Last weekend's horse racing action reviewed
Ed Quigley aka ‘Longshot Ted’ looks back at recent events, gets some stuff off his chest and casts an eye to the future in his latest column.
The cold snap has wrecked things – but innovation could fix things…
Jack Frost has been out and about, scuppering all sorts of action in recent days. Even the All-Weather has succumbed to the elements on more than one occasion, much to the ridicule of the Twitterati. Look, at the end of the day, the weather is the weather and despite all the out-of-hours efforts of ground staff up and down the country, there isn’t a great deal that can be done when temperatures drop to -6. However, as touched upon in last week’s column, a bit of flexibility and ‘freeing of the shackles’ from authorities could really help the game at the moment.
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Lingfield’s bumper Winter Million card was called off on the morning of racing, leaving the racecourse’s flagship Jumps meeting disappearing into the abyss. Surely better efforts need to be made in order to get this rescheduled? Paul Kealy of the Racing Post made a good suggestion; why not move it to this Friday and replace the Class 6 All-Weather card on the same day given that temperatures are set to rise? The infrastructure would already be there, and In my opinion, even if that proved too much of an issue then why not at least transfer the Fleur De Lys Chase and the two big hurdle contests from Sunday and run them as well as the All-Weather action for a mixed card? The Racing would have to begin an hour earlier or so at 11.30ish, but ‘so what’ if it was getting these quality races back on? It seems that the powers in charge will find every excuse and technicality not to be spontaneous and think slightly outside the box in order to boost and enhance the credentials of the sport. Hopefully, common sense will prevail and something can be done to get these meetings back on that are stuck in limbo with prize money going up in smoke. Paul Nicholls and Gary Moore are leading the charge in that regard, and fingers crossed that something can be arranged for the Lingfield card in particular. It just feels that so much more could be done to rescue areas of the sport when things don’t run to the original plan.
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Allegorie cut for the Festival – do I need my laser-eye surgery redone?
The unstoppable Willie Mullins winning factory continues to churn out winner after winner at around a 40% strike rate for 2023. However, maybe I am seeing things totally the wrong way, but I can’t be the only person who thinks what Allegorie de Vassy has achieved over fences so far is underwhelming. She has been cut into the 6/4 favourite to win the Mares’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival on the back of two chase wins. She was 1/2f on debut, and won head-in-chest by 19 lengths but was far from foot-perfect. On Sunday at Thurles she made a mess of the first fence, darting to her right, and nearly unshipping Paul Townend who did remarkably well to keep the partnership intact. I thought she was far from convincing at some other obstacles too, with a worrying tendency to corkscrew a few of her fences whilst attacking them with the steering wheel almost at full-lock-right. She clearly has a massive engine, and I suppose you can take the view that you can ‘teach a horse to jump, you can’t teach a horse to have an engine’ and she may just slicken up and get her act together for the big day but I wouldn’t be taking 6/4 about her with counterfeit cash. I would go as far as to say that Constitution Hill at 1/3 was a better price than her at 6/4. Either way, as always, I am looking for selections at double-digit prices to get in the portfolio, and a twice-raced novice who frequently darts right-handed at her fences is one I will happily avoid at all costs with the Festival in mind. If she wins, so be it, but there must be better 6/4 pokes out there surely?
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Cheltenham Festival moaners – watch Gogglebox instead then!
I understand the reasons some people get the hump with the racing calendar as a whole, and I take on board and understand the reasons why people feel the juggernaut that is the Cheltenham Festival casts a detrimental shadow over the remainder of the season, although I don’t agree with it. However, reading people stating they are “so uninterested about the Festival compared to other years” and “roll on Newmarket, Cheltenham looks dire ” I find unfathomable. The prospect of some of the top-level clashes at this year’s Cheltenham Festival looks scintillating, as well as the usual sprinkling of big field handicaps offering juicy prices for punters. All in all, some of the races have the prospects of being absolute classics – I just don’t get the negativity.
Just take the opening day, to begin with – that will be a corker. There are a whole host of unexposed sorts trying to topple the mighty Facile Vega in the Supreme, Jonbon vs Dysart Dynamo and El Fabiolo in the Arkle will be a belter, and we have possibly the best horse we have seen this century in the shape of Constitution Hill, who will be looking to strut his stuff against multiple Grade 1 winner State Man, Triumph Hurdle winner Vauban, and the mighty mare Honeysuckle amongst others. That’s before we even get to races like the Stayers’ Hurdle on Thursday, which looks the most wide-open since medieval times, and then of course the big one, the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Friday.
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Once 68,000 or so spectators crescendo their hum up into the famous Cheltenham roar – a wall of sound to signify the tapes are going up for the start of the action, it produces a spine-tingling moment that other sports seldom match. It will be A-list stuff once again, but of course, you can always turn over the TV channel if you want to, or instead attend that Ottoman Pottery class you have always been wanting to get to in March.
Don’t forget that Ed will be back on Saturday morning previewing what should be a stellar card for Cheltenham Trials Day and providing his best bets for the action.
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