GRAEME RODWAY

Weblog: On the Ten To Follow trail

Rip Van Winkle eases pain of Harbinger loss

The Flat Ten to Follow is a marathon but we are definitely heading towards the final stages now with the York Ebor meeting underour belt and the St Leger meeting at Doncaster the next on the menu.

Sadly, as you all know by now we will be seeing no more of Harbinger. Just when I thought I'd played it perfectly at the bonus window it all goes wrong, and it is typical of racing itself, you must never get ahead of yourself and when you do it comes back to bite you on the bottom.

I'd pencilled myself in for 150 points from the scintillating King George winner, fully expecting him to add the Juddmonte International and Arc to his victory at Ascot. There was the mistake, never pencil anything in!

Still, onwards and upwards as they say, and it was a relatively solid, if unspectacular week for me at York with Rip Van Winkle proving an able deputy in the Juddmonte International. I didn't fancy him at all before the race and I'm still not sure what to make of him, but he proved the other day that I should never have questioned his talent, because he has that in abundance. Hopefullyhe can now move on and score more points but I'm not getting the pencil out just yet.

Starspangledbanner ran okay, without really filling me with great confidence for Haydock's Sprint Cup. Yes, for all he was staying on well at the finish, it is hard to get excited about the performance when he is being flanked by two 100-1 rags. No doubt he is not quite the same force over 5f, but I would still have hoped he would have the speed to see off the likes of Sole Power.

Looking ahead and anyone who took the bold step of transferring Rewilding into their ten is now sitting as pretty as he does at the top of the St Leger market. Mahmood Al Zarooni has done a good job with this colt since he joined from Andre Fabre and he certainly looks like he will stay. However, I heard him being referred to as the "only Group 1 horse in the race" the other day by somebody on the TV and I'm not entirely sure I agree with that. In fact, I still don't think there is a Group 1 horse in the race, but one thing is for sure - he looks the best of the bunch at this stage.

Still no sign of St Nicholas Abbey, Elusive Pimpernel or Awzaan, so my best guess is that we won't see them again this year, although I have heard that St Nic is back in work at Ballydoyle and they hope to have him back for an autumn campaign, so who knows?

I'm nicely positioned well above mid-table in my private competition now and I'm hoping to cruise in with a few more winners before the season is out. A top 20 finish after such a disastrous start would be quite an achievement. So here's hoping we keep banging in those winners. Good luck all.

Ten To Follow:
Awzaan
Elusive Pimpernel
Fame And Glory - 85
Fencing Master
Mister Manannan
Pollenator
Rip Van Winkle - 62
Siyouni
St Nicholas Abbey
Starspangledbanner - 94
Canford Cliffs - 50
Harbinger - 54

TOTAL: 345