PONTEFRACT HORSE RACING SYSTEM -- 2018 TURF SEASON -- PART NINE

PONTEFRACT SEASON 2018.

Friday 20th July.
Welcome to this our 9th meeting of the year. 

Tonight's meeting is in aid of Jack Berry's Red Shirt Night, which raises money for the Injured Jockeys Fund plus a beer festival too. 1st race 6.30pm, gates open from 4.30pm. 

For the second part of our Friday Night Music Night series we welcome The Bootleg Beatles!  The Bootleg Beatles are one of the world’s most famous Tribute Bands and they’ll be performing their stunning recreation of the greatest songbook of all time at Pontefract on Friday Eve 20th July. Tracing the Fab Four’s journey through the sixties, every tiny detail is meticulously covered from costumes to authentic period instruments. 

Attracting critical acclaim wherever they perform, The Bootleg Beatles will perform their singalong set straight after the last race. We also have Pennine Brewery, Revolutions Brewing Co, Ossett Brewery and Bier Huis joining us for our annual Beer Festival.

There are 6 fantastic races to keep you entertained throughout the evening too, and if all that wasn’t enough, we’ll be raising money for the incredible Injured Jockeys Fund through Jack Berry’s historic ‘Red Shirt Night’. The Red Shirt is purely optional – just bring yourself, your friends and your party spirit, and you’ll have a night to remember.

A few winners last time out but still drop a small amount and find ourselves in the red coming into this fixture to the tune of -1.61 to Starting Prices so we can hopefully get that back starting today. We will continue throughout this season to record ALL results for these fixtures which are returned 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.

The forecast going is now currently reported as 'Good to firm' the weather for Friday evening is for a partly cloudy day with some showers due and a forecast maximum temperature around the 23C mark.

Here are our selections for the 6 races on Friday evening, remember it's a very simple selection process using stalls 1 and 2 in every race;

18:30 6f Novice Stakes (2yo).
(1) -- HOT TEAM  [4th 8/13F].
(2) -- METALLIC BLACK  [WON 9/2].

19:00 1m 4f 5yds Novice Stakes (3yo).
(1) -- REACTIVE  [2nd 25/1].
(2) -- CHARLIE D  [4th 7/1].

19:35 5f 3yds Handicap.
(1) -- MOVE IN TIME  [2nd 3/1].
(2) -- WATCHABLE  [WON 9/4F].

20:05 1m 6yds Claiming Handicap.
(1) -- QASSEM  [4th 9/2].
(2) -- SUMNER BEACH  [3rd 20/1].

20:35 1m 2f 5yds Maiden Handicap.
(1) -- BITTERSWEET  [3rd 16/1].

(2) -- ALMUNTHER  [WON 7/2].

21:10 6f Handicap.
(1) -- NINJAGO  [3rd 5/2].
(2) -- RANTAN  [6th 10/1].

Staked -- 12 points.

Returns -- 13.25 points.

We come into this meeting with a small loss figure of -1.61 points to SP. Results from today will be updated later on at the end of the meeting. All being well we can move back into the black tonight and kick on from there. Busy evening and winning three races meant we covered our days work plus a small profit too +1.25, though still carrying forward a small loss of -0.36 to next weeks' meeting. 

Our next meeting will be on Sunday 29th July. Keep following us throughout the season.

ENGLAND WORLD CUP CAMPAIGN 2018 -- SEMI FINALS VS CROATIA

WORLD CUP SEMI FINAL
WEDNESDAY 11th JULY 2018
CROATIA vs ENGLAND
[KICK OFF 7PM (BST)]
-- Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow

England are into their first World Cup semi final since Italia 1990 and will face Croatia for a place in Sunday's Final. It was a comfortable win over Sweden 2-0 on Saturday with the clean sheet down to an outstanding performance by Jordan Pickford who kept us in the game in the second half before Deli Alli secured the win on the hour mark. They will face a quality Croatian side who survived a late equaliser against the host nation Russia to go through on penalties.

England and Croatia have met seven times before, with the Three Lions winning four times, losing twice and sharing a draw. The two nations drew their opening encounter 0-0 in 1996 before England won the next friendly 3-1 in 2003.

England then won their first competitive clash, a 4-2 victory at Euro 2004 in which Wayne Rooney scored two goals. But Croatia got their own back over the Euro 2008 qualifiers, beating England 2-0 in Zagreb - with Paul Robinson's infamous air kick a sore spot for England fans way back in October 2006. Worse was to come as Croatia beat the Three Lions 3-2 at Wembley in November 2007 to ensure that England would not qualify for Euro 2008.

England gained some revenge as they crushed Croatia in their next two games, winning World Cup 2010 qualifying games in September 2008 (4-1) and September 2009 (5-1). The nation is ready, the stakes are high, it's time to believe and get behind the boys and bring it home.

