RUNNING HARD 

Courtesy Carrot Club

Three Carrot Club horses were running today. We may as well get the bad news out of the way first, and that's the disappointing ninth place for Mosto Verde (pictured here) and Maruyama Genki. After an amazing start, I'm wondering what it's going to take to get this horse to run well, short of a rocket stuck somewhere painful, close to his tail! This is his worst result so far from three races...

Next we can record a sixth place for 'Little Miss Consistent', otherwise known as Lourdes No Hitomi. She was seventh in her first 1600m dirt outing, and the same in her next race at 1800m. When she moved up to 2100m on dirt, she was fifth, then sixth, and now sixth again - like I said, consistent to say the least. But it's probably time for some fresh thinking, I'd have thought, to at least give the horse a chance at finishing in the frame - today, she was a long way off the pace in reality.

Finishing on a high note, it's nice to record a fourth for Belle Plage on her debut. Okay, it would have been better to have had a Win-Place-Show finish, but I'm quite confident they will come in the near future, as this is a really good horse. She came out the gate like a rocket, held her ground nicely, and looked the part at the finish, too - the top four all came within a length of each other, so it was a close call. According to the jockey, had he got the line the winning horse took, she'd have won, but she was pinned against the fence in heavy ground that doesn't suit her. As it happens, you can see her race within the JRA website and judge things for yourself.

With Tenshinramman, Miracle Rouge, True Motion and Belle Plage all charging hard, plus Harmony Fair as a past winner, the fillies are showing some real pace in the Long camp!