PONTEFRACT HORSE RACING SYSTEM -- 2019 SEASON -- MEETING #14

PONTEFRACT SEASON 2019.

Welcome to our fourteenth meeting of the season on Thursday 26th September. 

1st race 2:15pm, gates open from around midday.

As the Summer draws to an end and the Autumn sets in, we wind down our season with four midweek race meetings where it’s all about the racing. We have two Thursday meetings in September and two Monday meetings in October and the second of the All About the Racing Racedays is held at Pontefract Racecourse on Thursday 26th September. With just shy of 2 months left in the 2019 flat calendar, trainers are looking to finish their horses’ campaigns off so expect plenty of competitive racing and exciting finishes!

On Thursday there are 7 exciting races on the card getting underway at 2:15pm. The highlight on the day is the Simon Scrope Dalby Screw-Driver Handicap [4:00pm]. Back in the 19th century, 'Screw Driver' grabbed the hearts of the Ponte public and got their pulses racing. He won 2 Cup races which consisted of four heats over 2 miles on the same day with the winner being the horse with the best aggregate score over the 8 miles! He is also the earliest Pontefract course specialist on record! The highly talented Francis Xavier (below) was a classy winner of the 2019 renewal – he took on Elarqam and co first time out this year but got off the mark in 2019 when winning at Ascot earlier in the month.

There’s a strong supporting card with something for everyone, even had a 100-1 winner of the opening 2yo maiden last year when 'Our Rodney' popped in for trainer Donald McCain jnr.

ALL of our results for these fixtures are recorded to a level stake at Starting Price (SP), and will also show any forecast results too in the daily results but these do not count for the profit / loss figures. We arrive here on the back of a small loss last time which does mean we are still trailing on -39.90 points to SP as we come into the fourteenth meeting and are now heading towards to final few 'furlongs' of the season. The forecast going is now currently reported as 'Good to Firm, Good in places' and our weather for Thursday afternoon is for a generally warm day with plenty of humidity and a good chance of some light rain showers and we've a forecast maximum temperature around the 19C mark.

A link to this afternoon's race card can be found here

Here are our selections for the seven races on Thursday afternoon, remember it's a very simple selection process using stalls one and two in every race;

14:15 6f Maiden Stakes (2yo).
(1) -- ALBEN SPIRIT  [WON 7/4f].
(2) -- CAPTAIN CORELLI  [3rd 25/1].

14:50 1m 6y Fillies Nursery Handicap (2yo).
(1) -- WALKONBY  [WON 2/1f].
(2) -- HIGH FLYING BIRD  [2nd 3/1].

15:25 6f Handicap.
(1) -- MR ORANGE  [6th 7/1].
(2) -- REFLEKTOR  [Non Runner].

16:00 1m 2f 5y Handicap.
(1) -- AWAKE MY SOUL  [].
(2) -- AYUTTHAYA  [WON 10/11f].

16:35 1m 6y Novice Stakes (2yo).
(1) -- BRINGITONBORIS  [5th 14/1].
(2) -- JERVAULX  [Non Runner].

17:05 5f 3y Handicap.
(1) -- SHEEPSCAR LAD  [3rd 5/2].
(2) -- JOHNNY CAVAGIN  [5th 7/2].

17:40 1m 4f 5y Apprentice Handicap.
(1) -- QASR  [Non Runner].
(2) -- DANCE KING  [3rd 5/1].

Staked -- 14 points.
Returns -- 10.66 points.

As we reach the conclusion of the 2019 season it's been a sad story of chasing our losses, while the selections are out of our hands with this system we are on a deficit of -39.90 coming into our fourteenth meeting today with just another two meetings to follow this. A loss of -3.34 points today so we have a deficit of -43.24 overall.

Our next meeting here will be held on MONDAY 7th OCTOBER so we really hope you will stick with us till the end of the season.

KEMPTON PARK RACES 2019 -- WEDNESDAY NIGHTS #22 25th September

Continuing with the next instalment of what I hope will prove to be a more productive second half to the year throughout 2019.

We are reaching the end September now and the year is running away with us at a furious pace, my friends are preparing their Halloween material already and before we know it Christmas will be upon us. We might have lost the Ashes but did draw the series 2-2 so if we can work out a way to injure Steve Smith we might be fine down under with a decent bowling attack of Anderson, Broad and Archer. While last weekend was another disappointing result when my team AFC Wimbledon took on Bristol Rovers at home and lost 3-1 having once again taken the lead in the first half. 

