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Cheltenham Festival 2022: Day Two Preview, Trends, Tips

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Cheltenham Festival 2022: Day Two Preview, Trends, Tips

Day two, Wednesday, takes us from the end of the first quarter to halfway and, en route, we will savour four Grade 1's, a circuitous Cross Country jaunt, and a National Hunt race without any obstacles: all the fun of the fair. Matters commence at half past one with the...

1.30 Ballymore Novices' Hurdle (Grade 1, 2m5f)

There were only seven runners in last year's Ballymore (Neptune) and this year there are nine. Not great, but better at least.

It's six years and a dozen runners since Willie Mullins last clapped his germans on the Neptune pot, that 2016 triumph recorded by the subsequently quirky Yorkhill. Two years before Yorkhill came the machine, Faugheen, and then it was back as far as 2008/9 for Mullins' other two Neptune winners, Mikael d'Haguenet and Fiveforthree. The long and short of it is that Willie has trained four winners of this race but from 28 runners, 18 of which were sent off single figure prices. More positively, three of the six horses he saddled at odds of 3/1 or shorter won; and Sir Gerhard is by far the shortest priced runner he's had in the Ballymore, likely to be sent away as an odds-on chance.

Sir G's Rules career to date has comprised six races and five wins, the defeat being when only third in the Punchestown bumper behind Kilcruit. In two hurdles efforts thus far he was the easy winner of first a maiden hurdle (runner up is two from two since, including in a Grade 3 on Sunday) and then a Grade 1 novice hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival. On that latter occasion, he was six lengths too good for Three Stripe Life, who renews rivalry. Critics point to Sir Gerhard's less than perfect jumping while supporters counter that the longer trip will enable him to hurdle more fluently and, in any case, didn't he win his Grade 1 easily despite that imperfect technique? Sir Gerhard has to prove his stamina under Rules but he did win a three mile point to point so it is more than fair to assume he'll see the trip out.

Three Stripe Life has no such proof of stamina though is bred stoutly enough to feel he'll get home; what is more of a reservation is that he's been beaten by Sir G twice and there is no obvious reason why that would change in round three.

Henry de Bromhead has been at least the third best trainer at the Cheltenham Festival in recent seasons and he is represented here by Journey With Me, unbeaten in a point, a bumper and two novice hurdles. The six-year-old son of Mahler was impressive in beating Minella Crooner and Kilcruit, both serious Grade 1 horses, in a very hot maiden before looking a touch laboured when following up under the penalty. This will be the quickest turf he's raced on, which is an unknown, and also is a step up in grade - at least nominally, because his maiden was peppered with G1 animals - but he too is a threat to Sir Gerhard.

Unquestionably the pick of the British challenge is Stage Star, trained by Paul Nicholls and owned by Owners Group's fractional ownership club. His is another high class form profile, most notably his latest effort when comfortably collecting in the Grade 1 Challow at Newbury. That form has yet to be fully tested, though third placed Gringo d'Aubrelle, beaten ten lengths by Stage Star, was 19 lengths behind Dysart Dynamo next time. Stage Star is tractable with regards ground and run style, the question being simply, is he good enough? I'm not sure, but he certainly deserves a crack and what a craic it will be for his enthusiastic owners. [Those who crab fractional ownership don't really get it, do they? It clearly works for thousands of racing fans, and if the crabs are not in that number, so what? *puts soap box away*]

Nicky Henderson runs I Am Maximus, whose form when winning a warm Newbury novice and running close to Hillcrest over this course and distance is solid but slightly below spectacular. He did beat My Drogo in a bumper here at the start of last season so clearly relishes this track. He'd be a shock winner but could push for the podium.

Whatdeawant's form behind Ginto in the Grade 1 Lawlor's of Naas last time leaves him with something to find, but he travelled very powerfully for a long way there before not quite getting home in the testing ground. It's possible that this sounder surface can help him finish off better but he still has plenty to find with the best of these.

The remaining trio are all maiden hurdlers - Scarface, Haxo and Hemlock - and look highly tried.

Ballymore Pace Map

Plenty of forward goers in the field though most are versatile enough to rein back as needed. Haxo and Journey With Me, and possibly even Sir Gerhard, are the likeliest for the lead and a sensible tempo is expected.

Ballymore Novices' Hurdle Selection

On the face of it this is Sir Gerhard's to lose. He is the Champion Bumper winner, and he has been impressive in his two hurdle starts in spite of some less than electric leaping at Leopardstown. But he's terribly short and there is at least one credible threat in the form of Journey With Me, whose form may look better or worse after Kilcruit has finished his Supreme challenge 24 hours prior. He has to prove he handles quicker turf but he's an each way price and that'll do for me.

Suggestion: Back Journey With Me each way at 13/2 or bigger.

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2.10 Brown Advisory Novices' Chase (Grade 1, 3m)

Widely remembered as the RSA Chase, and officially as the Broadway Novices' Chase, the Brown Advisory is the Grade 1 staying novice chase at the Festival. It has, however, lost a touch of its draw in recent years with the reduction in distance of the National Hunt Chase and the emergence of the Turners/Marsh/Golden Miller at an intermediate range.

This season, we might have expected Stattler from the NH Chase and either or both of Galopin Des Champs and Bob Olinger from the Turners to tackle this contest but all three of those Irish runners chose alternative paths. Such is the way of things now.

As it happens, the Brown Advisory looms as a strong chance for the home team with the first three in the betting being UK-trained. They are headed by Kauto Star/Feltham winner, Bravemansgame, who has since followed up off a big weight in a small field Newbury handicap. It is a well worn statistic that no Kauto Star winner has followed up in this from, I think, 22 to have attempted it. That's a withering trend and attests to the stark difference between the two challenges. It should be noted that Coneygree won the Gold Cup after winning the Kauto Star, which was a remarkable double from a freakishly talented novice.

What is more notable still, perhaps, is that five beaten horses from that Kempton Christmas contest have won the RSA/Brown Advisory. They include the likes of Bobs Worth, and that brings in Ahoy Senor. The Lucinda Russell-trained novice was seven lengths too good for Bravemansgame in the G1 Sefton at last year's Aintree Festival, but was beaten by a similar margin at Kempton (soft). His best form is on top of the ground and if his jumping stands the test - a comment that applies to a lesser or greater degree to all of them - he may reverse form with the Paul Nicholls runner.

There are a few contenders for the early lead, Ahoy Senor principle among them, but also L'Homme Presse and Threeunderthrufive potentially. The first named has the tactical speed as a result of being campaigned over shorter trips, including when taking the Grade 1 Scilly Isles Novices' Chase at Sandown. That is usually a precursor for a tilt at the Golden Miller but perhaps the stern opposition there has encouraged connections to take the scenic route. Regardless, L'HP's unbeaten quartet of chases to date have seen him largely unflustered to record double digit margins in the most recent three including a bloodless verdict over The Glancing Queen at Cheltenham.

The first of the Irish contingent in the markets is Capodanno, who was second to Bob Olinger before unseating behind Galopin Des Champs in his last two runs; unsurprisingly, he swerves a rematch with that duo and instead takes on a different cohort entirely. He did have Gaillard Du Mesnil 27 lengths back in the Bob O race and surely has the measure of that one. A 140-odd rated hurdler, we probably have yet to see his top performance.

Threeunderthrufive is a win machine as demonstrated by his nine 1's from twelve starts. He's four from five over fences including a track score and, though only sixth in last year's Albert Bartlett, is another expected to make a bold bid from the front. He's won Grade 2's in that manner the last twice, and has led in all of his five chase runs.

One we've not seen a lot of is Ronnie Bartlett's Dusart, trained by Nicky Henderson. With just four runs to his name, three of them wins, his best effort was likely in defeat when a close up third to Belfast Banter in the Grade 1 Top Novices' Hurdle at the Aintree Festival last spring. Two easy wins over fences at this sort of trip and on this sort of ground put him in the right post code, but from there who knows?

Meanwhile, back in Ireland, Farouk d'Alene has been quietly racking up a solid form portfolio: in four chase races so far, he has two wins and two seconds, the runners up spots being when pipped on the line in a Grade 1 over 2m4f and when headed on the run in over an extended three miles in a Grade 3. His vanquishers were the smart Master McShee and Stattler and he doesn't look far off the best of his countrymen in this field.

Fury Road, in the same ownership and also for Gordon Elliott, beat Run Wild Fred eight lengths in a three mile Grade 1 at Christmas, but fluffed his lines big time when trailing home the length of the straight behind Galopin Des Champs at the Dublin Racing Festival. His is a veritable mixed bag of form figures, though some hope comes in the fact that the G1 score was over this trip and on this sort of ground while his defeats were at shorter.

One of Fury Road's defeats was to Beacon Edge, who in turn has been seen off by Farouk d'Alene since. This third Gigginstown wheel  is not the most obvious stayer in the field, to my eye at least.

Streets Of Doyen was third in last year's Albert Bartlett and fourth in the Sefton at Aintree but has been largely AWOL over fences since. He's 100/1 if you want to take a massive flyer on him getting back close to his best. I don't.

RSA Chase Pace Map

Lots of early dash here on the face of it, which probably means the winner will jump well under pressure and doubtful stayers need not apply.

RSA Chase Selection

A really good race in prospect and my inclination is to field against the favourite. Ahoy Senor is a gallant and very capable alternative but his jumping may be a little sketchy for a searching examination such as this. L'Homme Presse has to prove he stays but he's finished off his races well, while Capodanno doesn't look an obvious single figure player in here to me. Fury Road looks a bit over-priced if you're prepared to overlook that pasting last time out. At 16/1 and with four places, he's in my shake up.

Suggestion: Consider 7/2 L'Homme Presse for the win and Fury Road each way at 16/1+ with four places. Should be a very exciting watch.

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2.50 Coral Cup (Handicap, Grade 3, 2m5f)

A big field handicap hurdle is not the sort of race in which I should be wasting your time or mine, but I have sifted through some trends and come up with a shortlist of Saint Felicien, Fastorslow, Indigo Breeze and Good Risk At All.

Of those, I backed Saint Felicien last week after Matt Tombs made a very strong case for the horse fitting a Gordon Elliott-trained Festival handicap winner's profile. Seeing the broader trends profile fitting as well, he's as good an arrow as any in an obviously open race. His form only amounts to three lines in the book: a win in a big field at Auteuil, a win in a small field at Gowran Park, and a mark-qualifying fair second in a Grade 3 at Naas. His price has shortened from the 10/1 I felt was fair enough but his chance is the same as it was.

Elliott also has Indigo Breeze (amongst others) who, like Saint Felicien, will be making his handicap debut. The winner of a bumper and a hurdle, and runner up in two of three further hurdles races, including last time, the six-year-old son of Martaline has bundles of upside though was well beaten (7/4 SP) on his only try at this sort of trip.

Good Risk At All had been ante post favourite since the entries came out for this. A scopey sort yet to finish out of the first two, he bolted up by nine lengths on his handicap debut last time and now moves up in trip to something more closely aligned with his pedigree. It would be a great occasion for young trainer Sam Thomas if he could land this coup though he did show the 'capper plenty at Ascot last time.

I was surprised to see how strong Fastorslow had been in the ante post markets even though that early momentum has steadied in the past week or so. His form has been disappointing in two spins after a promising Irish debut second last April. But perhaps that was the plan given he won two of three French starts beforehand. Trainer Martin Brassil won the Ballymore in 2019 with City Island for these connections but he's had a couple of fancied handicappers flop at the meeting, too.

One non-trends type who caught my eye was Drop The Anchor, trained by Pat Fahy. Proven in top class big field handicaps, this eight-year-old won a valuable such race at the 2021 Dublin Racing Festival and was subsequently a staying on three-and-a-half length seventh of 25 in the County Hurdle. Most recently seen keeping on under minimal urging in that DRF handicap hurdle he comes here three pounds lower for an attempt at four furlongs further than the County. His best form seems to be on soft but I think he'll get away with good to soft, in fact he might even need it to allow his stamina to last out.

And a Brit to hurl into cogitations is McFabulous, who has been anything but in recent Graded spins. As a consequence his mark has drifted south from 158 to 150. His only previous role in a handicap was when bolting up by better than six in an 18-horse charge at Kempton (Grade 3 novices), and a pair of January jogs around this circuit suggest a plan was afoot. I'm happy to buy a bit of 20/1 to find out.

As ever, there are at least a gross more with chances.

Coral Cup Pace Map

Loads of runners and loads playing their hands late from midfield or further back.

Coral Cup pace map

Coral Cup pace map

Coral Cup Selection

I've backed Saint Felicien and, now there are all those extra places to work with, I'm minded to have a small crack at Drop The Anchor, too, for whom this has surely been the plan. McFabulous would be a brilliantly Keeganesque "I'd love it" moment for his trainer, Paul Nicholls, were that one able to do a job on the raiders.

Coral Cup Suggestion: If you can stomach the prices in such a big field, consider 10/1 Saint Felicien and 10/1 Drop The Anchor. At bigger odds, 20/1 McFabulous could be the pick of the home defence. Eight places are available with at least one firm, which gives us a fighting chance of getting something back.

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3.30 Queen Mother Champion Chase (Grade 1, 2m)

For many, this year's Champion Chase is the race of the meeting. It's easy to understand why when you see the headline acts Shishkin, Energumene and Chacun Pour Soi. The fact that the first two named met so recently in a classic encounter at Ascot, with the result in the balance even after the last fence, adds to the anticipation for this deeper contest.

At Ascot, in the Grade 1 Clarence House Chase, Energumene attempted to make all, an endeavour he very nearly completed: jumping slickly on the front and enjoying a rail-scraping trip, Paul Townend did the right things at the right moments and was overhauled only in the shadow of the post over the two mile and a furlong race distance.

Contrast that with Shishkin's transit, where Nico de Boinville had him wide and in clear daylight but with the partnership enduring some untypically scrappy leaps en route. Despite travelling further and showing less fluency at his fences, Shishkin was able to prevail. So what hope Energumene in the rematch?

Well, plenty as it happens. Firstly, the Queen Mother Champion Chase distance is a full furlong shorter than the Clarence House, a factor Energumene's supporters maintain gives their pure speedster the edge. The counter is that, in a field with bundles of possible pace angles, they will surely go a lick quicker than at Ascot which ought to allow Shishkin to travel and pick up so many pieces from the second last.

Those closest to the challenger insist he doesn't have to lead, and that may be correct; but the evidence of the form book is that he has led in every one of his seven races over obstacles and in one of his two bumpers. His only career defeat? When he didn't lead, on his first Rules start. At this point, we cannot know if that is coincidence or something more material; but knowing that we cannot know means the uncertainty must be factored into his price.

Prior to Ascot, both Shishkin and Energumene had shown themselves to be the dominant domestic players in their respective jurisdictions, though their ratings (Shishkin 177 in UK, Energumene 175 in Ireland) have an interloper betwixt and between. Step forward the 176-rated Chacun Pour Soi, stablemate of Energumene and a third large cog in the 2022 Champion Chase machinery.

Chacun Pour Soi's Irish form is incontrovertibly top class: four straight Grade 1 chase wins and six G1's in all. But, in two visits to Blighty, he double clunked: first when sent off 8/13 for last year's Champion Chase ("we rode him all wrong", they said) and then when returned that same price in this season's Tingle Creek ("too bad to be true", they said). Fact is, UK CPS is a pale imitation of Irish CPS on, granted, a limited evidence base to this point. In a 'normal' year, when he wasn't up against not one but two superstars, he might be worth chancing - and the price may be enough to make the play for some this time around - but for me he's very much up against it.

Even allowing for the strength at the head of the table, there are still worthies lower down the order. Take Nube Negra for example, a course winner in the the Grade 2 Shloer Chase in November and last year's Champion Chase runner up. Of course, last year, he had neither Shishkin nor Energumene with which to contend, and he did rather fluff his lines in the Tingle Creek albeit when different (wrong?) tactics were deployed. Nube Negra is a strong-travelling hold up type who comes home well; there might be an optimal setup for him here and, if so, the frame may again witness his presence.

It's pretty big prices on the rest, and understandably so. Envoi Allen has seemingly been 'found out' since tipping up in the Marsh (now Turners) last season. A current rating of 161 gives him a stone to find with three rivals and something pretty unexpected would need to transpire to bridge that apparent ability deficit. Put The Kettle On has been an unbelievable Cheltenham stick for connections, winning last year's Champion Chase in a remarkable conclusion. But she's been beaten 21 lengths, half that distance and double that distance in her three subsequent starts. Even allowing for a non-staying effort last time over 2m6f, she's hard to fancy against the strength and depth assembled this time around. Awesome mare, though.

The other form champ in the field is Politologue, whose Champion Chase record is very good indeed: fourth in 2018, second in 2019 and winner in 2020. He didn't contest last year's renewal but is back for another tilt this time. Aged eleven, he's knocking on a touch now, but what he certainly does bring is front end speed. He'll be a thorn in the side of whichever of Energumene and Chacun Pour Soi goes forward and that ought to make for a fascinating race, potentially favouring Shishkin and a late runner like Nube Negra.

