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FInally, time to review Grand National day at Aintree and a dry night and a warm and dry afternoon left the ground on the Mildmay course Good to Soft. Three championship races alongside the feature handicap starting with the Mersey Hurdle over 4000m for the intermediate novices. The morning scratching of CALDWELL POTTER left BRIGHTERDAYSAHEAD a warm favourite against the second and third from the Gallagher, JIMMY DU SEUIL and ILE ATLANTIQUE who had no answers to BALLYBURN at Prestbury Park. An impressive performance by the mare BRIGHTERDAYSAHEAD who looks destined for much greater things on this evidence. Trainer Gordon Elliott has always held her in high regard and her defeat by GOLDEN ROSE at Cheltenham was a real blow. Over this trip and on this better ground, she looked much more at ease and fences look on the cards next year - it's been a while since we've had a really good staying mare among the chasers but this one could put that right. ILE ATLANTIQUE ran far too keen through the first circuit and was beaten two out and it was the outsider STAFFORDSHIRE KNOT who made it a 1-2 for Elliott and Gigginstown Stud with even bigger outside BUGUISE SEAGULL outrunning his 50/1 odds in third. The staying hurdlers had their turn in the Liverpool Hurdle over 4850m and this looked an open race. FLOORING PORTER, second in the stayers at Cheltenham, went off favourite while there was support for the Irish challengers HIDDENVALLEY LAKE and BUDDY ONE in a race perhaps a notch below the usual quality. I've been a fan of STRONG LEADER for a while - he ran a fine race in the Cleeve at Cheltenham and it's quite clear connections were waiting for this race and also for better ground and the ground dried enough for him to show his best. He was always travelling well, indeed a little too well down the far side on the second circuit and Sean Bowen had to take a pull but he was able to pick up HIDDENVALLEY LAKE and BUDDY ONE approaching the last and won with authority.  Although a 10-y-o, MONKFISH doesn't have many miles on the clock and continued his revival here - back in 2021 he was one of the top novice chasers and there's another big race in him on this evidence. FLOORING PORTER did his usual front running effort but I thought he went quick enough and he was well beaten two out and put in a disappointing effort. CRAMBO jumped poorly and I just wonder if he prefers to go right handed. After the theatricals of the big race, we still had a final championship race - the Maghull Novices Chase over 3200m and to be honest I thought FOUND A FIFTY was a certainty and had placed a big bet (for me) at 5/2 ante post and it's always good to see the on-course punters agreeing as he went off 11/8 favourite - doesn't make him a winner though. As you can imagine, I died a thousand deaths up the run in but credit to Jack Kennedy who had ridden the second in the National an hour earlier. I thought FOUND A FIFTY was a certainty and up to the second last I was confident but MASTER CHEWY who had fallen two out in the Arkle when arguably heading for third place put in a much better effort and outjumped FOUND A FIFTY at the last. On another day, he'd have prevailed but Kennedy and the winner were the epitome of courage and tenacity and rallied to snatch the spoils. LIBBERTY HUNTER ran on into third but was beaten 11 lengths. The winner might go ever further next year but MASTER CHEWY looks a real 3200m type. Never mind, it was a good run and cleared a decent profit on the meeting where I think I offered six of the eleven championship race winners so well done to me. The Trainers' Championship looks like it will go right to the wire - thanks to winning the National and other big races, Willie Mullins has poached a £40k lead on Dan Skelton and Paul Nicholls despite only having won 19 races in the UK. - the table is ranking, trainer name, winners, placed horses,  number of runners and total win and place prize money.                                                         1 W. P. Mullins 19 64 124 £2,874,693 2 Dan Skelton 113 360 733 £2,834,894 3 Paul Nicholls 123 239 513 £2,756,253 There's still the Scottish Grand National meeting at Ayr this weekend and the Finale at Sandown on Saturday week. 

Yep, been pissing it down most of the night, no let up in sight. Tomorrow could be interesting!

Wood Memorial (G2) winner Resilience and 2023's champion 2-year-old filly Just F Y I recorded their first Churchill Downs workouts April 18 after racing in respective Kentucky Derby (G1) and Kentucky Oaks (G1) prep races nearly two weeks ago.View the full article

I went to Karaka for the first time in 2017 and my pick of the sale of the horses I saw was Avantage. I went again in 2019 and my pick of the sale was Just Ben. It seems I have an eye for a good horse, but also an eye for a not-so-good horse. Unfortunately I don't know which eye is which.

Every dog has its day they say, hopefully it's his turn soon, but then sometimes staying in your grade and getting a return frequently can be much better than struggling in the r65 grade if you win a race and go up, I talked myself out of taking justaskpercy today, only the long divvy that caught my attention, been out of form for sometime and hadn't won a race for a long time, but that's horses make a fool of you when you least expect it, 61 fixed odds, hurts ya.

Points earned after two weeks. Six points available on Saturday so only top 4 have a shot at the gold.  

Pick the scores:  eg. 3-2, 4-1, 5-0, 2-3, 1-4, 0-5   Bonecrusher vs Veandercross   Rough Habit  vs Imperatriz

Cheats on Seats Crims on Rims There must be more without getting too individually personal with too Bulky in the Sulky 

Just the way they work, you know the odds 

No wonder punters are walking away from betting on crims on rims…. Who’s delights leads from the outside last start and G Smith says he is best in front….  Tonight pulls back to let stablemate lead…. Crims on rims….. will questions be asked……

I remember they said they (HRNZ) topped up the first one, so gather they have done the same for the rest.

