Give Glance Second Look Despite Flop

Jeremy Grayson with some future winners from off racing’s beaten track

- Jeremy Grayson

SEDGEFIELD, 4 December (Soft)

2m3f188yds (-8yds) 0-110 Mares’ Handicap Hurdle (class 4)

The deteriorating conditions might be posited by some as the reason for AT FIRST GLANCE’s sharp retreat into midfield, but even allowing for the afternoon’s steady rain, conditions were only one ground increment worse than for the Stowaway mare’s Southwell success the month before. Rather, the inability to dictate matters as she had when making all for that victory, allied to a mistake at the final uphill flight, emptied her out as soon as the turn for home, and this was not her true running by a long chalk. Jonjo O’Neill’s inmate, rising six in the new year, is relatively early on in her handicap career and has still taken in only seven starts over hurdles all told, yet a demonstrable preference for frontrunning tactics around sharp 2m4f tracks on slow ground is there to see among her best efforts, win or lose. She can be taken to bounce back from this experience when more goes her way again.

2m178yds (-7yds) 0-105 Handicap Hurdle (class 5)