A horse I like a lot, though not necessarily in a cauldron like this, is Funambule Sivola. A moderate novice hurdle campaign two seasons ago blossomed into deep progression last term when sent handicapping straight over fences. Wins in that sphere ensued, off 112, 124, 133 and 141, before Graded competition was embraced. The Venetia Williams-trained seven-year-old had his first taste of Grade 1 action at Aintree last April, ceding only to Shishkin and, even then, giving him a race.

This term, it looked very much as though connections wanted to swerve Shishkin at any cost, pursuing an abortive two-and-a-half mile chase campaign: first, when not getting home in the Peterborough Chase and then when midfield in a valuable Cheltenham handicap in January. Reverting to two miles in a brace of spins since has seen as many gold medals most recently in the Grade 2 Game Spirit Chase at Newbury. This horse wins a lot and does it at two miles; his full trip record in chases is 12121 and it is not inconceivable that he could continue that pattern.

Champion Chase Pace Map

Only eight runners but three of them are want the lead types. Two of those are stablemates so it's hard to know how the front of the race will go, or rather who will be at the front of the race. My guess is one of the Mullins pair of Chacun Pour Soi and Energumene will lock horns with Politologue. Shishkin will travel kindly in the next rank and Nube Negra will be sniffing around in the late furlongs for some podium action.

Champion Chase Selection

This looks a humdinger. We said that before the Clarence House at Ascot and it fully delivered. Asking for reality to match the hype a second time, whilst mixing in two former champions and Chacun Pour Soi - and Nube Negra and Envoi Allen - is asking for a lot; but let's hope we get a bag full of hum and ding.

I think Shishkin will win. There, I've said it. He's just going to travel beautifully through the race, might hit a flat spot but will have a strong finish when the pace pugilists have thrown in the towel. If you want a more exciting wager, or at least one at a bigger price, Nube Negra without Shishkin looks a bet. There's a pace-driven case for thinking the Mullins pair may be susceptible to the finishers and, bar the jolly, none finishes better than NN.

Suggestion: If you haven't got enough fives to try and win some fours via Shishkin, who will probably win, consider backing Nube Negra each way without the favourite at around 11/2, a quarter the first two.

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4.10 Glenfarclas Chase (Cross Country, Class 2, 3m6f)

The Festival's yeast extract spread of a race. Love it or hate it, the Cross Country - Glenfarclas Chase to give it its correct nomenclature - is here to stay, and this scribe is delighted for that. Apart from anything else, how could the peerless Tiger Roll have so emblazoned his palmarès without it?

The mighty midget - he's only 15.2 hands - has a Cheltenham Festival record that very few can match even going back to the dawn of battle engaged on Cleeve Hill. Not just the winner of three Glenfarclas Chases, but also a National Hunt Chase and, as far back as 2014, a Triumph Hurdle, little old (he is small and he is relatively aged) Tiger bids for a sixth Festival win spanning eight years. Chuck in a couple of Grand Nationals for kicks and, oh boy, what a joy. Unbelievable, Jeff, as Kammy would have it.

He's twelve now, is the Tiger, but word has it that the fire remains aflame and he doubtless knows his way around the ever-decreasing circles of Cheltenham's inner course better than any of the pilots. If this is to be his swansong (and let's not sully our chat with the National handicapping phoney war), then praise be if Tiger can Roll once more into the winner's enclosure. He'll take the blooming roof off!

Don't worry too much about his form away from the Festival in the context of the Festival; this (and Aintree's Nash) is the only one that counts, the rest mere cobweb removal.

Against him is a soupcon of interesting horses and a grab bag full of dead wood. Let's zero in on those of interest, starting with Prengarde, a young upstart from the French provinces who has decamped to Enda's in the livery of JP. That's Enda Bolger, and J P McManus, for the avoidance of doubt and, before and betwixt the Tiger King's domination, those connections enjoyed their own hedge-mony (see what I did there?!).

Indeed it's 3-3 between Giggy's Tiggy and JP's assortment. McManus has owned seven of the 17 winners of the race since its inception in 2005 and his most recent victor, in 2020, was also a jeune from the other side of La Manche, Easysland. More on that one anon but back to Prengarde, whose reputation for disrespecting his elders across the varied impediments of Compiegne's cross country piste grew with each of his five consecutive scores in the discipline. He was well enough beaten in the midst of that quintet in a hurdles spin, so we ought not perhaps to get too flustered about his nothing run at Naas a little over a fortnight ago. Still, his price is tight enough considering he's yet to officially traverse the Cheltenham bushes and barrels.

And back we go to Easysland, 17 length router of his opposition two years ago - closest rival, Tiger Roll, going soft (not good is no good for the Lord of this manor) - but beaten by the same margin, plus a length to remind him who is the daddy, a year later. That distant silver was Easy's last run for David Cottin before a move to Jonjo's Jackdaws base. From there he has so far amassed two letters and no numbers in his form profile; to wit, a pair of P's at 50/1 and 66/1 in strong handicap hurdle company implied plenty regarding expectation those days. Now he is a 12/1 chance and tepid enough in the early exchanges. Perhaps it's a language barrier thing, perhaps not; one thing we can rely on is the application of cash in the hours leading up to the race as a portent of prospects. No blue on the grid, likely no chance.

But these are not the only Gigginstown and McManus runners atop the market. Dear old Mr Ryanair (whose banter, whisper it, is so so good for the game, emotive and divisive as it typically is) has quintuple Grade 1 winner, Delta Work, as his second string! If that's the good news, he's looked a fair whack below that since the last of those five, in February 2020. Yet he's still a mere whipper snapper in cross country terms at the age of nine - Prengarde and Easysland are barely potty-trained - and was only beaten 15 lengths in the G1 Irish Gold Cup last time. That, like most of his other 'not beaten far' recent races, was a steadily run affair, and he could travel all over these until the kick for home as they straighten up on the course proper.

Old 'green and gold' also has the 1-2 from the PP Hogan, a banks race hosted at Punchestown which has traditionally been the key prep for this. There, Midnight Maestro bested Shady Operator, yet the market vibes suggest tables will be turned in this rematch, as indeed they were in their previous meeting, again over the Punchy banks in the Risk Of Thunder Chase in November. Shady will be having his first race over this track while the Maestro had a sighter in last December's handicap (6/1, never in it). That local knowledge edge allied to a bit more meat on his price means he's the value in a match bet.

Diesel d'Allier is a dual winner of the handicaps on these slopes and has a fourth placed finish behind Easysland in the 2020 Glenfarclas. That's enough to expect him to threaten the first half dozen but insufficient to consider even an each way play.

In the context of this race, the rest are akin to the cast of the Star Wars bar (*braces for aggrieved owner response) though Brahma Bull's rating at least affords him a name check. He was third in the Ladbrokes Trophy in November, but as an unexpected 40/1 poke. He'd not be the biggest shock ever, but he would be a big shock.

Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase Pace Map

Whilst there is no guaranteed pace, they always go a crawl anyway so it doesn't really matter too much.

Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase Selection

It's hard to know where to turn for a bet here. Tiger Roll is not really much of a price but it'll be fun cheering him home if he's still engaged as they face up to the stuffed hurdles. I've backed him in novelty wagers - biggest winning margin of the week, win by 10 lengths, that sort of thing - on the basis that maybe he either wins by miles or doesn't win; but of course he might just win by a little bit.

Against Tiger - such heresy - Prengarde was very strongly touted initially though that confidence has subsided since and he's been ousted as crown prince by Delta Work. I favour the former's subject matter expertise over the latter's back class, but both have much to answer.

Easysland looks a bit of a busted flush, though is young enough - and Jonjo is both talented enough and wily enough - to bounce back. Of the Punchy pair, Midnight Maestro may have a sliver of value in his price, but I'm nowhere near sure enough to suggest he's a bet.

Indeed, I can't find a bet here. Small win play on Prengarde perhaps?

Suggestion: Back whatever you like, or enjoy the theatre of it. Or, if you're one of them, go make a pot of tea or grab a beer. 😉

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4.50 Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Handicap Chase (Grade 3, 2m)

Impossible. Just. Impossible. Let's try a few of RacingtoProfit.co.uk Josh's profile pointers to try to whittle things more manageable.

14/14 had run at G1 or G2 level previously: (had not: 0/73, 13p)
14/14 had 7< career wins (8+ : 0/49, 4p)
14/14 ran 26+ days ago (25<: 0/48, 3p)
12/14 had 13< chase runs (14+ : 2/106, 14p)

That's unfortunately not a huge help, but it does eliminate some. I still have eleven on my shortlist and I don't think I've ever backed the winner of this race, so I won't waste too much more time. It goes without saying you want a strong travelling, sure-footed jumper and ideally one that has not shown too much already - or at least not recently.

The novice Embittered was rated a bit higher over hurdles and has yet to run in a handicap chase, instead rocking up and taking it on the chin in many of the best Irish two mile novice events. As with a goodly number of his rivals, this looks like a bit of a plan. And that'll do.

[Sorry not sorry if you were expecting more in this section]

Grand Annual Pace Map

For Pleasure is in here, and so is Editeur Du Gite; Exit Poll also. Chuck in Global Citizen and Before Midnight and this cannot be anything other than a tear up from tape up. Don't come from too far back, mind, as you'll need fortune in transit aplenty.

Grand Annual Handicap Chase pace map

Grand Annual Handicap Chase pace map

Grand Annual Selection

I don't know, simple as that. But I do know that Embittered looks like a horse who ought to relish this sort of test, and I'll probably have a throwaway voucher (which is very likely to get thrown away) in his direction.

Suggestion: Get your prayer mat out and try tuppence win and place Embittered. Don't feel that way when the inevitable comes to pass.

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5.30 Weatherbys Champion Bumper (Grade 1, NH Flat, 2m 1/2f)

And we close with the only race less scrutable - or more inscrutable if you prefer - than the Grand Annual. Actually, the Fred Boodles is another runner. Anyway, what I mean to say in my typically verbose way is that this is usually deeper than the betting suggests. Consider this epic snippet from Matt 'the Stat' Tombs:

12 of the last 13 times Willie Mullins has had multiple entries in the Bumper, the most fancied has failed to be the first Mullins horse home. That is not a positive for Facile Vega, which is a shame because yours true has a tidy ante post ticket on the early talking horse. In fairness, he's done everything right since popping out of Quevega five or so years ago, his latest form line - of two - being a breath-taking smash up job in a hot-looking Leopardstown bumper.

He deserves to be favoured on that performance, but the reason for the Tombs-tone stat is that the Champion Bumper is a race in which most have yet to peak and many are unbeaten to this point. Consider this: since 2008, Willie has had four unbeaten winners of Cheltenham Flat Race. Sir Gerhard was 85/40 (ugh) last year, but in 2018 Relegate was 25/1; and in 2013 Briar Hill was 25/1; and in 2008, Cousin Vinny was 12/1.

The message is this, I think: if you've a tasty ticket on Facile Vega, bully for you and bonne chance. If not, look elsewhere because Willie had ten horses that fitted the above profile beaten at odds of 7/1 or shorter.

Mullins also saddles third choice, Redemption Day, winner of his only start to date. Paul Townend rides that one. But in the longer grass are Houlanbatordechais (easy for you to chais), James's Gate, Madmansgame, and Seabank Bistro, all of which are unbeaten in one or two starts and some of which are pronounceable. Who knows what the hierarchy is among them? Not Willie, as he's keen to share; history tells us we should take the hint and take a flyer on a 'could be anything' at a price.

Houlanbatordechais - did I spell that right? - will be ridden by Rachael Blackmore and is currently 50/1. Really? Madmansgame gets Danny Mullins and is 40's in a place. Brian Hayes partners Seabank Bistro and he's 40/1. Those are darts I'm more than happy to fling.

Meanwhile, back up top, I've failed to mentioned American Mike, Gordon's fly in the Mullins ointment. Spoken of in bullish terms he's been a facile, ahem, winner of two small field bumpers, the latter of which was in Listed company. This is wider and deeper than that but they know a good'un at Cullentra and they're fair sure this lad is a good'un. His price leaves zero margin for error, however.

The obvious truth is that I have no divine 'in' for this race, but the fact that King Willie has won it multiple times with a double didge-priced runner makes my wagering bed for me. I'm happy to lie there.

Champion Bumper Pace Map

Pinch of salt pace map below. They may very well run in a completely different formation from that suggested, such is the amorphous nature of their profiles.

Champion Bumper pace map

Champion Bumper pace map

Champion Bumper selection

One of these will step forward more than all the others, but which one is a total unknown. Facile Vega is a fair and obvious favourite, likewise American Mike second choice. But there's depth here that has historically rewarded a big odds guess. So let's guess!

Suggestion: Try a tiny tickle of Houlanbatordechais (I'll be cheering for 'the Mongolian' in case you're wondering), Madmansgame and/or Seabank Bistro and/or James's Gate. It's that sort of a race.

*

This second quarter brings us to the half time show. It will have been a roller coaster, as ever, and fingers crossed we'll have enjoyed more luck than losers.

Good luck!

Matt

Monday Musings: Cheltenham Chat

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Oh dear! The Irish sent out a single scout on Saturday to assess the strength of the UK jumps defence in advance of Cheltenham this week, writes Tony Stafford. What was his report back to HQ? “They are wide open and ripe for picking. Not just in the graded races either – they still haven’t got a clue how to stop our horses improving a stone when they come over for the Festival handicaps!”

Twenty-two horses lined up for the Paddy Power-sponsored Imperial Cup at Sandown Park. All bar one were trained in the UK, the exception was a 12 times-raced with one win gelding called Suprise Package, rated 135, 5lb higher than his Irish mark.

Number four on the list, so conceding weight to all apart from the top three, he is trained by Peter Fahey, in Co Kildare. Fahey has had 18 winners from the 55 individual horses he has run at home this jumps season.

That puts him towards the upper-middle echelon with home earnings of €353,000 in 2021-22, a total boosted by the exploits of his seven-year-old mare, Royal Kahala. A Grade 2 winner last time she is by-passing tomorrow’s Mares’ Hurdle in favour of a shot at the Stayers’ later in the week.

If she is the star, Suprise Package will be pressing up behind her very soon as, under birthday boy James Bowen, he cantered up to the leaders in the straight and sauntered clear to win by nine lengths as his rivals strained in vain up the Sandown hill in rain-softened ground.

If the ability of the appropriately-named winner wasn’t obvious beforehand – there was none of the standard flood of money that we’ve been seeing in recent seasons about Irish-trained Cheltenham handicap winners – his 20/1 starting price was amazing just the same as the only Irish contender.

The win and the 5lb extra it would entail should Fahey be tempted to follow the time-honoured pattern of an Imperial Cup – Cheltenham Festival race double, in his case in Friday’s County Hurdle, he must be a candidate. Nowadays, though, there’s no big insurance-covered bonus to entice Fahey, who anyway has one higher in the weights for that race.

If he wants to run, he’ll be number 22 of the 50-odd entered, one above the one handicap runner of the meeting I wanted to see in this race rather than take up a level-weights engagement. I have been advised by someone in the know with one of his owners that Colonel Mustard goes for the Ballymore on Wednesday but he is unproven at that trip.

I can’t believe the very shrewd and painstaking Lorna Fowler will pass up the chance of running in the handicap. The option is to take a second shot at Sir Gerhard – now sure to be going there on Wednesday after Dysart Dynamo,  Bring On The Night and Kilcruit all represent the Mullins stable in the opening Supreme tomorrow.

Colonel Mustard was a well-beaten third to Sir Gerhard at the Dublin Racing Festival having previously chased home Jonbon at Ascot. His 140 mark looks a gift and I’d love to see my occasional Racing Channel co-partner from a generation ago get a Cheltenham winner on her record. As Lorna Bradburne she was a wonderful amateur rider from a top Scottish racing family and she has melded perfectly into the spectacular private facilities of husband Harry’s family estate.

Tomorrow there are two handicaps on the graded-race-dominated opening-day card. Seven of the 24 acceptors for the Ultima Handicap Chase are Irish while there are double that in the 22-runner Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle.

Gordon Elliott, as well as two of the three favourites for Friday’s Triumph Hurdle, has another five four-year-olds, all bar one in the top half dozen and the fifth equal weights with the 11th and 12th in the list.

The inescapable conclusion is that there are many more juvenile races during the autumn and early winter for the Irish stables to test their horses and run them often enough to get a mark. [Alternatively, there is the recalibration of UK hurdles ratings downwards this season – Ed.] Without straying too far into the results from this season my impression is that Gary Moore is one of the few UK trainers to take preparing juvenile hurdlers seriously. He sources them in the manner of Willie Mullins and Elliott and knows how to win with them.

He has decided against tackling the Irish hordes in the Boodles, several of his potential candidates for that race having been skilfully placed to advantage in much calmer opportunities recently. He does have the talented pair of Porticello and Teddy Blue as two serious mid-range contenders for the Triumph and how he would love to make amends for the dreadful luck of his Goshen in that race two years ago with that one’s stumble when well clear at the final flight.

We will not be seeing Goshen in this year’s Champion Hurdle, connections wisely opting to keep him to nice races on right-handed tracks as with his two latest wins, impressively by a wide margin at Sandown and then in a battling effort in Wincanton’s Kingwell Hurdle last month.

