The Aidan O'Brien pair Black Bear Island and Freemantle took first and second in Thursday's Dante. Crowded House, the 2/1 favourite, ran flat in the trial, finished eighth and scoped badly afterwards; Brian Meehan will make a decision on his charge's particpation in the Derby within the next few days.
Currently the top five in the ante-post Derby market are all trained in Ireland. At this stage Rip Van Winkle, generally a 10/1 shot, offers decent value provided you take the view he'll stay -stable jockey Johnny Murtagh has expressed his concerns. The horse suffered a bruised foot in the run-up to the Guineas and John Francome was less than complimentary about the horse's appearance during the preliminaries for the classic. In the circumstances Rip Van Winkle ran well to finish fourth, especially as the stable was under something of a cloud at that time. There's improvement there but we don't know for certain he'll stay...
Back in March Venetia Williams won the Pertemps Final (three miles) at the Cheltenham Festival with Kayf Aramis. Two months on the same horse, with a different jockey up, wins Thursday's finale at York - Theripleycollection.com Handicap (two and a quarter miles) - by an eased-down thirteen lengths. A trip to Royal Ascot looks on the cards for this hurdler...
Earlier today I watched the BBC's coverage of the tennis exhibition matches from the new all-weather Wimbledon (roof closed). As a plug for the forthcoming Match of the Day Two programme, commentator Andrew Castle was heard to say something along the lines of '...and the [football] season's really hotting up now...' Would somebody please tell the man that Manchester United were crowned Premier League champions yesterday? Thanks.
Finally, a photo finish...
Caption: Another cert takes the wrong course, the race at his mercy. Mrs T wears the look of someone who has seen it all before...
1 comment:
I'm sure I parked the car around here somewhere.
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