Double Dutch, 3rd June 2014

Double Dutch

Double Dutch, 3rd June 2014

The change of month didn’t, unfortunately, bring about a change in fortune and it was business as usual, I’m afraid. Another day, another winner, but no double and no payout.

As expected Crowley’s Law won pretty comfortably and the market expected this. A 2/1 shot overnight who was 7/4 when we got ended up at 11/10 SP, which is fairly skinny. Our other runner in this race ran well enough, but had to settle for third place in the end.

I was that confident about this race that the double was really a case of getting the winner at Chepstow and I failed dismally. Both Two Turtle Doves (4/1 from 5/1) and Lord Buffhead (7/2 from 6/1) attracted plenty of market support, so I suppose it’s a small comfort that I wasn’t alone in getting this one horribly wrong!

As it was, they finished as the last two home of eight runners, with Lord Buffhead the biggest disappointment. He was well fancied, almost halving in price, but was ultimately beaten by 10.5 lengths, a good 4.5 lengths adrift of Two Turtle Doves, which is quite a wide margin in a 5f dash.

Back to the drawing board again, because…

Monday’s results were as follows:

Two Turtle Doves: u/p at 4/1 (adv 5/1)
Lord Buffhead: u/p at 7/2 (adv 6/1)
———————————
Crowley’s Law: won at 11/10 (adv 7/4)
Danehill Revival: 3rd at 11/4 (adv 7/2)

Results to date:
246 winning selections from 886 = 27.77%
78 winning bets in 231 days = 33.77%

Stakes: 460.00pts
Returns: 492.41pts

P/L : +32.41pts (+7.05% ROI)

REMINDER: THERE IS NO DOUBLE DUTCH ON SUNDAYS

Here are my plans for Tuesday starting with the…

2.10 Brighton:

Where my gut reaction tells me to stick with those horses with at least a reasonable run behind them. This narrows a 9-runner field down to 4 or 5 immediately the best piece of form in the field comes from Richard Hannon’s Simply Magic who was still staying on when beaten by a length and a half into third place at Warwick four weeks ago. It was a step up in performance from her debut run, as happens to many of Team Hannon’s runners and I think she’ll appreciate the extra furlong today. If she progresses as expected, she can make full advantage of her 5lb weight allowance to land this at 11/2 BOG with BetVictor.

It is however interesting that Richard Hughes has chosen to ride stablemate Where Will It End. Mr Hughes has a terrific strike rate here at Brighton (14/37 in the last 2 yrs) and particularly when riding for the Hannons (6/13 in the last 2 yrs). He’s also one of the best, if not the best at getting 2yr olds to win and the stable is renowned for getting horses to improve 2nd time out.

Where Will It End wouldn’t have to improve by too much to land this one, either. He was slow away and outpaced early on during his debut a fortnight ago over 5f at Kempton, but was staying on well at the end to finish third. he’s bred for further and the extra furlong will suit him more today and he looks a decent prospect at 3/1 BOG, also with BetVictor.

I was actually pleasantly surprised to get such long odds about these two runners here and that’s because there’s a short (too short IMO) priced favourite in the form of the very expensive Barchan. Big things will be expected of him, no doubt, but he was disappointing on debut and I’m concerned about the use of a tongue tie in only his second run. I, personally, would be wary of backing him as short as 13/8!

*

7.10 Southwell:

Where the Kim Bailey / AP McCoy partnership aboard Supreme Present looks a tough nut to crack. Kim Bailey has an 8/21 (38.1% SR) record here at Southwell in the last three years, whilst his chosen jockey today has a fantastic record in these shorter distance non-handicap hurdle events, especially when there’s money for him. Over the last four years, he has ridden 134 winners of these races at 6/1 or shorter from just 336 attempts: a 38.9% strike rate (6/12 here at Southwell), including a win aboard this horse four weeks ago.

AP is now two from two when riding Supreme Present and they had Midnight Minx 10 lengths behind last time out and the latter has gone on to win since, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a McCoy hat-trick today at 15/8 BOG.

Handmaid is also priced up at 15/8 BOG and also comes here in good nick: 2120 in four bumper outings before a comfortable 6 lengths victory at Bangor on her hurdling debut 17 days ago. That came after a 6-months rest following the only blot on her record to date, when finishing last of 15 at Cheltenham in November. In fairness, she was a 40/1 outsider in a Listed contest that day, so I’m happy to ignore that run. She’s entitled to improve for having had a recent run and also for having had a crack at hurdling, her yard is in cracking form of late (11121 last week!) and she could run a big race here today.

4 x 0.5pt BOG doubles, as follows:
Where Will It End / Supreme Present @ 10.50/1 (3/1 & 15/8 : BetVictor)
Where Will It End / Handmaid @ 10/1 (3/1 & 7/4 : BetVictor)
Simply Magic / Supreme Present @ 17.69/1 (11/2 & 15/8 : BetVictor)
Simply Magic / Handmaid @ 16.88/1 (11/2 & 7/4 : BetVictor)