Judge and Jury

We've only had 3 runners this week but 2 of them have been involved in a tight photo finish. Unfortunately they weren't in a finish for the winners spot but it is still good to see them in with a shout. The bad news is both of them lost out, Attain (below) had to settle for 4th and Spirit of Sharjah over in Dubai settled for 3rd. Although having received the print for Attain's finish I'm inclined to think the judge may have forgotten his glasses on this occasion.

Attain was making his racecourse debut and we were very impressed by how he ran, he kept a cool head in the stalls when the favourite went underneath the front, and was subsequently withdrawn and ran a game race to just get pipped on the line, it may not turn out to be a bad maiden either seeing as the winner is entered in the Derby! He also behaved himself in the preliminaries aswell, its probably more important to give the first timers a good experience before the race then it is during. Alot of the time you will see horses reacting badly to all the people, the sounds and if the jockey has a light weight they sometimes do not react well to having a small saddle on their backs as they're used to big exercise ones. Also that day was Canning Vale out to improve on her handicap debut, however they went no pace and when Adam Kirby is infront you know your in trouble so the filly was run off her feet in the last stages and with the track being so tight aswell she had no chance on the turn for home.

Spirit of Sharjah ran that day too but in more exotic surroundings again at Meydan. He was settled in rear and made stealthy progress on the outer to be fast finishing and just miss out on second and a length away from the first spot. It's nice to see him getting competitive now and should be picking up a race sooner rather than later. There is another race next Thursday back at the track so hopefully that will be his day.

Next week Sail Home will be out at Kempton on Tuesday, she's been slowly coming back to form and it looks a winnable race so she would have each- way claims and Blackmore will go to Kempton on Thursday. After a luckless passage last time running on into second he surely will get us off that cold trainers list.