Both Porticello and Teddy Blue came from France and there was plenty of money for the latter son of Sea The Moon when he made his jumps debut at Lingfield after good form on the level in his native land. He was comfortably brushed aside that day but there was quite a transformation when upped in class for the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton. There he might have given unbeaten Knight Salute a closer battle if he had been slightly more accurate over either or preferably both of the last two flights.

Porticello won another of the requisite UK Triumph trials with a spread-eagling display in Haydock’s Victor Ludorum run in very testing ground. Accurate jumping, as with Knight Salute, is his forte too but the home trio will have it all to do against Vauban, Fil Dor and the one graduate from the UK, the ex-Her Majesty-owned and Gosden-trained Pied Piper.

Strangely, all three have a defeat on their cards and I favour Pied Piper, one half of the Elliott squad, against Mullins’ singleton Vauban. It will be a race to savour and one in which the English trio will probably on the day be value each-way bets as the invaders play up their meeting winnings.

That said, it isn’t always easily to identify the right one, for all last year’s succession of heavily-backed winners in the handicaps often from smaller stables. There will be double-figure Irish representation in most of the handicaps and therefore it will be correspondingly difficult to find the right one. Follow the money. That usually works.

The opening day reflects the almost obscene power of the two main stables with Mullins supplying 15 and Elliott 14 of Tuesday’s total of 93 final declarations. Half of Elliott’s team are involved in the two handicaps but 13 of the Mullins contingent go for the Graded races with just two “throw-aways” in the Boodles and none in the Ultima.

That he can go in the opener with two unbeaten runners bolstered by Kilcruit, odds-on when beaten by stablemate Sir Gerhard in last year’s Champion Bumper, indicates the depth of strength. Dysart Dynamo had two easy bumper victories last term and two 19-length hurdle romps this as the faultless marks on his card. Bring On The Night was an eight-length winner of his sole Mullins hurdles run following two nice flat wins in France for Andre Fabre. This Gleneagles gelding has great potential yet is tomorrow’s third string.

Nicky Henderson is sending out two of his absolutely top novices, Constitution Hill and Jonbon, to face the invaders and a sense of where the power is these days can be seen that Nicky has only two more runners on that opening day card. So much depends for him on Shishkin.

He did have some joy at Sandown on Saturday when his previously once-raced four-year-old Luccia rolled over the Mullins-trained Eabha Grace in the Listed fillies’ and mares’ bumper. She didn’t just beat the older Irish mare, she annihilated her, going 17 lengths clear. She looks a dish for the Aintree mares’ bumper but it will be interesting to see first how Poetic Music fares against the older boys in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper on Wednesday.

She and fellow four-year-old filly Rosy Redrum are intriguing elements to a race with 16 Irish entries, seven for the voracious Mullins who has won the race 11 times starting from Wither Or Which in 1996. He has won the last two, while he and Elliott have monopolised the last five renewals.

Milton Harris, who has been a revelation this winter after a chequered career, is adopting a fighting policy with Rosy Redrum, just as he has Knight Salute in a busy juvenile hurdle season. But I think there are far more concrete reasons why the 16.3hh Poetic Music might give Mullins and co a run for their money.

A course winner when she powered up the hill on New Year’s Day to pull back a large deficit on her front-running market rival, she too defends an unbeaten record like many of the challengers. I’ve not really been convinced that Paddy Brennan got it right in either of their runs together, the filly getting him out of trouble both at Newbury and Cheltenham.

If Paddy does put in one of his vintage Cheltenham rides, of which there have been plenty over the years, and the filly wins it will be one of the achievements of the meeting for the Fergal O’Brien team and especially Sally Randell. It was Fergal’s partner and assistant who was so keen to buy her when she came up for sale last November after winning her junior bumper at Market Rasen.

- TS

Cheltenham Festival 2022: Day One Preview, Tips

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Cheltenham Festival 2022: Day One Preview, Tips

We're back! After the weirdness of a behind closed doors Cheltenham Festival last year - did that really happen? - and the hand-wringing and recrimination that followed the 'super spreader' 2020 variant, we are finally back live on Cleeve Hill for the 2022 renewal of the greatest meeting in the calendar. Whoop, whoop, and woohoo!

The opening day always majors on speed, quality, and drama from the get-go, with a double-barrelled Grade 1 two-mile novice volley to kick us off. It's the hurdlers first, in the...

1.30 Supreme Novices' Hurdle (Grade 1, 2m 1/2f)

The traditional pipe opener restored to its 1.30 tapes up slot and, after much hokey cokeying amongst the mega stable entries we have our list of runners and riders fixed. It's a yes for Dysart Dynamo, Constitution Hill and Jonbon but a 'see you tomorrow' for Sir Gerhard.

A smallish field of nine sets the tone for a week where the non-handicaps are expected to be shallow affairs runners wise in the main, with the dominance of those aforementioned superyard chickens perhaps coming home to roost a little. Anyway, macro questions like that don't belong before an obstacle has been cleared so let's get back to business.

In spite of the small field the Supreme remains a competitive race with five horses at single figure prices. They are headed by inmates of the unofficial Prestbury Cup team captains Nicky Henderson and Willie Mullins and, more pertinently, their A and B players, Constitution Hill and Jonbon (NJH) and Dysart Dynamo and Kilcruit (WPM). Mullins also lobs a third dart in Bring On The Night.

Let's start on home shores and Constitution Hill has looked all class in a pair of facile Sandown scores to date, trouncing a field of maidens before treating his Grade 1 Tolworth rivals with similar disdain. The merit of that heavy ground G1 form is unclear with the second and third getting thumped next time, but the winner could have done no more. He is clearly a very classy recruit whose maiden win offers hope that the quicker Cheltenham turf won't be a problem. We have to yet to see what he'll find off the bridle, though, and it is hard to imagine any horse taking this 'on the snaff'.

Vying for favouritism is the first of the Closutton triumvirate, Dysart Dynamo, a buzzy front-running type who is quick, very quick. Winner of all four starts to date - two bumpers, a maiden hurdle and a Grade 2 hurdle - it is worth noting that while never seeing a rival in the two hurdle starts he took a lead in both of his bumpers before strolling home unchallenged. It may be further worth noting that the first of those was a soft ground near two-and-a-half miler, so stamina is assured. It's hard to know exactly what he beat in the G2 but second-placed Gringo d'Aubrelle had previously been a ten length third to Stage Star in the G1 Challow over further.

For all of the obvious upside of those 'opening batsmen', their second picks have arguably more substance in the book. Jonbon, representing Seven Barrows, is also unbeaten in four, a bumper and three hurdle races, most recently a couple of Grade 2 contests. The first of those was a steadily run small field heat, but the second, the Rossington Main at Haydock, was well contested and Jonbon came home in a good time. He's not been nearly as flashy as those shorter in the market but he's highly effective and has been well on top each time in spite of narrower margins of victory. Jonbon cost £570,000 after winning his point to point, a price based as much on being a full brother to Douvan as to the manner of his win between the flags. Nothing looks value at that sort of a price, but owner J P McManus has met his objective of getting to the Festival with a chance.

Second pick for Willie is Kilcruit, beaten by the race tactics in last year's Champion Bumper and subsequently reversing form with his conqueror, Sir Gerhard, in the Punchestown equivalent. Hurdling has not been a straightforward discipline for Kilcruit heretofore however: it took him three attempts to get off the mark, something he only achieved in middling maiden company last time out. If that's the not great news, the positives are that he won that twenty-runner race by 21 lengths, and that he did it in a manner which impressed the time and sectional watchers. He has looked a little ungainly on occasion, even appearing to lose his action, but that may just be his way of going.

The Mullins third string is an unbeaten-in-one 'could be anything' type called Bring On The Night. A progressive three-year-old when trained in France by Andre Fabre, it was nigh on two years thereafter that he made his timber debut at Naas. Impressive he was, too, coming right away from a large field of maidens in spite of bungling the final flight. It should be remembered that a maiden in late February will be easier to win than one in late November, most of the runners already multiple non-winners by then. Willie was quite bullish about his ability in recent stable tour chat but I thought he might have gone Ballymore rather than here.

And no Festival party is complete - 2021 excepted - without a Gordon Elliott-trained invitee. His sole Supreme entry is Mighty Potter, whose Grade 1 form stands up against what his rivals have achieved thus far. Outpaced in a tactical Royal Bond in late November, he showed his true self a month later in the Future Champions Novice (G1). A more truly run race such as this looks right up his street and he is a definite place player at least in a tough betting puzzle.

That leaves a trio of British-trained hopes, the word 'hope' used loosely. Shallwehaveonemore was beaten 26 lengths by Constitution Hill in the Tolworth but has improved a fair bit since. His best form is on decent ground so that's a plus, and he may have been a little outpaced at Kempton last time when second in Grade 2 company. He could run quite well without challenging the podium places.

Jpr One was just about last in the Betfair Hurdle last time and that doesn't bode well for his prospects here; while Silent Revolution is inexperienced but beat a well regarded horse last time at Newbury.

Supreme Novices' Pace Projection

Likely to be at least truly run, and potentially a little fast early; the winner will need to travel and jump at top speed as well as possess sufficient stamina to see it out after the last.

Supreme Novices' Hurdle Selection

This is tricky. We've got to balance the style and potential of Dysart Dynamo and Constitution Hill against the substance of Jonbon, Kilcruit and Mighty Potter. Given the prices, where style is in the realms of win only wagering, and substance comes with each way potential, I'll let the pin up boys beat me if they can. The more I look at the Supreme, the more I feel like Mighty Potter should get a lovely lead into the business end and will get the end-to-end gallop that suits him best. He's the biggest price of the fancied quintet and that seems a little unfair.

Suggestion: Back Mighty Potter each way at 8/1 or better, ideally with a bookie offering extra places or money back if beaten.

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2.10 Arkle Challenge Chase (Grade 1, 2m)

The first chase of the week is the Arkle Challenge Trophy, a two mile event for novices. If it perhaps lacks a little star quality this year - there can't be a Shishkin/Altior/Douvan every time - it remains competitive from a betting perspective.

Edwardstone tops the pile on just about every ratings compiler's list, and he heads the betting, too. Brought down on fencing debut, that inauspicious introduction has long been forgotten as he has subsequently strung four straight chase wins together, three of them in Graded company, one a Grade 1. He jumped very well at Warwick in the Grade 2 Kingmaker last time but, prior to that, had put in the odd clumsy one. With a versatile run style and the best form in the book, he has a very obvious chance to add to trainer Alan King's two previous Arkle scores.

The best fancied of the Irish party is the Willie Mullins-trained Blue Lord, whose hitherto unbeaten trio over fences culminated with Grade 1 success in the Irish Arkle at the Dublin Racing Festival. His hurdles form was better than respectable - he'd have been comfortably closest to Appreciate It in last year's Supreme but for tumbling at the last - and he's looked assured in his leaping thus far. He was being closed down by Riviere d'Etel, who had led to the last fence before blundering, but was conceding nine pounds to that five-year-old mare. Saint Sam, who had led until the second last, was a further four lengths back while the quietly fancied Haut En Couleurs was an early faller.

Trying to unpick that form line with a view to the Arkle is difficult: Blue Lord can probably be expected to come on for the run and has proven himself at Cheltenham albeit when unshipping - he is also the top-rated hurdler (148) from the Irish Arkle cohort; Riviere d'Etel was only a 134-rated hurdler but is 150 over fences already and has looked good this season, but her age and weight pull with Blue Lord will be reduced from nine pounds to seven; Saint Sam is likewise a far better fencer than hurdler (152 versus 143), while Haut En Couleurs was the best of the five-year-olds over timber and has most scope to progress chasing after just two starts and one completion.

In his sole chase effort before the last day fall, Haut En Couleurs had easily accounted for Gentleman De Mee and Mt Leinster, the former hacking up twice since, most recently in Grade 3 company at odds of 1/5. It is worth noting that five-year-olds have failed to win since their allowance was removed, though some of the fancied ones (Allmankind, Saint Calvados) have been given, erm, interesting rides from the front. Nevertheless, that's a reservation for now, even though the pre-eminence of the same age group in the Champion Hurdle market says a fair bit about the older generations in the two-mile division currently.

The lightly-raced mare Magic Daze has been fairly well supported but I'm struggling to see her case. She was second in the Mares' Novices' Hurdle last season before finishing only fourth in a Listed mares' event at Punchestown. Over fences, she's one from three so far and she lacks obvious upside to my eye. Perhaps more interesting of the longer-priced Irish runners is Coeur Sublime, who ran in open Grade 1 hurdles last year and was rated 152 in that sphere. True, Coeur was beaten a number of lengths by Riviere d'Etel when that one was a length and a half behind Ferny Hollow in the G1 two mile novice chase at the Leopardstown Christmas Festival, and he's done no more since than ease home in a nothing beginners' chase at Gowran Park; but he brings 'back class' and fencing upside to the Arkle party.

War Lord is also worth a mention. Trained by Colin Tizzard, his sole defeat in four progressive chase starts was when well seen off, but still best of the rest, behind Edwardstone in the Grade 1 Henry VIII Novices' Chase at Sandown in December. It's fair to say that the Tizzard stable was in poor form at that moment and is firing much better now; if that was a factor in War Lord's defeat, he might be over-priced.

Gavin Cromwell runs Gabynako, whose last race was a shocker. That was on heavy and he quite possibly didn't handle it. On his previous start, in the Grade 1 Drinmore, he was narrowly beaten having made a mistake at the last; and prior to that he beat Fury Road in a beginners' chase. All that form is over further so, if his jumping can hold up in what looks set to be a fast early tempo, he'll stay well and could sneak into the frame.

Brave Seasca, who has progressed through soft ground handicaps but was no match for Edwardstone last time, is probably a little out of his depth.

Arkle Pace Projection

Saint Sam and Magic Daze are the most likely leaders, but Blue Lord and Riviere d'Etel have led or pressed the pace in at least two of their most recent four starts as well. Should be an honest, perhaps, fast gallop.

Arkle Chase Selection

The furlong shorter trip compared with the Irish Arkle might be a benefit to Blue Lord, whose credentials look most apparent of the Irish runners even though the eye was naturally drawn to Riviere d'Etel's unlucky runner up effort there. Haut En Couleurs has plenty of untapped potential and could usurp the finishers from that race if standing up.

Of the home team, Edwardstone's case dwarfs his compatriots, though it is possible that War Lord may significantly reduce the margin by which he was beaten in December. Coeur Sublime is another dark horse at a price, and Gabynako a third, in a trappy and open-looking Arkle.

Suggestion: Back Haut En Couleurs to win at 8/1, ideally with a bookie offering faller insurance. 20/1 Gabynako may outrun his price and could be a little each way value with four places.

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2.50 Ultima Handicap Chase (Grade 3 handicap, 3m1f)

The first handicap of the week and one that normally goes to a runner close to the head of the market. A few trends may help the route to a shortlist.

Josh Wright from racingtoprofit.co.uk tells us that

14/14 had 1+ run at track previously (had not: 0/44,7p)
14/14 had been ridden by today’s jockey at least once (had not: 0/42, 3p)
14/14 0-4 chase runs at the track (5+ : 0/53, 6p)
14/14 top 6 on last start (7th>: 0/99, 14p)
13/14 had 10 or fewer runs in handicaps (11+ : 1/120, 12p)
13/14 were 5th or lower in the weights (Top 4: 1/67, 13p)
13/14 had run at Grade 1 or 2 level in career (had not: 1/79, 9p)
13/14 had 14 or fewer chase runs (15+ : 1/83, 9p)
13/14 ran left handed last start (RH: 1/107, 14p)
12/14 had 1 or 2 runs this calendar year (did not: 2/105, 17p)
12/14 had 0-1 handicap chase wins (2+ : 2/116, 13p)

That leaves eight - Does He Know, Floueur, Tea Clipper, Fantastikas, Grumpy Charley, Kiltealy Briggs, Full Back and Oscar Elite.

And Matt Tombs in his excellent matchbook content added that five of the 14 runners to start with a chase rating 7lb+ lower than their hurdle mark managed to win in the last 13 renewals. Interesting, almost like they found improvement for the atmosphere of the Festival...

Putting all of that together gives me a single horse, Oscar Elite. I'd backed him prior to the kingmaker race for the Festival handicap chases, the Timeform Novices' Handicap Chase at Cheltenham's Trials Day, and am consequently on very good terms with myself. The case is thus: he was second to Vanillier in last year's Grade 1 Albert Bartlett and then third behind Ahoy Senor in the staying Grade 1 novice hurdle at Aintree. A switch to fences has failed to produce a win in four starts but there was the promise of more in three of them, all at Cheltenham. This will have been the plan from the outset.

Of the others on the shortlist, Does He Know's trainer, Kim Bailey, has had a winner (in 1999) and two places from four Ultima starters, including last year's second, Happygolucky. And Tea Clipper is interesting with first time cheekpieces and first run after a wind operation. He was no match for Bravemansgame in the Grade 1 Kauto Star (Feltham as was) but this will be more his cup of, well, you know. Full Back won at the New Year's Day fixture and was probably looked after a little at Taunton in his only race since.

