Demetrius won at Catterick last Monday at 5.94, and when I wrote him into the book I noticed something. Catterick is quietly one of the best courses in it. So is Doncaster. So is Musselburgh. I never set out to back horses in the north. The book just keeps saying I should.
I think there are a few reasons, and none of them are magic. The northern flat tracks run smaller fields, so the form is easier to read and the favourite is more often the real favourite. The ground reports are reliable. The big southern stables send horses up for the easier races, and when they do it's usually because the horse is ready, and the local crowd prices it as a visitor rather than the horse to beat. And the market is thinner. There's less smart money at Catterick on a Monday than at Sandown on a Saturday, which means more prices that haven't been fought over.
Demetrius was a good example of the visitor thing. Big stable, sent north for a small race after a poor run at a big meeting, and the price said the poor run mattered more than the stable's intention. The rest of the line said he'd been winning this sort of race all spring. Nearly five to one for a horse that should have been half that. That's the kind of bet members get on a Monday while the rest of the country is looking at Sandown.
The same day I had Don Virginia at Stratford, win and place. He got beaten in a finish and placed at 1.29, which paid for very little, and I mention it because that's the usual shape of a day. One that lands properly, one that doesn't quite, and the place bet taking the edge off.
The courses I should leave alone are becoming a list too, as I said in May. Nottingham, Hamilton, Fontwell, Fakenham. There's nothing wrong with any of them as racecourses, and I'm not saying a horse can't win there. I'm saying that over two years my questions get the wrong answers at those tracks more often than they should, and I don't need to understand why to act on it.
August is up about nine. Not a July, but a good month in a flat season that I've spent mostly on the sand and in the north, which is not where I expected to be when I started this.
Lee
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More from the notebook: Rajak at Yarmouth, and a day I won't get used to · The summer the sand paid