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Angus Mcnae

Captains Blog, April 8

We managed to get ourselves some betting tokens for Aintree yesterday when our each way selections Royal Dignitary (3rd at 9/1) and Lopinot (1st at 11/2) obliged for us. I was particularly happy to see Lopinot go in having followed this horse over a cliff during the winter. I was always convinced he could win another race, but it is now clear that a quiet ride behind a fast pace is what brings out the best in him and George Baker was able to carry out the necessary tactics perfectly.
 
So we have a few tokens to go to war with at Aintree which is always a meeting I enjoy punting at because the decent ground usually means that the fastest horses win and we do not have to engage in a game of equine bingo performed on a ploughed field. Having said that there is some ease in the ground according to track officials, but with a dry forecast we should probably get a decent racing strip and some understandable results.
 
It is a day when punters will be looking to offload the majority of their beeting banks on short price favourites and will be hoping that the first three jollys go in to give them a great start to the meeting. I think they may come unstuck though. Big Bucks will be very hard to beat in the opener simply because he is a faster horse than his opponents by a country mile. When he wins the first race favourite backers will then look to get stuck into Sanctuaire. This horse was impressive in winning the Fred Winter and could be the real deal. His free going style should be ideal for this track, but he may just be vulnerable to an unexposed type such as Nafaath who was a useful type on the Flat rated 100 and was very impressive when winning over hurdles at Ayr last time. In short Sanctuaire is no shoe in and Nafaath may be the value. If Sanctuaire wins then Imperial Commander will be backed off the boards by favourite lovers to win the totesport bowl chase. The Gold Cup winner may be vulnerable in that he has proved in the past to be best when fresh, indeed, plenty of Pundits who are better informed than me are keen to oppose this horse. I am not so keen and if he turns up in as good shape as he was at Cheltenham he will be hard to beat. So we have three short price favourites to start the meeting, and only one in Big Bucks, looks like a good thing. These three races will make or break the three day meeting for many and I for one will be keeping my powder relatively dry.
 
I would like to thank everybody for the huge amount of emails we received during our wednesday evening show. We had to compete with Champions League football so the fact that we managed to garner so much interest in a middling Kempton card was very encouraging indeed.
 
The Masters starts today and I will be keen to see how Tiger gets on. I want him to win but think he faces a huge task and as a punter I am looking to lay him. I think I will be laying him to make the cut at 1/5 and also at evens to make the top 5. Surely he will be far too rusty and short of match practice to do himself justice and there must still be a few demons flying around his head.
 
Time for me to call a halt for proceedings today and to get ready for a stint in the booth today.
 
Always the Sun!

 
 
Today’s Selections

2.35 Aintree – Nafaath (each way 12/1 Bluesq)
 
5.30 Aintree – Ainama (each way 5/1 Victor Chandler)
 
4.20 Aintree – Stan (each way 33/1 Betfred)

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