Yesterday I decided I was going to take my time getting ready for work… it was a Friday before a long holiday weekend, I didn’t have any morning meetings and my boss was on vacation.

As I was eating my breakfast I turned on the TV, naturally the OTB channel was on. Instead of the usual listings of the upcoming days races there was live racing, but it was only 9 am. I thought it was from Australia but it was from Britain. The course was Goodwood and the race was the first of the day, Vini’s Gucci and Pucci Handicap (!!!), a 7f race.

First of all, we need more races named like that. Seriously. How about the Swifty’s Knoll and Ferragamo Handicap? Or the Giant Bag of Money Futurity? It was a good race, the winner, Scarlet Flyer, was a 4 yo American who closed very nicely while Blue Java sat just behind the pace but was outrun at the end by the winner.

Also, I knew they ran in the opposite direction (not wrong, opposite) and I could get used to that but the course confused me! When I looked at the schematic of it on their site it looked like a golf course. As they came out of the gate it seemed like there were a couple of places where they could have turned but didn’t.

Well, regardless of this minor difference, I’m looking forward to watching more British racing my telley!