Managed to have back to back winning evenings at the last three meetings here and will continue to focus on the all weather horse racing now while the lights still shine brightly here at Kempton Park throughout this year. We are hopeful of better season than we experienced last year but it's just some fun and excitement to mix up the week we have found it hard and are more than a little behind to SP though it's something I will keep persevering with through to the end of the year. 

Let us continue with this our twenty second Wednesday night of 2019, and will continue to focus on the handicap contests for each Wednesday evening meeting though we will also occasionally include a feature listed or conditions event too if there is one available. Keeping records of our endeavours to a 1 point level stake at SP, naturally we will personally be looking to get better odds than this but for the purpose of these results here we simply record SP returns only. Following our last meeting the deficit is currently on -34.105 points to SP returns overall. We continue to battle hard to reduce this and thankfully there is still plenty of time to get this back on track. 

Throughout the year we will keep up with our occasional lay opportunities of anticipated short priced favourites too. Naturally we will keep these results separately from the handicap figures we have been fairly successful with our selections so far and last time got another pair of favourite selection beaten which means we are now 24/34 we will continue with this through 2019.

This Wednesday will be meeting number twenty two for the 2019 AW season and we are expecting an eight race card tonight we have four handicaps to review which should keep us plenty busy enough. The action which will now commence at 17:00 with a division one of the six furlong maiden event and the card ends around about 20:30 with our final handicap contest again over the six furlong trip.

Here's a link to this Wednesday's race card; RACECARD


Going and Weather -- The going on the polytrack surface is described as 'standard to slow' and the current weather forecast for this Wednesday is for a lot of cloudy weather with several showers expected too so wrap up and keep under cover if you can the top temperature around 20C by the time the meeting gets underway.

Here are our handicap selections for tonight;

19:00 -- 1m Handicap (3yo).

Our opening handicap doesn't take place till half the card is complete and sees a field of fourteen 3yo's line up for the mile trip. Wide open event according to the betting which shows as 4/1 the field, will take a couple of previous course winners against the rest and that's COMEONEFEELTHEFORCE [2nd 14/1] with 5lb claimer Thore Hammer Hansen in the saddle, and DANCING JO [Unseated Rider 7/1] who has the assistance of Andrea Atzeni tonight. The former named filly is up in the weights but that is offset in the main by the riders allowance.

19:30 -- 1m 2f 219y Handicap (3yo).
A disappointing field of only five for this event, and while all five seem to have a chance the likely favourite is Roger Varian's EMIRATES KNIGHT already a course and distance winner and will be respected. Given the small field and possible false pace it might pay to take the two outsiders in this which would most likely be BABBO'S BOY [2nd 12/1] (M Bell) and MIDNIGHT'S GIFT [4th 14/1] (A King) against the rest.

20:00 -- 1m 3f 219y Handicap.

A field of ten here for the mid distance contest, headed by UNIT OF ASSESSMENT [5th 9/1] who is a course and distance winner with a trainer in form and in Adam Kirby a jockey who has four AW wins on this selection priced up at 12/1 looks a good win/place option. Along with SIR PRIZE [2nd 3/1] who is a multiple course winner and while going up in the weights as a result is still in good heart and could still have more to come.

20:30 -- 6f Handicap.

Our finale tonight is a six furlong sprint, a dozen declared headed by MY TOWN CHICAGO another for the claimer Thore Hammer Hansen, his claim brings this on into the reckoning while one we would fancy if this race was run at Chelmsford would be MAGICINTHEMAKING. Our pair of selections against the field tonight are both forecast at double figure prices, are drawn 1 and 12, and aged 10 and 3 respectively so good luck to both KINGLAMI / ON ROUTE in the lucky last.

Staked -- 8 points.

Returns -- 0 points.

Results will appear here later during Wednesday evening. After another good meeting last time we did make a small reduction in our deficit now down to -34.105 points to SP returns for the season. Now only three more months of the season to go and we will end up with an additional meeting here for the King George Chase on Boxing Day.

LAYS -- 24/34. Another pair of successful lay bets last time around and will see if we can find one or two short priced selections to post here if we have any for tonight. Two of the three lays beat, so 26/37 now. 

