McGoldrick Horse Racing Syndicate Yorkshire

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Becky the Thatcher…..Now UNBEATEN over hurdles !!

becky the thatcher

A fantastic headline its true, and I am so pleased that, at long last, Becky has got the number 1 showing against her form figures, but the circumstances still puzzle me.

In the race at Leicester for which she was originally entered, there were only FOUR entries, thus the race was re opened for 24 hours…..No further entries made.

Then Leicester announced it had abandoned the fixture due to ground conditions.

Shortly afterwards it was announced that the meeting had been hurriedly re arranged to take place on the same scheduled day at Musselburgh…so yet again the race was re opened for a further 24 hours which, amazingly, did not result in any further additions to the entries.

With a £4,500 + pot for the winner, I was gobsmacked !  ….but not complaining.

When the entries were eventually published I was even more gobsmacked.

WHY ?

Well, unlike some of my members within McGoldrick Racing, I do not class myself as a great student of form, but, without wishing in any way to be disrespectful to the three other horses in the race, these were their form figures

Horse 1…unplaced in six races on the flat ….  first hdle race 5th Nov 2016…. tailed off 5th of 6 at 100-1
Horse 2…. two hdl races so far ….4th June `16  p/u at 80-1  and 3rd  Nov `16   p/u at 250-1
Horse 3 …  also two hdl races so far …    July    P/U at 66-1..    15th Oct last of 5 at 33-1.
These, like Becky, are all 3yo fillies learning their job, so it wouldn`t have been too much of a surprise for one or more of them to be capable of showing improvement from the gaining of experience.
Nevertheless, to this untrained form student, it was a pretty ordinary sort of race for Becky to start her hurdling career with.
When the starters flag came down and the crawl started, watching on RUK from my home in Leeds, I quickly started shouting at the screen that “Hughsie” already with the first 4 winners under his belt, and seemingly on fire, young Finian O`Toole did not want to get into a cat n mouse game with a  far more experienced jockey than himself.
My worries continued right up until approaching the last hurdle when the older Irishman began to row away at his mount, whilst the younger, less experienced Irishman was sitting motionless, with seemingly plenty in hand.
An impressive jump at the last was just what was needed, and from then on, the result was never in doubt.
Success without recourse to the old shillelagh as well was a bonus, which was testimony to the confident way our jockey rode his race.
No doubt Timeform will say it was a poor quality race, and it would be difficult to argue the case, but Becky could do no more than win the contest, in which she was not asked any questions by her jockey, and the comment made after the race that she “enjoyed herself” should only help build her hurdling career from now on.
It was also extremely encouraging to watch how she hurdled during her first race in public, and I was most impressed in the home straight when they really began to race, how well she hurdled at speed. No hesitancy at all as she pinged them in the style of a young horse who has quite a bit of improvement in her.
Though she won`t find things as easy from now on.

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