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Captain's Blog - Racing UK |
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Captain's Blog - 16th February 2012
There is every reason to tune into today for we have some excellent Racing for you to enjoy. The afternoon will be filled with Jumping from Musselburgh and top class action from Meydan. Then in the evening we will be back at Kempton for another night of Sunbury synthetic action. I will be presenting the action from Kempton and am looking forward to the contributions of Chris Dixon who will be the man providing the expert analysis. It should be an informative and hopefully an entertaining day and we look forward to your company. As ever please send your mails to the studio at studio@racinguk.com.
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The big race at Meydan today is the Al Fahidi Fort. The favourite is liklely to be the Saeed Bin Suroor trained Rio De La Plata. The stats boys will tell you that Saeed has not won this race since 2000. So what I say, that particular stat tells you what has happened but is not a reliable method of predicting how Rio will run today. He did not manage to win last season but ran some decent races in defeat and clearly retains plenty of ability.
My doubts about him are centered around the fact that he is not getting better and there are horses in the field with more progressive profiles. I also feel that the fitting of cheekpieces on his latest start suggests that connections may believe he is on the downgrade. I know this is a little negative and sometimes when analysing races it is easier to be negative than positive, but an opinion is better than a cosy slot on the fence. So which horse is the most likely winner? This is a tough one, but having read Mike De Kocks thoughts on Master of Hounds I am going to give him one more chance. De Kock describes him as a brute of a horse and when he finished third to Mendip last time he believed he still needed the run. He has reportedly worked well on the grass this week and I just get the feeling that De Kock is slowly working this horse out and I think we can expect him to be ridden close to the pace today under an aggressive ride from Soumillon. Today is crunch time for Master of Hounds and if he fluffs his lines today I will be abandoning this particular ship, but I believe he will run a huge race this afternoon.
Right, I am heading to the office shortly to get ready for a busy day.
All the best folks.
Today's Selections
7.15 Kempton - Liberal Lady (4/1 various firms)
4.55 Meydan - Master of Hounds (each way 9/2 William Hill)
