Still Naff

Those JRA statistics we noted in the last post aren't going to improve any time soon, with "autumn" being cited for Belle Plage (months away), Perfumer is still "stiff" (it's never been any good anyway, and the chances of it improving keep reducing the longer it stays away from the track), while War Chronicle is injured yet again. Seriously, there is no option but to retire this horse, as it's ridiculously fragile, even compared to the other Japanese nags, which - even at the best of times - are more akin to Noritake ceramics than the Sheffield steel constitution of the UK beasts...

Another Door started well enough and quickly took up the pace, but ran out of steam big time at the end, finishing 0.5 seconds down on the winner and also in the final 3F stakes. An improvement? Well, we can say we saw some effort, which is an improvement of sorts, as none was seen in the first two outings, but the third was lucky - a few more yards and it would have been sixth place rather than third, and even the prize money for third spot doesn't cover a tenth of monthly running costs! We also have to remember (as you'll have guessed from the poxy pot) that this was a donkey derby level race, although we can take some heart from the fact that we would have won the sister race (the 2R) with our time. Ready for Nankan? Definitely not. Will it ever do well in Nankan racing? Probably not. Worth the 16,000,000 yen purchase price? Definitely not.

At least we have Masterson and The Jazz Singer tonight to give us some real entertainment, with the latter in a three-mile hurdle. We may also have some other UK runners in the week and over the weekend, but nothing confirmed as yet. We've also got All Rosie out in Australia tomorrow. Amazingly, we may have a couple of JRA runners, too - Larressingle at Sapporo on the 31st, and Infinity Love at Kokura on the following weekend; Another Door is due to go out again in a couple of weeks as well.

PS. The Jazz Singer picked up a few quid with a fourth place on ground that really didn't suit him. Indeed, I was forewarned that this was a training run as much as a competitive entry due to the very soft going. A few hours later, Masterson gave a typically brave performance, taking up the pace for most of the race, but tired at the end to come home a fighting sixth, less than three lengths down on the winner. Disaster in Oz after the starters screwed up the gate loading - the poor thing was sat in the stalls for that long, it couldn't focus and blew the start completely. In a sprint, that's the end of it before things even get rolling. At least we have Sayesse at Goodwood tomorrow...