Horses First Racing

A mixture of runners

18th March 2008

We are sending out a real mixture of horses this week, running in everything from a chase to a bumper, over hurdles and over 5 furlongs and also have a hurdler and a miler thrown into the mix. First up is hopefully Desert Quest who just needs the ground at Ludlow to carry on drying out (he only acts on good ground) to enable him to run on Thursday. The horse continues to go well at home (he is pictured schooling well under jockey Luke Kilgarriff this week) and we'd be hopeful of a good performance from him. Tomorrow Shatter Resistant makes his debut for the yard in a five furlong contest at Kempton Park. The race is at 18.20 and unfortunately Shatter has drawn the outside stall, which in a small field will give him a slight disadvantage. On the plus side the horse is looking well and has come back from his recent break looking strong. Liam Jones takes the ride and it would be great if he could follow up from his win on Chief Exec with another good result for the yard.

The start of next week should see us busy with two runners on Monday and one on Tuesday. Derry City heads to Huntingdon on Monday to line up in a 2 mile 5f maiden hurdle. The horse is still a touch immature and it will only be his 4th run, his 2nd over hurdles. His jumping at home is good and caused him no problems last time out so we hope he will run a nice race and come on from the experience. Also out on Monday is Cheonmado, possibly making the long trip to Yarmouth to run over 1 mile 2f. The horse ran last week finishing mid-division over a mile at Kempton. He is fit and well and we'd look for him to continue improving. Tuesday sees us heading to Fontwell for Paradigm Shift's first start in a 1 mile 6f bumper. The horse, known as 'Leo' at home, has taken a long time to tighten up and we are looking forward to seeing how he goes on his first outing, not least the Hebbard family who have just bought a share in the horse and will be along to cheer him on. There are shares still available in Paradigm Shift (pictured below), who will probably carry on running throughout the summer. You can find more details on him in the marketplace.

The reference to Shatter Resistant's (pictured below) average draw is something I feel is underestimated in most cases. Let me explain! If I had a pound for every time a horse had drawn the outside in a small field and ended up 3 deep without cover, I would be a wealthy man. More often than not, small fields end up being very tactical affairs where they can crawl along in front, packing into a tight group before sprinting for home. The pace is generally governed by the outside horses as they must choose to go forward or back. Basically if they go forward there will generally be good speed making their job rather difficult, alternatively if they go back it often hands the advantage to the horse in front. It seems rather simplistic but it is interesting to see the number of times this occurs and leaves many trainers and jockeys in a quandry. Now I am not about to give up my race plan but I live by the motto of 'pace is everything' in races. An example of this was Chief Exec's last couple of runs where the tactics of the races were quite different. As a horse that gets back in his races, he needs there to be a strong pace up front. This enables him to get home over the top of the field as they die on their runs as a result of their strong pace. The last start he ran in there was less pace mid-race and the leaders were able to dash away and hold off the come-from-behind horses. Next time you are watching a race, assess the speed and see where the winner comes from, it will help you assess the relative merits of a horse's run. Good luck!

Jeremy Gask

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