The Swinton

The profile for the usual Swinton winner is pretty much cast in stone,young,inexperienced hurdler with solid ex flat form lurking around the 10 stone mark.Three or four of them in todays field but theres a horse towards the top of the weights that if you forgive him his last run then he has form in the book that is STONES above any of these.Petit Robin feels as though hes been around forever but hes only had sixteen starts and only four of those have been over timber,so for all that hes a nine year old hes still unexposed over the smaller stuff.He cant have been totally straightforward to train,his racecourse appearances tell you that,well spaced out over his whole career but when he has made it to the races in shape then hes performed with massive credit against some of the very best two milers in the past thirty years.Second in two Victor Chandlers behind Master Minded and Twist Magic respectively and a super game third in the Queen Mother behind the former of those two.At his best he was a genuine 165 rated performer,hes in today off 141 less young Mcgraths 5lb claim,in effect 136,thats a 29lb lower mark than when at his absolute peak,okay in the past two seasons his form has taken a dip and hes only run to around the 150 mark but this still represents a huge drop in the weights.He has a 10lb pull with Dream Esteem on their Newbury run,which is starting to work out pretty well with the winner,Gibb River having gone in again.His last effort was a feable attempt but it may have been the dreaded "bounce" as it was his second run back after 14 months off.Theres no getting away from the fact that this race is lacking in quality,this isnt a vintage renewal by previous standards,Petit Robin was almost top quality in his heyday,he still has some left in him and off this mark and at the prices available,around 25s,he is just screaming to be backed.

Im no sore loser wher betting is concerned,if your afraid of losing you shouldnt bet and i also think its all to easy to lay blame for failures squarely on a jockeys shouldrs but on this occasion i have to say that Jeremiah McGrath was next door to useless on Petit Robin,if he'd set out to give it a no chance ride then he couldnt have carried it out better,he was the original 11stone deadweight.Slowly away,trapped on the inside all the way round then not asked for any sort of effort until halfway up the run in the horse answered for him and stayed on very strongly to snatch a real eyecatching fifth.The cats out of the bag with Petit Robin now,all the racewatchers will have picked him up,hes thrown in off his current hurdles mark and today WAS the day,he should have been placed at the absolute worst.Not happy.

Just watched the race again this morning,in the hope that a nights rest might have cooled me down but the more i look at it the worse it gets.The rules of racing state that a jockey must ride to obtain the best possible finishing position,if in finishing fifth Petit Robin was ridden to obtain his best possible position then im The Pope and the Moon is made of broccoli and cheese.In the whole race the clown who rode him resorted to three or four token flicks of the stick and a few shakes at the reins,not for one minute am i saying that he should have flogged the skin off its backside,what i am saying is that this horse should have been given some semblance of a chance instead of been given absolutely no chance.Ask any level headed punter,yes they do exsist honestly,i reckon im one of the very best for being straight down the middle,and they will tell you that as long as their choice is at least given a chance,no matter how fleeting ,then they can except defeat and move on but when your choice isnt given a chance at all then thats a very bitter taste to swallow.Im amazed that none of the racing press has picked up on it,this was as close to a Rule 151 as ive seen in a long while,in fact ive seen more effort made on horses that ended up getting done under the aforementioned rule.Im no bad loser but when your hard earned may as well have been flushed down the nearest trap then it does get the juices flowing.Jeremiah McGrath now goes on my list as a 10lb penalty regardless of what he rides,a list that also includes Jamie Spencer,Richard Hughes,Frankie Dettori and Timmy Murphy.