Thurles

fade2black

.05
On 17th April 2001 OVER THE BAR finished third in a national hunt flat race at Cork. He was evens favourite. Seven months later, almost to the day he won a Grade 3 hurdle beating Spirt Leader by 6 lengths. What's the big deal you may ask? Well for one, Spirt Leader is running to good effect in Grade 1 races these days and for another, by coming back after that length of time and putting up such a good performance it shows that the horse does have ability.
His last race, almost two years ago was a good second to Emotional Moment who won a grade 3 back in January. After all this OVER THE BAR is not the most confident choice in the world but I think 2 years is long enough to fix some jumping problems that he was having. Ultimately I don't think he'll have a problem with returning from a break and because he's the obvious form choice in the race he's going to be my selection.

2.35
My initial thoughts on this race were to focus on the Charlie Swan horse, OVER THE FIRST but then I noticed that Swan has two horses in this and the better jockey is on the more favoured (in the betting) of the two local jockey DAvid Casey (rode rule supreme on sunday)..Anyhoo...for the sake of value I'm going to stick with OVER THE FIRST. Two races ago I was at Tramore to see him frighten the live out of me, my money and Cloudy Bays, many thought he would have winning the race if it wasnt for falling two out when he was going very very well. After that he was entered, rather optimistically, in the Thyestes. He stayed with the leaders for almost all the way around and I was cursing myself for not having a bet at the 20-1 that was on offer. He faded though and finished 9th of 18 in the end. The horse travels and generally jumps well and the step back from 3miles to 2m2f could be the key to this horse. In Summary, I think it's between the two Swan horses, and this is the value for me.

3.05
A few months back I tipped up a horse called Chicago Vic E/W at 16-1, he ran a blinder to come second and in his next race he stepped up on that and won a lady riders race by a pleasing 9 lengths. HITS AND MEMORIES was third to Chicago Vic that day and I think this horse is entitled to progress from that for a couple of reasons. Firstly, with no desrespect to the ladies, she was ridden by a very inexperienced jockey that day and should have kept the horse a little closer to the pace. Also, the trip that day was an unusual choice for the trainer as the horse has shown better over further. They tackle 3 miles today, the ground will be soft but not too soft....no excuses.

3.35
An interesting one here. I watched the race in Tramore where Doctor Linton beat Show me the River by 4 and a half lengths. The question here is, can Doctor Linton turn that form around with a total of 13lbs in his favour? I'm going to say no. Of course a lot will depend on the fluency of jumping because the two horses before this have only been used to NHF races. Tony Mullins thnks that SHOW ME THE RIVER is an above average horse and he has fences earmarked for the horse's future. This could well be one to look out for. Paul Carberry takes over from the apprentice today and that is significant.

The Rest of the card is a puzzle to me and my eyes are hurting me too much to look through every horse's chances. I really hope that I get a result with at least one of these tomorrow.

masterK

Decent run from Over the Bar after such a long absense, it might be one to keep a note of for it's next race.

fade2black

I think you could be right there MasterK...we should really do what we say we should do and keep a notebook for all of these horses.

fade2black

Well I got that 3.35 dead wrong...the weight was clearly very significant!

[nicK]

thurles wasn't nice to me today at all, although EVEN MORE in the 2.30 at Wincanton more than made up for it!

chump

Good call Nick... I had the wrong one in that race but still up for the day

masterK

fade2black wrote:

I think you could be right there MasterK...we should really do what we say we should do and keep a notebook for all of these horses.

I don't know if you have ever used the reminder service on www.irish-racing.com, you can basically set up all horses that you want to keep track of. You will get an email telling you if a horse you are interested in has a 5 day entry and then another one the day before they are due to run.
It's very handy, I always use it when I see a horse that I want to watch next time out.

There's nothing worse than spotting a potential improver and forgetting about it only to pick up a paper and see it won the day before. I had one with a horse called Magical Wit at Wolverhampton on Monday, got some info for it about a month back and totally forgot about it, it won at 9/1.

fade2black

The same day Mr. Dip won at 8-1 and I'd tipped him on his last run. I generally use the racing post to search when a horse is gonna run again etc. I used to use the old attheraces website who had a ten to follow program that mailed you when your selected horse was entered to run. Thats finished now, do you know of a program like that doing the rounds anywhere?

fade2black

By the way...Magical wit runs in the 1.25 at wolves today and will probably win again.

masterK

fade2black wrote:

I used to use the old attheraces website who had a ten to follow program that mailed you when your selected horse was entered to run. Thats finished now, do you know of a program like that doing the rounds anywhere?

That's what I was saying, on the site http://www.irish-racing.com you can do exactly that, you can enter as many horse as you like and will be mailed before they run.

Don't be too sure about Magical Wit, a mates boss owns it and I am informed that he's not exactly the most honest character in the world. I'm waiting to hear back from him on it.

fade2black

Yeah but is it only irish horses? Ill check it out.

Be sure to let us know by the way!

masterK

No, it's Irish or English horses.

masterK

The owner is not backing Magical wit, he said it should run it's race though.

fade2black

Magical wit wins. 2-1. Easily.