Horses for Sale
Seymourjohn (GB)
- Saturday, 15 September 2012 07:20
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
There are five flat meetings taking place on these shores this afternoon at Doncaster, Chester, Bath, Newcastle and Kempton, not to mention a good card in Ireland at the Curragh. Of course, all eyes will be on Doncaster as Camelot bids for his place in history as the first Triple Crown winnner since Nijinsky in 1970. Aidan O'Brien's star three year old is a best-priced 4/9 chance to manage the feat and in the process pick up first prize money of over £311,000. There are only nine runners and the sixth home will pick up nearly £7,500...while I agree that the best races should be awarded the best prize money, it does make me wonder whether the entire scale is a little top heavy? Looking through some of the owners with runners in the Leger, I don't think that messrs Smith, Magnier, Tabor, Niarchos, Nielsen, Strawbridge, Sir Robert Ogden or Godolphin will be out on the streets if they don't win the season's final Classic. I just feel for some of the jump owners who find it hard to keep just one horse in training and are competing for £1,600 first prize money. I know some of you will point to the fact that they are privileged to have a horse in the first place, but remember this, these small owners are keeping stable staff in jobs too...I will now get off my soap box!
Talking of Camelot, I see that Hills are offering even money to the first 5,000 people who want to back him on-line, in their shops or on your mobile...the trouble is, you can only get £25 per customers. Most bookmakers offer the best odds guaranteed concession, but they call this priority price - it looks to me as though even the bookies are struggling to get your money.
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The QPR versus Chelseas match of the non-handshakes should certainly make interesting viewing. There could certainly be some tasty tackling flying about - Chelsea are a top-price of 10/11. It all looks a bit easy this weekend with a number of short-priced favourites to put in accumulators with them: Arsenal, Manchester United, Bournemouth and Sheffield United - unfortunately, things don't always work out that way!
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I went down to St Ives in Cornwall yesterday for the very first time and I would strongly recommend it to anyone. The beaches are magnificent and go on for miles (we could hold our own version of Laytown races on them!) and the sea is crystal clear. I understand that the only trouble is that it can get very busy during the holiday season.