Tonight's Lays;

17:30 - DANCE FEVER [6f 2yo Novice] Won 5/6F
18:00 - JEAN BAPTISTE [7f 2you Novice] LOST 2nd 9/4
18:30 - INFORMED FRONT [1m 3yo Novice] LOST 2nd 4/9F.

Our twenty third meeting for this year will be held on Wednesday 2nd October so hope to see you then and throughout the rest of 2019 too.

AFC WIMBLEDON v BRISTOL ROVERS LEAGUE ONE SATURDAY 21st SEPTEMBER 2019

This is our next home game of the season and disappointing to say we still looking for our first victory of the season after the midweek injury time defeat 2-1 against Coventry City still painful in the memory (their winner was 5 mins into stoppage time). While it is still a long way to go it's a bit of a worry with us having to rely on other teams being worse than us already (Southend, Bolton). So forwards we go and this Saturday we will be hosting Bristol Rovers at Kingsmeadow, with plenty of hope and maybe just maybe that first win is close. Get behind the lads and expecting more goals from the on loan Marcus Forss especially if he can form a partnership with Joe Pigott.

FORM GUIDE 
(Last 6 matches from last season in their respective leagues, starting with most recent)
AFC Wimbledon -- LDLDLL
Bristol Rovers -- DWDLWW

LAST TIME OUT
Coventry City 2 - 1 AFC Wimbledon
Bristol Rovers 1 - 1 Gillingham

While we were getting beat 2-1 by Coventry in Birmingham on Tuesday night, Bristol Rovers were grinding out a 1-1 draw at home against Gillingham. This result places Rovers currently in 12th position comfortably mid table on 12 points and will be looking upwards towards the playoff places if they can gain a victory at Kingsmeadow today. Tyler Smith on loan from Sheffield United scored during mid week his first in four appearances for the 'Gas', and his strike partner Jonson Clarke-Harris has five goals in seven so far this season.

Line Ups (Confirmed);

AFC WIMBLEDON

Odds -- 2/1 (William Hill) 

Trott (GK),  Thomas,  Delaney,  Nightingale (c),  O'Neill,  Wagstaff,  Hartigan,  Reilly,  Guinness-Walker, ⚽   Forss,   Folivi

Subs – Tzanev (GK),  Roscrow,  Osew,  Appiah,  Pigott,  Wordsworth,  Sanders

BRISTOL ROVERS
Odds --  6/4 (William Hill) 

Jaakkola (GK),  Davies,  ⚽Craig,  Kilgour,  Rodman,  Sercombe,  Upson,  ⚽Ogogo,  Leahy,  Nichols, ⚽Clarke-Harris 

Subs – Van Stappershoef (Gk),  Smith,  Kelly,  Menayese,  Bennett,  Hargreaves,  Adeboyejo

  

Selected Bets on today's match;

First Goalscorer - 

Tyler Smith (@13/2) or Marcus Forss (@11/2) YES!!

Penalty Award and Scored  @4/1

⚽H/T Score – 1 - 1 [Forss 20']   [Ogogo 29']

First Half Comment;

Bristol kick us off and we underway under bright sunshine at Kingsmeadow, and the Dons start on the front foot attacking well and winning the opening corner and the first shot on target too (small victories). And it happens, Marcus Forss scores again and in doing so secures us the 1st goalscorer bet too, he's also booked for the celebration too which is a shame but good to see a player inform and happy to show it off. A great shot from outside the box, nestles in the top corner and we are 1-0 to the good, suspect we need another but it's a decent start from us. Typically it was time for Rovers to put they foot down and didn't take them too long to equalise when Abu Agogo buries a header from a cross by Tom Nichols and we are all square again. Managed to hang on till half time but with Southend and winning we really do need this first win so look forward to the second half.

⚽F/T Score – 1 - 3

Match Summary;
A game that saw Marcus Forss score then get sent off in the second half, will miss him, then we collapsed to a 1-3 loss, all headers and it's looking dire already and we still only in September. Am really lost for words now and bit fed up with the same old excuses from the management team, so will just leave it here and move on.   

My Man of the Match – Michael Folivi.

Referee -- Our referee today will be MR NICHOLAS KINSELEY from Essex, who took charge of our 1-0 win at Gillingham last season so a repeat of that would be nice. Averages about three cards a game, not many reds so lets get stuck in lads. Will be ably assisted by Christopher Kidd and Alasdair Ross.

