Double Dutch, 14th January 2014

Double Dutch

Double Dutch, 14th January 2014

We drew a blank yesterday on a day littered with jumping errors and hard luck stories. Race 1 was lost because Glenwood Prince didn’t seem to like the back straight for some reason ans lost plenty of ground on each of the three journeys down it, contributing to his 16-length defeat, whilst 7/1 shot Tarabela looked in with a great chance before a fall 3 out put paid to her chances.

It was then a case of 2nd and 3rd at Wolverhampton, as Gioia Di Vita was headed in the final furlong before rallying and making a good effort to get back on terms, but couldn’t just quite get back up and was beaten by a short head. Maybe our 7lb claimer versus Luke Morris was a mismatch in a driving finish?

Yesterday’s results were as follows:

Glenwood Prince : 3rd at 6/4  (adv 7/4)
Tarabela : fell at 7/1 (adv 7/2)
———————————
Gioia Di Vita  : 2nd at 5/2 (adv 7/2)
Yasir : 3rd at 3/1 (adv 3/1)

Results to date:
117 winning selections from 405 = 28.89%
37 winning doubles in 109 days = 33.94%

Stakes: 216.00pts
Returns: 227.56pts

P/L : +11.56pts (+5.35% ROI)

There’s nothing catching my eye on the Devonian mud today, so it’s A/W action for us in the:

1.45 Southwell:

Where Tatting is likely to prove popular as he’s a horse that has been running consistently well for some time. With five wins and five places from his last dozen outings, including back-to-back wins over this track and trip in his last two outings, he’ll be hard to beat even with a 6lb penalty to contend with. Shelley Birkett takes the ride, as she did last time out and she’s 5/10 on the Dwyer yard’s horses to date (4/6 in the last five weeks!). Shelley knows how to get the best of out this one who looks generously long at 5/2 BOG.

Whilst I expect Tatting to take this, we always need a backup plan and I think there’s some value in the 9/2 BOG being offered about Aqua Ardens. It may well be five losing races since completing back-to-back wins at Brighton in the summer, but he has been going well enough to be there or thereabouts each time since. Finishes of 23422 give some hope here, especially as the total margin of defeat across the five races is only eight lengths and with a decent 3lb claimer on board today, he’s effectively 2lbs lower than a 0.75 length defeat over today’s trip at Lingfield last time out.

*

3.25 Southwell:

If successful in our first race, theres’ every chance that the Birkett/Dwyer combination can complete a quick double of their own here with the course specialist Hannah’s Turn. She has won six times and been placed once from just ten starts here and has a 113 record over today’s track and trip. She was highly impressive here last time out just nine days ago when she demolished the field in a 6f contest. The drop back to the minimum should be a problem, though, as she’d won last week’s race by the time she had run 4 furlongs. The margin of victory was 7 lengths that day, but it could have been 17 or more really.

If Hannah’s Turn runs like she did last time out, a 6lb penalty would be akin to asking Usain Bolt to wear an extra pair of socks. If things go her way here, 3/1 BOG could be massive.

But one of the beauties of this fabulous sport is its unpredictability and we should always have a Plan B for when things don’t quite go to schedule! It’s highly likely that the main selection will attempt to blaze a trail and blow the others away and the one most suited to going with her is Monsieur Jamie, who himself is a quadruple course and distance winner and comes here on the back of two narrow defeats over track and trip, losing both races he should have won, but going down in the shadow of the post. He runs off the same competitive mark as last time and can readily be backed at 4/1 BOG, but I fear it’s going to be three narrow defeats on the bounce.

4 x 0.5pt BOG doubles as follows:
Tatting / Hannah’s Turn @ 13/1 (Stan James 5/2 & 3/1)
Tatting / Monsieur Jamie @ 16.50/1 (Stan James, Coral, Hills 5/2 & 4/1)
Aqua Ardens / Hannah’s Turn @ 21/1 (SkyBet, Hills 9/2 & 3/1)
Aqua Ardens / Monsieur Jamie @ 26.50/1 (SkyBet, Hills 9/2 & 4/1)