Wednesday, 7 December 2016

KEMPTON PARK RACES 2016 -- WEDNESDAY NIGHTS #38 7th DECEMBER

Found ourselves in December now and the final month for 2016 will see us end up at Kempton on Boxing Day for the King George meeting which will be the only one not on a Wednesday night, but it's a big one and seems right to finish 2016 with a decent card. This is our 38th meeting of the season and we continue to keep ourselves in front. Add that to the success of the season long "lay bets" too which has been impressive given they are generally short price favourites.

The fact that our results are declared to SP I think it's clear we would be much further ahead to advanced prices. We crack on with our regular Wednesday nights at Kempton all the way through until the years end. The season has seen us ebb and flow, last week we failed to find a winner and thus had to suffer a small loss which has reduced our profit down to just
+14.01 points. All being equal we can find some more winners and now continue through into the turn of the year.



As always our focus will be on the handicap contests for each meeting but will occasionally include a feature listed or conditions event too. Keeping records of our endeavors to a 1pt level stake at SP, naturally we will personally be looking to get better odds but for the purpose of the results we record to SP.


We will also keep up with our occasional lay opportunity of short priced favourites, we failed with our last LAY bet [we've only had three failures all season] which isn't bad when most are short prices as a result we have a success rate of 17 from 20. Results for this will be kept separately too and hopefully we can remain at +85% for the rest of the year.

This week there's another eight race card on offer, we have only the three handicap contests to review and tonight's action will commence at 15:45 with a 6f Maiden contest.
 




Here is a link to this weeks race card; EVENING RACE CARD








The going on the polytrack surface is described as Standard and the current weather forecast is for a dry day with a max temperature of above average 13C when the meeting gets underway and remain cold but dry during the evening. The weather is predictable for Winter is upon us now and it's time to get the gloves and jumpers out, and it'll be time for the King George meeting too in a month.

Here are our selections for this evening's handicap races;


18:15 -- 7f Handicap (3yo).
Our handicaps come at the end of an eight race card dominated by maiden events, but that's not unusual at the end of the year where more horses are trying to drop their maiden tag within the season. 


So just the field of 9 declared for this event limited to three year olds, both MUSIC MAJOR [3rd 5/2] and GARTER [2nd 4/1] have the best available form here and it would be a surprise if they are not fighting out the finish.

18:45 -- 1m 3f Handicap.
Big field for this competitive event, hard to know which of the three joint top weights will fare best but can get them all beat with INNISCASTLE LAD [8th 7/1] a 4yo who has won 5 contests including one on the AW (Lingfield). Pair that one with DAISY BERE [Non Runner] who won her maiden at Southwell at 66/1 and has since been on the AW at Newcastle, could be a good price again here tonight.

19:15 -- 2m Handicap.
We conclude tonight's action with a stayers event over the two miles and with 13 declared they should make it a decent pace. Top weight ALBERTA [12th 25/1] 
has been tried over hurdles and staying flat races with mixed success, could be worth another try on the flat having won at Epsom earlier in the year. 

The other interesting one is towards the bottom of the weights and that is BRACKEN BRAE [6th 20/1] who was staying on to win over 1m 5f at Chelmsford last time having won four times at that trip it's clearly no fluke and there is well worth a go over this longer trip tonight. 

Staked -- 6 points
Returns -- 1 point with the Non Runner and one race to come.

Results for tonight will be updated through the evening looking to add to the current overall profit figure 
+14.01.

Alas no joy tonight, dropped 5 more points so down to +9.01.

Lays -- 17/22. 

Couple of lays in the maiden events tonight;

15:45
6f Maiden -- MEDAHIM (Richard Hannon trained horses usually better for their opening run and plenty of competition tonight, is priced 2/1F and looks too short)

 -- Yes this did WIN at 12/1 so was far too huge a price for us to have been as a lay bet tonight. 

17:15 1m Maiden -- INTERMODAL (Didn't seem to get home over a mile on debut and while entitled to improve for the run might take a few races to find his feet.) WIN 11/4F - by a whisker it won that's very annoying still you can't win them all (well looks like we did eh). 

Our next Wednesday evening meeting at this course will be on 14th December, it's back to a regular weekly fixture till the end of the year so see you next week.


Monday, 5 December 2016

FA CUP THIRD ROUND DRAW.

This Monday night we will have the draw for the 3rd Round of this seasons FA Cup. Was almost going to write about how AFC Wimbledon had made a real mess of things at 3-0 down on Sunday to non league Curzon Ashton, but an amazing spell of 3 goals in a little over 2 minutes linked with a last gasp winner from Tom Elliott made it a remarkable 4-3 win against the non league side and The Dons are therefore still in with a chance of a money spinning tie in round three.

We will update here on Monday night with the details of the 3rd round draw while it's being made which will begin shortly after 7pm on Monday evening. Former players Ian Wright and Steven Gerrard will be on hand to perform the draw out of the 'hat'. 

AFC Wimbledon have been allocated ball number 45.

