Friday's selections were a couple of duds at the AW Champions Day up at Newcastle.
The horse in the opener never looked happy. I could see David Egan moving his arms after a few furlongs, and I knew the race was over before it properly began.
Heathcliff also looked off. He had a horrible head carriage, which made it difficult to steer the horse as he wanted to hang. It was not a great performance, but I don't think it was a true showing.
Glynn 9/2 – Haydock 3.15
Haydock's jumps meeting on Saturday is a decent card and that is where my main attention has been drawn to.
Glynn caught my eye in the Veterans' Chase, worth £51,440 to the winner. This is a tough race to get properly stuck into, but I thought at the weights and ratings, Glynn had a decent chance, as long as the ground didn't get too soft at Haydock…which sounds ridiculous as whenever they get rain at this track, it turns into a swamp.
Anthony Honeyball's 11-year-old is still slightly unexposed as a chaser, which sounds crazy, but he is 3/9 over fences in his career, and doesn't have many miles on the clock in his entire career. He was 2nd to Numitor earlier in the season, but there is now a 10lb swing in the weights with that horse, and prior to that, he was on a three-win streak. Last time out we saw him in November in a Grade 2, so it's respectable to see him not have a great showing, but I don't think it was mainly down to the Grade of the race, but also the consistent amount of running over the summer period, which probably caught up to him.
His best form has come on good ground last summer, but he has proven himself on good to soft and good to yielding from his hurdling and PTP days, so there is optimism if the ground gets worse than the good ground the night before.
Elusiveness 4/1 – Haydock 4.25
I decided to take on Elusiveness last time out when he was dropping back in trip at Exeter, and I was very wrong, as my selection for today ran out a convincing winner, and I was a fan of that performance.
Today's race is a tougher assignemnt for Jeremy Scott's horse, but he is a horse on a roll at the moment and looks capable of winning off another career high mark. He is only a six-year-old, so there is still plenty of improvement to come for the young horse, and based on what we've seen in the last two runs, a mark of 99 is definitely within his reach.
Jeremy doesn't send too many runners to this track, and given he has two runners elsewhere tomorrow, it's eye-catching that Lorcan Williams has decided to make the trip up, solely for the ride on Elusiveness.
Scarface 5/1 – Newton Abbot 4.19
A horse I've not managed to get right this season is Scarface, but hopefully, today is the day I do get it right.
I've backed him once or twice this year, and I've taken him on once. On the occasions I've backed him, he hasn't run to how I expected, and when I took him on last time out, he ran a belting race, and I think if he can reproduce the level of last time out, that will be enough to win a race like this.
Scarface has been running in Class 2 or better all season, so this is definitely a drop in class, and given he was competitive behind Bhaloo at Newbury in a good race last time out, he is the one to beat in my eyes.
GambleAware