wales & The West last time at Lingfield:

Despite the successful week at Lingfield for Wales & The West, Matt Chapman’s London & The South sit ahead of them on the leaderboard thanks to top jockey Sean Levey, who has scored four times overall.

Kevin Blake’s Team Ireland remains at the foot of the table, and it doesn’t look like their week will get any better today, as they have managed to field a runner in just five of tonight’s races with their eight runners (for perspective, The North, The East, and Team Yorkshire all send a maximum 14 contenders to Newcastle).

Either it’s a case of they don’t give a fuck (fine, fuck off back to Ireland and don’t enter next year’s League) or it’s just a total fuck up which lands on Kevin Blake for embarrassingly poor management. I think it’s probably the latter and Ireland's captain is too busy swinging his dick at Goffs.

Runners and riders:

5000-up for Johnston

Mark Johnston has become the first-ever trainer to achieve 5000 winners in Britain yesterday as he collected success at Kempton.

Look, this is a big achievement and needs to feature in this newsletter, but it really isn’t a surprise. I don’t mean that because he’s a superb trainer, I mean that because he might possibly have more horses than anyone in the universe.

When I was in Middleham a few weeks ago, it literally took hours for his string of horses to finish walking through the village back home after work.

With his son Charlie joining onto the license in the last year, the father and son combo achieved this incredible milestone through DUBAI MILE, a two-year-old colt by ROARING LION, who bolted up by four lengths whilst giving weight away to the rest of the field.

The Gr1 Ascot Gold Cup-winning trainer has achieved over £17,000,000 in prize money throughout his 35-year career; he attributes his “ambition to train Classic winners” as the driving force behind this.

"A lot of people laughed at me and there was a lot of naivety there at the time,” the Middleham-based trainer added.

“I thought the 42 boxes would last a lifetime but that I would train Classic winners - it wasn't very long before we did. The ambition to train top-class Flat horses was there from the outset and it's the same now as when I started."

More:

No reduction in fixtures for 2023 (lol)

President of the National Trainers Association, Ralph Beckett was throwing shade on the Racecourse Association yesterday for their failure to make any significant changes to the racing calendar despite it being such a contentious issue now.

1478 meetings were announced for 2023, with only one real change in the Grand National moving to April 15th, the latest date in its history. This creates a nice 27-day gap between the end of the Cheltenham Festival and the beginning of Aintree’s big three-day meeting but does bring the latter close to the Punchestown meeting date.

Ralph Beckett labelled the governing body an ‘immovable object when it comes to progress’. This is because it takes at least two years for any changes to be implemented and is seen as too slow-moving by some when the sport needs fast action now.

Our view is this whole thing is a bit of a shit show run by green-eyed stakeholders. The Racecourse association, the broadcasters, the bookies and even the BHA are blinkered. They can only see short-term, the monthly paychecks. They have zero interest in the long term. Poor attendance, shit prize money and low field sizes all point towards their ‘short term’ gains being quite endangered if nothing changes soon.

Tbf to the BHA, they did announce yesterday a series of minimum race value increases for the 2023 campaign and yes that’s one positive step but it's late and not enough.

Today best stat’s

DECONSO won the 13.25 last year at a price. He’s 20’s for today’s renewal, having been backed in from 50’s.

Probert is 2 from 2 for Todd at Ffos Las (one being on TIME STEP – woof!) and ride KINGS GEM in the 13.43.

Archie Watson’s is bottom of the market in the 14.18 but the yard is 2 from 2 in this race. JUMRA reps them today. In this same race, Probert rides LETS HAVE A FLYER for Evans and they’re 60% together at course.

Risk on

Nice yield yesterday but today looks a bit bearish so only two small bets.

15.28 ALLEMANDE

Trackening horse. She’s out of Rausing’s best mare, Almiranta – a very nice ped. She’ll have improved for that run (was a very easy ride) and looks worthy of slapping some risk on to catch a good filly potentially on the up. I’ve had a small bet at 4’s early this morning, 3’s available now.

18.15 SWATCH

I’ve taken a small place bet (top 3) at 11/4. Bet him lto and looked a good horse with more to come. Tough race though hence the place bet only.