If you'd have fully read the analysis on the 3.20 at Doncaster yesterday, you may have had a wry but frustrating smile on your face, as the Henderson horse, beaten out of sight on every completed run in its career so far, went past the winning post as a well backed winner. Whether you are on the side of the spectrum that said "it's found a level and the right trip" or the other end of "it's clearly not been run to its merits and punters have been conned" is up to you. The facts probably lie somewhere in the middle and does the balance between analysing a race on the merits of the known form, and/or allowing for massive imponderables that may or may not be there. No one said this game is easy, anyone who does is utterly deluded or a conman or both, but as always some you win, some you lose.

 

In the other race we touched upon it was good to see C'Est Quel'quon run a 3rd place at 25/1 finally showing some of its earlier Irish form as predicted.

 

There is very little to enthuse over today at Lingfield and Huntingdon and both Cards look set to be favourite dominated. If there is a springer at either it may be HAS TROKE in the 4.05 at Lingfield, this horse has been very poor this season and reverts back to Hurdles where it is very well handicapped and it's not out of the question that a minor revival could see a better run but it's very much in the "shrapnel e/w" category.

 

Punchestown race today and tomorrow, today is the rescheduled Meeting from last Sunday and tomorrow is the rescheduled meeting from yesterday, both moved with a degree of flexibility to deal with the circumstances of the sad passing of Michael O'Sullivan on Sunday and his Funeral yesterday. It will be a sombre gathering today and for many days to come but massive respect to the Irish Authorities for their actions at this very difficult time.

 

The Punchestown Card has a couple of interesting non handicap Novice races which we will watch with interest and the main race is the Grand National Trial at 2.25, a race I had written up in full for Sean on Sunday morning; but then deleted as the news of the abandonment was announced. The field is very similar but Sean has taken the care to review the race in full again and has made one slight change as a result, so hopefully we can find some profit.