Double Dutch, 14th November 2014

Double Dutch

Double Dutch, 14th November 2014

It was the old 1-2 yet again yesterday, where we coupled a winner with a runner-up, but that doesn’t tell the full story.

Poyle Vinnie was a very comfortable winner of the race at Southwell, easing down in the final furlong to still win a 5f sprint by almost three lengths, such was his superiority. He fully justified his 11/10 price tag, but better news for us was that we backed him at 2/1.

That should have been the ideal end to a nice 7.25/1 double had things not gone against us a couple of hours earlier at Taunton, where there was more to the basic result than meets the eye.

The papers/internet will tell you that Queen Spud was second, beaten by four lengths and that Prettyasapicture was a faller two from home, but it was the latter that ran the better of the two. Pretty as a picture was alongside the leader at the penultimate hurdle and was travelling far better than the ridden-along eventual winner. Unfortunately, our horse made a hash of the jump and deposited Tom Bellamy to the ground.

This left the winner clear and he eased right down to coast home with Queen Spud continuing to ride out, making the eventual 4 lengths margin of defeat a little flattering.

Falls are part and parcel of NH racing, but I just feel that a clear round was all we needed yesterday: such is life.

Thursday’s results were as follows:

Queen Spud: 2nd at 2/1 (adv 7/4)
Prettyasapicture: fell at 5/4 (adv 7/4)
——————————————
Poyle Vinnie: won at 11/10 (adv 2/1)
Captain Dunne: u/p at 7/2 (adv 3/1)

Results to date:
406 winning selections from 1415 = 28.69%
130 winning bets in 368 days = 35.33%

Stakes: 735.50pts
Returns: 796.20pts

P/L : +60.70pts (+8.25% ROI)

REMINDER: THERE IS NO DOUBLE DUTCH ON SUNDAYS

Looking/hoping for slightly better from these on Friday…

11.55 Lingfield:

Paul Cole has a 30.8% strike rate (24/78) in A/W handicap races with horses priced between evens and 6/1 over the last four years and he’s 6/20 for 12.1pts profit with such horses here at Lingfield. He’ll expect/hope to improve those figures with an 11/4 BOG win for British Art, who has shown significant improvement (223) in three starts over 6f after being outpaced over 5f on debut. Each of his last three outings have suggested he needs/wants further and the step up to 7f might just be ticket for a debut win today. Still relatively unexposed and carrying Luke Morris, he’d be my pick here, but for the presence of…

…Easy Tiger, who makes his nursery bow after a comfortable course and distance win on debut here 24 days ago. Martin Dwyer is on board today and he’ll be looking to continue a fine run of form that has seen him make 44pts profit at level stakes on the A/W this season. Easy Tiger looks fairly leniently treated off an opening mark of just 69 and he’s the only runner in the race with a victory at either this track or this trip and he has both.

He’s currently a 2/1 BOG shot to remain unbeaten and it isn’t unreasonable to suggest he’ll improve for having had the experience of last month’s outing, making him (in my eyes, at least) the one to beat here.

*

7.15 Dundalk:

5th of 9 on debut and last of 6 in his other outing, might not make Solomon Northup an obvious pick on paper. It should, however, be pointed out that his latest run was in a Group 2 contest at the Curragh seven weeks ago, where he was by no means disgraced when beaten by just 7 lengths over a mile by the current Derby ante-post favourite Ol’ Man River. This is by far a simpler task this evening and represents an ideal opportunity to get off the mark, which he’ll surely do if reproducing that last effort.

The market would seem to agree, installing him as a 2/1 BOG favourite here, as opposed to his 100/1 ticket LTO and although this is his A/W debut, he is USA-bred, so I’d expect to cope with the surface well enough to land this one, just ahead of…

…the improving Great Dancer who represents the in-form Halford/Foley partnership who have a really record here at Dundalk. Great Dancer has finished 342 in three outings to date and was a good runner-up over course and distance last time out, six weeks ago. He stayed on well that day and was gaining on the leader with every stride, but ultimately went down by a length and three quarters. It’s interesting to see Shane Foley replace the 3lb claimer jockey from LTO and Shane’s presence and experience could be the difference this time around at a best price of 9/4 BOG.

4 x 0.5pt doubles as follows:

Easy Tiger / Solomon Northup @ 8/1 (2/1 & 2/1 : Hills)
Easy Tiger / Great Dancer @ 8.75/1 (2/1 & 9/4 : Bet365, BetVictor & BetFred)
British Art / Solomon Northup @ 10.25/1 (11/4 & 2/1 : Betfair SB)
British Art / Great Dancer @ 11.19/1 (11/4 & 9/4 : SkyBet & Paddy Power)