BBOTD - Friday 15th Jan 2010

[Jimmy2shoes]

Kevin Ryan goes along to Lingfield park with his sole runner along with Phil Makin. He's been off now for over 100 days but he wont be your worst bet of the day. I do have a wee concern he's never been on the AW but we pays our money and takes our chance. He did run a good time at Ripon be it on the turf and anything near that could well put him in the picture today. Its his only runner on the card and should he take it you could also take some notice of his other sole runner at Wolverhampton, if you want it am sure youl find it. 4:00 Lingfield park - pelmanism 0.5 e/w bet Let them ride.

[Monterosso]

Re: BBOTD - Friday 15th Jan 2010 3:20 Musselburgh- Ballabrook - 1pts @ 13/2 (Bet365) This is a 3 mile handicap chase on very testing ground in which it may be smart to side with horses who stay well, handle conditions and don't carry too much weight. The first horse who caught my eye was the Donald McCain trained, Ballabrook. He comes here on the back of one of his better performances to date, when staying on very strongly from a long way back in a 3m 2f chase at Catterick back in December. That was on relatively good ground, which isn't ideal for this 9 year old stayer. Jason Maguire also gave him a very relaxed ride and didn't push the button until the race was lost, but when he did, the horse ate up the ground to finish a 12 length 3rd. I think a more positive ride will pave the way for this maiden chaser to get his first victory over the larger obstacles, having seen his only 2 career wins to date come over hurdles. Conditions today will be significantly more favourable and with a bit of luck, he should be bang in contention at the business end of proceedings. I can't see any chance of excessive pace here and that may just play into his hands, as he can guess at a few fences so jumping under less pressure will be in his favour. He's not the quickest horse in the world and usually I'd think a strong gallop would be ideal, but he ran on very well under little pressure last time out and a similar effort could suffice here, especially in ground as testing as this. Both of his hurdle wins came when the going had "soft" in it. One of those was in quite testing conditions at Catterick, where he ran out a relatively easy winner over 2m 3f, so he seems to have the toe at shorter distances on soft ground, which suggests to me that he could do it over 3m on the back of a slow gallop, plus he's unexposed at the trip having only went 3 miles or further on his last 2 starts, resulting in a 2nd and 3rd place. He'll also only carry 10st 10lbs, which will come in handy when the going gets though. Interestingly, Donald McCain is traveling nearly 500 miles to the course, just bringing Ballabrook with him, that's significant in my eyes and I believe they may have found the ideal race to get him off the mark. Maguire has a 20% strike rate over fences at Musselburgh and hasn't ridden here since February of last year, so I feel it's significant that he comes for just 2 rides, the other being a maiden who I wouldn't consider in with a great chance. I'll be having a small to medium win bet on this fellow at odds of 13/2 which are very tasty indeed. He's marked down as a fair 4/1 shot in my book and I expect the price will be closer to my expectations come race time.