Thursday racing summary

On the face of it, waiting for value prices would appear to have been the wrong decision today, and I'll explain what I mean in a second.

But first the good news - two win bets today, and Special Envoy was a very comfortable winner of a race the market priced remarkably well in our favour. I had Special Envoy down as an even money chance in my book, so to secure some value I suggested backing him if you could get 6/5 or better. 3/1 was freely available on the exchanges during the morning, and he was returned at 5/2 - still, I'm not complaining!

Now, back to the story of mis-fortune: in the 2m 4f handicap hurdle at Fontwell I wanted to get the favourite Swift Sailor beaten. My chosen horse to win the race was Pearly Star. The favourite was carrying 13lb more than when he last won in this class on Good ground. I thought he would find the weight too much to carry to victory in the Soft going today. I got the result spot on, but I'm sorry to say I got the pricing wrong. Swift Sailor was never available to lay at 11/4 and I was looking for 14/1 about Pearly Star before backing him.

However, even though this race had passed me by without a profit, I was still able to add 2 points to the account for the day.