calling The Anorak

hope Jason behaves post race

done well this year - unfortunate blip in post race wolvs?

he has Deltâ, i think they have given him a couple more.

my mate Dougie has splashed the cash again  Deltâ , sole owner this time. they are desperate to find him a really good one.

Here's some info about the course - the map looks like three Fontwells tangled up by a drunk:

http://www.lescourseshippiques.com/hippodrome/471/craon.html

I'll take a look at those races and get back to you in the morning.

yes Deltâ

aye i did say that to him

THEMAXWECAN
23/1/2016
Bay colt
Maxios
Psychometry

early!

cheers KIW , saw pictures of the Epaulette filly she is a big beast for this stage of her life

have you joined Crottley classic k i w?

thread up earlier

Morning Dealer,

The 2-y-old race this afternoon, like a lot of French 2-y-old races this season, has 50% British based runners. Best of those is likely to be Julius Limbani (Archie Watson), who has twice run 4th in Listed races in France and both of those were better races than this. He doesn't have a handicap rating here, but the French have him on approx 94, which is 7lbs or more ahead of all but one of these. The other contender is the filly Early Time, winner of her first two starts over 7F, then 4th in a 6F Listed race - all those races at provincial tracks. The step up in trip should suit her, and her French rating is a pound higher than Julius Limbani. Wee Jim will need to improve about a stone on what he's shown so far to be competitive with those two. Bazire is a run of the mill jockey, most often seen in claimers and low grade handicaps riding for the brothers A+G Botti.

The 12F race on Monday looks a lot more competitive and all the seven French runners are rated 90+, so hard to see Maifalki making much of an impact. Badel is a good quality rider, 43 winners this year, and also won a Listed race at Kempton back in April. Highest rated in this field is the 5-y-old Alignement, a winner over 10F at Maisons Lafitte and Longchamp before being outclassed in a Group 3 at Deauville. The trip is a potential problem for him - he ran below his best in the Grand Prix de Cagnes Sur Mer over 2,500 metres earlier this year. My preference would be the only 3-y-old, French Risk, a three time winner this year, twice over this trip, including the Swiss Derby. He ran a respectable third in a Listed race at Vichy last time and that form looks as good as anything in this field.

Here's a link to a good film of the 2016 running of the 12F race that shows what the course is like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2am3dKlmRw8

You'll be able to view a reurn of the races this weekend on that site I mentioned earlier - click the link 'Toutes Les Videos' and give the course and date you want to watch.

No problem - glad you pointed out the Listed races as I might have missed them. Tend to think of Craon as a jumping centre and in fact the biggest prize money on offer during this three day meeting is for a Listed 3M 6F cross country race tomorrow, which has total money of 75,000 euros. The French tracks to the west of Paris are all very keen on their cross country chases and they get bigger crowds for them than Longchamp or Chantilly usually manage.

The whole finanical strucgture over there is totally different to what we're used to. Most races below Listed/Group level there is no entry fee - the jockeys riding fee is only payable if the horse is out of the money and it's much lower than ours anyway - every horse trained in France has an annual 3000 euro transport allowance for trips to the races paid by the racing authority - and as you rightly point out, admission charges are negligible.

I've followed the career of a horse called Montesquieu (I tried to persuade a couple of trainers to buy him out of a claimer when he was a 3-y-old). He's now an 8-y-old, has run 96 times and won 15 of them, all in claimers and handicaps. He never reached a handicap rating higher than 81 in his career. But including the owners premiums paid to locally trained horses, he's collected 431,000 euros in prize money.

I reckon a horse with that rating here would have to win at least 50 races to match that total!

i only read the RP report but seems like WEE JIM ran a strange race or was given a poor ride?

i tried that link dealer but failed miserably(computers and french not my strong point)

I've downloaded it from Equidia, here's a link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qtCiDpohGWxFnUboUn0HtjFoIp3fjfcA

Odd race all round, run at a much quicker early pace than normal in France, winner came from pretty much last to first, but they still all finished in a heap. Wee Jim certainly not given a good ride, although he didn't look to be helping the jockey much either.

Some decent, knowledgeable posters on this thread, WD guys.

His price on the French Tote was 7.8/1.