The last Irish winner of the Ultima was Dun Doire in 2006 but they've had very few runners since. In fact, their runner form string from 2007 is 02222121233422. This year, there will be as many as seven Irish-trained runners, so they have a commensurately greater chance of winning!

Ultima Pace Projection

It will be quick and there will be some trouble in transit for a few. Hopefully Frodon gets them spaced out behind and all have their chance.

Ultima Handicap Chase Selection

I backed Oscar Elite at 28/1 in January and I think he's still value at 20/1 now, especially with loads of extra places. Of the rest, Does He Know and Tea Clipper are possibles.

Suggestion: Back Oscar Elite each way at around 20/1 with as many extra places as you can find.

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3.30 Champion Hurdle (Grade 1, 2m 1/2f)

The main event on Day One is the Champion Hurdle, a two mile Grade 1 where the reigning champion, Honeysuckle, will bid to defend her crown. Not only is Kenny Alexander's mare the reigning champ but she is also unbeaten in 14 career starts under Rules and, before that, a single point to point.

I previewed the Champion Hurdle in mid-January and nothing has materially changed since then. Honeysuckle won the Irish Champion Hurdle easily enough; Appreciate It has still not been sighted; and the five-year-olds are still loitering on the periphery with intent.

Of that last named cohort, maybe Teahupoo has advanced his claims since the turn of the year. He's still yet to race in Grade 1 company, but has been dominant in winning a brace of Grade 3's either side of a Grade 2 score. He's looked like there is plenty more to come but his potential is more than factored into quotes of 8/1 especially when noting his lack of form on a sound surface (for which, granted, he could improve, though I don't expect him to).

I also didn't mention Tommy's Oscar in that earlier preview, Mrs Ann Hamilton's flag bearer well worthy of the name check having waltzed away with the Haydock Champion Hurdle trial shortly after publication. He's been aggressively ascendant, rising from a rating of 139 at season start to his current 156; but that still leaves him with a stone and more to find when Honeysuckle's mares' allowance is incorporated.

Champion Hurdle Pace Projection

It looks like this year's Champion Hurdle may be run at an even to quick tempo, with both Appreciate It and Teahupoo generally going forward. However, both took a lead on their most recent starts so perhaps we'll be erring towards just an even gallop, in which case all should be able to run their races.

Champion Hurdle Selection

In that earlier preview, I found it impossible to oppose Honeysuckle. I still do, though after an electric gear change to settle the race last time she didn't really stretch away as it appeared she might. As a consequence, I went fishing for a wager in a different pond, the 'without the favourite' market. There I plumped for Epatante each way at 11/2. She's now as big as 7/1 in that market, and in all honesty I've cooled on her prospects of running second to Honeysuckle (and therefore winning that bet) a little, though she still has grand claims of being in the first four.

I'm not keen on backing Appreciate It at around 6/4 in the 'without' market either, nor the untested in Grade 1 or on fast ground Teahupoo, or any of his five-year-old contemporaries. No, if I was having a swipe right now, it might be Not So Sleepy without Honeysuckle at 33/1+ each way. He was 5th last year at 125/1 outright, and has dead heated with Epatante in the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth this season.

But, on balance, I'll stick with what I have and cheer the champ to repeat and remain unbeaten.

Suggestion: Consider Not So Sleepy each way without Honeysuckle at anything above 25/1. Not really a betting race now.

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4.10 Mares' Hurdle (Grade 1, 2m4f)

The Mares' Hurdle had been dominated by Willie Mullins almost since its inception in 2008. Mullins was actually unrepresented in that inaugural running, but then went on to win nine of the next ten editions, six of them with the fantastic though only occasionally seen Quevega. However, more recently, the omnipotent Closutton barn has enjoyed success in the Mares' Hurdle only once in the last five years, and not at all in the last three.

Related, and perhaps more remarkable, is that the last five favourites in the race - all of them short - were turned over. Limini was 3rd at 6/4 in 2017, the same position occupied by 1/2 Apple's Jade in 2018; Benie Des Dieux fell in 2019 when sent off 10/11 and she was beaten by Honeysuckle a year later at odds of 4/6, before most recently 10/11 Concertista was run out of it by Black Tears in the shadow of the post.

There's no shortie in the betting this time, current prices being 3/1 and upwards your pick. Tenuously top of that pile is Telmesomethinggirl, trained by Henry de Bromhead and running in the Kenny Alexander colours of Honeysuckle, meaning it could be quite a 45 minutes or so for connections. This mare won the Dawn Run Mares' Novices' Hurdle at last year's Festival over two miles, but has been beaten in all three starts since. If that's the unpromising news, her most recent effort - when a staying on third to Royal Kahala at Leopardstown - was definitely her season best and she comes here perhaps sitting on a big one, as they say.

In front of Telmesomethinggirl but largely whacked before and since this term was Heaven Help Us, winner of the Coral Cup a year ago. Like the favourite, she brings Festival-winning form to the party and her form string at this intermediate distance is 12. She seems better going left-handed and with just a little ease in the ground, conditions she'll get here. This has presumably been the target for Paul Hennessy's charge; he also owns and bred her.

Queen's Brook will be Gordon Elliott's hope for the race, the mare having run third in the 2020 Champion Bumper behind Ferny Hollow before skipping last year's Festival. Her recent form is consistent and ties in with the likes of Burning Victory but she's won only once from five starts over hurdles since her maiden score.

Burning Victory was the beneficiary of Goshen's black swan event at the last in the Triumph Hurdle of 2020 and she's travelled all over the place since. Specifically, she's taken in the Galway Hurdle (7th), a Deauville handicap (1st), the Cesarewitch (2nd), a Navan handicap hurdle (tailed off), the Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle (3rd) and that defeat of Queen's Brook last time. There are plenty of top class efforts in that sequence, a positive which has to be balanced against the busy campaign; that said, she's had only the one run in 2022.

It's hard to know what to make of Stormy Ireland, who has won a lot for Willie Mullins either side of a curiously disappointing sojourn at Paul Nicholls' yard. She was fortunate to win the Relkeel Hurdle here on New Year's Day but that showed the track holds few fears, and she was a Grade 1 winner at this trip and on this sort of ground at Punchestown last May. Still, she's not getting any younger - this will be her third run in the race having finished second in 2019 and fifth in 2020.

Mrs Milner, like Heaven Help Us, was a handicap hurdle winner at last year's Festival, her score coming in the three mile Pertemps Final. This is a different test, more about speed than stamina, though she had the gears to win a couple of lower grade two mile hurdles earlier in her career.

Nicky Henderson saddles Marie's Rock, who ran a nice race without troubling the judge in the Greatwood Hurdle in November. Subsequently stepped up to this range, she won either side of a non-completion when badly hampered by a faller. On ratings she has a few pounds to find with some of these but her trainer is making optimistic noises (for whatever that is worth).

Yet another former Festival winner is Indefatigable whose 2020 Martin Pipe win was a red letter day for trainer Paul Webber but also for geegeez-sponsored then conditional rider, Rex Dingle. Rex came with the proverbial wet sail there, weaving through tiring rivals up the run in to present the mare on the line, a style which has proven more difficult to pull off in smaller field, more steadily run contests since. There is a good bit of pace projected for this one, however, perhaps allowing her to finish a little better, and almost all of her best form has come at Cheltenham including when fourth in this last year and fifth in the Mares' Novices' Hurdle in 2019, either side of that Martin Pipe score.

Echoes In Rain enjoyed a purple patch last spring where a hat-trick of wins was capped by Grade 1 honours in a Punchestown Festival novice hurdle. At the top table this term, she's found life tougher, twice getting a distant view of Sharjah's tail before finishing closer to Honeysuckle albeit in a steadily run contest. This is shallower than those meetings with Champion Hurdle aspirants, actual and absent, and it wouldn't be a total shock if she were to bounce back. She will also have to prove her stamina on this first attempt beyond two miles, her pedigree not guaranteeing she'll stay.

And an honourable mention for the admirable Martello Sky, whose habit of winning must be delightful for connections. To wit, she has eight first places from just twelve career starts, among them a brace of Listed Hurdles. This will be tougher though the extra distance should mean she'll be able to get into a better rhythm than was the case when midfield in last year's Mares' Novices' Hurdle. Both Western Victory and Nada To Prada look to be pitching above their level.

Mares' Hurdle Pace Projection

This could be pretty quick but possibly not overly strongly run, with Stormy Ireland and Western Victory going forward and Heaven Help Us close up. Telmesomethinggirl and Echoes In Rain will be amongst those looking to affect the outcome with a late rally.

Mares' Hurdle Selection

This is a really tricky race with if's and but's about most of them. In the absence of a reliable option, I'll take a chance on Heaven Help Us being trained for the day in what seem to be her favoured conditions. Indefatigable looks like getting her optimal conditions for the first time in a while and may be over-priced for hail mary each way players.

Suggestion: Try Heaven Help Us at 12/1. Give Indefatigable a second glance at 28/1 or bigger.

*

4.50 Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle (Fred Winter, Grade 3, 2m 1/2f)

A feature of the handicap hurdles this year is the almost total dominance of the top end of the handicap by Irish runners. This is as a direct result of the recalibration of ratings in the British hurdling division and, depending on your perspective, it either shows how much better the Irish horses are or it gives Team GB (ugh) a better chance. My opinion is that those two perspectives are not mutually exclusive and both hold water.

Looking down the weights, the first British-trained runner is actually the top weight, ex-French Petit Tonnerre, who perhaps shouldn't have won on British debut! Next in is the Paul Nicholls entry, Bell Ex One. Closer scrutiny reveals he's not raced since qualifying for this for his previous trainer, in Ireland! The next UK-trained entry is Saint Segal, number 14 in the weights (!), trained by Jane Williams. Jane is married to Nick Williams, who won the Fred Boodles (Winter as was) in 2017 with Flying Tiger having trained third-placed Coo Star Sivola a year earlier. Five further swings at this prize since have come up dry, but Saint Segal looks a legit contender: he was second in the Grade 1 Finale Hurdle having pulled too hard early and is unbeaten in a pair of spins sandwiching that G1. The likely quicker pace ought to suit well.

Meanwhile, further up the weights, Gordon Elliott seems to be the main man for the occasion. Uninvited last year, he saddled five in 2020 and, of the 22 who set off, his quintet finished 1-3-4-8-9. In 2019, one of his trio of entries ran second; and in 2018 he scored at 33/1 from just two runners. A pair of runners in each of the 2014-2017 renewals yielded no more than a single fourth-placed finish, but Flaxen Flare was a 25/1 winner in 2013.

This year, Elliott has five entered up. His main chance appears to be The Tide Turns, whose three qualifying races were a comfortable victory in a 20-runner maiden hurdle (2nd, 4th and 5th both won their only starts since), fourth to Triumph Hurdle favourite Vauban in a Grade 1 at the Dublin Racing Festival, and another fourth against elders in the Red Mills Trial won by Teahupoo. That third dance was hastily arranged to facilitate qualification for the Boodles though I'm not sure 137 is a gimme of a mark considering he was only a mildly progressive mid-70's handicapper on the level for Sir Mark Prescott.

As mentioned, Elliott has twice won this with a lesser fancied runner, 33/1 Veneer Of Charm in 2018 and 25/1 Flaxen Flare in 2013, so his others deserve consideration. That pair both won their hurdle debuts before finishing second and then nowhere in two subsequent pre-Boodles runs. This year, Britzka and Ebasari both won before failing to follow up twice, as did the aforementioned The Tide Turns. The market is currently a little more circumspect - both Britzka and Ebasari are around 16/1 - though the play book is there for all to see.

The favourite, and very short at that, is trained by Willie Mullins and owned by Mrs S Ricci, and he is called Gaelic Warrior. Still a maiden after three hurdle starts in France he has a mark of just 129 which compares very favourably with his French peg of 63kg (multiply by 2.2 to get 138.6 pounds, making GW ten pounds 'well in'). In his most recent start, Gaelic Warrior was outpaced on heavy ground before finishing strongly to take third of 14. The second horse, Golden Son, has since won a Grade 2 before claiming runner up honours in a G1; while the winner, Sans Bruit, has won a Grade 3 and been third in a Grade 2.

He's undeniably well treated, then, but hitting a serious flat spot on heavy ground doesn't translate brilliantly to the rough and tumble of a fast ground 22-runner charge across Cleeve Hill. Luck in running is needed by all; most have a little more meat on their price than this lad. Willie is 0/14 in this race but went very close last year when Saint Sam was second (Ciel De Neige 3rd in 2019, too).

Joseph O'Brien won this in 2019 with Band Of Outlaws, and saddles Champion Green this time. A relative slow starter he broke his maiden at the fourth time of asking, over nine furlongs at Punchestown. The second won next time and was rated 89 when taking on handicappers for the first time, the third - also trained by Joseph - has won a couple of minor hurdle races, and the fourth won a Leopardstown maiden next time. That's a verbose way of saying he probably achieved a 90-odd level of form on the flat before sights were switched to timber.

In three completed starts over hurdles, he was a close up fourth in a big field on debut, 2nd of 15 having drifted from 8/11 to 5/4 the next day and, after a slipped saddle led to pulling up two back, he made all and bolted up at 4/6 in a Naas maiden hurdle. That maiden score, like his flat maiden win, was on good ground and, with the drying forecast, conditions look to be in his corner.

In the last twelve years, every winner of this race was either a single figure price (five winners) or 25/1+ (seven). Last year's 80/1 bomb was only a minor outlier on a recent history that includes a 40/1, three 33/1's and two 25/1's - so maybe this is the race to turn the form book upside down. If that's your thing, let's mess about with the concept for a minute.

Of those seven bombs, all ran in a non-handicap last time out (four of them in G1 or G2 company), all had four or fewer UK/Irish hurdle starts (though three had raced in France before), and five of seven were beaten 15 lengths or more last time. I think that's the one that puts punters off the scent. The only one really fitting the bill from a price perspective is Tanganyika who is second reserve. He is quite interesting on his run behind subsequent Grade 1 1-2 Kyrov and Golden Son in France. Now with Venetia Williams, Tanganyika was beaten eight and a half lengths in that Auteuil race. Kyrov is currently rated 75kg (165), Golden Son 71 (156) and Tanganyika's mark in France is 61.5 (135). Here, he has just 121, a full stone below his French rating. If he gets a run, he might be better than a 66/1 poke.

Gordon's Britzka and Ebasari both measure up on this 'interesting rag' angle but are shorter than ideal to take the chance. I might be tempted if either slid out to 25/1 or bigger.

Boodles Handicap Hurdle Pace Projection

Fast, frantic, furious, frenetic, ferocious and other adjectives beginning with 'f'. Doubtful stayers need not apply. Note that neither Gaelic Warrior nor Milldam have raced in UK or Ireland to this point. Their French form suggests both will be waited with to varying degrees.

Boodles Handicap Hurdle selection

It's a really tough heat with even fewer clues than your average Festival handicap. The British handicapper seems not to be on the same page with his European counterparts, ranking Irish form more highly and French form lower. On that basis, it's easy enough to bypass Gaelic Warrior at such cramped odds and I don't really want to be with The Tide Turns at not much bigger, though naturally I respect the chance of both.

Rather, I'll take a small swing at Champion Green and Saint Segal, both of which ought to be suited by this setup and both of which come from yards that know how to win the Fred Boodles. Jockeys are important at this meeting, however, and the experience of Rachael Blackmore versus the exuberance of Chester Williams tilts the pendulum in favour of Champion Green if having to choose between them. 

Suggestion: Try Champion Green at 12/1 or perhaps 16/1 Saint Segal, and watch the betting on Ebasari and Britzka. Get lots of extra places. Prepare to sigh if/when either Gaelic Warrior or The Tide Turns prevail.

*

5.30 National Hunt Chase (Grade 2, 3m 6f)

The nearly-four-miler as it has become known is in many ways the bellwether for the meeting and indeed the sport. Once (a long time ago) the most important race at the Festival, rank amateurs have given best to crack amateurs (there was a cheaper pun comparator which I'm proud to have resisted!), the distance has been truncated, and the quality and experience thresholds have been elevated.

In other words, this is a completely different race from the one which carried the same name 15 years ago. Back then, journeyman Corinthians on massive-priced pigs in a poke in huge fields played a version of 'last man or woman standing'. Now, field sizes are smaller, the quality of bipeds and quadrupeds alike is higher, and it is consequently a far more predictable affair. Note, not predictable, only more predictable.

On field sizes, in 2016 there were 20 runners; over the next three years there were 18, 16 and 18 runners; but, since the distance was reduced to 3m6f and it has become more about class than out and out stamina, field sizes have reduced to 14 and then 12 last year... and now just seven horses are slated to go to post. That is not a good look. To the septet...

Experience has counted for a lot in recent times, with nine of the past ten winners having four-plus seasonal runs and four-plus chase starts. That's a potential knock for the strong Willie Mullins-trained fancy, Stattler, who is unbeaten in two fencing contests. In 2013, Mullins won with the unbeaten-in-three Back In Focus, but more recently both 9/4 Ballyward (fell) and 10/11 Carefully Selected (unseated) have succumbed to their inexperience at the obstacles. Still, Stattler's form credentials are robust and his stamina is assured if his leaping holds up at the expected quicker tempo on quicker turf.