Attendance – 4,268.  

Next match:
Saturday 28th September vs Peterborough United (Away)
League One 3:00pm 

PONTEFRACT HORSE RACING SYSTEM -- 2019 SEASON -- MEETING #13

PONTEFRACT SEASON 2019.

Welcome to our thirteenth meeting of the season on Thursday 19th September. 

1st race 2:10pm, gates open from around midday.

As the Summer draws to an end and the Autumn sets in, we wind down our season with four midweek race meetings where it’s all about the racing. We have two Thursday meetings in September and two Monday meetings in October and we kick off on Thursday 19th September.

There’s some great action on track with seven fantastic races lined up. The feature of the day is the EBF Premier Fillies’ Handicap Stakes off at 15:40 for a £30,000 prize, sponsored by Oxfordshire based Elkington Stud who are supporting the charity Racing to School. Last year’s feature was won by 8/1 shot Maid In India for Rachael Richardson and Eric Alston. Since that victory, all of Maid In India’s subsequent runs have been in Listed races, winning one of them. Napoleons Casino Bradford sponsor several races over the season here at Ponte and they sponsor the first race, the Median Auction Maiden Stakes [14:10] over 5 furlongs. Last year’s winner of this race was ridden by Joe Fanning, who recently passed 2,500 career winners! Neighbouring, Pontefract and District Golf Club sponsor the third race on the card, for three-year-olds and older. Yorkshire based trainer Roger Fell claimed a 1-2 in the same race last year with Daawy beating stablemate Mulligatawny by ½ length. The second race on the card is named after the late Matty Bown, former Head groundsman at Pontefract Racecourse.

The fourth race on the card is run over 2m1f and named after Sharon Watt’s, Madam Lilibet (right), who ran here an incredible 24 times, winning three. The ten-year-old competed in the Stayers Championship Series on a number of occasions and was renowned for her quirkiness. She was just as likely to pull herself up as she was to win, including back in October 2017 at Ponte when she initially refused to leave the parade ring before putting up a startling performance to beat her rivals. The Maiden Stakes over 1m4f is the penultimate race of the day [16:40] and is sponsored in honour of Paul Harratt. Our final race of the day is sponsored by Racing TV and is for Apprentice jockeys. This race last year was won by course specialist Round The Island who has four Ponte wins to his name.

ALL of our results for these fixtures are recorded to a level stake at Starting Price (SP), and will also show any forecast results too in the daily results but these do not count for the profit / loss figures. We arrive here on the back of a small loss last time which does mean we are still trailing on -38.775 points to SP as we come into the thirteenth meeting and are now heading towards to final few 'furlongs' of the season. The forecast going is now currently reported as 'Good to firm' and our weather for Thursday afternoon is for a generally dry but cloudy day we've a forecast maximum temperature around the 21C mark.

A link to this afternoon's race card can be found here

Here are our selections for the seven races on Thursday afternoon, remember it's a very simple selection process using stalls one and two in every race;

14:10 5f 3y Maiden Stakes (2yo).
(1) -- JOSHUA R  [4th 7/2].
(2) -- SASSY LASSY  [8th 40/1].

14:40 1m 6y Handicap.
(1) -- HAMMER GUN  [WON 11/8f].
(2) -- AMOR FATI  [6th 13/2].

15:10 1m 2f 5y Handicap.
(1) -- GLASSES UP  [3rd 15/8f].
(2) -- RAILPORT DOLLY  [7th 5/2].

15:40 6f Fillies Handicap.
(1) -- ZIP ALONG  [6th 9/2].
(2) -- ENCHANTED LINDA  [9th 20/1].

16:10 2m 1f 27y Madam Lilibet Handicap.
(1) -- MR SMITH  [Non Runner].
(2) -- RUBENESQUE  [WON 6/1]. 

16:40 1m 4f 5y Maiden Stakes.
(1) -- PIANISSIMO  [2nd 6/4jf].
(2) -- BALLYLEMON  [WON 6/4jf].

17:10 6f Apprentice Handicap.
(1) -- ECHO OF LIGHTNING  [8th 7/1].
(2) -- PENNY POT LANE  [4th 7/2].

Staked -- 14 points.
Returns -- 12.875 points.

