Del Mar 21:00: Tall Boy 1pt win at 7/4 or better
Today marks the final day of my brief stint covering US racing through the summer and I'd like to place on record my appreciation to all the guys at Betfair for allowing me to indulge my passion over the last six weeks or so.
Covering the two most competitive meetings of the year in North America, Del Mar and Saratoga, was always going to be tough gig so I'm very proud of the fact that we've not only recorded a profit, but a healthy one at that.
It's game of two halves as they say, and luckily we built up such a cushion in the first half of the stint that we've been able to ride out a rocky second half, a second half that's seen our selections hit the crossbar much more often than I would have liked!
So, with one more selection to go, I'm confident we can go out on high.
Tall Boy will take plenty of stopping...
With the prospect of rain all day at Saratoga, things could get pretty chaotic from a punting point of view there, so I'm heading to Del Mar for the swansong, where I'm siding with one in the first race.
On the face of it, Tall Boy's debut when beaten 16 lengths into fifth doesn't look very pretty, though it did come in probably the best juvenile maiden of the whole meet and he now drops into maiden claiming company.
He was unable to keep up with a very fast pace there but I'm expecting much more at this sort of level and it looks significant that his shrewd trainer Doug O'Neill has reached for the blinkers for this son of Lookin At Lucky.
Tall Boy's most recent work was a good one, and I'm assuming he wore the headgear for that.
If he can take that sort of effort in the morning into this race in the afternoon, he'll take plenty of stopping.
Once again, my thanks to all at Betfair for this opportunity, and thanks to everyone who's read/followed and messaged me with such nice comments - it is very much appreciated.
Don't forget, I'll be continuing to provide insight into all things Irish on these pages each weekend.
Good luck.
Recommended bets
Mark's US Racing P/L
Staked: 56.5
Returns: 87.54
P/L: +31.04