All-weather winner

Where would we be without ‘all-weather’ racing on artificial surfaces?

Where would we be without ‘all-weather’ racing on artificial surfaces? With Sandown’s jumping card frosted off last Saturday, I wasn’t the only one who scuttled across Surrey to Lingfield’s polytrack, where Betdaq had sponsored an extra day to keep the cash tills rolling and the internet wires humming with the bets that help to sustain our sport.

All-weather racing began here only 20 years ago, just before the Berlin Wall fell. But with an ear-nipping chill and snow still visible on the grandstand roof we still enjoyed a seven-race card.

Gone are the days when you went to Lingfield just to watch the little guys of the sport kicking sand in each other’s faces in front of crowds no bigger than a bus queue. These days top trainers, too, send their horses to the artificial tracks: Ghanaati won last year’s 1,000 Guineas on her turf debut after two prep runs on Kempton’s all-weather.

Top jockeys have found they can boost their careers by staying put at Wolverhampton, Southwell, Lingfield and Kempton rather than heading off to the sun in India or Dubai. Punters relish the greater predictability of results on the all-weather.

Tamino, the clear pick after a course and distance second, took the seven-furlong race. Trainer Paul Howling, who shares part of Henry Cecil’s famous Newmarket stables, has access to Cecil’s magnificent indoor schooling area and he noted, ‘This horse hasn’t looked back since Mr Cecil asked for a lead horse. He’s been working with his quite nice animals and it’s reinvigorated him. I think I’ll lend him another next week!’

Wunder Strike was seeking a four-timer in the mile handicap, and I invested solidly, especially when bookie Barry Dennis told us that Ladbrokes was ‘piling into the favourite’.