Third Round Draw

     IPSWICH TOWN  v  LINCOLN / OLDHAM
     BARROW  v  ROCHDALE
     MANCHESTER UNITED  v  READING
     HULL CITY  v  SWANSEA CITY
     SUNDERLAND  v  BURNLEY
     QPR  v  BLACKBURN ROVERS
     MILLWALL  v  AFC BOURNEMOUTH
     WEST HAM UNITED  v  MANCHESTER CITY
     BRIGHTON  v  MK DONS / CHARLTON
     BLACKPOOL  v  BARNSLEY
     WIGAN ATHLETIC  v  NOTTINGHAM FOREST
     BIRMINGHAM CITY  v  NEWCASTLE UNITED
     CHELSEA  v  NOTTS COUNTY / PETERBOROUGH
     MIDDLESBROUGH  v  SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY
     WEST BROM  v  DERBY COUNTY
     EVERTON  v  LEICESTER CITY
     LIVERPOOL  v  NEWPORT C / PLYMOUTH ARGYLE
     WYCOMBE WANDERERS  v  NORTHAMPTON / STOURBRIDGE
     WATFORD  v  BURTON ALBION
     PRESTON NORTH END  v  ARSENAL
     CARDIFF CITY  v  FULHAM
     STOKE CITY  v  WOLVES
     CAMBRIDGE UNITED  v  LEEDS UNITED
     BRISTOL CITY  v  SHREWSBURY / FLEETWOOD
     HUDDERSFIELD TOWN  v  PORT VALE
     TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR  v  ASTON VILLA
     BRENTFORD  v  HALIFAX TOWN / EASTLEIGH
     BOLTON WANDERERS  v  CRYSTAL PALACE
     NORWICH CITY  v  SOUTHAMPTON
     SUTTON UNITED  v  AFC WIMBLEDON 
     ACCRINGTON STANLEY  v  LUTON TOWN
     ROTHERHAM UNITED  v  OXFORD U / MACCESFIELD


Ties to be played over the weekend of 6th - 9th January.

Reaction;
Well it's an away tie for the Dons against SUTTON UNITED. A significant match in our history since it was Sutton who were our first ever opponents when we had to reform as AFC Wimbledon so not far to go and a good chance to progress to round four you would hope. 

Sunday, 4 December 2016

FA CUP 2nd ROUND -- CURZON ASHTON 3 vs 4 AFC WIMBLEDON (Sunday 4th December)


Having finished off BURY in Round One (and in the league) with a thumping 5-0 win at home in the replay we are drawn away to Non League outfit CURZON ASHTON. Yeah I had to look that up too and no it's not Ashton Kutcher or Curzon from Deep Space Nine, but a team sitting 16th in the National League North division. The Dons will be clear favourites to progress forward into round three but if anyone thinks upsets can't happen really hasn't been paying attention lately. 

Located in Ashton-under-Lyne their 4,000 capacity home ground Tameside Stadium should be rocking when the FA Cup comes to town. The match has been moved to Sunday lunchtime, for it's LIVE on BT Sport.  




LIVE ON BT SPORT
SUNDAY 4th DECEMBER

12:00 Kick Off











Curzon Ashton have a poor home record this season so far winning only one game, but as this is effectively their Cup Final and on Live TV their players ought to be fired up and I fully expect a difficult first half of football. If the Dons can strike early things should settle down, but go behind and everyone will be expecting an upset. This will be an excellent opportunity to progress to the third round and the potential for a glamour tie and possibility of more funds for the playing budget or the stadium move


Updates will be published with team news and more as and when it comes through

Line Ups (Confirmed);


AFC WIMBLEDON
Odds -- 4/5 (Stan James) 

Shea (Gk),  Fuller (c), Robertson,  Robinson,  Meades,  Bullman,    Parrett,  Poleon,  Reeves,  Taylor,  
Elliott

Subs – McDonnell (Gk),  
Francomb,  Whelpdale,  Beere,  Kelly,  Barnett,  Owens



CURZON ASHTON
Odds -- 4/1 (Betfred) 

Burton (Gk),  Woodford,  Hunt,  Hampson,  Guest,  Brown,  Howard,  Clark,  Baillie,  Morgan,  Cummins 

Subs – Cameron Mason (Gk),  Rowney,  Tomsett,  Wright,  Ennis,  Gorman,  Hall



H/T Score – 2 - 0

First Half Comment;

A perfect minute silence was observed before kick off and The Dons wearing their Green/Black away strip will kick off and get us away for this tie. Come on you Dons. 

And OMG 30 seconds is all it took for Adam Morgan to give the home side the lead with a screamer from 30 yards out which gave keeper James Shea no chance at all. Dons try and strike back immediately and Poleon misses from close in, unbelievable start to this match. 

And it continues, CA could have had a penalty and although the Dons have a few corners there's no threat to the keeper so it was no real surprise when Adam Morgan scored their second after 21 minutes a close range finish with some poor defending. Really need to up our game now before half time.

F/T Score – 3 - 4

Match Summary;

Curzon Ashton get the second half underway and continue to keep AFC Wimbledon at bay, this half will be very frustrating as long as it remains 2-0. And despite a few half chances including a good save by their keeper it wasn't a big surprise when CA went 3-0 ahead on the break and it's that man again Adam Morgan who taps in his hat-trick. Well done son take a bow. 

Dons completely out played and never in this it would seem ... and THEN this happened. First of all Tom Elliott scores a consolation goal to make it 3-1 I still thought it was too little too late ... one minute later we are 3-2 from Dominic Poleon .... in with a chance but it doesn't stop there when less than a minute later we are 3-3 with a header from Tyrone Barnett what a turn around in about 3 mins and suddenly the Dons are looking to win it

AND WIN IT THEY DID with the last attack of the match, a long punted free kick from the half way line finds Tom Elliott who sends a looping header into the far corner to send the Dons into round three. 

My Man of the Match – Adam Morgan (Curzon Ashton).

Referee
 – James Adcock.

Attendance –  1,731.

Dons next fixture:
vs Franchise Scum FC [Away]

League One Saturday 10th December 3:00pm