Good morning all,
The second part of my article of jumps trainers currently finding life hard on the main piece, and if you haven't, I would advise you to go and have a quick read of Phil's comment on yesterday's piece as he makes a couple of very relevant points.
I would say that, despite the virus that seemed to spread throughout Newmarket last year, that trainers do try and cope with it in different ways – some go for the complete shutdown of operations to try and find the cause but I do know of at least one yard that had the virus with some of their horses but continued on – they simply found the sick horses, quarantined them away from the healthy ones and as a result, had a really good spell of winners. So even when you know there's a sickness in a yard, it doesn't mean they can't have winners. But I agree with Phil, you should be able to find out when a trainer has sick horses rather than having to try and work it out for yourself, and then you can make your own judgements.
Nick Alexander
It really is quite surprising what you find when you’ve got a bit of time to do some digging on trainers habits, and NIck Alexander is a prime example. Currently winnerless this season (0 from 47 runners) you’d imagine that’s a bit of an outlier compared to previous years, but there’s absolutely none of that. Look at his figures for the past two summers –
2015 April 0-23, May 0-13, June 0-2, July 0-5, August 0-2
2016 April 2-32, May 0-10, June 0-7, July 0-1, August 0-1
A grand total between the months of April and August then, of two winners from 145 runners over the last three years.
Despite the fact there’s plenty of Perth and Hexham meetings through the summer and early Autumn it seems you can rule Nick’s runners out, whatever the price. Again, winter is when he comes good, so wait until then.
Malcolm Jefferson
Malcolm has had a couple of recent winners in Sweet Holly and Fingereeta at the weekend, but it’s worth pointing out that he’s just those 2 winners from 22 runners this season, and when you start going through some of the prices of the beaten ones, it doesn’t make great reading – 3/1, 5/2, 2/1, 9/2, 3/1, 3/1, 6/5, 15/8, 7/2f, 7/2f, 4-1. It’s not like these horses aren’t well fancied, but plenty have run below par and he’s looks like a trainer to be wary of at short prices at present.
Harry Whittington
Similarly Harry has had a couple of winners from limited runners, but losses at 9-4, 10-3, 11-2, 5-2, 11-2, 5-1 and 7-2 (many of those running some 10lb or worse below where they should be) make him one to treat with a bit of caution at present.
Yesterday's selection didn't run well but a drift in the market and the way she weakened in the final furlong both suggested she needed the run. I will keep her on a tracker for the time being. The weather is going to make things tricky today (and the weekend promises more rain) but Chepstow looks like being on the soft side, and so I'm trying a small e/w bet against the favourite, Lucky Clover, in the 4.30. He won easily last week but that was on Bath's very quick surface and despite being well in with a penalty here (of which he only effectively carries 4lb extra of it) will find conditions very different. So David's Beauty is the one for me, generally consistent and will like this softer surface, has form at the track and is weighted to win again. There's pace all around her to drag her into the race and she really has few excuses not to run her race here.
Today's selection – David's Beauty 4.30 Chepstow
Good luck with all your bets today,
David.