May in Review…

One of the most important lessons I have learned over 50 years of punting is that good fortune does not sleep well with bad mistakes. That has certainly been the case in the early days of May.

Buoyed by the Somerville Lodge treble on the opening day of the Craven meeting, I took the chance that Zooming and Sky Majesty would get away with fast ground conditions at Newmarket and Goodwood. I compounded the risk by advising both each way. In both races as soon as it was clear they were unsuited by conditions their jockey’s gave them easy races and were well beaten.

It didn’t take long for the punting gods to increase the pain, just over an hour later our third bet on the day, the most we have staked all year, on Sea Force was denied any sort of run in the final 2f in the Thirsk Hunt Cup and finished 3rd beaten 2l without really coming off the bridle. At least we had taken the each way insurance and didn’t increase the 4pt loss on the day.

The Racing Gods don’t forgive easily and on Sunday the recovery mission on Dramatic Star from his Newcastle ‘no show’ hit the buffers around the paddock, when he was clearly highly agitated and sweating badly. The drift from 9/2 – 9/1 on his way to post told us all we needed to know. He duly finished tailed off and was the first horse beaten.

The interlude between Newmarket and Chester allowed time to reflect and prepare for the Derby and Oaks Trials with Somerville Lodge, for almost the first time this century, making a serious attempt at landing the classics. Fete though had decided, more pain was needed.

After the first race at Chester, the jockey’s reported the slippery ground was unsafe and Tom Marquand and William Haggas decided quite rightly to withdraw Morshdi from the Dee Stakes and our 4/1 Ante Post slip was confined to the Losers column on the spreadsheet.

It was very unlikely that he would have beaten Constitution River, but he has worked like a Group horse since his Feilden Stakes win and would have surely secured the place money. He will be no back number in the Dante Stakes ay York next week.

The pair received some criticism for their action but just five days earlier Yabher and Cieren Fallon had narrowly escaped serious injury when the 4yo slipped badly at Goodwood under similar circumstances. That meeting was abandoned.

The yard had a nice maiden winner with the Royal Ascot bound Song of the Clouds on Thursday. On Friday though from a betting angle – further retribution was to come.

Ascot is a track where we have made profits year after year and they start accumulating at this two day meeting, the final one staged before the Royal fixture in June.

The opening 7f handicap gave us a 3pt winner in 2025 with Power Fizz. Albaydaa who had ran so well at Newmarket looked to have a great chance of repeating that win. Well drawn in stall 8 and a good price at 4/1 in the opening shows, she appeared to only have one horse to beat the fast improving Marco Botti 3yo Coleri Forever who had landed an even better draw in stall 9.

Reports were that Coleri Forever would return for the Royal meeting and had been backed from 7/2- 2/1 in the early markets. Consequently, i reduced the recommended stake to 2pt win.

Albaydaa ran extremely well finishing 2nd but Coleri Forever won like a future Group horse and is now being considered as a contender for the Group 3 Jersey Stakes. The time of the race was fast and Albaydaa remains a filly to follow.

Our second bet on the day at Wolverhampton Caraway was backed from 3/1- 6/5 and we looked to have every chance of securing a profit on the day.

That was still the case until turning into the home straight with the filly traveling all over the field still on the bridle in a 6 runner race. As the five other runners quickened, Fallon waited for the gaps that never opened and after nearly being brought down when trying for one gap that closed, he eased Caraway down with another day in mind.

The keyboard warriors duly got stuck into Fallon but he is a brilliant instinctive rider that waits for races to evolve rather than force the issue and very occasionally what happened on Friday is the outcome.

There were though, signs in the very next race that the Racing Gods had released their grip. The maiden filly Silver Lake had been backed from 6/1- 5/6 in the maiden fillies stakes. Our information was that she wasn’t nearly as good as Song of the Clouds who at Newbury had finished 3l in front of the Gosden trained Seet the early market leader . We advised a No Bet on Silver Lake who ran as expected but only finished 3rd behind Seet, in what looked a hot maiden for the track.

That proved to be the case 24 hours later when all 8 runners from the yard ran excellent races and the three we backed provided 2 winners and an eye catching 3rd with the other five running well but justifying our no bet recommendations.

The stable stars Lake Forest and Maltese Cross both hinted at potential Group 1 success later in the season, particularly Lake Forest who will have a major chance in the Queen Anne if he gets his ground.

Opportunity ran as though the Copper Horse Handicap at Ascot will be the target a race the owners won last season with French Master. Haggas though has a dilemma because I don’t think the gelding will get into that race from a mark of 91 and will need to run and win to get an increase in his rating.

The yard has a couple of horses due to run this week at York in Klassleader and Valiancy who will also have Ascot staying handicaps on their agenda and any one of the three could be up to the standard required to win at the Royal meeting.

The York Dante meeting is one of the most targeted festivals of the year and now back on even keel for the month we can look forward to an exciting week culminating with the Lockinge meeting at Newbury and the eagerly awaited debut of More Thunder.

Lake Forest – Queen Anne Bound after impressive Haydock triumph.