Jockey Angle with Paddy Flood: Even though that's a winning ride, I don't think it was a very, very good ride. On this week's episode of ‘The Jockey Angle’, brought to you by William Hill, Paddy Flood critiques a winning ride from Cheltenham. Paddy questions Ben Jones' decision making in the closing part of the race aboard Woodstock Octo, despite the pair going on to win the contest. Race replays are FREE to watch from all Irish tracks and a selection of premier British tracks sponsored by William Hill. Paddy Flood’s Analysis Cheltenham on the 24th of October, the 1:45pm race. I'll just point out the horse I'm going to be more or less reviewing here. It's more the ride. It's more Ben Jones on the horse. The horse actually wins, and I'm going to be a little bit critical, which sounds weird, but look, this is what it is. Woodstock Octo is the horse we're concentrating on. Ben Jones, for me, is a top, top rider, but I don't know, in the last bit of championship races, he can tend to lose his head a little bit. We saw it in the National last year with Joseph O'Brien's horse. In my opinion, he should have won the Grand National, but he just got into the zone. He got, you know, blinkers on the rider. So if you watch Jack Kennedy's body language there, Jack basically says, "I'm staying two lengths off this horse in front because it keeps taking my ground." Whereas Ben Jones is here. He's in a perfect position. So if a horse in front of you is jumping right, automatically what are you going to do? You're going to stay on the inside because eventually that horse is going to get tired. Watch him here again. Miles out to his right. Ben Jones has got acres of room on the inside. He sits up on a horse so well. He gets a horse to jump so well. Horses actually travel for him beautifully, and you can see there he's a lovely, lovely rider. Watch Jack Kennedy on his outside here. As I said, Jack is actually in the worst position here he could be in. What Jack does is he decides, "You know what? I'm actually going to take a pull here." Whereas nine times out of ten, if the horse in front wasn't jumping right, Jack Kennedy would be at his tail and he'd be keeping Ben Jones in the pocket. But he knows if he goes up there, he's going to get wiped out by that horse. And then he's going to be unbalanced. He's going to be fighting for a position. He'd be up, back, up, back. But Jack is clever enough at this stage to say, "You know what? I'm going to keep my powder dry because the one in front is being a bit awkward." Ben Jones has the run of the race here. Absolutely perfect. Jack is still taken back because he knows this guy is flat in front and he's going to go right. What does Ben do? Ben decides, "You know what? I'm going to nip away here on the inside." Perfectly fine. Goes down, jumps this horrible. Ben stays in. Lovely. What Ben does here, he tries to squeeze into a gap. There's no need to go in there. You're still in position A. So now, all of a sudden, the horse in front is squeezing that gap out. Ben, you're not going there. But I'll stop it here and just look where Ben has gone from. So, as I said, Jack has been taken back a length all the time so he doesn't get interfered with by that horse coming out. He's gauging that horse, how far he's jumping right, and he's riding his horse accordingly. Ben Jones has gone from prime position, like prime, prime position on the inside, jumping the second last, and knowing that horse is going to go out. I mean, you're going to gain two lengths. What Ben does here is, look at his position here. He's gone from being here somewhere on the inside. He just sits up, lets the horse in front go to that hurdle. He's 100% going to get that split and he knows that. But for some reason, unknown to me, he's decided, "You know what? I'm going to get out here now. I'll put pressure on these." This is the sort of ride I just wonder, could he work on better that last bit of a race, the real championship part for riders?