Fitting the historical profile more snugly is the Gordon Elliott inmate, Run Wild Fred, who represents Gigginstown and is ridden by Jamie Codd. Codd has piloted the winner in three of the last six renewals where amateur jockeys contested (professionals last year due to Covid), two of the three coming for Elliott.

Run Wild Fred has almost as much experience as his rider, being a veteran of ten chases, the same number as Cause Of Causes (Codd/Elliott), Tiger Roll (Elliott), and Rathvinden; and second place finishes in the Irish Grand National and a Grade 1 novice chase attest both to stamina and class. He does finish second unnervingly frequently - he's allowed one to pass in five of his last six chases - but otherwise is a strong box-ticker for all that he's no Prestbury Park previous.

Next in is another Irish-trained horse, last year's Albert Bartlett winner, Vanillier. Apparently a spring horse, he improved on a February drubbing last year to win at the Festival and trainer Gavin Cromwell will hope that sizable deficits behind Fury Road, Run Wild Fred and Stattler in his two runs in 2022 can be overcome. It's taking plenty on faith at his price.

Ontheropes is a slight rarity in that he's a Cheveley Park Stud entry, and trained by Willie Mullins, that is not favourite. He has had plenty of experience, however, which is definitely the way to go in the National Hunt Chase, and breeding suggests this trip is within range. The form of his fourth in the Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury in the autumn is strong and if quicker ground ekes out a pound or two, he could cause a minor surprise.

Gordon also has Braeside, whose two career wins have come on heavy ground, as Profiler handily highlights. He's slow enough for the old four-miler but probably not quick enough for this classier, shorter iteration of the race.

The best of the two trained by Rebecca Curtis - the only two British entries to stand their ground - should be Pats Fancy, who has risen through the handicap ranks this season but was comprehensively hammered at both Cheltenham and Aintree in Grade 1 novice hurdles a year ago. On his latest outing, Pats Fancy was a three length second to Bravemansgame in receipt of 16 pounds. That form is not good enough here. His stable mate, Beatthebullet, is more than two stone 'wrong' with the top rated of these and appears to be the much maligned 'social runner'.

National Hunt Chase Pace Projection

No sign of an out and out burn up, and just a couple that might want to lead. Most are fairly versatile regarding run style so this looks like being run at a fairly even gallop, at least in the early part of the race.

National Hunt Chase Selection

I'm not totally sold on Stattler for all that he can obviously win. Run Wild Fred looks the one, especially with the striking booking of Jamie Codd. And last year's Albert Bartlett winner, Vanillier, must also be a contender on that evidence though not on much evidence since.

Suggestion: Back Run Wild Fred to win at around 9/4.

*

It's a first day light on runners but brimming with class, and it may be sobering to remember that the opening stanza is often the best chance for us punters to get a few quid up on those bookie types. Regardless, there will be 21 more opportunities hereafter so keep some powder dry!

Good luck!

Matt

London Racing Club Cheltenham Preview Notes

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Last night I had the pleasure of attending the London Racing Club's Cheltenham Preview night. Always a considered evening, refreshingly bereft of "this is a certainty" and "will win" bluster, the panel comprised the notable nag noggins of Matt Tombs (MT), Lydia Hislop (LH), host Lee Mottershead (LM), and Unibet's Ed Nicholson (EN), who does a lot of media work with Nicky Henderson. Here's what they had to say...

Tuesday - Day 1

Supreme Novices' Hurdle

EN - Nicky is really very hopeful for Constitution Hill and favours him over Jonbon, but Ed prefers Jonbon's battle tested form to CH's bridle work.

LH - Would personally run Sir Gerhard in the Ballymore and the buzzy Dysart Dynamo in Supreme. Kilcruit could be a touch underestimated, while a strongly run race would suit Mighty Potter. Not betting until the final field is known.

MT - It should be a no brainer to split Sir G and DD as Lydia suggested. Constitution Hill not tested off the bridle, who knows if he'll find? Have some doubts about Kilcruit, who has perhaps had a physical issue. Feel Mighty Potter is over-priced based on the Grade 1 Christmas form beating Three Stripe Life. He could shorten between now and off time.

Arkle

LH - Edwardstone is a sold favourite but short enough at 2/1, though would be a bet if drifting as far as 3's. Great jumper. Saint Sam might finish in front from the trio out of the Irish Arkle. Haut En Couleurs retains 'could be anything' status.

MT - Might take a chance on HeC: in a race lacking obvious star potential, he has untapped upside.

EN - Bookies will probably want to try to lay Edwardstone.

Ultima Handicap Chase

MT - Oscar Elite should be on your shortlist.

Champion Hurdle

EN - Epatante has been hurdling really fluently in her schooling work and the Henderson team hope she can make the frame again.

MT - Honeysuckle about the right price. Too much made of her unremarkable but still clear cut win last time. Appreciate It has a mountain to climb trying to beat her first time out off a year's layoff.

LH - AI and Paul Townend should probably force matters and try to put Honey's jumping under pressure. Still think Honey will win, but struggling to find a betting angle into the race. Maybe if strongly run, Zanahiyr without the favourite is a play.

Mares' Hurdle

LH - Telmesomethinggirl the likeliest winner but short enough now. Queen's Brook could be a danger, and Burning Victory may be interesting at a price. Stormy Ireland is probably past her best now.

MT - Want to take Burning Victory on. She's been on the go for a long time.

EN - Marie's Rock has come back to form in her work and Nicky thinks she could be his best outsider of the week.

Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle

EN - Champion Green and Brazil are both better value options than Gaelic Warrior and his mysterious handicap mark.

LH - Saint Segal looks like he has a lot of ability.

Wednesday - Day 2

Ballymore Novices' Hurdle

MT - Sir Gerhard looks like he'll have too much toe for this field and could go off something like 4/6 in the end.

LH - Agree with Matt

EN - Agree, likely to shorten

Brown Advisory Novices' Chase (formerly RSA)

LH - Not sure Bravemansgame likes Cheltenham. Ahoy Senor could be a Gold Cup player next season but unconvinced about his chance on the tighter track in this novices' race. L'Homme Presse was previously going to the Turners but now heads here: he might just be the optimal runner in the field as he should stay the longer trip and might even improve for it - he's been hitting the line strongly in his races. Gaillard Du Mesnil might be a little value as a street fighting slugger, the sort that often fares well in this race.

EN - Also favours Ahoy Senor over BMG, reversing Kempton Grade 1 form.

MT - 22 Kauto Star/Feltham winners have been beaten in the RSA, no Kempton G1 winner has won RSA; beaten horses from that race have won RSA numerous times. If Ahoy Senor gets into a jumping rhythm he will be tough to beat but only if he jumps well enough. If Capodanno is declared he could be the danger.

Champion Chase

LH - Thought Energumene should have beaten Shishkin last time at Ascot where seemingly everything was in his favour. On Shishkin's home patch, the Arkle winner will be tough to beat. Not sure Chacun Pour Soi likes the track and worried that Willie Mullins says he has to train him at only 95%. Nube Negra each way or without the favourite is interesting because don't really like Energ or CPS and NN will finish strongly.

MT - Would rather back Energ at 7/2 than Shishkin at 8/11 but worried about him potentially jumping right at his fences.

EN - Nicky Henderson has won with all eight of his odds on shots at the Festival to date. Shishkin bids to extend that sequences.

Grand Annual Handicap Chase

LH - Coeur Sublime, if coming here rather than Arkle, has the right profile to be very competitive.

EN - Paul Nicholls very sweet on Thyme White, who he feels may appreciate the fast tempo to the race.

Coral Cup

MT - Saint Felicien is a Grade 1 horse in a handicap. Had a very similar prep to other Elliott handicap winners and was still in the Champion Hurdle until quite late in the day.

Champion Bumper

LH - "Not a race for me, because I just don't know enough about the runners"

MT - 12 of the last 13 times Willie has had multiple entries in the Bumper, the most fancied has failed to be the first Mullins horse home. Not a positive for Facile Vega.

Thursday - Day 3

Turners Novice Chase

LH - Could be a VERY small field. Not sure Bob Olinger has improved for the switch to fences, for all that he was a very high class hurdler; but feel Galopin Des Champs is a better horse for chasing. Henry de Bromhead horses are always well schooled but GdC looks "the real deal".

Ryanair Chase

LH - Eldorado Allen interesting against (or without) the favourite, Allaho. Shan Blue is a negative: think he wants a flat track.

MT - Mister Fisher, if he runs here, might be ridden to pick up the pieces.

EN - Not sure Mister F is running here.

Stayers' Hurdle

MT - The race is "a muddle". Might take a chance on Klassical Dream even after his Galmoy Hurdle clunk. Have also backed Royal Kahala, as believe the Galmoy form has been under-rated a touch. She's progressive while plenty in this field look regressive.

LH - Backed KD because, at his best, he's the best in the field. Might bomb out but if bringing his A game, he is the one. Also wouldn't underestimate Royal Kahala who receives a 7lb mares' allowance.

Pertemps Final Handicap Hurdle

LM - Sire Du Berlais is my bet of the meeting. Has a good amateur jockey in Rob James, who will claim 7lb, and SdB is a proper Cheltenham Festival horse.

Dawn Run Mares' Novices' Hurdle

LH - Dinoblue the bet of the meeting after Willie decided to send her straight here following a single run and win. Strongly against Brandy Love who is an awful price. Party Central may be more of a danger.

Friday - Day 4

Gold Cup

LH - Wide open race. A Plus Tard is not getting away from his fences with any momentum whereas Minella Indo is made for this job. Respect Galvin who has a nice progressive second season chaser profile but is short enough. Don't think Protektorat is good enough. Would definitely be more interested in MI if Jack Kennedy gets reunited as he may force things from the front and draw out the horse's stamina.

MT - Feel like those to have run in previous Gold Cups don't have the progressive profile needed, while also think Galvin is short enough. Getting interested in Tornado Flyer given the possible steady pace.

EN - Chantry House has been a little hard done by. He is a pacey horse with an excellent win record including at the Festival last year. Granted, the Cotswold Chase is not a strong trial for Gold Cup generally.

Triumph Hurdle

MT - Trainer vibes vs form here: Willie is bullish about Vauban and Gordon about Fil Dor. But Pied Piper has the better form in my view. Spring Juvenile is the key trial though not necessarily the winner from that race. Pied Piper the play for me.

LH - Il Etait Temps must be highly regarded to have made his debut in the Spring Juvenile. Finished that race very strongly and could step forward notably from first to second run for the trainer (WPM). Willie is bullish about Vauban but I'm not so sure about that. IET a really good e/w bet in that he has strong place claims and could win.

Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle

MT - Like Hillcrest but want to bet a price in this race. Two of interest are Eric Bloodaxe, who bombed out last time but is a proper slogger, and Grand Jury who ran well over 2m4f and looks like he'll be suited to the longer trip. Win only at big prices.

LH - Against Matt's two! Love Hillcrest but kind of wish he was being saved for the Sefton at Aintree. Experience is a key requirement for the Albert Bartlett, and Stag Horn's flat catalogue as well as slick jumping and stamina make him of interest.

County Hurdle

MT - My Mate Mozzie could be another Group horse in a handicap. Crying out for a fast run, fast ground two miler.

Others

Gordon Elliott to be top trainer at 3/1 a great bet to keep the entertainment going for the week. Has bundles of entries and favoured horses in both conditions races and handicaps.

Good luck!

Matt

Gold Nuggets #8: The Cheltenham Festival one

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Next week sees the biggest betting race meeting of the year, the Cheltenham Festival. And, to arm you with more intel than you can shake a muddy stick at, I share a few cracking resources both home and away, as it were.

The timeline on this video is as follows:

00:00 Intro

00:38 Using Query Tool for Cheltenham Festival research

08:45 GaultStats Cheltenham Festival trends

10:00 Matt Tombs' Cheltenham Festival trends

12:00 Timeform Cheltenham Festival trends

And, beneath the video square below, you'll find links to the referenced content.

Oh, and I mention London Racing Club's Festival Preview with Matt Tombs, Lydia Hislop and the Post's Lee Mottershead. It's on Thursday 10th March from 7pm at the Wrights Lane Holiday Inn, two mins walk from High St Kensington tube. £15 non-members, £8 members. Always a brilliant night if you're nearby and can get along. Maybe see you there?

Good luck!

Matt

 

 

Sites and tools referenced are:

Query Tool

Geegeez.co.uk Cheltenham Festival microsite

Gault Stats

Matt Tombs' Trends

Timeform Trends

 

Racing Systems: All Weather Angles

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In my previous article I explored the idea of using trainer systems in National Hunt racing, writes Dave Renham. This time I have turned my attention to the all-weather with a view to finding some more profitable trainer patterns.

As with the last piece I am going to look over the long term, studying UK racing trainer data from Jan 1st 2009 to Dec 31st 2021. If trainers have proved profitable over such a long timeframe then we should have more confidence that this will continue to happen. As ever, though, racing systems are only dealing with past results: those of us not blessed with clairvoyance cannot be sure of what will happen in the future!

OK, let's get to it.

Ralph Beckett – the ‘Blind’ system

Ralph Beckett is a trainer that I think punters in general underrate. Year in, year out he seems to produce the goods. He has good figures for turf racing, but on the all-weather they are even better. Indeed, let's start with possibly the simplest system one could create:

  1. Trainer Ralph Beckett
  2. All races on the all-weather

That’s it – bet every single Beckett runner on the sand. The graph below shows the yearly breakdown of Beckett's Return on Investment to Betfair SP.

 

 

The Kimpton, Hampshire-based trainer has enjoyed 11 winning years out of 13, with the losses in 2018 very small in reality. His strike rate has fluctuated a little as one might expect, ranging from a low of 10.4% in 2019 to as high as 23.7% in 2020. However, 2019 was the only year it dipped below 14.5% and in eight years the strike rate has exceeded 20%. The overall bottom line reads as follows:

 

 

That's extremely impressive at first glance. Things do need clarifying a touch, however, in that his profits have been helped by some big priced winners; but these winners actually occurred on a regular basis. Indeed, Beckett has had 45 winners priced at a BSP of 12.0 or bigger since 2009, with at least two such scorers annually, and the graph below shows how these have been spread out over the years:

 

 

Whenever we look at system results we need to ensure that random big-priced winners do not skew the overall results. This is a case where I believe random big-priced winners are not skewing the results but, instead, are a feature of the result set.

Another positive in terms of consistency is when we examine the individual course data. The table below gives us the Beckett breakdown for the six UK all-weather courses:

 

 

Strike rates are consistent across the piece, and all courses show a profit at Betfair SP. This reliability can also been seen when we break down results by month. Ten of the 12 calendar months have shown a profit as we can see:

 

 

December and January, peak all-weather season in fairness, are the only two negative months. Maybe it is a time of year that Beckett targets a little less. It is interesting that ‘returns’ wise Beckett has done particularly well in the spring and summer months, definitely something worth noting when most people's focus is on flat turf racing.

Some readers may not be comfortable betting all Beckett runners ‘blind’ so are there any additional rules we can add that do not smell of the dreaded back-fitting? Well, some kind of betting market rule may help, especially if you are concerned that the results are slightly skewed due to big-priced winners. If we add the following rule:

- stick to horses from the top five in the betting

This would cut the number of selections by around 350, increase the strike rate to 22.8% and keep profits relatively high – a profit to £1 level stakes of £291.23 (ROI +21.2%). The year by year returns retain their consistency, in fact 12 of the 13 years now show a profit using this market restriction.

All in all, if there is one all-weather trainer to keep on your side it is Ralph Beckett.

Let’s check out some other trainers now.

 

Hugo Palmer – the Market system

Hugo Palmer has a decent record on the sand since he started in 2011. If we use a market restriction we create a potential system to follow. The rules are:

  1. Trainer Hugo Palmer
  2. All races on the all-weather
  3. Top five in the betting.

 

Using the same market restriction I used with Beckett, Palmer’s overall figures look solid:

 

 

Using this top five in the betting rule once again means the figures are less skewed by big-priced winners, which as previously mentioned is important, but it also means we often cannot know the market rank of a runner unless it is near the very top of the betting or an outsider.

Breaking the figures down by year shows a fair amount of consistency. I have used profit figures to £1 level stakes to illustrate this:

 

 

Palmer incurred small losses in his first two seasons, but given he was still cutting his teeth in the game these can be forgiven. Since then there have been eight winning years out of nine. 2019 was a poor year but he did actually the post with several seconds that year and I think we can reasonably overlook that.

Looking at his course by course  data with runners in the top five of the betting, he has made profits at Kempton, Newcastle, Southwell and Wolverhampton; broke even at Chelmsford, and made a loss at Lingfield. Again, that's fair enough consistency.

There are other options in terms of adding system rules, but this Hugo Palmer system definitely has a decent chance to remain profitable for the near future at least. Hence no need for me to change to it. You may like to research further, however!

