November Schedule (5/11)

5/11/25

Remember, remember the 5^th of November, gunpowder treason and plot.

Earlier this year I took my daughter to the Gunpowder Plot Immersive Experience next to the Tower Of London which was a fun way of spending a couple of hours if you’re looking for Christmas present ideas! I also recommend The War Of The Worlds one too.

Anyway, the Jumps Season properly kicks in this month and thank you to all members who have joined me for another season.

But, firstly, the flat and I enjoyed The Breeders’ Cup and it was nice to land on the big race winner so after he won the Classic I downloaded Forever Young by Alphaville (who also sang Big In Japan so the winner was well named) to my Itunes. It is a cracking song too with the catchy I V Vi iV chord progression that you’ll be familiar with in many songs. If you’ve not seen it already then check out the Axis Of Awesome 4 Chords video on YouTube as it’s worth a listen for five minutes. I think you might find it an eye opener. Unlike Sierra Leone, Forever Young, was in Position A throughout on a pace-favouring dirt course whereas the runner-up was too far out of his ground but we’ll take it.

We had a bit of crossbar hitting with some of the each-way recommendations finishing placed rather than winning, notably Stark Contrast, who was returned at 58/1 on the American pool when he was second to Gstaad but more frustrating than that was recommending a place-only bet on Ethical Diamond who paid 28/1 in America only to go and see him win. I do a fair bit of place-only betting but usually ensure that I have a little dabble on the win market too, just in case, so I am kicking myself for not personally doing that in this case, though I know from a couple of messages that some of you went down the each-way line.

My main take away from the meeting was not to place as much emphasis on the draw going forward for future Breeders’ Cup’s. Yes, it’s a factor but probably already factored into the odds to a degree and Ethical Diamond (probably why I decided place-only rather than each-way) and Gstaad were both were drawn widest of all.

The dry ground robbed us of seeing many of the star names that were declared over the sticks last weekend with Spillane’s Tower, Stellar Story, The Yellow Clay, Protektorat and L’Eau Du Sud all withdrawn so hopefully the rain will have arrived in time for Cheltenham’s three-day meeting. I’m not too fussed about this weekend which is usually a bit meh on the quality front.

Before Wincanton and Aintree on Saturday though, we have an interesting running of the Clonmel Oil Chase tomorrow featuring two horses that did us nice favours last spring in Gentleman De Mee (Topham) and Il Etait Temps (Celebration Chase) who is prepping for the Tingle Creek. The last two winners of the Irish Grand National are also in action tomorrow; Intense Raffles also in the Clonmel Oil Chase and Haiti Couleurs has top weight in the Newbury Pertemps Final Qualifier before he is sent back chasing and looks a prime Grand National candidate, or maybe even better. Then on Friday we have the Haldon Gold Cup at Exeter which I covered in my ‘General Sports’ column on Sunday. It’s cut up more than I hoped it would. For a general interest point of view, the pre-weekend action actually interests me more than the Saturday stuff this week.

The Badgers Beer Chase and Grand Sefton are the two big betting races over jumps on Saturday and I will also cover the November Handicap being the last notable race of the flat season in Friday’s Race Previews column. As for next week, as Cheltenham is a three-day meeting, I will also cover their Friday card on Thursday before the Weekend Race Previews column.

The first of my 30 Cheltenham Festival columns for this season was uploaded six days ago looking at the six open Grade 1 races, weighing in at 11,000+ words and over 100 horses to whet the appetite with just the one Week 1 ante-post recommendation. As usual there will be a break of three weeks for this column until the second edition after the Cheltenham November Meeting when I will start to introduce other races when we go weekly.

On the general sport front in November, the Grand Slam Of Darts, the start of the UK Snooker Championship, the season-ending DP World Tour Championship golf and beginning of The Ashes down under interest me most so I’ll be giving my views on those in addition to Andy Richmond’s weekly NFL thoughts.

In this coming Sunday’s General Sports’ column, I will also be giving my ante-post views on the following weekend’s Paddy Power Gold Cup and Greatwood Handicap Hurdle having found both winners, Il Ridoto and Burdett Road, in that column last year. I’ll happily take just one this year.