Dark Red
We have had more showers this morning and the weather is very Autumnal in HQ. There is no sign of an Indian summer!! Doncaster is drying out however and it will be intriguing to see what the going description is on Saturday as the wind has dried the ground out faster than you’d expect it to have dried at this time of year.
Red Verdon ran an encouraging race yesterday over a trip short of his best. He had to do the donkey work into a headwind and he battled on well to finish second. There is improvement to come from him and I will more than likely give him one more run and then put him away for next year.
We run three horses today at Doncaster and Chepstow starting with Dark Red in the 4:05 at Doncaster. Dark Red will enjoy this softer ground and he has been running well on going that has been a little quicker than he prefers. It could be very tactical with only the four runners and his three rivals are all in form but he has strong claims in a trappy affair.
Global Exceed runs at Chepstow in the 2:15 under a six pound penalty. He was impressive last week at Lingfield and given we are able to run in a 0-60 here and he is two pounds well in, we thought it was well worth giving it a shot. He does have to carry 9:13 and it is quite quick back but he seems in good form and five furlongs with a stiff finish shouldn’t pose any problems. It’s a big field with 15 runners but he holds the second favourite on their Lingfield running when we were second there and if he runs the same race as last week then he has an outstanding chance of winning again.
Alemaratalyoum is our final runner in the 3:25 at Chepstow and his chances will be dependent on him relaxing early on in his race. He will be running in a ring bit today and I hope this will help to switch him off. He was too free when not getting home at Leicester but he shaped as if he wanted a mile when third at Sandown before that. It is an extremely open race and it is hard to pick out which horses are the main dangers but he has a squeak if everything goes right.