Having started the 2019 season afresh, we fell behind early on and have been trying to catch up since. Currently showing a deficit of -38.775 coming into our thirteenth meeting today with just another three meetings to follow this. Three winners today but still a small loss of -1.125 which takes us to -39.90 overall 

The next meeting here will be held on Thursday 26th September so we really hope you will stick with us till the end of the season.

AFC WIMBLEDON v SHREWSBURY TOWN LEAGUE ONE SATURDAY 14th SEPTEMBER 2019

Our next home game of the 2019/20 season and very sadly we are still looking for our first victory of the season after a very disappointing result losing 2-1 last time out against a team we will not name here. Still in the bottom three as a result only Bolton on their -11 points and Southend (0 points!) who amazingly seem to be even worse than us right now and have since sacked their latest manager. It's really time for a Dons win, yes we CAN do this but it's becoming very frustrating to say the least. At least midweek the development team had a 4-2 win against Swindon a game that included Anthony Wordsworth playing his first comeback so positive signs there. 

Expecting to see some of the new loan signings start and rightly so, the likes of Marcus Forss who is here from Brentford and this Finland U21 International has already scored his first goal for us so 'more please Marcus'. 

FORM GUIDE 
(Last 6 matches from last season in their respective leagues, starting with most recent)
AFC Wimbledon -- LDLLDL
Shrewsbury Town -- LDWDLL

LAST TIME OUT
Franchise FC 2 - 1 AFC Wimbledon
Ipswich Town 3 - 0 Shrewsbury Town

While we were losing 2-1, Shrewsbury themselves were on the wrong end of a result losing 0-3 at Ipswich Town. So they are currently sitting in 14th position in the early league one table and with 8 points so far you would expect them to be looking upwards while playing a side in the bottom three. They've recently signed a couple of higher profile players and in Jason Cummings a striker likely to cause our defence some problems if we are not too careful. Shrews manager Sam Ricketts is not to be underestimated and certain to have done his homework on the Dons before today.

Line Ups (Confirmed);

AFC WIMBLEDON

Odds -- 2/1 (William Hill) 

Trott (GK),  Delaney,  Kalambayi,  Nightingale (c),  O'Neill,  Wagstaff,  Hartigan,  Reilly,   Guinness-Walker,  Forss,  Pigott

Subs – Tzanev (GK),  Appiah,  Roscrow,  Rudoni,  Folivi,  Sanders,  Osew

SHREWSBURY TOWN

Odds --  15/8 (William Hill) 

O'Leary (Gk),  Love,  Williams,  Ebanks-Landell,  Pierre,  Giles,  Norburn,  Goss,  Laurent,  Udoh,  Lang

Subs – Murphy (Gk),  Beckles,  Walker,  McCormick,  Barnett,  Morison, ⚽ Cummings

  

Selected Bets on this event;

Over 1.5 goals in 1st Half @5/2
Penalty Awarded and Scored @4/1
Cards Over 45 points @5/2
Red Card in the match @9/2

⚽H/T Score – 1 - 0 [Ebanks-Landell 31' OG]

First Half Comment;

The visitors kick off this afternoon and we are underway at Kingsmeadow, and are quickly on the attacking winning a couple of early corners which the Dons manage to cope with. Marcus Forss seems to be linking up well with Joe Piggot and has a chance saved by the Shrews keeper, still level in an open game with twenty mins on the clock. A few more chances to break the deadlock but on 31 minutes it's an own goal by Ethan Ebanks-Landell that gives AFC Wimbledon the 1-0 lead. Hopefully this will lead to more as one will not be enough, and we are having plenty of attacking intent which I hope will continue into the second half...come on you Dons.

⚽F/T Score – 1 - 1 [Ebanks-Landell 31' og    Cummings 73']

Match Summary;

Knowing we cannot defend a lead it was no surprise to me that we conceded the equaliser, which puts us back into the bottom three and still waiting for our first win in the league.

My Man of the Match – Marcus Forss.

Referee -- Our referee for this important League One fixture will be Graham Salisbury who hails from Lancashire so I'm sure he'll be pleased of the long drive/train down to West London on the weekend. He took charge of only one game of ours last season the 1-1 draw with Bristol Rovers, and a 1-0 win the previous campaign against Northampton. Overall looks to flash the cards around and regularly sending people off so I think we'll have a bet in those markets today.

Attendance – 4,084.  

Next match:

Tuesday 17th September vs Coventry City (Away)

League One 19:45pm