Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
It’s not often that a story about Graham Bradley will make me laugh but that happened this morning when I read this line in the Racing Post: “Bradley fears his controversial past still haunts him”. Well, give the man a coconut.
For the sake of younger readers, Bradley, back in the days when he was a jump jockey, used to pass information for reward to a chap who is now doing a 30-year stretch for drug smuggling. Bradley claimed in his autobiography that he once tried to get the Cheltenham Gold Cup abandoned in order to save his dodgy mate from a losing bet, though he later disavowed the story. For more on his background, see here.
Now it seems that Bradley would like us to forget all those entertaining tales from days of yore. “I really don’t know what I have to do to convince them I’m rehabilitated,” he is quoted as saying in the Post. “Anything and everything I have ever done over the last two or three years, as regards the BHA, has always been up front.”
Perhaps the BHA feels that two or three years of up-front behaviour is not all that impressive in the context of a 54-year-old man. That’s how I feel, anyway.
It is better to provide compelling evidence of rehabilitation than to simply assert that one has been rehabilitated. To insist that one has apologised is not the same thing as actually apologising.
“I said what I had done was stupid and that I had been naive,” Bradley is quoted as saying. But it seems to me that he is demanding forgiveness without having earned it.
Where is the evidence of his remorse? Can he point to a single selfless act that would show some awareness that he had done wrong and had some ground to make up? I have heard no mention of same.
Not that I’d be impressed either way. There are some sins for which atonement can never be made, for which banishment is the only reasonable sentence. It is a great pity that Bradley is still allowed to hang around on the fringes of our sport.
This is really the only point on which he and I can agree, since he complains that the BHA might have told him two years ago if it had no intention of granting him a trainer’s licence. I suppose he may have been given false hope by the BHA’s willingness to overlook past misdeeds in other cases, like that of Fergal Lynch, who once stopped a horse but is now riding in this country again.
It would be better, in my view, to take a hard line on such matters, to consistently refuse readmission to those who have behaved so very badly. Then people like Bradley could get on with making a new life for themselves in some other sphere.
On with the show. There is good jumps racing at three venues today and my eye is drawn to Taunton, where Paul Nicholls runs a couple of horses who disappointed on their reappearance runs but may now be able to do better.
I can leave Southfield Vic alone in the opener, as he’s a shade of odds-on, but Black River (2.10) is more like it at 7-1. The trainer has high hopes for this beast, who is the last horse to have beaten Vautour, over hurdles at Auteuil in March last year.
He has been disappointing since coming to Britain but former French horses often take time to find their feet here and Nicholls reports him bigger and stronger after his summer break. He tired pretty quickly at Market Rasen a month ago, having been fizzy in the preliminaries, but a lot of horses from the yard were running below expectations at that point.
This is a competitive race and perhaps Black River will always be frustrating. It is coming close to the point where one should stop making excuses for him. But we’re not there yet and his odds today look like too much of a reaction to his last run.
In Kempton’s closer, you can get double-figure odds about Firmdecisions (6.50), though he is still fairly handicapped and came back from a similar break to win over this course and distance in December last year. In seven runs on Polytrack, he has never been out of the first two and has never been beaten by more than a length and a half.
He has his first start for Dean Ivory, having been with Brett Johnson, and Robert Winston is an encouraging booking.
Tipping competition, day four
Our winners so far:
Monday
Waltz Darling 14-1
Benefit In Kind 11-4
Don’t Have It Then 7-1
Tuesday
Milansbar 12-1
Aficionado 9-4
Arden Dennis 11-4
Wednesday
Lancelot Du Lac 7-2
Snowell 7-2
Anglophile 7-1
And our leader is:
Rivercity +22.75
... despite a winnerless Wednesday. 15244 (+14.25) was the day’s biggest mover and is now fourth, having had five winners from nine so far.
Today, we’d like your tips, please, for these races: 2.10 Taunton, 2.50 Newcastle, 3.00 Warwick.
This week’s prize is a is a pair of tickets to the William Hill King George VI Chase, generously offered by the sponsors themselves, along with a £50 bet on the famous Boxing Day race at Kempton.
As ever, our champion will be the tipster who returns the best profit to notional level stakes of £1 at starting price on our nominated races, of which there will be three each day up until Friday. Non-runners count as losers. If you have not joined in so far this week, you are welcome to do so today, but you will start on -9.
In the event of a tie at the end of the week, the winner will be the tipster who, from among those tied on the highest score, posted their tips earliest on the final day.
For terms and conditions click here.
Good luck!
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- And post your tips or racing-related comments below.
