Clear, concise, comprehensive horseracing analysis and insight from Paul Jones, former author of the Cheltenham Festival Betting Guide, concentrating on jump racing in addition to the best of the Flat and leading Sports events.
  • Ante Post Focus uploaded - Andy Richmond’s Beating The Bias & Grand National Trends uploaded - General Sports uploaded - Weekend Race Previews uploaded

The Week Ahead

28/8/16

The second half of the Flat Season in between the festivals can be a little tiresome which has me yearning for some proper jumping action and we’ll get that in Ireland now and again in September. The seven-day Listowel Festival starts on September 11th. Gigginstown supplied the winner and third in the feature race of the Kerry National last year so it might be worth checking out their (likely to be many) entries, especially as they were Rogue Angel and Rule The World who then added the Irish Grand National and Crabbie’s Grand National later in the season.

As with last year, I will write a shortish September and October catch up to include within the Cheltenham Ante-Post section taking on board the news since last spring. It was good to see a top class novice chase prospect out so early with Shantou Village winning at Fontwell, even if it did bring back memories of him being struck into when favourite for the Albert Bartlett after we had the fancy prices.

Before then, we have the St Leger Meeting and Irish Champions Weekend to focus on which will be the next elements of the Race Preview section next week, though I will only be covering the last three days of the action from Doncaster as the Wednesday card is nothing out of the ordinary. Ante-Post Focus returns on Wednesday looking ahead to those meetings.

In addition, expect to find the next edition of the quarterly Newsletter dropping into your inbox later this week. Within that I will be outlining timings for resubscription for those who signed up from the outset last autumn along with content for the All-Inclusive Service now that I have digested all your replies from the questionnaire. Feedback has been very positive so there will be no drastic changes, just a couple of tweaks.

As for this coming week on the sport front, the US Open Tennis starts on Monday at 4.00 p.m. and Carl Redden will be guiding us through the fortnight. He returns from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro today so his preview will be uploaded tomorrow. The second instalment of the Play-Offs on the PGA Tour is the Deutsche Bank Championship which I will covering on Wednesday.

Before then Darren Clarke will announce his three wild cards picks for the Ryder Cup. His old mucker Lee Westwood will be one (in fairness he did finish second in The Masters), Martin Kaymer will be another so the only real interest is who gets the final pick. The captain played alongside Thomas Pieters on Thursday when the Belgian shot a 62 so if he can win in Denmark this afternoon (currently leading at the time of writing), after missing out on bronze at the Olympics by one place, then he might have played himself onto the team ahead of Russell Knox. Surely Luke Donald, Shane Lowry and Graeme McDowell will miss out. Davis Love isn’t stupid, he’s wangled himself four picks with the last name not to be announced for another month so he knows he will have an in-form player. The final day should be some day of sport as the golf will follow immediately on from the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

There will be no Premier League Picks on Friday with there being a break for international duty. It may have taken an age coming but Marcus Rashford’s late winner for Manchester United meant that we made it two winning weeks on the spin with the HT-FT recommendation of Draw-Man Utd at 16/5 coming up trumps.

The NFL season is just 11 days away and Ross Miles will be back on duty for us on a weekly basis. Ross will be the first to admit that his weekly previews last season were either famine or feast where he finished on a high with a Superbowl night to remember with five winning recommendations out of six including the 22/1 winner of the MVP so I wish him well for the coming five months.

Jumps Season Service

An approximate 6 months' service running between October 27th 2023 until the end of the British Jumps Season focussing on weekend previews, major festivals and Cheltenham Festival columns. Join Paul for weekly previews of the weekend racing during the meat of the jumps season concentrating on approximately 12 races per weekend every Friday and his Cheltenham Festival columns on Tuesdays at 7.00 p.m. which is showing a 132 level stakes profit since that service was launched back in 2008. Also gain access to his Ante Post Focus columns every Wednesday at 1.00 p.m. and his Big Race Trends throughout the season plus Andy Richmond's Beating The Bias column. 

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A 12 months’ service that can be ordered at any time featuring ALL the content encompassed within the Jumps Season Service in addition to Flat racing and Sports analysis. Membership: £895.


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