Starting XI's confirmed;

CROATIA 
Subasic (GK),  Vrsaljko,  Lovren,  Vida,  Strinic,  Modric (capt),  Rakitic,  Rebic,  Brozovic,  Perisic,  Mandzukic,  

Subs -- Livakovic (Gk),  L Kalinic (Gk),  Corluka,  Kovacic,  Kramaric,  Jedvaj,  Bradaric,  Caleta-Car,  Badelj,  Pjaca,  Pivaric

ENGLAND

Pickford (Gk), Maguire, Stones, Walker, Henderson, Trippier, Lingard, Alli, Young, Sterling, Kane (capt)

Subs -- Butland (Gk),  Pope (Gk),  Dier,  Alexander-Arnold,  Loftus-Cheek,  Rose,  Vardy,  Cahill,  Jones,  Welbeck,  Delph,  Rashford

Referee -- CÜNEYT ÇAKIR (TUR).

Our referee for this crucial World Cup Semi Final is Mr Cakir from Istanbul, Turkey, very experienced official for someone only 41 and has had to deal with the Galatasaray vs Fenerbahce derbies so this should be a breeze by comparison. 

HT Score -- 0 - 1  (Trippier 5').

FT Result -- 1 - 1  (Perisic 68')   (Trippier 5').
Extra Time Being Played

Comment -- It's Coming Home. I got a good feeling. A feeling that takes us higher and higher on only FIVE minutes a thumping free kicking into the top corner by Kieran Trippier and England lead 1-0. Cracking game and England causing plenty of problems for the Croatian defence and set pieces look like giving us more chances to extend the lead. Pickford only being bothered by long range efforts so far but we've survived the opening half hour. 

A nervous second half, with Croatia coming more and more into the game. Inevitably they equalise on 68 mins when Ivan Perisic gets ahead of Kyle Walker and turns the ball in for 1-1. It's been coming and England need to calm their nerves for the last 20 mins of this match with extra time and penalties looming again. FT 1-1 into another 30 mins we go, the third game in succession for the Croatians, at least we don't fear the penalties now should it come to that. 

2nd half of extra time and England are behind, Mario Mandzukic scores to make it 2-1 and there's not long left ... it's starting to hurt again. :(

2018 KEMPTON PARK RACES -- WEDNESDAY NIGHTS #14 11th JULY

And as we continue to bask in the July sunshine the heat is still causing me uncomfortable sleepless nights. 😢

The 2018 World Cup is now into it's Semi Final stages and surprisingly England are still there with a good chance and will be taking on Croatia tonight for a place in the Final on Sunday (Still believe that it's coming home folks). In the meantime this blog will continue to follow the progress of handicap races on the Wednesday night races here at Kempton Park racecourse in Surrey. We've not had the greatest first half of the year and are a bit behind now although it's a bit up and down this is half way and meeting fourteen. There are usually 4-5 handicap races covered and some Lay bets too with separate totals recorded to SP throughout the year. 

We are ready for week number fourteen, and as we head past the half way stage of the year we managed to have a good week last time and take a dent out of the losses to date although we still find ourselves down -20.175 points to SP, would be nice to continue turning this around and there is still a long way to go we need some more winners soon and alas we record to starting prices.

As we continue to focus on the handicap contests for each Wednesday evening meeting we will also occasionally include a feature listed or conditions event too if one is 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.

We will keep up with our occasional lay opportunities of short priced favourites too. Naturally we will keep these results separately from the handicap figures, off to a disappointing start this season though but a successful lay last week means we are currently 9/15 going forwards with these for 2018. 

This Wednesday is meeting number fourteen for the 2018 season and we are expecting an eight race card tonight with seven handicaps to enjoy the action will commence at 17:55 with an Apprentice Handicap over seven furlongs.

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

The going on the polytrack surface is described as 'standard' and the current weather forecast for this Wednesday is for a warmer day so have a good night without the threat of rain for a change a top temperature will be about 28C by the time the meeting gets underway.

Here are our handicap selections for tonight, we will be watching the football so updates when available;

17:20 -- 7f Apprentice Handicap.
NEZAR  [5th 16/1]  //  KINGSTON KURRAJONG  [8th 8/1]. 

17:55 -- 1m Handicap (Div One).
DIVINE MESSENGER  [2nd 5/2F]   //  BOOKMAKER  [8th 14/1].

18:25 -- 1m Handicap (Div Two).
BAZ  [10th 33/1]  //  SICARIO  [8th 8/1].

18:55 -- 1m Handicap (3yo).
FACE LIKE THUNDER  [5th 9/2]  //  MARGIE'S CHOICE  [3rd 6/1].

19:55 -- 1m 7f 218yds Handicap.
COUSIN KHEE  [9th 33/1]  //  GRACEFUL LADY  [4th 9/1].

20:25 -- 1m 2f 219yds Handicap.
LONG JOHN SILVER  [6th 9/1]  //  MAGELLAN  [WON 11/8F].

20:55 -- 6f Handicap.
OPERATIVE  [5th 10/1] //  FANTASY KEEPER  [WON 5/1].

Staked -- 14 points.
Returns -- 8.375 points.

Results will appear here later on Wednesday night. We seek to recover from our current deficit of -20.175 points. Couple of late winners and alas a small loss tonight of -5.625. Means we have to take a loss value of -25.8 over to the next meeting.

LAYS -- 9/15 if we have one or two Lays tonight they will be updated here also.

Tonight's Lays;
CLIFFS OF DOVER [19:55] LOST 8th 5/4F. 10/16

Our next meeting here at Kempton Park will be next month on Wednesday 8th August so see you then.