Today’s best bets, by Chris Cook
I went to Newbury yesterday, intending to report on their “Horse Comes First” raceday, before getting sidetracked by Adam Brickell’s departure from the BHA. The Horse Comes First is now quite a longstanding and valuable campaign about how racing looks after its equine participants.
That value lies, for me, in keeping everyone in racing focused on the critical importance of caring for the horses as well as showing the outside world that appropriate respect is given to the animals. You can read more about it here.
The pleasing thing about this campaign is that it is a proactive attempt to inform the wider public. Racing has so often been purely reactive on this subject and it is hard to convince people you are doing the right thing in the immediate aftermath of bad news.
I asked the BHA’s Robin Mounsey if he felt the campaign was improving the sport’s standing with the public. He said: “The animal rights groups who are out there to try to ban horse racing, they’ve got links into government, links into welfare organisations and links into the media and they use those, but so have we.
“From lots of time we spend with government and welfare organisations, we know the support exists there for horse racing and in terms of the general public, six million people go racing each year [total attendance, not individuals], so racing’s popularity remains as high as ever. It’s our job to make sure those people who go horse racing know and can see the horses are being cared for.”
Moving on to today, the going at Catterick is officially good to soft, soft in places but I’m not convinced it’ll ride like that in view of a GoingStick reading of 7.7 – more suggestive of good in places. Plus we’re due a warm, drying day in North Yorkshire.
Any road, Goadby (3.50) should be able to cope, being a versatile sort. She won from a 1lb higher mark over this course and distance a couple of years ago, making all under today’s jockey, Graham Gibbons, who has only been aboard once since then.
You will be glad to learn John Holt’s mare has more recent form than that, having scored at Nottingham in June. She has been well beaten in three subsequent efforts but I can see excuses for those if I squint in just the right way. Someone else likes her, too, because she is 9-2 from an opening 9-1.
Earlier, I’ll take 9-4 about Paul Cole’s Baron Bolt (3.20) following up his course and distance success from July, when he got seven furlongs and dry ground for the first time. Lingfield’s opener can fall to Richard Fahey’s Vatican Hill (1.40), who showed much improved form to be a strong-finishing second on his nursery debut last time.
Tipping competition, day three
Our winners so far:
Monday Multitask 6-4, Swirral Edge 13-2, Athlon 9-4
Tuesday Character Onesie 7-2, Calvados Spirit 9-2, Chetan 7-2
And our leader is: BatmanKaisers +6
… who added Character Onesie to Swirral Edge. BearRides and wiggy12 (both +4) come next.
Today, we’d like your tips, please, for these races: 3.40 Lingfield, 4.00 Musselburgh, 6.40 Kempton.
This week’s prize, kindly offered by Ayr racecourse, is a couple of Club enclosure tickets to Ayr Gold Cup day on Saturday 17 September. It’s the climax of Scotland’s biggest and richest Flat-race meeting and always hugely enjoyable. If you don’t win, you can read more about it and buy tickets here.
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 -6.
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!
And post your tips or racing-related comments below.
