Review of the day

I’m sure a few of the service ‘old timers’ did a double take this morning , when they saw me tipping a 6/1 shot in a 23 runner handicap…

TVB wasn’t built on tipping short priced runners in big fields - it was built on the glorious victories of some spectacular long shots !

But alas, the world is changing…

Long shots simply don’t win valuable races very often nowadays - because someone knows they are primed to run for their lives - and they get backed accordingly !

10 years ago, a horse making it’s seasonal debut in a race at competitive as the Troytown, having been pulled up on its final outing last season, would have started at about 20/1.
And more than that, it wouldn’t have won !

However, things have changed.

You need to listen to - and look for - the subtle signs.

The market support Chris’s Dream received in 2 top class races last year, told me he was considered better than a handicapper.
Henry De Bromhead stating that the horse was best fresh, hinted at a possible plan.
And the fact he was allowed to compete in a big handicap on his seasonal debut, was the final piece of the jigsaw.

If you looked and listened hard enough - the clues were there…

Ofcourse, it’s still all has to fit together: the horse needs to get into a rhythm - and have luck-in running - but when the man on top is riding like Robbie Power is at the moment, those parts are far more likely to fall into place.

And so it happened.
The sustained market support told me this wasn’t just a TVB inspired gamble - and Robbie and Chris’s Dream did the rest.

The horse sat in behind the leaders - and never missed a beat.

Coming to the second last, it was a match up between him and Fitzhenry - and whilst the latter is a very decent handicapper, he’s not a graded horse.

Ultimately, it was a comfortable 10 length victory - and all of sudden a price of 6/1 looked a bit of a gift !

If only it always worked out that way…

Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite as well for the days 2 Mentions:

Triplicate made a mistake at the very first fence, which put him on the back foot.
He did make up ground down the back straight - but he was too far behind to challenge.
In truth, I doubt it would have mattered, as Cash Back won very impressively.
As I said this morning, the money often talks in these kind of races, so when he was backed down to even money, from an early 3/1, the suggestion was that he was expected to win.
It will be interesting to see whether he can progress from this and maintain the tradition of previous winners of the race.

Things didn’t work out too well for Flashjack, either…
I expected the ground to be borderline unraceable at Uttoxeter - but that wasn’t the case.
Flashjack is best when it becomes a game of ‘survival of the fittest’ - but instead the race turned into a sprint up the home straight,
In the circumstances, he did quite well to get within 4 lengths of the winner.
Maybe he’ll get that couple of pounds off his mark, which I expected following his previous run…

TVB.