Why the fuss BHA?

Every morning, a number of horses get backed, some of these will go onto win, and hopefully we find enough of the "right moves" to turn a good profit. Most of these moves go virtually unreported after the event, apart from perhaps a mention in the Racing Post analysis that the horse was subject of "good support" or such like.

Sometimes one of these backed horses goes on to win and causes a bit of a storm, like today's winner for us, Border Lad. Now this run is reportedly the subject of examination now by the BHA, which appears to us as pretty ludicrous. This was only the horses's third start for his new stable, was on the receiving end of a tumbling handicap mark, and was also trying out 2m 6furlongs for the first time.

So on the back of Matt Chapman's rant on ATR the powers that be will take a long look at it, well I'm sure Alison Thorpe and her team will be able to explain perfectly well why a better run was expected today.

There's been an interesting post on "The Racing Forum" about it this evening, which puts things very nicely, which can be read here: http://tinyurl.com/6g9of3r

Anyway, elsewhere our one other selection which completed was well beaten, while another was involved in the unfortunate voided race at Carlisle.

We had:

TIME COURSE SELECTION 1pt/2pt win Bookmaker(s) / Price(s)

3.40 Carlisle Royal Mackintosh 1pt 7/1 Lads

3.50 Hereford Border Lad 1pt 9/1 Boylesports (8/1 Coral/Hills/Paddy Power)

4.40 Carlisle Norminster 1pt 8/1 Lads/Paddy Power/Betfred

Royal Mackintosh was very nicely backed to win yet again at Carlisle (looking into that, BHA?), and he was leading and travelling very powerfully when the race was unfortunately abandoned due to a stricken horse. Our thoughts with connections of Star Player, a grand servant.

Then came the Border Lad race, which was a terrific performance, a game front running ride, he was able to stretch into a big lead and looked to have the race in the bag some way out. He began to flag just a little up ahead but ran on really gamely in the mud to win by three lengths in the end. The odds drifting to 11/1 at the off gave us a couple of extra points thanks to best odds guaranteed, which was a nice bonus.

Then came Norminster who drifted to 12s and was very well beaten.

There were many horses very nicely backed this morning, and it was again pleasing to see that many of the others that were the subject of support didn't go on to do the business, while one of our picks did. It's all about finding the right moves to follow. It's been quite some month for us so far, but we are confident things will continue to progress.

Confirmation of results with prices (advised --- sp)

Royal Mackintosh - RACE VOID

Border Lad, 1st/11, 9/1 --- 11/1

Norminster, PU/6, 8/1 --- 12/1