Smad Place

30/10/17

After alerting members in last week’s Ante-Post Focus that I would give my selection for the Old Roan Chase in Sunday’s ‘Thought for the Day’ at the top of the home page as I needed more time to think about the race, I hope that you joined me in on taking the morning 16/1 about Smad Place.

He wanted it whereas Cloudy Dream, not for the first time, didn’t. Despite picking up a two-day ban I thought it was a smart piece of riding from Wayne Hutchinson to intimidate and lean in on his rival who was clearly going the better from the home turn to the final fence. So, a very nice start indeed to kick of the Jumps Season (proper) and the next Race Previews will be on Thursday, November 16^th where I will be looking at Day 1 of the Cheltenham November Meeting and then every weekend right through to the end of the Punchestown Festival including 17 weekly Cheltenham Festival Ante-Post columns.

However, I will be casting my eye over the Charlie Hall Meeting, the JNWine Champion Chase at Down Royal and The Breeders’ Cup plus maybe also the BetVictor Gold Cup in a mega edition of Ante-Post Focus this Wednesday at 1.00 p.m. before I jet off to The Breeders’ Cup and Las Vegas for a week. Being a tight arse I’m not paying £1300 for a return flight to San Diego when it’s £450 return with Norwegian.com to Vegas and then a £100 internal one-hour flight to SD so it will be one night at the Luxor, three near SD, and then back to LV for three nights at the Wynn. Better start swotting up on those American horses sharpish!

My days being away are November 2^nd-9^th so the website will not be updated in any way during those dates, though I will be replying to emails and new member/re-subscripton requests, before the big push starts on the jumps action where hopefully we can carry on in the same vein as from Aintree yesterday. Therefore on Wednesday I will also be uploading Andy Richmond’s NFL Week 9 copy and my Premier League Picks. The following week Paul Smith will begin to cover The Ashes and Mike Henderson will be overseeing the Grand Slam of Darts from sunny Wolverhampton.

Looking forward to 2018 and I’m considering running a Sports Tipping Competition within the Odds And Sods section of the website. The idea being that I will list 100 sporting events to take place throughout 2018 and entrants have to try and find as many winners as possible when submitting their entry before January 1^st. I’ve suggested this as an idea to a few websites that I have been involved in down the years with no takers so, I’ve got absolutely no excuse not to now! So watch this space.

Also in 2018 I might be working on two other books (which would be for sale) in addition to my Punting Theories/Ideology Book which should be published by January at the latest and is for members only. I don’t want to go into too much detail about the other two book ideas for now having suggested another idea for a book to one publishing house who then did it off their own back, so I have learned my lesson on that one, but both are under discussion and all seems positive at present.

Enjoy the upcoming racing from Del Mar, Down Royal and Wetherby and I’ll be back with my next blog in a couple of weeks’ time.