It has been a fascinating lead up to this years’ 2,000 Guineas with the full picture changing on a daily basis. NEEDLE MATCH (25-1) wouldn’t have been a name on many peoples’ minds for the racing coming into this season, but he posted an eyecatching effort in the Greenham and you can expect considerable improvement with that run under his belt, and over a mile on Saturday. His incredible sire, Night Of Thunder, won this race himself whilst his trainer, William Haggas, doesn’t tend to tilt at windmills without very good reason. It is a big ask for Needle Match to win this on his third start but if he handles the track then I think he has a great chance of outrunning his 25-1 odds.

Over the winter I have been continually frustrated by the rule that allows all-weather tracks to run lower grade handicaps for more than higher grade handicaps on the same card. This is with the intention of making these lower grade races 'divide' (which means more media rights income to the track) as the lower grade pool of horses is naturally higher. Allowing this gives two fingers to the prizemoney pyramid and the common sense understanding that higher grade horses should be running for more than lower grade ones.

For those that will argue that this prizemoney wouldn’t be on the table otherwise then they should ask themselves these questions: should we really let the prizemoney pyramid be ‘bought’ for a few extra quid? Should horses rated in the 50’s really be running for more than horses in the 70’s on the same card? Is the message sent from allowing this to happen worth alienating owners of these better horses who could easily become disenfranchised? Our programme should be aspirational as otherwise it is just a race to the bottom which is a danger to the overall quality of UK Racing and indeed its integrity. If a racecourse wants to run 0-55’s for £9k then great but the 0-70’s and 0-75’s should be in turn be worth considerably more. In this case, perhaps levy funding could be removed from divided 0-55 races and re-allocated to the 0-70/0-75 races? Racecourses will probably be earning £10-£20k per race in media rights alone although given they own the media rights company too, there is presumably an extra premium on top for these extra races. Perhaps told they could only divide bottom tier races / run 9 race cards IF they signed proper revenue sharing prizemoney agreements with the thoroughbred group then 'we' could get a LOT more out of them?

Cheltenham is looming large now and the big question is what the ground is going to be. I live only 8 miles from the track myself and with temperatures rising / the weather finally looking a little more settled, I still feel the quick drying nature of the track means good to soft ground is looking most likely. This will naturally affect many of the ante-post markets and if we do get 'decent' ground come the Wednesday then MARINE NATIONALE (5-2) is my ante-post nap of the meeting..