The Horse Watchers horse-by-horse guide
The Horse Watchers - the syndicate headed by Racing TV pundits Chris and Martin Dixon - have enjoyed a fine year in 2021, registering 18 victories and counting at a strike rate around the 25% mark.
Martin Dixon, who started his career at Timeform, talks us through the team for 2022, which includes flagbearers Raasel and Rhoscolyn, plus some new acquisitions from the sales.
The team with Mick Appleby
Thing weren't right with him earlier in the year but he came right for a break and really started to thrive through the autumn. He had an amazing time of things through September to early November and won five handicaps on the spin in the space of six weeks, including a four-timer at Nottingham. He proved to be a complete revelation and Mick did a great job in getting him sweet and to hold his form through that period.
He's on a winter break now as he had a busy spell and on his final start he gave us the impression he was ready for some time off. Rather than keep him on the go through the all-weather we wanted to give him a proper break.
The way he won on his penultimate start, when he routed the field by nearly three lengths and won eased down, gives us hope he can progress and run in some of the top-end five-furlong handicaps next season.
Given there sometimes isn't much of a difference between the high-end sprint handicaps and some of the Listed/Group 3 sprints, if he can pick up where he left off there might be a really good prize in him and he might even be a Pattern horse in the making.
We're really excited about him. He has a lot of raw speed, he travels really well and, needless to say after winning five races on the spin, he has a great attitude as well.
We've always thought he was a smart horse and he's started to show it, but hopefully there's even more to come.
Along with Seagulls Nest and Whittle le Woods, this horse was bought as part of a three-horse syndicate for the all-weather.
We paid 18,000 guineas for him back in August and he went very close on his first start for us at Wolverhampton, and then he progressed from that to win his next two at Newcastle and Wolverhampton.
We turned him out quickly under a penalty at Southwell in a £30,000 race earlier this week but that didn't go to plan. We were drawn away from the action, he stumbled coming out of the stalls and the surface was riding very slow and probably too deep for him. There were reasons to excuse that effort and his handicap mark has only been raised 3 lb for his Wolverhampton win, so he'll be back off a lower rating next time.
We'll freshen him up for a few weeks before we go again, but we would like to think he can get back on track. He had made a really good start for us and there were enough excuses for the Southwell run.
We claimed her out of Mick Channon's yard back in August. She's quite a well-bred filly by Camelot, and it struck us that she was well bred to be available for £6,000 out of a seller.
Her handicap mark had dropped throughout the season from 70 to 62, and we thought some of her form, particularly on the all-weather, gave her every chance of being competitive.
We were disappointed at Wolverhampton when she debuted for us, but the race didn't work out in the way that we had hoped as she ended up getting to the front and maybe working too hard to get there.
There was also quite a bad headwind in the backstraight and maybe she needed the run to some extent having been off the track for four months. That run should bring her forward.
We're running her again on Monday [December 13] at Chelmsford, and we've put a visor on and we're planning on riding her more patiently. We were disappointed at Wolverhampton but are still hopeful she can progress, and pick up a couple of races during the all-weather season.
He was bought for the all-weather campaign and, with that in mind, his all-weather record caught our attention.
His first three starts were on the all-weather, all over six furlongs, and he won two of those in novice company before being switched to the turf.
His turf campaign probably wasn't as progressive as previous connections might have hoped, but we still felt there was enough in those runs to suggest he's a well-handicapped horse.
Being so lightly-raced on the all-weather and having built a good record on the surface, we thought there was a nice programme of races for him. We'll be looking at starting him out over six furlongs just after Christmas back at Southwell. He may well stay a seventh furlong in time.
We picked him up at the Autumn Horses In Training Sale out of Joseph O'Brien's yard for 32,000 guineas.
He's a three-year-old gelding rated in the low-80s who only had a couple of handicap starts for Joseph after winning a maiden at Dundalk in August. On his most recent handicap start he finished second over seven furlongs and that piece of form has already started to work out well, with the fourth and the fifth both next-time-out winners. He was beaten by his stablemate Irish Acclaim who had dropped to a very handy handicap mark.
We also liked some of his earlier form. He shaped well when finishing second in a Leopardstown maiden on just his second start, behind a useful horse called Eaglefield, and that race has thrown up a few decent types.
We feel like there's some untapped potential in going back up to a mile - Joseph only ran him over a mile once and we don't think he failed for stamina. Between seven furlongs and a mile there will be some nice handicap options as he handles the turf and all-weather, and he's a really good-looking, good-moving horse who we think can progress.
We bought him out of Kevin Prendergast's yard back in July and he made a really promising start for us when runner-up at Newcastle in November. He then built on that to make a winning handicap debut at Chelmsford a couple of weeks later.
Needless to say we were disappointed when he was turned over as an odds-on favourite at Southwell the other day, but he didn’t settle well enough and Southwell is riding quite slow and testing at the moment. He didn’t give his running at Southwell, but there were other factors at play with the run of the race not in his favour and the surface potentially not suiting.
