Friday, April 26, 2013

Bet365 Gold Cup 2013

This week in racing...

The Jockey Club launches a retail bond with an eye to raising £15 million for redevelopment at Cheltenham racecourse;

Mahmood Al Zarooni is banned for eight years in what has very quickly become the biggest doping scandal ever to hit the sport in this country.

Unfortunate timing some might say.

Tomorrow's mixed card at Sandown, where the bet365 Gold Cup is the highlight, brings the curtain down on one of the most persistently wet National Hunt seasons in recent memory.

In the past decade three trainers have won this feature twice (Paul Nicholls, Ferdy Murphy and Philip Hobbs) while just three horses have managed to carry 11 stones or more to victory - Puntal (11-4, 2004), Lacdoudal (11-5, 2006) and Tidal Bay (11-12, 2012); tomorrow just five of the twenty strong field carry less than the 11 stones. In the same timeframe none of the favourites has obliged.

This year's renewal can't really be considered vintage but it looks jolly competitive and by inference difficult to solve.

Doncaster's Grimthorpe Chase was run on ground good / good to firm in places. Quentin Collonges hasn't always been the most fluent of jumpers but that day he jumped for fun and ran his field ragged from the front; he has an additional four furlongs to complete here but found extra when challenged by Mr Moss who doesn't look the easiest ride and races right-handed for the first time.

On his penultimate run in the Kim Muir Becauseicouldntsee was beaten some 19 lengths by Same Difference while conceding ten pounds. Here the handicapper appears to have given the gelding a chance as he races in receipt of seven pounds from the Twiston-Davies inmate - at the time of writing Same Difference is near the head of the market yet Becauseicouldntsee is priced as big as 33/1 with William Hill.

At those odds Becauseicouldntsee is put up as a speculative each-way selection for this season's final showpiece.

3 comments:

GeeDee said...

Bits and pieces for Becauseicouldntsee before the Bet365 Gold Cup; he was sent off a 16/1 shot.

Martin Ferris had the selection to the fore as the tapes went up and the partnership led for much of the first circuit and half the second. The gelding's persistent jumping to the left was always likely to prove a handicap and so it proved - he lost his racing position a mile from home and was alllowed to come home in his own time, eventually finishing fourteenth.

The race went to Quentin Collonges (14/1) who stayed on doggedly to hold Same Difference (15/2) two lengths.

Henry Daly's grey may not be the biggest or the best-looking of animals but he certainly relishes a scrap; his will-to-win was amply demonstrated up the Sandown hill as for all the world it looked as though Sam Twiston-Davies would go by on Same Difference but it wasn't to be...

Mulldog said...

Keep up the good work

GeeDee said...

You too Mully.

Trust you're keeping well... ;)