Double Dutch, 26th March 2014

Double Dutch

Double Dutch, 26th March 2014

Another of those “one from two” days and another occasion where Sod’s Law reared its ugly head to thwart us.

In race 2, Tarraco toughed it out and just about held on to win by just a short head in a photograph of what looked like a slow motion finish at the end of a 26.5 furlong slog at Fontwell . We’d advised him at 11/4 and he was returned at that price, but did trade higher than 4/1 before the race.

Unfortunately, that ground out victory counted for nothing, as ten minutes earlier, I had chosen the wrong horse of the two I identified as possible winners. I felt certain that Our Phylli Vera would be the winner, but she was a disappointing last of 5, 23 lengths off the winner. This meant I had narrowed my backup plan down to Lady Charisma and Madame de Guise.

I chose the Lady over the Madame and well, you know the rest. The afore-mentioned Law of Sod was applied and I’d discarded the 3/1 winner and plumped for the one that finished 4th of 5! I should have seen it coming.

Yesterday’s results were as follows:

Lady Charisma: 4th of 5 at 7/4 (adv 5/2)
Our Phylli Vera: last of 5 at 5/2 (adv 2/1)
———————————
Tarraco: won at 11/4 (adv 11/4)
One Scoop or Two: 4th of 5 at 11/4 (adv 4/1)

Results to date:
190 winning selections from 668 = 28.44%
63 winning bets in 175 days = 36.00%

Stakes: 348.00pts
Returns: 395.03pts

P/L : +47.03pts (+13.51% ROI)

One more pair of races from me, before I head off to sunnier climes (don’t worry, I’m leaving you in Matt’s more than capable hands and I’ll be back with you on Saturday 12th April), so it would be nice to sign off with some winners from these races…

3.20 Southwell:

Eight runners are declared for this one, but I can only see two horses getting involved when it matters. Unfortunately, for us, the bookies see it that way too, but there’s still a little juice left in the current prices, as we’ll see in a moment.

Trainer Keith Dalgleish has an impressive 37% strike rate here in the last two years (42% in the last 12 months!) and in Sound Advice he has a horse that’s still unexposed here, but acquitted itself well when running here for the first time and finishing second over course and distance in a better (C3) quality of race than this one. He should come on for the experience of that outing and the drop in class should make sure he’s there or thereabouts at a price in the region of 9/4 BOG.

There’s very little to separate him from Exclusive Waters, who can also be backed at 9/4 BOG in places, although he’s generally the marginal favourite down to as low as 15/8 with some firms. He looks to be progressing nicely after a string of good runs / narrow defeats (54322) was finally broken with a win over course and distance last time out. He was never beaten by much in those previous five outings and he only went down by a neck in that last runner-up finish. A 4lb rise in weights will make this tougher for him stepping up in class, but should ensure a decent battle with Sound Advice.

*

5.30 Kempton:

Bennelong has been going really well of late, finishing 112 in his last three starts. All of those were here at Kempton and over a mile. He steps up two furlongs today and the way he has finished his recent runs suggests that he’ll take the extra distance in his stride. He has struck up a good understanding with his 5lb claimer jockey, Bolton Paige, who has been in the saddle for those three good runs here and they look well set to give another decent show of themselves at a trip the horse has previously won at. Bennelong can currently be backed at 5/2 BOG in most places.

My preference, however, is for the 3/1 BOG shot Cataria Girl, a very lightly raced (just 5 starts to date) 5yr old mare, who was a winner at this trip last time, when she was victorious at Lingfield a little over three weeks ago. This followed four unplaced efforts over inadequate trips of 6 to 8 furlongs, before winning at her first crack at today’s trip. She just got up to win off a mark of 54 that day and whilst she has been allocated 57 for this contest, her jockey is able to take 5lbs off to make her very competitive here and is still likely to improve further the more she runs.

4 x 0.5pt BOG doubles, as follows:
Exclusive Waters / Bennelong @ 9.56/1 (9/4 & 9/4 : BetFred)
Exclusive Waters / Cataria Girl @ 12/1 (9/4 & 3/1 : BetFred)
Sound Advice / Bennelong @ 10.38/1 (9/4 & 5/2 : Coral)
Sound Advice / Cataria Girl @ 12/1 (9/4 & 3/1 : BetFred)