Today might be synonemous with the start of the Grouse shooting season and for many they will be tucking into this "King" of the gamebirds - cooked pink and served with game chips and bread sauce. Apparently these little cutties can fly at 70 mph, changing direction in a split second so it's a wonder they manage to get shot in the first place.
Sadly our racehorses don't get up to that sort of speed, but nor are they eaten if they happen to get caught short so they are lucky in that respect, although todays luck ran out at Newcastle for three year old "Letbygonesbeicons" who was just touched off when finishing strongly, another stride and he would have won despite not getting the clear run he needed in the final furlong. He was grossly overrated by Mr Handicapper as a two year old having won "impressively" in the mud at Ffos Las but, as is often the case no allowance is made for exceptional circumstances where horses win, or run well when they are in fact "flattered" due to the way a race is run (ie at breakneck speed where horses go off far too fast, burning themselves out and paving the way for lesser horses to come through to win or be placed, thus looking better than they actually are and paying a high price for their highly questionable "form"). Or we often see extremes of going which one horse happens to handle far better than anything else in the race.
Despite the frustration of finishing such a close second, we can at least gain some compensation in the knowledge that Letbygonesbeicons handles the all weather at Newcastle well, and is finally on a mark that he can win off.