Author: Russ

Needle Match may not even line up for the 2000 Guineas in just under two weeks, especially if the ground remains on the fast side of Good. However, as a son of Night Of Thunder out of an American Pharoah mare currently available at 100/1 after his eye-catching debut run in the Greenham, it won’t cost much to take a chance. The…

The various interviews with William Haggas in the last 14 days has relayed a combination of high expectation and frustration in equal measures. The results on the course have mirrored his comments with many of the horses running with great promise but equally very few entering the winners enclosure. Every one connected with the yard…

The drift on King of Earth out to 7/2 was too big to ignore – 1pt Bet win recommended. 3.45 Newbury.

On Friday at Thirsk we highlighted the danger of following supposed gambles on Somerville Lodge trained horses, typified by Scoville who was cut from 7/1 to 2/1 but was reported to be in need of the race beforehand and ran accordingly. There are two further cases already this week. In the Fillies maiden at Newmarket…

The start of the year judged by the bare results and low strike rate suggests all is not going to plan at Somerville Lodge. The topsy turvy performance levels continued over the weekend. There were three very encouraging runs from Bintsaleh, Waheedd and especially Arabian Force at Longchamp (unlucky not to win) but the horse…

Followers will know the key word at Somerville Lodge is patience – with horses in training at the yard given ample time to fulfill potential. The year on year success we achieve following the master trainer is based on folllowing clear patterns that have been developed over 30 years plus, but also being able to…

One of the big advantages of micro following one big yard is the knowledge we have gained to spot big market moves that simply make no sense, given the information available before the race. One obvious example was Scoville at Thirsk on Friday. Highly talented but refusing to settle both in preliminaries and in his…

When William Haggas declares a horse to contest a Musselburgh handicap its never just there for the run and whatever way you look at the stats in handicaps with horses sent off 1,2,3 in the market his strike rate at the track is just under 50%. This decade it is 4 from 9. A look…

With good ground forecast and the Turf season creeping into top gear, whilst most eyes will be on Aintree there are likely to be some quality 3yo’s on show at Yarmouth this Saturday. William Haggas tends to save his most promising maidens for Newmarket and Newbury next week, but whatever Charlie Appleby sends to this…