NO Nicholls - NO Mullins - NO Henderson
Yep it's that time of the year again. The time when your in-boxes are swamped with 'to follow' lists after 'to follow' lists...after 'to follow' lists!!
And I'm pitching into the swarm with my own 'Alternative' take on things.
Once again I've taken a slightly different tact to most of the other 'to follow' lists out there and delved a bit deeper into the training ranks, looking past the obvious trio of Mullins, Henderson and Nicholls.
In fact you won't even find a Pipe, Hobbs, King, Elliott or
O'Neill runner on my list. I'm going deeper that even the second tier of trainers!
Look we all know ALTIOR, DOUVAN, YORKHILL, VAUTOUR and co will win their fair share of races this term. You don't need me to tell you that and I don't need to insult you by telling you that (I'll leave that up to the mainstream
pundits!!).
I'm much more interested in looking for the runners that have skimmed under the radar a touch, the ones that are not talked about on a regular basis and don't already have a high profile win on their CV.
It's trickier than a standard 'to follow' list and it will have more of a
roller-coaster feel to it, buts that's cool, especially if you can pick up a Violet Dancer or a Lil Rockerfeller along the way (the stars of my last two alternative to follow lists).
All of the horses were noted by me at some stage last season. For varying reasons they made my notebook as ones to look out for in coming seasons. None of it is
based on hearsay or stable whispers. I don't go in for that. I back my own judgement and my own views. It's how I like it. It's what I know works.
Whilst constructing this guide I did, however, manage to source some EXCLUSIVE comments from a few of the trainers featured, regarding the specific horse of theirs that I had selected for my list.
Here is a sneaky-peek for you...
“Plans are fluid at the moment. xx xx may start over hurdles at Kelso on the 2nd of October before running in a novice chase at Kelso on 22nd of October.”
But which trainer is that and who exactly is he waxing lyrical about?
Whilst I have your attention I thought this would be as good a time as any to give an update on the 2016 NTF 'Summer Stunners' guide.
Most of you reading this will have received the guide at the end
of May and I know from email and twitter conversations that a fair few of you have been following the guide closely over the past four months.
The time frame the guide concentrates on is almost up (it runs from June - September) and I'm delighted to say that to date the 12 runners in this years Summer Stunners squad have amassed the impressive haul
of...
+£39.79 level stakes profit to Betfair SP!
Safe to say I'm delighted with that!!
It's not
the easiest guide to nail down exact figures for as everyone will view it slightly differently. Some of you will weigh more heavily on certain conditions than others whilst some of you will just back blindly during the horses peak months. Neither angle is right or wrong, it's all about what your preferred approach is. For a pure P&L, however, it's obviously easiest for me to view them as a group and take that figure as a bit of a base line. From memory I don't think any of the winners won
hugely outside of their preferred conditions anyway and at the end of the day they were all on the guide due to their love of the summer months so the fact they've pulled in a healthy combined summer profit is of no shock to me.
In truth it's going to be a lot tougher for them, a lot of the horses on this list are very lightly raced and we are yet to know their prime conditions, a lot of the reasoning for their
inclusion is pure potential, the Summer Stunners were there because I knew they would be peaking over the summer months, in some ways my job there was exponentially easier.
That's not to say I'm not confident about the abilities of the Alternative 20 to follow, far from it. As already mentioned each of them were noted by me at some stage last season. They caught my eye on at least
one occasion last season and from there I filed them away in my notebook and then re-watched ALL of their previous runs over the summer so I could form a stronger picture of their abilities and likely future targets/plans.
The 'Alternative 20 to follow' is the fruits of that labour...
Happy punting
and if for any reason you can't grab the guide from one of the links above the 'pure' link is at the bottom of this mail...
Cheers
Thanks for being a loyal NTF reader