We’ll give him a bit of time to freshen up and we're still hopeful he can make up into a useful handicapper. The handicapper only put him up 2 lb for Chelmsford but we think he won a decent race there with a bit up his sleeve and we'd be surprised and disappointed if he wasn't still a well-handicapped horse for the new year.
He's got a lot of size, scope and quality about him physically and I still think he's a horse to follow. We'll probably go back to a mile and a quarter with him.
He made his debut for us earlier in the week at Wolverhampton and we were really pleased with the run [in fourth]. We thought he showed us a lot of promise, and as he's not been at Mick's yard for long we would expect him to come forward from it.
We'll give him a bit of time to get used to the regime at Mick's, but we feel like we've got a horse that's starting from a handicap mark that he should be capable of winning from, and hopefully there's quite a bit of improvement in him.
It was always likely that the run at Wolverhampton would tell us plenty. The race was a bit messy - they didn't go a strong gallop - but he travelled into it nicely and we feel like going back to seven furlongs off a better pace will be ideal.
We'd expect him to be very competitive in handicap company and hopefully progressive.
Saatty unfortunately had a little injury after his last run and needed an operation to remove a chip from his knee. That has been done and he'll be coming back into training in January and we're looking towards the back-end of the all-weather campaign/early part of the turf season.
The injury is the reason why he underperformed at Chelmsford the last time he ran. Hopefully he can get back on the up as he made a really good start for us in the summer, winning at Chelmsford and Kempton.
We've given him a break as he disappointed on his last couple of starts for us and seemed to lose a bit of enthusiasm. He'd made a really positive start for us with a win at Ripon and a good second in a handicap at Pontefract.
We're hoping that, not dissimilar to Raasel earlier in the year, giving him a bit of time off helps him to come good. He's a big horse and it wouldn't be a surprise if he improved next season.
The team with David O'Meara
He was the real star of 2021 for The Horse Watchers. We picked him up for 23,000 guineas and he is basically the blueprint of what we are trying to achieve and what we've done with several horses in recent years, getting them rolling and progressing.
We picked him up relatively inexpensively when he was rated in the mid-70s and he's now progressed into a big Saturday horse who has given us some fantastic days already, and hopefully there are more to come.
He won three handicaps on the spin in May and June, including a wide-margin victory at Epsom on Oaks day, and then he continued to hold his own in some big races.
He shaped well on his final start in the Balmoral, which gives us hope that even a mark of 106 isn't necessarily beyond him, and as a horse going into his four-year-old season we think he can progress again.
He was placed in Listed and Group company in 2021 but hopefully there's more to come. He had a very busy season but he's really tough and straightforward and we look forward to running him when the turf resumes.
We bought him at the Arqana Sale in July, rated in the mid-70s, and we thought there was scope to work with from his handicap mark. He's a horse Dave has always really liked but on the track so far he hasn’t delivered.
The feeling is that horses from France can take a bit of time to acclimatise and get used to the new routine and surroundings before they start to thrive. We're hoping that's the case with Tiger Touch.
He showed us quite a lot more on his final start at Newcastle, where he travelled well under a patient ride. Danny Tudhope thought there was plenty to work with, and there was certainly more promise in the run.
He's on his winter break now but he'll be coming back in the new year and we hope he's dropped to a mark in the 60s that we can take advantage of.
He's got some form that makes us optimistic he's well handicapped. We're likely to start him out over a mile - he travels well enough to be running over that trip - and he could be a dark horse to follow because we've not lost faith.
We picked him up for 40,000 guineas at the Autumn Horses In Training Sale out of David Elsworth's yard - he was actually on our radar for the previous year's sale before he was withdrawn.
He's from one of [previous owner] Jeff Smith's really smart families, being out of Dashiba and a half-brother to Barshiba, Dash of Spice and Dashing Star who are all really smart horses in their own right, and he’s got some strong form in the book.
He won at Kempton in January from a mark of 82, which he's slipped back to having finished his time with David Elsworth a little disappointingly. But he's been tried in some tough handicaps and has one really standout piece of form at Goodwood when he was beaten a short-head by subsequent Britannia Stakes winner Perotto. That was a really good performance and one that gives us hope we've bought a well-handicapped horse who can mix it in good company and good-quality handicaps.
Hopefully Dave can get him on a roll. He's still not had a lot of racing, he's very well bred and we were delighted to get him for 40,000 guineas. We'll have some big meetings and big targets on his agenda in 2022 and he could get started around April time.
Zebadaay (Adaay x Springing Baroness)
We're dipping into a different market here having bought a yearling colt by Adaay. He's a half-brother to Show Me Show Me, who won the Brocklesby for Richard Fahey, and we're hoping he similarly can come to hand relatively early. However, Dave has made the point he's a big, strong, robust-looking horse who might not just be an early type, for all his pedigree has some of those influences in there.
Dave picked him up at the Premier Yearling Sale at Doncaster and both he and [assistant trainer] Jason Kelly liked him as an individual. They bought him there, we took him on and we're looking forward to seeing what he can do in the new year. We’re hoping we have an exciting two-year-old on our hands and it's a new project for us.