British champions series: fantasy racing 2014

It was a case of "Mission accomplished" for our two fantasy stables on the British Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday.

With five races to tackle and double points on offer, this one meeting can really salvage the entire performance of the stable.

We put most of our eggs in the Lady Cecil/Noble Mission partnership in the QIPCO Champions Stakes and the gamble paid off, although Al Kazeem threatened to spoil it.

The horse-trainer combination earned 430 points for the returned price of 7/1 and the second selection of Free Eagle (third at 5/2) added a further 90 points with Dermot Weld also in our leading stable.

Our first stable earned over 1,200 points on the day and leapt up into the the top 3,000, finishing just inside 2,900th place with a total of almost 3,600 points.

The second stable earned 898 points on British Champions Day and finished back around 8,000th place.

It looks like the winning stables were up around the 5,000 points mark for the competition overall, so there is improvement needed for next year.

Jockeys and the temptation to cheat

An informative article from Robin Oakley on the potential earnings of the majority of jockeys and why the temptation might exist to take money to influence a horse's performance in a race. By no means a new risk to racing's integrity but still one that needs tackling.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/life/the-turf/9315642/the-economics-for-a-jockey-are-grim/

Horse racing in the Midlands - BBC video

The BBC has been running a series of short videos on different aspects of horseracing over the last week. The final video is an interesting piece on the state of horseracing in the Midlands and the varying fortunes of tracks like Cheltenham, Worcester, Hereford and Wolverhampton.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/horse-racing/29572053