What Does A Jump Fan Do In Summer? - PLOG (Punter's Blog) from Roy Waterhouse Steeplechasing

MY wallet, my binoculars, my coat and my thermals have been rested since May, which is usual for me. Good luck if you plough on and well done if you found Snoopy Loopy, but I need a break.

Not that I haven't been keeping my eye on things, and if you've stumbled on this piece and are at a loose end, perhaps you might be interested in my take on the pick of the Summer's action.

For purposes of this I'll tag the Pertemps Champion Hunter Chase (the Horse & Hound Cup) won by Harlov on to the beginning of the Summer jumping season, and it was very much a race for staying handicap chasers having an Indian Summer, the winner beating the one time high-class Take The Stand a neck.

The Perth Gold Cup on June 1st gave the first two in the Summer Plate, Brooklyn Brownie seeing out the 3m a mite better than Snoopy Loopy in the Scone Palace showpiece, but the Peter Bowen-trained gelding got his revenge at Market Rasen.

If there's been one Summer jumps race that's had a bearing on anything during the season-proper it's been the English Summer National at Uttoxeter, the race about which I'll always have my reservations - I want four-mile chases to stay in the calendar, but it's not the right thing to stage them when it's a hundred in the shade.

Hopes will be high, then, for Surface To Air in the Red Square Vodka Gold Cup - I put that up because Jurancon II won both races - and all other similar contests in the jump season proper. The former Flat stayer gave trainer Chris Bealby the biggest winner of his career so far, safe from two out and beating Out The Black by 13 lengths. He'll need to find a lot of improvement, though - he raced off 132 at Uttoxeter, and will probably be up to somewhere around 140 next time we see him. Jurancon was 122 at Uttoxeter and 136 at Haydock when winning those races in 2003/04.

So to the Raspberry, and the biggest jumping day of the Summer. Snoopy Loopy got his revenge on Brooklyn Brownie in the Summer Plate, although that didn't look likely for the first two miles of the 2m6f110y journey as he was taken off his feet chasing a strong pace. Going better after four out, he was shaken up before the next and survived hairy moments at the last two.

The last time we saw Katies Tuitor he was tailed off in the Swinton behind Blue Bajan, but an end-to-end gallop - lacking in the Haydock race - saw him resume winning ways off a steep 136-mark, and he may be a mite better than the result suggests, as at first glance it looked as though he lost his race before it even started when trotting out at the very back of the field as they filed out on to the course - as a result he raced last over the first three hurdles, but fair play to him as he passed the whole field.

In Ireland the best jumping action of the Summer, the Galway Plate and Hurdle, are still to come, but we may have seen credible clues for both. Emotional Article won a race called the Galway Plate Trial at Down Royal on June 22nd off 123, whilst former useful Flat performer Larkwing, who I liked a bit for the County Hurdle back in March off a mark of 141 but was a disappointing 16th to Silver Jaro, won his first jumps start since in the Grade 3 Grimes Hurdle at Tipperary on July 20th, beating Definate Spectacle by two and a half lengths.

Plenty of research and poring over old results, that's what. I'm still in the middle of it. I may be able to publish some of it on the website when mid-September comes around, but here are a few morsels to be getting on with...

- The influence of Strong Gale is still felt in jumping - he is the top damsire of NH Flat winners between October 2006 and May 2008 (excluding June, July and August 2007, as bumpers are at their weakest during those three months of the year);

- No winner of the Racing Post Chase since 2002 carried less than 11 stone, nor raced off a handicap mark of less than 143;

- Since May 2001, in four-runner jump races, you could have made a level-stakes profit betting blindly on horses with a starting price between and including 11/4 and 9/2.

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