 

Mark Johnston – Older horses, lower class system

Mark Johnston has averaged about 400 runners per year on the all-weather in recent years and hence it gives us a huge sample size to break down. His annual strike rate has been super consistent in recent times hitting around the 15% mark every year:

 

 

Now, most top trainers in the country, like Johnston, tend to focus more on their younger horses as they are going to be the ones that are likely to have a chance at stud (and are not exposed as moderate or in the grip of the handicapper). It is noticeable that the runners Mark Johnston (and joint-licence holder son, Charlie) keeps in training past three years old perform well as a whole on the all-weather. They make up only 23% of his runners on the sand, but if backing all such runners (4yo and up) ‘blind’ they would have broken even over the past 13 years. The route to profit seems to be in lower class races, Class 5 or below. Hence the system reads:

  1. Trainer Mark (and Charlie) Johnston
  2. 4yo+ running on the all-weather
  3. Class 5, 6 or 7

Running older horses in lower class races is relatively rare for trainers like Johnston but the overall stats still look promising:

 

 

A good strike rate edging towards one win in four, and returns of 32p in the £ are appealing. Let's break the data down by year and, as always, we are looking for consistency. The graph uses profit figures to £1 level stakes:

 

 

Overall there have been decent results across the piece, with just three losing years. 2020 could have been impacted by COVID so that is something that potentially we might take into account. Another positive is that in the same time frame this ‘system’ would have made a profit for Johnston in turf flat racing too; not as big a profit, but a positive return nonetheless. Hence I am hopeful that this angle should offer a good chance of making further profits in the future.

 

Charles Hills – Fancied Males system

It should be noted that male horses outperform female ones on the all-weather, with overall figures for all horses from all trainers seeing males win 11.8% of the time, females only 9.1%. There is a much bigger discrepancy though when you look at the runners of Charles Hills splitting them by gender. His male runners have won 19.3% of the time, whereas female runners have triumphed just 11.4% of the time. Hence the Hills gap looks extremely significant.

So here is another potential system in which we are using a limited number of rules. Again I want to implement the same market rule as I have used previously to avoid the bigger-priced winners skew dilemma. Hence our system reads:

  1. Trainer Charles Hills
  2. All races on the all-weather
  3. Top five in the betting
  4. Male horses only

His results, like Hugo Palmer’s, only go back to 2011 but the basic figures look strong:

 

 

He has seen a good strike rate as you would expect with a system that uses market factors as one of its rules. Decent returns, too, of around 26p in the £.

Once again though we need to look at the yearly data in a bid to establish consistency. Broken down this time by BSP ROI%:

 

 

2011 looks bad but he had only six runners in that first season with a licence, and all lost, hence the -100% ROI. We can see a subsequent steady improvement over time with 2012 to 2014 essentially breaking even, while every year from 2015 to 2021 has ended up with positive returns.

I had a sneaky look at his results so far in 2022, and at the time of writing (7th March), the system has generated 20 qualifiers, 10 of which have won (SR 50%) showing a BSP profit of £15.31 (ROI +76.55%). The signs remain very promising.

The beauty of all-weather racing is that it happens all year round and hence these four systems can potentially be exploited regardless of whether the main focus is on National Hunt or flat turf racing: we can just carry on finding nice winners on the sand!

*

That's all for this article. If you have any system ideas you’d like me to investigate, please leave a comment below.

- DR

Monday Musings: Cheltenham Memory Lane

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I rarely buy the print version of the Racing Post, preferring instead the online option (saves at least £80 a month), but on Friday I stretched a point, writes Tony Stafford. I needed to check whether I was still officially alive – so many other great cricketers having succumbed over the past week – and, yes, there I was with yet another new description.

You have to hand it to John Randall, still the man behind the Post’s birthday feature and so much else, and also my former colleague Howard Wright. They keep their aging fingers – one set older, one younger – on the pulse and have now blown my cover and described me as “Editor-in-Chief of Fromthestables.com”.

So no longer Raymond Tooth’s racing manager and possibly other plausible titles involving the Daily Telegraph – left in 2002, really? – but it was nice of them to give the site the publicity it deserves. That’s just my totally objective opinion, of course.

Friday’s Post informed me and the rest of the rapidly diminishing number of the immediate post-World War 2 baby boom generation that I had indeed entered the final quarter of my personal century.

The values instilled in me by my racing loving, Arsenal supporting and cricket adoring father have stayed with me for at least 70 years since I first went to Highbury, Newmarket and Kempton Park. People might have expected me to grow up, but what would be the point? Become a Formula One fan, hardly!

The early days at the races were always by charabanc – coach to you – with stops at the halfway houses between East London and those two named tracks courtesy of the Fallowfield and Britten firm that picked up at Clapton Pond.

One day standing in the toilet on the way to the 1954 2,000 Guineas won by Darius – Harry Wragg, Manny Mercer - I felt a warm, moist intrusion on my left leg. Further enquiries revealed the culprit as Prince Monolulu, the famed racecourse tipster who sold his selections to a willing public. For many years he had the persona, if not the bladder control, to entice an audience.

In those innocent days this alleged chief of the Falasha tribe of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) had actually been born in the Virgin Islands and his name was the far from glamorous Peter Carl Mackay. At the time of my anointment as a future tipster he was already 72 years old and survived the 1961 legalising of betting shops, four years before his death aged 83.

When my dad got a car, a favourite was the spring meeting at Epsom where we would park on the Hill and watch from opposite the winning post, but later he asked if I’d like to go to Cheltenham.

He took me and a couple of friends for the opening day of the 1968 meeting and it happened to be the year when L’Escargot had the first of his big wins, in the second division of the Gloucestershire Hurdle, historically usually the race targeted by Vincent O’Brien before he left jumping to his inferiors having won multiple Gold Cups, Champion Hurdles and Grand Nationals in the early post-war years.

Dan Moore was the trainer and Tommy Carberry the rider of the horse owned by Raymond Guest, the former US Ambassador to Ireland. Guest also owned Sir Ivor, the outstanding Derby winner, trained by O’Brien to Classic success only three months after that Cheltenham trip.

We all piled on him with a few quid each and the atmosphere was very good on the way home. If L’Escargot made an impact that day, it was not until a year or so later that he was to become my favourite jumper of all time.

I had joined the racing desk at the Press Association and one particular week we were concentrating on the Wills Premier Chase meeting at Haydock early in the year. Two Irish horses dominated the betting on the Final, L’Escargot and a horse that had beaten him in the Irish qualifier a few weeks earlier. He was East Bound, trained by Arkle’s celebrated handler, Tom Dreaper.

It seemed to me that the betting was all wrong as winners of a qualifier had to carry a 5lb penalty. Research – in those days information was something to be chiselled out rather than at the touch of a keypad – told me that L’Escargot had followed his early hurdling days in Ireland by racing in his owner’s homeland, to such good effect that he was voted Champion US chaser of 1969, having won the Meadow Brook Chase at Belmont Park.

Before Haydock I thought I was very clever taking 14-1 about the Gold Cup. He duly won at Haydock, not by far, but as the weeks went by he drifted by the day. I travelled to that Cheltenham by train with a chap from Raceform called Peter Boyer (I think!) telling him all the way that 33-1 was a joke.

So it proved and he won at that price and followed up the next year in bottomless ground as favourite or thereabouts.

By the following year he started a four-time challenge for the Grand National, right in the middle of the Red Rum era. In 1972 he was a third fence faller carrying 12st top-weight. Under the same burden in 1973 he was a remote third to Red Rum, who was making his debut in the race and who received 23lb from L’Escargot and the Australian horse and joint-top weight Crisp, who famously just failed to make all in that epic race.

L’Escargot got nearer to Red Rum in second the next year and, as a 12-year-old in 1975, gained deserved recompense with a 15-length defeat of Red Rum, who by now was conceding him weight. That was where L’Escargot’s racing story ends as only the second horse (and still only the second almost half a century later) after Golden Miller to win both the Gold Cup and Grand National.

Red Rum still had to return for another runner-up place behind Rag Trade and then a final triumphant curtain call in 1975, when he made it three Grand National wins and two second places, also as a 12-year-old.

Once at the Daily Telegraph, Cheltenham visits were more regular but not to the degree that the outside staff could guarantee. But the year after I’d made a most impulsive “purchase” – £100k for ten horses from French-based carpet tycoon and private stable owner Malcolm Parrish in 1984 – I just had to be there.

Parrish owned all of the 100-plus horses in his stable and was pretty much the trainer although M de Tarragon held the licence officially. A few years earlier Michael Dickinson had bought through me but more significantly from Prince Rajsinh of Rajpipla – Prince Pippy to his readers in the Sun years later – who is the son of Windsor Lad’s (1935 Derby) owner, the Maharajah of that Indian state, two horses from Parrish.

One, French Hollow, proved a wonderful buy so it was fortuitous when going over to meet David O’Brien at Ballydoyle soon after his Derby win with Secreto, after that horse beat his father’s El Gran Senor the previous month, when he asked me to redirect to the Cashel Palace Hotel as he was with an owner.

That owner was Malcolm, later to own both the Lordship and Egerton Studs in Newmarket. I told him of the French Hollow connection and he said. “Do you want any more?” We agreed on ten and they were all to go to Rod Simpson. You might ask where did I have £100k to spend? Luckily Malcolm wasn’t much bothered and he got his money in the end. Rod didn’t like the look of one, Hogmanay, priced at £5k and when later he kept winning chases around Ascot and the like for Richard Casey it was hard to take.

There were problems with others too. A horse called Seram behaved like a lunatic from day one and Rod suggested I’d give him and another horse away. I moved them both to Wilf Storey who already had Fiefdom for me, and while Seram did have to be put down after almost killing Chris Grant on the gallops, Santopadre was an outstanding jumper.

In short time Wilf won successively a selling hurdle, a claimer and a novice with a double penalty, each time with noted punter Terry Ramsden filling his boots, the latter race by 15 lengths at Wetherby. It was around that time I got a call from the Jockey Club security people to meet me at Ascot. There they said they believed Rod Simpson was still training horses that were running under Storey’s name. I told them in my opinion Rod was nothing like as good a trainer as the mild-mannered Co. Durham sheep farmer.

Another of the ten was Brunico, a grey who later in his career won 23 point-to-point races for Peter Bowen. At this stage he’d just won at Windsor first time over hurdles as a partnership horse with Terry Ramsden, but he bought me out before his win at Sandown, where even Dermot Browne’s best efforts couldn’t stop him winning.

He was second in that year’s Triumph where Santopadre was fifth, both in Terry’s colours. He then won an amateurs’ Flat race on Doncaster’s opening meeting under Tim Thomson Jones before providing a big shock when winning the Ormonde Stakes (Group 3) at Chester at 33-1.

A third runner  in that Triumph, carrying my then but now David Armstrong’s red silks, was second-favourite Tangognat but he hated the ground and finished tailed off.

The Cashel Palace Hotel was closed for many years but it has been greatly restored and a friend who stayed there last week – it re-opened on March 1 – says it is spectacular. As he was visiting Ballydoyle, Coolmore and the two younger O’Briens’ stables in preparation for the new season, he got his timing right – as ever. Lucky boy, that Harry!

One horse that will not be at Cheltenham is the Doreen Tabor-owned Walking On Air who was so impressive at Newbury recently. Apparently Nicky Henderson will not be able to prepare him for the race in time for next week.

His dam Refinement’s near miss is engraved on my memory, as I turned away when she apparently had the Mares’ Hurdle won, exactly at the moment her head hit the line going up rather than down.

The one Cheltenham I regret having missed of course was Punjabi’s Champion Hurdle victory in 2009 for Ray Tooth. I was sitting on my sofa at home recovering from a detached retina operation and dared not risk getting knocked over should he win. Instead I watched alone, barely cheering, just enjoying the unbelievable result. That day I fancied horses in every race and linked them all in a full cover each-way bet.

I had the 33/1 winner and laid out a nice few quid. Not one of the others managed a place! Never mind we beat Binocular! I love Cheltenham and regret I can’t get there in 2022. Hopefully there will be a few more chances, but you never know!

 - TS

Gold Nuggets #7: Assorted Titbits

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Matt here with another instalment of Gold Nuggets. This week, I'm going off piste a touch to share some interesting (hopefully) titbits. Specifically:

- Getting an early leg up on your Cheltenham Festival study
- New feature coming soon: Profiler inline
- News from the BHA on handicap hurdle debutants

In that last section, I refer to an article from the BHA's handicapping team which you can read here.

Matt

Racing Systems: NH Trainer Angles

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When Matt sent a survey out to Geegeez members in January he got some interesting and refreshing responses, writes Dave Renham. In this article I will combine trainer angles with system research, two areas that surveyed members wanted to see more of.

A system based approach using trainer data / patterns is a tried and tested formula which has long been very popular with many punters. Indeed, in the first article of this series I shared a John Gosden system that had been successful on the flat in recent years. In this article my focus is going to be on National Hunt racing where I'll be looking for profitable trainer systems within this sphere.

I am going to look over the long term studying UK racing trainer data from Jan 1st 2009 to Dec 31st 2021. If trainers have proved profitable over such a long time frame then we have a potential system to use. From there, though, we may need to drill down further to try and determine the likelihood of an angle continuing to perform well. Of course we cannot know what the future will bring results wise and, as all of us are aware, past results may not be replicated in the future. So, with those messages in place, let’s start:

Rebecca Curtis – ‘Close’ season system

Rebecca Curtis started training in 2008 and quickly established herself as a trainer to keep a close eye on. In 2012 she had 47 winners from 189 runners which equates to a strike rate of 24.9%. Also in 2012 she had the first of her five Cheltenham Festival winners when Teaforthree won the Diamond Jubilee National Hunt Chase. Everything continued smoothly until 2017 when she split from her bloodstock agent, Gearoid Costelloe. That year she struggled, mainly due to losing roughly 50% of her horses. By 2019 she was back on track hitting a yearly win strike rate of 26.4%, but since Covid in March 2020 the performances from the stable have dipped again.

However, despite the more recent ups and downs, Curtis has continued to produce the goods in the warmer months. Focusing on May to August, the Pembroke-based handler has been consistently impressive all the way back to 2009. So our first trainer system to look at reads:

  1. Trainer Rebecca Curtis
  2. National Hunt UK racing – May 1st to August 31st

These are the annual strike rates for this micro angle:

 

 

At first glance the chart line may look a little volatile but the strike rate has exceeded 20% in all bar two years (2009 and 2016). It should also be noted that she had no runners in 2020 (due to the pandemic). Even last year, when she had a very modest overall 12 months, she still managed a strike rate of 29.4% making profits to BSP of £23.05 to £1 level stakes (ROI +135.6%).

From 2009 to 2021 the overall system results were:

 

 

A highly impressive bottom line and we know the strike rates have been decent year in, year out – so let’s look at the annual BSP profit figures:

 

 

Overall, then, it's nine winning years and only three losing ones, which is pleasing to see – consistency is something that we should all look for in systems.

Breaking the data down like this does highlight that 2016 must have had a huge priced winner or two. In fact it was a just one winner that after Betfair commission would have paid a remarkable 155/1. Thus, the original bottom line of +£220 to £1 level stakes does not look quite as impressive now. It is important to realise that big priced winners can skew results markedly and potentially turn a system on its head. Using Query Tool, the A/E metric will help here, and this - along with other metrics used extensively on geegeez.co.uk - is explained in more detail in this post.

All things being out in the open now, I would still hope this system has potential for the future. Even without that huge priced winner the figures remain solid. My biggest concern in reality is whether Rebecca Curtis will have the ammunition to produce such positive results in the future, but of course nobody can answer this.

There are other options for those who want to narrow the system down further, though - as we saw in my second article in this series - basic is generally best.

That said, if you had focused only on Curtis runners that started clear favourite you would have witnessed 47 winners from 78 runners giving an exceptional strike rate of 60.3%. They have naturally proved extremely profitable securing profits of £35.33 at BSP to £1 level stakes (ROI +45.3%). These market leaders also produced profits in all but one year. Adapting the system to focus just on favourites may be a way to go for some of you. (For the record, Ms Curtis has also saddled six qualifying joint-favourites, two of which won, giving a small profit also).

Before moving on, it is interesting to note that Peter Bowen, a trainer Curtis worked for prior to securing her own license, also has a good long-term record with his runners in the ‘close’ season. His overall performance from 2009 in the months of May to August reads:

 

 

Like Curtis, one big-priced winner in 2018 (220/1 after commission) has clearly helped. However, even removing that winner from Bowen's figures, the overall bottom line still looks rosy. I am more circumspect about Bowen, though, because if you take out that big priced winner and look at the more recent years 2014 to 2021, he has only made a small profit. Further, in 2020, he had just one winner from 63 starters! Now, of course, Covid really impacted the 2020 season for many, so that may just be a blip, but it is/was a big blip.

 

Paul Nicholls – Claiming jockeys in hurdle races

Paul Nicholls has been one of the top National Hunt trainers since the turn of the century but making profits from his runners is easier said than done. Top trainers are by definition unable to fly under the radar and finding value can be tricky. However, one area where Nicholls has performed relatively well is with horses ridden by claiming jockeys. Since 2009, Nicholls has used claiming jockeys on 1513 horses, of which 308 have won (SR 20.4%). Backing all these runners would have shown a loss to BSP but only £15.98 which equates to just a penny in every pound wagered. Compare this to his runners ridden by professional jockeys which would have lost £243.95, equivalent to losing 4p in the £.

