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.