Can't just blame Entain. It was no different before. 

Ex Don Brash . As I write this I still can't believe this has happened to us. We hear of political interference happening overseas, but today Hobson's Pledge has been the target. Facebook has deleted all of our posts that sent supporters to submit on the Fast Track Approvals Bill including paid advertising we were running.  At first our team thought there must have been an error and attempted to post again. It became clear that anytime we used the link to the Government website to make a submission on the Bill, Facebook either blocked us or removed the post minutes after it went up. As we were aware that the Māori Party were also promoting submitting on the Bill, we checked out one of their posts and found that there we could access the Government submissions page with no problem at all.  This is discrimination and political interference. Will you stand with us against it? For a start Facebook should not be able to block links to the Government website and impede democratic engagement. They certainly shouldn't be able to pick and choose which organisation can help their supporters to access the submissions page. It is nearly impossible to reach an actual person at Facebook to ask what on earth is going on. Are they taking stances on all political issues? Or is this something an individual staff member has taken it upon themselves to do? Maybe it is simply that their systems are vulnerable to bad faith activists overwhelming them? We would love to know.  We will be doing our best to follow up and ensure that this kind of thing doesn't continue to happen. Every New Zealander should be free to encourage submissions and indeed to submit. We would never dream of attempting to prevent Māori Party supporters from having their say. We live in a democracy! Don't let political interference get in the way of you having your say on the Fast Track Approvals Bill and opposing special rights for iwi when it comes to consultation and decision making. CLICK HERE FOR THE BANNED GOVT SUBMISSION PAGE! I cannot overstate how much of a political intrusion this is. Hobson's Pledge already experiences significant hostility from the media and we use emails and social media as a way to go around the patronising so-called fourth estate to reach New Zealanders. For our ability to use social media to be threatened is truly concerning. In today's online world, it is an attack on our right to freely engage in politics.  I will keep you updated on where this goes. If there is any action we can all take, you can expect an email straight away.

Have a read and then what happened next in following E Mail . I have received several emails asking what Elliot and I wrote on behalf of Hobson's Pledge in our submission on the Fast Track Approvals Bill. I thought you might be interested too! It is short and to the point and we will elaborate when we get a chance to speak to the select committee. Submission on the Fast-track Approvals Bill by the Hobson’s Pledge Trust The Hobson’s Pledge Trust was founded in 2016 to promote the fundamental principle that all New Zealanders have equal political rights, as acknowledged in Article III of the Treaty of Waitangi. We named the organisation after Governor Hobson, who is understood to have said, as each chief signed the Treaty, “He iwi tahi tatou” (“We are now one people”).  We are convinced that acknowledging that equality of rights is the only way forward for a peaceful and harmonious New Zealand. From small beginnings, Hobson’s Pledge has grown to the point where some 130,000 people receive our regular emails. As an organisation, we take no position on the need for the Fast-track Approvals Bill. There is no doubt a wide range of strongly felt views on the Bill among our supporters. We respect the effort which the Bill makes to ensure that property rights are respected. But we are dismayed that the Bill gives a much greater priority to the rights of iwi than to the rights of other New Zealanders. The word “iwi” appears 56 times in the Bill, and the proposed four-person panels by which projects are to be evaluated are to include one person nominated by the relevant local authority and one person nominated by the relevant iwi. This apparent equivalence between local authorities and iwi authorities seems to us totally inappropriate, and is likely to result in the concerns of Maori New Zealanders being given much greater weight than the concerns of other New Zealanders. This not only causes us dismay: it also causes us surprise. During the election campaign, both the ACT Party and the New Zealand First Party made much of their commitment to equal citizenship.  In the coalition agreements which both parties signed with the National Party in the process of forming a Government, there were numerous quite specific promises to eliminate the racial preferences which have crept into New Zealand law in recent years.  The National Party’s constitution includes a specific commitment to “equal citizenship”, and of course it too was a party to the two coalition agreements which enabled the formation of the new Government. Clearly, in approving any new investment project under this Fast-track Approvals Bill Ministers must be mindful of the property rights of those New Zealanders who could be affected by the new project. But this principle should surely apply to all New Zealanders, whatever their ethnicity.  As drafted, the Bill fails to acknowledge that principle. We wish to appear before the Committee to present this submission.

Would love to see him crack it for a win one day.

Am sure trainers and owners pissed off that when they win a race Trackside instead of giving them a moment of glory switch over some hick dog meeting in Aussie.. enough is enough .Rise up owners and give these money money  pricks the message.

...and I take it you think it's ok, and good for the integrity of racing that they should have to do that to preserve their own and their horse's safety?

I'd say their persistence with the horse is more emotional than financial.

Based in Wellington?? - must be something big about to 'go down'  Trentham closing down for 3 years too - maybe Hutt Park trots and dogs are going to make a comeback 😇

Another $850 in stakes today - only slightly lower than its average stake earnings per race. Subtract the trainer's cut, the jockey's cut, the riding fee, transport costs and I'm guessing not much left to cover the training costs. The connections not familiar with that Einstein quote!?