Tuesday's NAP, Buddy One, was beaten at Punchestown, finishing third of the five runners in the William Hill Challenge Series Hurdle. We independently checked the result against outside sources before writing this up: the favourite Samui won for Gordon Elliott and Jack Kennedy at 6/4, with Intense Approach second, beaten four and a half lengths, and Buddy One third.
On the price: we published 7/4, and he was a bigger price than that at the off, so the market was less keen by race time than it was when we wrote the card. The sources we checked don't agree on his exact starting price, so we won't quote one.
We were upfront that this was one of the weaker cases we've put forward, and we named a long list of concerns: he was winless in his last five starts, our own rating placed him only second of five, he was returning after 36 days off, he carried 154lb over nearly three miles, and his yard was on 0% from five runners. We also flagged that the Expert View and the Race & Form box showed different ratings, 143 and 139. We recommended win-only at a reduced stake and said that if you only back selections with a stronger paper case, passing was a sensible choice.
He didn't win, and that's the honest outcome of a selection whose case rested mostly on a third-place run last time and a short price. We can't say from the results alone which concern mattered most, and we won't pretend to. What we can say is that the card itself told us a rival was likely rated higher, and the favourite, Samui, went on to win. A reduced stake was the right size for a case with that many questions.
Our recent results have been mixed, and we'll keep writing them up the same way, winners and losers alike, with the concerns named before the race rather than explained afterwards.
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