General Sports uploaded (22/12) - Cheltenham Festival Week 8 & Race Previews uploaded - Andy Richmond’s Beating The Bias (17/12) uploaded - General Sports uploaded (15/12) - Cheltenham Festival Week 7 & Weekend Race Previews uploaded
2/11/23
The Jumps Season Service is now in full swing with the first weekend Race Previews, Week 1 of the Cheltenham Festival columns and Ante Post Focus uploaded in the last week. I would like to thank all previous members for signing up another season and welcome new members to the service.
Fans of Andy Richmond’s Beating The Bias column will be pleased to know that his weekly column will restart on Monday.
We still have the dying embers of the flat season though and I always enjoy The Breeders’ Cup so will be covering the best of that action in amongst the jumps racing from Wetherby and Ascot in this weekend’s Race Previews. Down Royal has been postponed a week due to waterlogging.
I will also feature some races on the Breeders’ Cup Friday evening card so login tomorrow afternoon rather than waiting for Saturday morning if you are interested in the two-year-old races from Santa Anita. I certainly feel more au fait with the American horses now having attended a BC preview night on Tuesday and have also been checking out various podcasts and website columns so I can enjoy the meeting more.
The Breeders’ Cup Classic looks anything but this year though with no marquee horse, three leading fancies ruled out this week and no European challenge and it’s also taking place three races from the end rather than closing the show as usual so that the host broadcaster and show a college football game! Not even a real game! Although I am sure some people will pull me up on that. The good news is that means we can watch it in a prime-time slot rather than waiting up until 1.00 a.m. which is normally the case when the Breeders’ Cup takes place on the west coast.
I won’t bother setting my alarm for the Melbourne Cup though. I am happy for that race to pass me by but having been a Vauban fan for the last 18 months having been with him at the last two Cheltenham Festivals, I hope that he can give Willie Mullins his first win in the race.
That Breeders’ Cup preview event was organised by the London Racing Club and on November 15th I’ll be on their Jumps Season Preview Evening panel taking place at the Holiday Inn High Street Kensington if you’re in the area and at a loose end that night. I’ve been on their Cheltenham panel a couple of times down the years which is always well attended so another jumps-based preview should be good fun.
What have learned so far from the jumps season? That Paul Nicholls’ horses are generally needing a run but I don’t expect that to last too much longer. That Nicky Henderson could have a faster start than usual as they have been able to gallop on the grass a couple of weeks earlier than recent seasons given all the rain according to Nico de Boinville after he guided Hyland to an easy win at Cheltenham. And that the Irish are already flying on their travels with three wins for Gavin Cromwell and two double-figure-price successes for Henry de Bromhead at the Cheltenham October Meeting. With better rides Cromwell could have saddled five winners at that two-day fixture.
Outside of the jumps-based columns in November in the General Sports column on Sundays we have Mike Henderson’s views on the Grand Slam of Darts this week from Wolverhampton. In the last week of the month we then have the UK Snooker Championship from York, one of the three big Triple Crown events, and in between we have the semi-finals and final of the Cricket World Cup on November 16th and 19th respectively. So we’ll take a look at those events plus the weekly Premier League and NFL action and the Champions League.