Thus, claiming jockeys look a potential route to profits. Here is the system I have come up with:

  1. Trainer Paul Nicholls
  2. Hurdle races
  3. Horse ridden by claiming jockey
  4. Jockey has ridden the horse before

I chose hurdle races simply because there ought to be less chance of an inexperienced jockey falling. In addition I felt that if the jockey had ridden the horse before it would probably be a plus given these riders' general greenness. Again, I have very few rules in the system which hopefully avoids the dreaded back-fitting issue. The overall results from ’09 - ‘21 are in the positive range:

 

 

A strike rate of just over one in four and returns of 27p in the £ is a really good outcome. Let’s see how consistent the system would have been by looking at the annual strike rates first:

 

 

For this type of system we are more likely to see a volatile strike rate year to year but, as can also be seen, the figures have been stronger in recent years. Six of the past eight seasons have seen a strike rate in excess of 29%.

All well and good, but what of the bottom line? Below, we are looking at BSP profit to £1 level stakes. Looking at ROI% would be far too volatile due to sample size.

 

 

There have been nine winning years and four losing ones; but, since 2013, that reads eight winning years and only one losing year. The overall placed percentages are slightly above what I would expect which offers a further layer of confidence.

Sticking my neck out here, I would expect this system to prove profitable over the next five years, assuming nothing changes drastically within the Nicholls set up. The system has been relatively consistent with a decent overall strike rate; the trainer is one of the best in the business and the system has not been skewed due to big priced winners.

 

Venetia Williams – Chasers coming off a break

Venetia Williams has consistently been more successful with her chasers compared to her hurdlers over the years. Her overall strike rate in chases going back to 2009 stands at just under 16%; in hurdle races this drops to around 12%. In addition to this, for years now I have noticed that Ms Williams' horses seem to be fit regardless of how long they have been off the track. Hence I have devised a system that can take advantage of this. The rules are:

  1. Trainer Venetia Williams
  2. Chases
  3. Horse off track for five months (150 days) or more

I have chosen five months or more because that is roughly the break between the official end of the NH season in late April/early May and when the next season starts to get into full swing around late September/early October. [For the record, if I had chosen six months instead the figures would be very similar]

In terms of days therefore the five months equates to a break of more than 150 days. The overall results from 2009 look strong:

 

 

The yearly results are consistent, too – nine winning years, three losing ones and one that broke even. Indeed, two of the three losing years occurred in 2009 and 2011 so, since 2012, there has been just one year producing negative returns.

More positives can be found when we examine the prices of the winners. The pie chart below breaks down the 87 winners into Betfair SP price brackets.

 

 

As is shown, the vast majority of winning prices were at the shorter end of the market. 23 winners were 4.00 (3/1) or lower, while 60 were 10.00 (9/1) or lower. Just five winners were bigger than 20.00 BSP (19/1), and the two biggest priced winners were both under 40/1 BSP. This again helps explain why results have been consistent over the years.

Runners off a long layoff is an underused pattern for some punters. However, there are some trainers, like Venetia Williams, who are able to make a break more of a positive than a negative. It is interesting to note that Ms Williams has made profits at all distance ranges as the table below shows:

 

 

Strike rates are similar across the board, but the biggest returns by far have been in the longest distance races (3 miles or more), returning nearly 88p profit for every £1 bet. Yes, the strike rate has been marginally higher in that group, but I think this is more an example of punter bias. I think many punters are put off backing horses that are running at long distances after a decent length break. Their thinking, (which is logical), is that they surely won’t be fit enough to be competitive in a really long contest. Hence the prices available become slightly higher than they should be due to that lack of betting interest. Venetia Williams is clearly adept at getting horses fit and that gives us betting opportunities that represent value.

 

Other potential system ideas to look into further

I have looked above in some detail at three potential systems that I think could and should continue to be profitable for the next few years. To finish, I want to share four more potential systems that you, the reader, might want to use, or indeed to dig around a little deeper:

 

Anthony Honeyball – Lower Class races

Anthony Honeyball, whose yard is sponsored by geegeez.co.uk, is a trainer that has performed extremely well in lower grade races in recent years. Focusing on class 5 or 6 races only, Honeyball has secured a strike rate of 23.5% (105 wins from 446 qualifiers) showing a profit to £1 level stakes of £148.14 which equates to returns of 33p in the £. There were eight winning years out of 13, while ten of the 13 seasons saw a strike rate of 20% or more.

 

Nicky Henderson – Debutants in hurdle races

Henderson is one of the best in the business and before sharing the system, if you haven’t done so already please check out Matt’s excellent trainer profile article he wrote on him.

Henderson has produced decent profits since 2009 with horses making their debut in a hurdle race: 78 winners from 201 runners (SR 38.8%) is remarkable. BSP profits stand at £94.49 to £1 level stakes (ROI +47.0%), and eight of the last ten years have shown a profit.

In particular, keep an eye on the shorter priced runners: horses which were sent off at 3.5 (5/2) or less on Betfair have produced 53 winners from 83 runners (SR 63.9%) for a profit of £30.71 (ROI +37.0%).

 

David Pipe – winners returning within 10 days

David’s father Martin was one of the first trainers to realise that National Hunt horses could return to the track after a very short break and perform well. David has continued to some extent in his father’s footsteps, certainly in terms of success, although not perhaps in volume of runners. When David Pipe winners return to the track within 10 days, their strike rate has been close to 40% with returns of around 31p in the £. There have been ten winning years from 13, but in recent years qualifiers per season have been in single figures. Hence this system will not make you fortunes, but when a runner crops up it commands close scrutiny.

If you want to increase the number of runners, Pipe’s record with winners returning to the track within 20 days is decent also.

 

Gordon Elliott – handicap hurdle races

Gordon Elliott is a trainer who has excelled in handicap hurdle races since 2009. He has saddled 93 winners from 459 runners (SR 20.3%) showing a BSP profit of £167.99 (ROI +36.6%). A couple of biggish priced winners have made up roughly half of these profits, but it is interesting to note his record if we ignore any horse priced greater than 20.0 (Betfair price).

Doing so means the figures are not hugely skewed in any way. Focusing on these runners (shorter than 20.0) sees Elliott's record read 89 wins from 374 (SR 23.8%) for a profit of £108.59 (ROI +29.4%). That is comprised of nine winning years out of 13 with three of the losing years producing extremely small losses.

It is worth noting that Elliott's record in Ireland in handicap hurdles is much poorer. As an aside, and maybe a point worth further research, the vast majority of his handicap hurdlers in the UK ran in Ireland last time.

-----------------

I hope you have enjoyed this article and fingers crossed the systems shared will continue in the same profitable way. Nothing is guaranteed but I remain hopeful!

- DR

Monday Musings: The home defence prevails in Saudi

/in /by

Two years ago the Saudi Cup was staged for the first time with a total prize fund of $20 million ($10 million to the winner) and therefore the richest single horse race anywhere in the world. There was little surprise when US-trained horses came out on top in the nine-furlong event on the dirt course close to Riyadh.

The winner that day was Maximum Security, the horse that had also finished first past the post in the 2019 Kentucky Derby.  Immediately after the Derby, Maximum Security was disqualified for causing interference on the final bend and was relegated to 17th of the 19 runners under the stringent US interference rules.

The horse’s owners, which include the Coolmore partners, must have been relieved that the Saudi Cup was at least a financial consolation for losing the Derby. Sensationally, though, within a few days of that inaugural running, news came that the colt’s trainer Jason Servis had been arrested. He is named as one of 27 individuals implicated in a US-wide horse doping conspiracy. Their inevitably complex trial is expected to begin next year.

The first actual recipient of the Saudi cash therefore – before Newcastle United and the golfers wanting to play in the Kingdom-inspired planned breakaway from the PGA tour – was Prince Abdul Rahman Abdullah Faisal. The Prince, usually referred to as Prince Faisal in the UK, with his Gosden-trained Mishriff, won the race last year. He, of course, is from the Saudi Royal family.

His horse was back again for the Cup’s third running on Saturday, but he finished last, virtually pulled up by David Egan. The home team this time enjoyed both sides of the triumph, not just a Saudi-owned (again a Prince from the ruling family) but also by dint of its Saudi trainer.

That horse was Emblem Road, a US-bred son of Quality Road, sourced as a two-year-old for around $80,000 at Ocala in Florida, and he came into Saturday’s race with six wins in eight starts, yet started 80-1 (or 50-1, depending on which report you believe).

The price was understandable as he faced the reigning Kentucky Derby winner Mandaloun, also unbeaten in three runs since that day before Saturday, as well as well-touted fellow Americans Country Grammer and Midnight Bourbon.

The former of that pair is trained by Bob Baffert, another high-profile US trainer several of whose best horses have been found to have had illegal substances in their post-race samples and who is soon to face an inquiry into one of those instances. Interestingly, it was to Baffert that Maximum Security was switched after the Jason Servis licence was suspended two years ago.

Hopes for Emblem Road were drastically reduced when the colt started very slowly but his 53-year-old rider Wigberto Ramos did not panic. A Panamanian who has been riding in Saudi Arabia for the past 24 years, “Wiggy” knows the track as well as any jockey and he steadily made up his ground.

There was still more to be retrieved as Country Grammer set off for home, offering Baffert high hopes of his cut of the $10 million; but Emblem Road, buoyed by his own extensive experience of his home track, would not be denied and got up close home to win by half a length.

The victory was a massive triumph for his local trainer Mitab Almulawah and it must be very possible that his smart and tough four-year-old might be deployed to Meydan to challenge for the Dubai World Cup, victory in which would propel him even higher up the world top earnings table.

I remember when I first started working back in 1990 with the late Prince Ahmed Salman and his Thoroughbred Corporation team which won so many major races around the world, asking whether the family was on a par with the Maktoum family.

The answer came from my pal Jack Rusbridge, the late Prince’s main security advisor, who replied: “No contest. The Saudis’ wealth is a bottomless pit!” Phil Mickelson and Eddie Howe are well aware of that, never mind Baffert who for all the disappointment of his near miss in the big race, collected his share of around $3.5 million for Country Grammer’s second and the victory of his 7-4 favourite Pinehurst in the Saudi Derby earlier on the card.

The rivalry between Dubai and Riyadh is such that the failure of any of the Godolphin ten to win a race would have been regarded as a triumph on the ground for the home team. Rather than any of the more anticipated centres of success, the remaining four races open to the invaders all went to that upwardly-mobile source of big-race excellence that is Japan.

Two wins on the second day of the Breeders’ Cup with Marche Lorraine – sixth to Emblem Road on Saturday – and Loves Only You, who went on to win the Longines Hong Kong Cup in December, jolted many of us to their ever-expanding horizons.

But this was something on an altogether different scale. All four were ridden by Christophe Lemaire who, in the manner of all true international jockeys of the highest order, instantly knew how to handle this track. Three turf races opened the feast, Lemaire making all in two with a come from behind run in between. Then later, in the Turf sprint, he was back in making-all vein, completing an astonishing four-timer for this powerful racing nation.

**

There was some decent jump racing back home at the weekend and it was good to see Milton Harris winning the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton with the now unbeaten-in-five over timber, Knight Salute, who needed to overcome a 5lb penalty for his earlier two Graded wins.

Expensive recruits from the flat were easily brushed aside and while it might have been tight if the Gary Moore-trained Teddy Blue had jumped the last two flights better, Knight Salute looks the main domestic hope for the Triumph Hurdle against the Mullins/Elliott platoon.

Staying chases were the other prime targets for owners and trainers, and both Newcastle’s Eider Chase and then Kempton’s Coral Handicap Chase were mopped up by the mop-haired (although he has trimmed it a shade!) Christian Williams.

Always a shrewdie in his riding days as a generally second-string jump jockey, he seems even more astute as a trainer. He says the plans for the multiple entries for these two valuable prizes were fixed months ago and they were rewarded when Win My Wings justified heavy support down to 11-2 favouritism at Newcastle. Cap Du Nord, 15 minutes later, with Williams – anxiously on course in the paddock at Sunbury - led home a stable one-two completed by Kitty’s Light.

The three Williams contributors collected almost £160,000. On what was the worst performance of his life Mandaloun “earned” £222,222 for finishing ninth in the world’s richest race.

For anyone waiting for news of Glen Again who now has been taken out twice so far when due to make his hurdles debut, I can tell you he has two possible entries later this week. Ian Williams has to choose between Ludlow on Thursday and Newbury the following day. At least the ground will not be heavy wherever he goes.

- TS

Gold Nuggets #6: Jackpot Windmill Tilting

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After a week off recharging the old battery pack, Gold Nuggets is back with a slightly longer than usual edition. This week, I look at how to frame a jackpot permutation using the Gold racecards, Fast Finishers, Query Tool, Draw Analyser and the multi-race ticket builder. See what you think...

Matt

Racing systems: Using systems to create shortlists

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In my first article I gave readers an introduction to racing systems, writes Dave Renham. In this follow up I am going to look at a slightly different way of using systems, namely for shortlisting. and we'll use the Cheltenham Festival as an example.

Most people prefer the clear cut system method: a set of rules from which, when a horse qualifies, you simply back it; the theory is that this system has proved profitable in the past, and should continue to do so in the future.

However, for those system punters out there, not all systems remain profitable despite past results. I discussed in the previous article that many systems, even very good ones, are likely to have a limited shelf-life in terms of profitability. Meanwhile some other past ‘winning’ systems are basically flawed due to poor construction and have only proved profitable essentially because of luck or back-fitting.

But systematic approaches can also be used in a broader sense, for instance to create shortlists for specific races. Let’s review how that could work.

 

Creating a Cheltenham Festival system

With the Cheltenham Festival around the corner I thought I'd offer a shortlisting system idea that gives us a chance to make a profit at the meeting. This system will produce a shortlist of runners that is about as easy as you could get. The system rules are these:

  1. Non-handicap races at the Cheltenham Festival
  2. Top four in the betting

That’s it. The focus is just on the top four horses in the betting in these races. You may be thinking how is this system potentially going to make me a profit? Well the strange thing is that if you had bet all runners from the top four of the betting in every non-handicap festival race since 2009 you would have made a blind profit to Betfair SP. If you had placed £10 on every selection you would have made a profit of £661.50; a return of just over 7 pence in the £. The graph below how each year would have panned out from a return on investment perspective:

 

 

Nine of the 13 years produced a profit; and losses in the other four years were far from damaging. Strike rates were pretty consistent, varying from 14% in the ‘worst’ performing year to 20% in the best.

One issue with systems that use market factors is that it is not always possible to be 100% sure which horses will finish where in terms of position in the betting market. Of course, the later you place the bet or bets, the easier it is to be confident the horse will end up in the top 'x' of the betting. I appreciate, though, for some people this is not an option; but the good news is this ‘shortlisting system’ would have worked equally well if you had used the top four of the betting forecast in the Racing Post.

Before examining what we can do next with our shortlist of four runners, let me quickly discuss why I think this idea might have worked in the past. The one thing we know about the Cheltenham Festival is that trainers and their horses will be giving 100 per cent. In non-handicap races we are going to get fewer shocks and more races running closer to form. Yes, the races will be competitive, but even so wins for outsiders will be rare. Indeed, horses priced greater than 25/1 have won just 11 times in the 13 years from 1197 runners. Backing all of them would have secured a loss of 20p in the £ to BSP.

In terms of longevity, this top four in the betting idea should not have a shelf-life per se, as the prices of these runners are going to be very similar in years to come. So, as a shortlisting method, focusing on the top four in the betting in these races looks a highly logical starting point.

From here it is a question of personal preference in terms of what to do next and how much time you wish to spend on each race. For those who have no real time to devote to form study there are two possible options. The first option is that you could just back all four runners each time. A second option is to look for one further rule to incorporate into the system. Once found, assuming one can be found, the selection process is short and swift.

Looking for an extra system rule brings into focus the trap of back-fitting so one needs to be careful. I think before testing any further ideas out, we ought to draw up a list of possible rules that make sense. Here are some ideas to that end:

  1. Look for horses that have won that season
  2. Look for horses that were sensibly priced last time out
  3. Look for horses that have not been off the track for too long
  4. Look for horses with sound sire stats

This is not an exhaustive list, but for the purposes of this article it makes sense not to examine too many. Let us consider them one by one.

Horses that won earlier in the season

It makes sense to me to focus on horses that have won at least once earlier in the season. I am someone who generally looks for horses that have won before and at this level I think it is crucial. The problem of course, as you may have guessed, is that it will not trim the shortlist much! For horses to be in the top four of the betting at the Cheltenham festival it is likely that they have shown a decent level of form that year. This extra system rule knocks out just over 100 qualifiers and overall profits improve by £3.56!! This equates to an improvement in terms of returns on investment by around 1p in the £. All in all, not a system rule I would be too fussed to add.

Horses priced 'sensibly' last time out

Looking for horses that were not huge prices last time is something I do if I am focusing my attention on the front end of the betting market in non-handicap races. My reasoning is that horses that were big prices last time out were clearly not fancied. If they ran well and outran their odds I think there is sometimes an overreaction next time and their odds in the current race may end up being shorter than they perhaps should be, thereby offering little or no value.

