UK Horse Racing Tips

According to the dictionary, ‘equinoctial’ means ‘pertaining to an equinox or the equinoxes’ or, in other words, the two days each year when day and night are of equal length. Unlike choiceonlinecasino online casino which is at hand day or night. However, celestial matters aside, unless you’re a horse racing anorak, you’re probably unfamiliar with the horse called ‘Equinoctial’, who wrote his name into the record books at Kelso Racecourse, in the Scottish Borders, on November 21, 1990.

The five-year-old bay gelding had won a maiden point-to-point at Askeaton, in Co. Limerick, the previous February, when trained by Eric McNamara, but had already passed through the hands of Michael Hourigan and Michael Dods before finally arriving with Norman Miller, based in Co. Durham. On his first three starts for his new trainer, all over fences, Equinoctial was tailed off when pulled up Perth, fell at the first fence at Southwell and again jumped poorly at Catterick, where he was pulled up just after halfway. Indeed, he fared little better when put back over hurdles on his fourth at Hexham, weakening from the second-last flight to finish eighth of the ten runners, beaten 62 lengths.

Equinoctial subsequently lined up for Grants Whisky Novices’ Handicap Hurdle at Kelso, for which he was allocated just 8st 13lb in the long handicap and therefore carried 15lb than he should have according to official ratings. His burden was reduced by the 7lb weight allowance claimed by his conditional jockey, Andrew Heywood. Nevertheless, the combination of his desperate form and weight disadvantage led to him being disregarded by just about everyone and sent off at eye-watering odds of 250/1. Thekind of odds you’d dream of coming up at French Casinos.

However, ‘the horse doesn’t know what price it is’ is an oft-repeated phrase in horse racing circles and, remarkably, having chased the leaders from the fourth-last flight, Equinoctial stayed on under pressure to lead on the run-in and win by 3½ lengths. In so doing, he became the longest-priced winner in the history of British horse racing.

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