It is a dry morning in HQ thankfully and there is not a breath of wind. The opening day of racing at Meydan was exciting to watch and it was quite incredible to see Ertijaal winning the 5f sprint handicap off of a mark of 118. I found it interesting that the two dirt races were won by a combined total of around fourteen lengths and the four turf races just over four lengths, quite often the turf action is much easier on the eye.
We normally ignore unconstructive twitter criticism but we thought we would try and be constructive and address the negative reaction of some to Rab Havlin’s ride of Arnarson last night at Chelmsford. He was an uneasy favourite which we thought he might be when we saw him open up at 6-5 and we told the owner that his price may get bigger. He was 1 from 15 going into the race and although he was very impressive at Wolverhampton it was a weak race and everything fell right, they went fast early and the gap opened at the right time and he won well. We unfortunately got a wide draw last night and he was racing back at Chelmsford which is a different surface to Newcastle and Wolverhampton and races pan out differently there, you often want to be close to the pace and it was Mr Havlin’s tactical positioning that led to a negative reaction on twitter.
Arnarson is not a horse that can be bullied, if Rab had got after him early and been trapped wide on the speed, he would have been well beaten. He did the right thing and dropped him in from his draw, kidded him along and unfortunately there were five horses in a line in front of him when he first went for his run, due to horses edging off a straight line he had to switch twice more and he was beaten just under two lengths. If he had a clear run he would not have been far away and he has run well in the circumstances. The run also suggested it might be worth trying a mile with him again, especially around Chelmsford when they can go a little faster early.
Why did you run some people may ask. We went there hoping he could win as it was not a strong race although we wished for a better draw, he had run respectably around Chelmsford before. Options at Wolverhampton were extremely limited and the other options were (a) to run in a Novice at Wolverhampton on Monday where we would have been nine pounds wrong with the odds on favourite and he would have been giving seven pounds to the winner of the race who had shown a great deal of promise on debut at Kempton. The (b) option was to take him up to Newcastle tonight to contest a higher grade where he would have faced a better quality of horse, headed by the favourite who is four pounds well in. Given we were three pounds well in last night and a lot of his rivals were out of form, there were no options at Wolverhampton until the end of this month and the horse came out of his last race fresh and well, we felt this was the best opportunity for Arnarson to gain a second win and so he ran last night. With a little bit of luck he would not have been too far away.
Quite often when a horse’s price expands and everything doesn’t go to plan people cry foul and given there were logical explanations for what happened last night we thought we would set them out here on the blog. Rab Havlin has had an extremely good start to the year, we do not question his integrity and given the draw last night we were not disappointed with the ride. It is very rare you can find the perfect race for a horse which is what we found for Arnarson last week and if you waited for the perfect race you would hardly ever have a runner, they rarely exist. I have to use analysis and gut instinct and I am happy we ran in the right race with Arnarson this week, it just did not work out for him last night as often can be the case. He will be three pounds higher in the future which will be difficult but he is in good form and we will find the best race for him that we can going forward.
Global Angel is our only runner today in the 12:50 at Lingfield. We are dropping him back to a mile today as he showed early speed last time and then didn’t appear to get home over 1m2f. He is drawn eight of the ten runners which will make it difficult but we hope he can run respectably and that we can learn something in regard to his optimum trip. We felt his initial mark was quite tough and he is vulnerable to horses that are nicely handicapped but he has a little each way squeak. Three of the first four horses in the betting are making their Nursery debuts and so there is likely to be a well treated one amongst them.