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Ashforth's Angles: West is Plumpton's mane draw

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Sheena West: four well backed runners all failed to strike

Sheena West has plenty of hair, which is surely how she likes it

  PICTURE: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)  

 By David Ashforth 6:00PM 17 JAN 2016 

Monday’s racing: Plumpton and Wolverhampton

ABOUT ten years ago, Plumpton discovered drains. That’s why, instead of abandoning the meeting already, it’s holding an inspection instead.

I hope all’s well because it would be nice to see if Warrant Officer can finally win a race for Sheena West while giving us the chance to check the state of the trainer’s hair. It looks to me as if West has fought a long battle with her hair but has failed to defeat it. Her hair remains stubbornly untamed. At least she’s got plenty of it. That’s probably how she likes it.

I’d guess West is less concerned with the state of her hair than with the state of the small band of horses which she has trained with passionate resolution for many years. They are mainly modest horses. Some years her Sussex yard sends out a double figure total of winners and some years it doesn’t. It’s the sort of yard you want to do well.

Marc Goldstein rides most of the jumpers and trainer and jockey hit a high spot at Kempton after Christmas when the diminutive Cannon Fodder showed incredible guts to win a valuable handicap hurdle. That must make a lot of hard work seem worthwhile. I hope Cannon Fodder was told she could have whatever she wanted for dinner that night. Nut roast, perhaps, followed by treacle tart.

Can Warrant Officer, zero from 23 for West over the last two years but in fair form recently, win the 4.10? We can only hope, and possibly pray.

Andrew Thornton continues his determined attempt to move from 985 winners to 1,000. I wish he’d hurry up and do it. I expect he does, too. Head Spin (2.15) is probably his best chance (of four) today.

While praying, we’d better say one for Tim Vaughan, whose yard has been out of form, with just three winners from 113 runners since October 1. Go on Bassarabad (2.45)! Go on Lake Chapala and Man Of God (4.10)! I expect it will be allright in the long run although, as economist John Maynard Keynes once said, “In the long run we are all dead.”

If Plumpton’s off, forget all that and test your knowledge of Custard The Dragon (Wolverhampton 3.30), instead. Custard, as he’s probably called in Ralph Beckett’s yard, was created by Ogden Nash. He was Belinda’s pet dragon but was a coward, until he saved Belinda by eating a dangerous pirate. His equine namesake hasn’t shown a lot yet but then neither had the dragon.

There are so many small curiosities. Frank The Barber (3.00) isn’t a monotonous winner (1 from 22) but if he wins narrowly today we can all say, “That was a close shave.”

If Force Of Destiny (5.00) gives trainer Ilka Gansera-­Leveque her first winner since Zebelini won at Ripon in 2014 at 40­-1 we can all say “how do you spell that?” and if Miro wins the race instead, which he well might, we can congratulate jockey George Wood on his first winner.

Roll on.

Do not miss Ashforth’s Angles every Monday – Thursday from 6pm the previous evening.

 

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