Equinties - the review

Gm Equinauts 

10's into 3's on Thursday afternoon after whispers of a late entry, followed by a drift Saturday, only to be made a NR first thing this morning. 

Nope, not a horse. BoJo.

The books might as well just pay out my evens on Rishi now. Cheers. 

Let's dive in.

Headline Roundup

Shooting for Festival success 

The Showcase meeting at Cheltenham has been and gone and three races hold the most interest from the two-day event – funnily enough, they were the last three races of the whole meeting. 

We begin with the Pertemps Network Qualifier, a race won by Charles Byrnes’ SHOOT FIRST under his son Phillip who was claiming five pounds.  

The six-year-old son of WESTERNER won the race by a comfortable two lengths off a mark of 129 – assuming he gets given roughly six pounds for the performance, that’ll have him at around the 135 mark, a rating that should just about be good enough to get him into the Pertemps Final in March back at Cheltenham.  

Charles Byrnes obviously knew this coming into the race and stated post-race that SHOOT FIRST won’t be seen on the track again until the Festival – he is some trainer! 

Another horse who looks to be heading straight to Cheltenham’s feature event in less than six months’ time is Gordon Elliott’s CHEMICAL ENERGY who bolted up by 61 lengths in the Jim Wilson Memorial Novices’ Chase 35 minutes later. 

Immediately after the race, he was cut to 12/1 for the Grade 2 National Hunt Chase (though the owners snatched up 66/1 prior to the contest), a race that sees out the Tuesday of the Cheltenham Festival – Elliott said he will be put away until that race, a route he took with GALVIN in 2020 when he went on to do the Cheltenham October meeting and Festival double.  

Elliott also confirmed that both MIGHTY POTTER and FIL DOR, who run for the same connections as CHEMICAL ENERGY, will likely step up in trip over fences.  

And in the bumper, John McConnell, a trainer who banged home three winners at Prestbury Park over the weekend, saw his four-year-old ENCANTO BRUNO bolt up to make it two from two under rules – both the trainer and jockey Tom Scudamore were impressed by the horse. 

The Irish-based trainer is already eyeing up the Graded bumpers in the spring of 2023, with the Cheltenham Champion Bumper his most likely target. 

Finishing off the jumps review from the weekend, we should give a small mention to the Grade 2 Old Roan Chase at Aintree yesterday, a race won by RIDERS ONTHE STORM – it was brilliant to see this horse finally get his day in the sun but it’s the second that should also be commended. HITMAN gave away 20lbs to the winner and was just touched off by a head – fair play to the Paul Nicholls team, it seems you have a nice one there.  

“Most exciting horse we’ve had” 

The market drift and pre-race comments made AUGUSTE RODIN a near certainty to be a non-runner Saturday...

...but instead went on to do this!

The only Gr1 race of the weekend in the UK and Ireland did not disappoint as Aidan O’Brien’s AUGUSTE RODIN drifted to 9/4 and asolutely trotted up to beat EPICTETUS by three and a half lengths.  

Following a near-miss collision with the hanging, HOLLOWAY BOY, AOB's DEEP IMPACT two-year-old fired up the rail to hand the trainer his eighth Gr1 success of the year – maybe this recency bias was still on his mind when he did his interview with Racing TV yesterday but the master of Ballydoyle had some strong words to say about this promising juvenile.  

AUGUSTE RODIN is now the 4/1 favourite for next year’s Epsom Derby - is he your winner?

ROARING start for first time Dad 

ROARING LION achieved his first Group 1 success as a sire on Saturday in his first crop as DUBAI MILE won the Gr1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud, beating John & Thady Gosden’s ARREST by a head.  

The Qatar Racing-owned four-time Gr1 winner died as a four-year-old so won’t have many offspring to come, so to see him pick up a Group 1 as a sire is brilliant.

What would you have done?

Some people will say the punter won £57k, a fair few others will say the punter lost £350k.

Yesterday, one Betfair punter lost over 350k following an early cash out on two accumulators before the final leg of the bet won.  

