Ettie Hart was allowed to run bravely at Brighton under Charles Bishop, but was pipped at the end to come fourth. What an exciting race it was, though, and we have a lot more English racing to come yet this week, despite having only six horses in training...
In complete contrast, we have just Trovao and Shine Tiara able to run from no less than 18 horses in Japan. I've been asked the question "why so many?" before, and it's easy enough to answer - if you don't have quite a few, you never see any action out here. Now, even with 11 NAR nags amongst them that usually run every month, I'm still not seeing any action. Had it not been for Oak Park (a special event for JLH Racing, which put a couple of races on hold), I'd have seen as many entries from the two Aussie horses as I've seen from the 18 here over the last couple of months! It really is an unacceptable situation, and I'm afraid it has put me off Japanese racing for good. Far too many full-blown injuries, too many niggles and slight injuries that cause seemingly endless delays, far too many unnecessary holidays, far too many excuses for failure whenever they do hit the track (it does happen occasionally), and way too much expense for no return of any kind, not even pleasure.
PS. Looks like War Chronicle has made it to Hakodate, meaning - wait for it - we may have three out of 18 Japanese horses actually doing something, including one JRA nag, and two NAR ones; more trouble for Rush Attack, by the way, although not surprised, as there always seems to be more injuries made at NF than cured. Meanwhile, Lillyput was sixth in an incredibly fast sprint at Bath (in England), her strong run deserving a better place at the end of the day.
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