Friday Catch up: Horses and stuff…

Khajaaly

It’s been a while since I wrote, and there’s a fair bit to catch up on. In today’s post, I’ve got news of a geegeez horse… and in fact all the horses I’ve got an interest in; there’s a few words about a rare day at the races for me yesterday; and an interesting report you can download.

I’ll also have a full Hennessy preview later on. Woohoo!

OK, let’s get cracking.

This evening, dear old Khajaaly, geegeez.co.uk’s three-times winning flat horse, runs again at Wolverhampton. Wolves is his spiritual home, and he’s won all three of his races at the track, the last of which was off today’s handicap rating of 70.

In truth, we think the race is a bit tough for him tonight, with a few in there who have a touch more talent. But, as ever, he’s trying his best and if they go off quickly enough, a number of them will come back to him. His running style is to be held up a little off the pace and pass beaten horses, and that’s a route which has seen him in the first four on nine occasions at Wolverhamption (from thirteen tries).

If he finishes in the top six tonight, we’ll be happy. If he makes the frame, we’ll be delighted. Soon enough he’ll be in his rightful grade, which is 0-70 handicaps.

Now Khajaaly is not the only horse syndicated through geegeez.co.uk. We also have a National Hunt horse in training called Priceless Art, who is in training with the excellent Anthony Honeyball. He’s yet to run for us, but was bought from Alan Swinbank’s stable and already has some very nice form. Indeed, he’s won nine and been second/third in seven more of his 21 races!

There are a couple of shares available in Khajaaly. Contact me or Julia directly if interested.

We’re very much looking forward to seeing him run, hopefully in a few weeks, and we’ll be tilting at windmills until he tells us to get sensible! If we’re really lucky, we’ll be able to go for a Cheltenham handicap, though he’d need to improve about a stone on his current mark to do that. Hope springs eternal.

The Priceless Art syndicate is sold out.

Elsewhere, and I have an interest in another horse at Julia Feilden’s yard, called Vastly. Vastly is an interesting fellow. Firstly, he’s not yet raced, despite being a month off his fourth birthday. Secondly, he was in training until a month ago with Sir Henry Cecil. And thirdly, he is closely related to Await The Dawn, Putney Bridge, and Spruce (trained by Julia to win four on the bounce back in 2010).

He’s going nicely and looks an interesting horse. There are a couple of shares available in Vastly. Contact me or Julia directly if interested.

And I have a very small share in a horse in training with Clive Mulhall, called Think. He’s not very good, in truth, but hopefully he’ll win a little race over hurdles, which is where he’s headed next. Shares also available in that one. Contact Clive directly.

Then there’s the clubs!

I’m in the Popbitch Racing Club, which has leased George Baker this season. (The horse, not the trainer!)

GB has run five times for that club and, though moderate  on all of the first four, he suddenly came good last time, winning at 8/1. Unfortunately – for me at least – I didn’t have a penny on. Forgot all about it. Doh!

And I’m also in the Anthony Honeyball Racing Club. This club costs £300 for a year, and for that you get an interest in three or four horses, flat and jumps. Currently, only the now retired Cresswell Crusader has won for the club, but we have some interesting horses for the winter and further winners ought not to be too far away.

Details of that one are here.

And that’s it! Phew. Actually, when I list them all out like that, I do think I should cut back a bit. But fractional ownership, via clubs or syndicates, is a great value way to get involved in racing, if you’re that way inclined.

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Uttoxeter twitterati (and half a burger)

Yesterday was a rare day at the races for me – actually it was the second rare day at the races in eight days, as I’d been to Folkestone last week – and I was at Uttoxeter on a sunny but bracing afternoon for the #uttoxetertwitterati meet up.

I imagine that the vast majority of you have no idea what I’m going on about that, so let me enlighten you. The ‘twitterati’ are merely people who are on twitter, and the Uttoxeter twitterati are a group of racing nuts who are on twitter.

A very fine group they were too, and here’s some of them in a picture. Unhappily for me, the snapper caught me mid-burger (such filth!), but as you’ll see twitter is for all ages, and boys and girls.

It was an excellent afternoon in the company of passionate National Hunt racegoers and, whilst I was the only one not to find a winner, that failed to detract from a very pleasant diversion from the laptop for a few hours. 🙂

My thanks to @chutneydave (Dave Massey) for arranging and for being such a hospitable host.

I should add that there’s lots of good racing conversations on twitter, and I gatecrash some of them! You can join twitter by clicking here. And you can follow me by clicking the ‘follow’ button here.

If things go right, and the weather doesn’t intervene, I may actually get a third day at the track this side of Christmas next Thursday at Wincanton’s Racing Welfare meeting. There is a charity race on the card, with trainers riding (yikes!), and I’m hoping to sponsor one of these formerly good riders. More in due course…

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And finally in this whistlestop roundup, I’ve news of a very interesting free report, which has been released by one of the students, Nicky Doyle. Nicky chooses his area of focus carefully, and is selective in his wagering. His report has some decent lessons/reminders for all of us, and it’s worth a read over the weekend.

You can download it here.

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I’ll be back later today with a full preview of Saturday’s Newbury card, featuring the Hennessy Gold Cup, so stay tuned for that.

Matt