The punter placed a £1 Lucky 31 and a £5 win accumulator on five horses running in the UK yesterday – after the first four won, all that was needed was for the 15/8 favourite CREDROJAVA to win the 17.05 at Aintree. I saw all that was needed, but picking one horse to win is hard, let alone 5 in a row.

Betfair offered the customer a total cash-out sum of £57,968.74, an amount that the customer took and ran with before the final race set off – Harry Fry’s PRESENTING mare won by half a length, meaning that the punter had let over £350k slip away from him.  

Now look, ANYONE will be happy with 57k and it's easy for people to criticise rash, emotional decision-making when it's not their bet so let whoever it was enjoy their win.

But, now the dust has settled, let's look if this was the right thing to do. 

Option A - cash out and be happy with the 57k. Nothing wrong with this if you don't care what the last horse does - nothing wrong with that. If you will care, see Option B and Option C* (Option C requires collateral). 

Option B - cash out the acca and let the Lucky run. The punter would have insured profit while keeping alive the chances of winning big on the Lucky.

Option C - hedge. There were a number of hedges he could have put in place to secure profit, such as backing more horses in the race or more easily, lay the fave. This would have required large deposits and a bookmaker to take them.

The person who put the bet on is probably not a pro gambler and will be well happy with his 57k - good for them. The people laughing at his decision are just jealous it was themselves in that same predicament. And what a nice predicament it was to have! Bravo. 

Why?

And finally, we finish on a sour note as we want to take this moment to highlight something that should have been stopped this weekend.  

Yesterday at the Curragh, a 13-year-old unraced gelding called MO CHURAM ran for his very first time in the Amateur Riders Derby for Mrs. A M O’Shea, ridden by Mr. S A O’Shea – unsurprisingly, the horse finished a full 106.5 lengths behind the winner, FALCON EIGHT.  

Go back and watch the race fully on Racing TV or the Racing Post, you will see that he never gets into the race and is paddling for a while out the back of the TV screen.  

I don't get it. Why tf would they ever think running a 13yo for the first time was okay?

A) this sort of shit shouldn't be allowed and B) what was the point?

Tbf, I don't even know why the yard bothers to train anyway, they've literally not had a winner but to send a 13yo into a race for the first time demonstrates a complete lack of moral conscience. 

For a horse with a fairly below-par pedigree to run in their first ever race as a 13-year-old is endangering the life of the horse (and jockey) involved. 

We saw something just like this happen with a horse called ALLEZ SEA earlier this month – this son of SEA THE STARS ran in four bumpers for the trainer James Leavy between November 2015 and November 2016, winning one and finishing a good fourth in one at Cheltenham. He then had a 2160-day break from the track, came back to race at the Curragh on October 13th of this year, sustained a life-ending injury during his first run for six years which caused him to break down mid-race and die.  

This kind of training is simply unacceptable, and everyone involved should be stopped. FUCK YOU. 

Ayr bumper

As promised, I said I'd preview every bumper.

This doesn't look the strongest of races but does feature the usual Irish contingent in Crawford and Cromwell, looking to pick up some easier races than their home soil allows. 

The Crawfords are bumper specialists - they love to win these in the hope of a quick sale, today they send ROYAL TALE. This thing is closely related to Nicholl's superstar and Champion Chase winner, MASTERMINDED. last seen in a good Punchestown bumper, you can expect improvement for this one. 

The other Irish horse is WHATS THE SOLUTION for Cromwell. Sired by BEAT HOLLOW who has a knack for producing good bumper horses (think MT LEINSTER) but on this third race, he's more over exposed than the rest. 

The horse heading the market, MAGIC WAVE is the worthy fave. Ran to an rpr of >100 twice, that's good for a bumper horse. Bumped into AUTUMN RETURN lto whos unbeaten under rules (good form) and in behind them was CALL ME HARRY who went on to win a Newcastle bumper and then went for the Champion bumper.  

Our view: MAGIC WAVE looks a good play in this bumper with Crawfords the main danger at 6's.