The difficulty for any system punter once they come up with a rule that involves price in some form or other, is to choose the right price. Not only that, this is where back-fitting can easily raise its head. It is so tempting to look at the stats, see the price bracket that gave the best profit and choose that. But, as we know, this is a doomed approach. We should choose a price that seems to make sense and stick with it, regardless of what the data spits out. In non-handicap races I would rarely back horses priced 12/1 or bigger, so the price limit I would use here is LTO price 11/1 or shorter.

Looking at the results of adding this system rule we get a similar pattern to the basic system:

 

Overall returns improve a little to 9p in the £, but ultimately only 52 horses were ‘knocked out’ from the original group of just over 900. So again, for me, it would make little sense to use this rule.

Days since last run

When dealing with the fitness of horses, I am always a little sceptical about runners that have been off the track for too long, especially if it is later in the season like the Cheltenham Festival is. Again the problem is choosing the right time frame, and sticking to it. With Cheltenham taking place annually in mid-March I would not choose a specific days since last run figure, but simply use January 1st as the cut off. So what happens if we stick to horses that have run at least once in the calendar year? Here are the stats:

 

 

We have trimmed the number of selections a bit more here. This extra rule would mean backing three horses in each race on average. However, the figures have not really improved. A slightly better ROI%, but due to losing 200+ selections actual profits have dropped by around £110 if betting £10 level stakes. Overall this might be an option for some people but, once more, it's not one for me.

Sire Stats

Using a sire rule for a system is a rarity for most, but actually sire stats are quite detached from the usual system rules punters use. They also don’t really clash with other rules/variables, that is there are not normally any 'related contingencies'. For that reason, I often like to investigate sire angles. Moreover, sire data is not as accessible for many punters as the more bog standard racing data.

So what parameters to use for the sire system rule? I will keep it relatively simple by sticking to sires that have had a strike rate of at least 10% in the last year, assuming they provided over 25 winners during that period. I could have chosen a near infinite number of sire stat combinations, but this is relatively simple to check so that helped in making my decision. The results for the top four of the betting combined with this sire rule present quite a rosy picture, at least on the face of it:

 

 

We now have just over two bets per race on average and profits have soared. To £10 level stakes you would have been in profit to the tune of £1645.80. This gives returns of nearly 34p in the £. The yearly returns are broken down below:

 

 

The pattern remains similar to our original graph but this one is more volatile, as might be expected: 2014, for example, saw a strike rate success of just 5.1% (two winners from 39) which is the reason for the low ROI% figure for that year, whereas 2015 saw a strike rate of 34.5% (10 winners from 29). The more you drill down into systems the more likely they are to show volatility. It is down to personal preference whether that is tolerable or not.

The question now is, ‘should we incorporate these additional sire parameters into the original system?’.

Well, there is no easy answer. I must admit I have doubts this adapted system would perform as well over the next 13 Festivals securing profits of over 30p in the £, but I certainly do believe it has a good chance of showing some sort of profit long term.

With systems, racing, and betting, there is no "right way", no single correct answer. However, there are plenty of wrong ways and wrong answers and, as punters, we need to avoid them as often as possible. System based betting continues to divide opinion, but using the sound logic of a basic system as a starting point does make for some solid options.

As mentioned earlier you don’t have to go down the route of additional rules that I have looked at here. Instead, you may simply focus on the quartet that head the betting and treat it as a four runner race, using your usual race reading techniques to land on a selection or selections. This more flexible approach will appeal to some of you, I hope.

Before finishing, I want to remind you of two NH systems I mentioned at the end of my first article.

System 1: Won at Cheltenham LTO

Just one rule. This system had a bumper 2021 making huge BSP profits. Before that, from 2009 to 2020, it made a small BSP profit of £100 to £10 level stakes. However, anything as basic as this which has broken even or better over a long period of time is a really good starting point from which to build.

Cheltenham winners in general are pretty smart which is probably why results have been good over the long term – also these last time out Cheltenham winners go on to win 25% of their next races, which is greater than 4% above the average figure for last day winners.

System 2: Quick returning winners

  1. Won last time out
  2. Last ran 5 days ago or less

Quick returners have been the basis of many systems in the past and this is one that has continued to prove profitable in recent years. Specifically, it has achieved BSP Profits of £924.70 to £10 level stakes since 2009.

Both of these systems, with profit and volume of runners, offer good starting points from which to investigate further. Good luck!

- DR

Monday Musings: Williams truly a man for all seasons

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The Dubai Carnival 2022 has crept up on me, but I had a quiet day at home on Friday and had a good look as William Buick and Charlie Appleby dominated their home meeting with a hat-trick in the last three of six at Meydan, writes Tony Stafford. They cleaned up with Lazuli, 8-11 in a Group 2 sprint; Manobo, 4-9 in a Group 3 over 14 furlongs; and a “handicap” where Valiant Prince bolted home at 13-8 with stones seemingly to spare in completing the set.

The Racing UK coverage for Dubai has never been over-critical of the hosts but the way Angus McNee and Rishi Persad over-gushed after Manobo’s undoubtedly impressive performance in the 89k to the winner Nad Al Sheba Trophy, at the exclusion of all others in the 15-horse field, was an exercise in stating the obvious.

Here was a horse unbeaten in four runs in Europe, starting when a 5-1 scorer under Adam Kirby at Newbury in May – from Mojo Star whose next outing was when runner-up to Charlie’s Adayar in the Derby. He followed up the next month with Buick in the saddle, emphatically by six lengths at 4-11 at Kempton.

Charlie then gave him a break before moving him up in grade, collecting a Listed race at Saint-Cloud at 7-10 by ten lengths with James Doyle riding in September. Doyle again had the mount, and 7-10 was also the price when he out-pointed fellow Appleby three-year-old Kemari, the Queen’s Vase winner from Royal Ascot, in the Group 2 Prix Chaudenay at Longchamp’s Arc meeting.

Over-qualified to a degree then for a ballast-filled race nominally a notch lower, actually rather more so. Thus it was hardly unexpected when he drew away easily to make it five from five given his rating of 114. The winning margin was almost six lengths. A second Godolphin runner, Global Heat ridden by Frankie Dettori for Saeed Bin Suroor, was third. He was just bettered for second favouritism by the regular Group performer Rodrigo Diaz, trained by David Simcock, who finished a modest sixth.

Totally unnoticed, or if he was, never mentioned in all the time I waited for it, were the identities of the other money-earners.  Even after they came back from the domestic action for the next Meydan race, Rishi was revealing: “We’ve been talking about Manobo the whole time!” I’ve no doubt they were.

Anyway I’d like to keep you in suspense for a little while longer. On the day of Manobo’s Newbury debut, a six-year-old gelding fresh from the UAE where he had been trained for all of his 14 career starts, none successful, lined up in one of the handicaps at Newbury with an opening UK rating of 70.

I remember looking on the morning of the race thinking that was stern enough especially when taking it in the context of a £6k (30k AED) sale price out of Doug Watson’s stable more than two years earlier.

The horse was called East Asia, the new trainer Ian Williams and his owner Sayed Hashish, a businessman in Dubai, wanted to give him a chance in the UK. Partnered by Richard Kingscote, the 16-1 chance shot clear two from home in the mile-and-a-half mile handicap and won by almost five lengths.

Stepped up in trip for his next two races at Goodwood, Williams turned to William Buick and, riding him with great confidence, he won twice more, comfortably each time as his turf rating rose.

Buick was not employed in the immediate aftermath with the obvious difficulty of timing the races with his Godolphin commitments and East Asia had a relatively quiet spell. Then, coming to the last rites of the turf season, Buick became available for a race at Nottingham and normal service resumed. All that remained was a tilt at the November Handicap where Buick was otherwise engaged riding a double at the Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar; so Kingscote stepped back in.

This time there was no happy ending: East Asia, held up a long way back, hated the cloying mud of Town Moor and finished just below halfway. That left him with a mark of 90 and anyone who has ever sent a horse out to the Carnival with a rating as low as that will know how difficult it can be to get into a race.

But Sayed Hashish is an optimistic chap and fuelled by the four wins from nine starts his UK trainer had supplied him from the previous non-winner in 14, he decided to take the risk. Balloted out in the early weeks, Williams found the answer with Friday’s Group 3, in which East Asia had the lowest rating of all.

He also gave the same entry to a second stable runner, Enemy, there on his second run since being bought in November in France for €92k out of the stable of Francis Graffard, the Aga Khan’s new principal trainer.  Enemy had been running over a mile and a furlong or less in France and started at that trip a week earlier. He finished unplaced, albeit barely five lengths behind Lord Glitters.

Williams told me he thought he would stay and that the much-increased trip would suit but he too was among the lowest-rated in the line-up. The pair, understandably both 66-1 shots, turned for home in the last trio with Enemy right at the back. They both took a rails course coming home and if East Asia had not been slightly blocking his stablemate at a crucial stage, according to Williams: “They might have finished the other way around.”

Anyway East Asia stayed on for second under Richard Mullen, greatly out-running his rating (24lb less than the winner) with Enemy and Andrea Atzeni an eye-catchingly closing fourth. In case you hadn’t noticed, Racing TV – and, don’t worry, I still prefer your coverage to ITV, except of course when they show Ascot or Doncaster on a Saturday – this was a monumental training performance.

Ian tells me he thinks East Asia, who collected almost 30k for those efforts might now be getting an invitation to the Gold Cup on Dubai World Cup Day. No wonder Mr Hashish is telling his friends what to do with their old handicappers. Meanwhile, Enemy’s new owners, Tracey Bell and Caroline Lyons, have the prospect of an exciting season ahead with their five-year-old.

It might seem much longer ago, but it was as recently as the autumn of 2017 that Williams encouraged Dr Marwan Koukash to buy the apparently fully-exposed Magic Circle from Ralph Beckett towards the end of his five-year-old season. Few trainers would expect to induce much improvement from that trainer’s skilled handling but, for 70,000gns, Williams had a project.

First up, six months later, it was the doctor’s Holy Grail, the Chester Cup, and with Fran Berry in the saddle Magic Circle ran out a six-length winner from Hughie Morrison’s Fun Mac. The Group 2 Henry II Stakes at Sandown came next and it was another six-length romp for the six-year-old, this time excellent yardstick Red Verdon took second for Ed Dunlop.

Immediately after (or probably knowing the connections, sometime before) the plan was hatched to go for the Melbourne Cup.

Nine years previously, a much cheaper buy, Munsef, led out unsold at £11k from Dandy Nicholls, was then bought privately as a seven-year-old on May 20th 2009 and, by late summer, within weeks he had won three and finished second twice including in a Swedish Group 3. That resulted in a Melbourne Cup qualifying mark and so, that November as a 50-1 chance, he carried the Koukash silks to a close up 11th of 23.

Contrastingly, for most of the summer of 2018, Magic Circle was the favourite for Australia’s most coveted race, but on the day at Flemington he started a point longer at 6-1 to Aidan O’Brien’s 5-1 market leader Yukatan.

The winner this time was the Appleby-trained Cross Counter, a top-class three-year-old who just held off Hughie ‘s Marmelo, now a stallion, and Charlie Fellowes’ Melbourne Cup regular – until last year – Prince Of Arran.  Magic Circle finished in the back third having faded over the last two furlongs, but the dream, as with East Asia for his owner, had been more than fulfilled.

As he returns to his yard near Birmingham, this trainer for all seasons and all types of horses, faces one of his biggest ever challenges. Tomorrow he sends out Glen Again for his hurdles debut at Market Rasen in Raymond Tooth’s colours. I’ll be there, so let’s give it a good show!

Williams had a good second with his promising novice chaser Tide Times at Wincanton on Saturday but the highlight for me was the great attempt of Kim Bailey’s 25-1 shot Two For Gold in the Betfair Ascot Chase. If Joseph O’Brien had forgotten to enter J P McManus’ Fakir d’Oudairies, Two For Gold would have won. Only one Irish runner all day and inevitably the best prize of the afternoon goes west!

Kim will have been more than delighted with second especially as the novice Does He Know had already spread-eagled the opposition in the Reynoldstown Novices’ Chase. Pre-Irish domination, that was the race I always liked to see my three-mile Cheltenham novice chase fancies win, but nowadays pretty much all the contenders lurk over there.

Before you look round, Cheltenham will have come and gone, but one possible entry that I am looking forward to is Poetic Music who might tackle the big Irish boys in the bumper. We know she can fly up the hill so getting a hefty 17lb from the hot Mullins favourite and the rest, anything may be possible for the apple of Sally Randell’s eye!

- TS

Monday Musings: Snow’s Got a White National Chance

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Yesterday, high up on Haldon Hill overlooking Exeter the mist rolled in as winter rainfall finally reached jumping racecourses after a frustratingly dry New Year, writes Tony Stafford. Shining through the murk as she always does and stealing the show was an old mare, nominally grey but in effect as white as the caps that J P McManus’s first strings sport on the racecourses of the UK and Ireland.

J P was cleaning up this weekend with a treble a day at Naas and Punchestown, but those exploits and the 3,000 and a fair few wins he already owns will hardly matter a jot if the said 10-year-old grand lady, Snow Leopardess to you and me, wins the 2022 Grand National.

Since 1839 when Lottery set the ball rolling in the world’s best jumps race ever challenged for, only 13 mares have won it. In the race’s early days there were loads, ten in the first 50 years. That makes it three – that’s right only three – in the next century and a third! After Frigate (number ten) in 1889, there’s only been Shannon Lass (1902), Sheila’s Cottage in 1948 and Nickel Coin in 1951.

Unless you’re almost as old as me you would not have been around for any of them – unlike me, here for the last two. But I hadn’t yet begun my interest in racing – that came with the following year’s King George VI Chase which we used to watch on my great-uncle’s television when we went to their big house at Christmas – so it starts with the Galloway Braes and Halloween battles between 1952 and 1954.

I suppose you can say I was as much brain-washed to county cricket at the Oval, football at Highbury, and racing everywhere from the early-1950’s to an extent that others might be fed politics of a certain standpoint and other life-defining attitudes.

Seventy years on, those three pastimes, nay obsessions, are intact and if anything reinforced by having had the opportunity to write about them. Thus when a Snow Leopardess comes along I think we should give full credit to the mare herself; the owners who bred her dam to a wonderful stallion, and her trainer Charlie Longsdon, who has guided her to an already exceptional series of achievements. If the final one happens, his role will only then be fully appreciated.

Charlie likes winning first time out with his horses – you only have to look as far back as Saturday at Warwick to see how Gaelic Park: “not really a bumper horse, more a galloper”, as he suggested, bolted up first time.

Two weeks short of six years ago, the daughter of the brilliant French jumps stallion Martaline made a winning debut at Doncaster, seeing off the heavily-backed Nicky Henderson-trained Rather Be. Charlie was Hendo-trained too – he was his former assistant.

There were a couple of highlights in her early days. One fifth place in the Aintree bumper spelt enough for her first season, but then she was shipped out first time next autumn for a valuable Listed bumper at Gowran Park and beat a Gordon Elliott mare and 18 others to pick up a €20k prize.

She was at it again at the end of that season, having in between won one minor hurdle race at Doncaster at 9/2 on. Here again she came home clear of a big field (16 runners this time) to win the EBF Mares’ handicap hurdle final at Newbury that March. The prize? another £22k.

Now, Snow Leopardess likes nothing more than winning first time sent to a new country, so after a six-month break Charlie despatched her to Auteuil for a conditions hurdle for, you guessed it, €21k. She duly beat seven rivals under James Reveley but unfortunately that’s where she sustained the injury that promised to end her career.

Snow Leopardess and her owners the Fox-Pitt family, though, do not believe in standing idle and, while recuperating, the mare was sent to Derby-winning stallion Sir Percy, the product of that union arriving early in 2019.

Amazingly, 26 months on from that ill-fated albeit winning trip to France she was back in action for a truncated twice unplaced campaign. She still the added one victory to her previous five in eight last term and also ran a remarkable race when finishing fourth in the National Hunt Chase, having lost her place when briefly outpaced on the faster than ideal ground. Nothing finished better than her as she chased 2022 Gold Cup candidate Galvin up the hill.

The story has developed apace this winter. After winning a nice handicap chase at Bangor – no she’d been there once before so the new country syndrome was not in operation this time – she then showed the most carefree disdain of the Aintree fences when dominating most of the three and a quarter mile Becher Chase in soft ground ten weeks ago. The Aintree run-in was another matter.

Her stride was understandably shortening in those last demanding yards but the nose by which she bravely held on was never more deserved. Switching back to a conventional three miles yesterday at Exeter for her first try at Listed class over fences might have been a pitfall waiting to happen but where her opposition of experienced and prolific-winning steeplechasers dropped away one by one, she slogged through the mud for a 12-length success.

A deserved increase (“not too high!” says Charlie) in her 145 rating should ensure she gets in the field come April and as Longsdon said afterwards: “We have to hope for a wet spring.”

Her career tally from only 19 starts is a remarkable nine successes at a rate that is very high up among the best products of Martaline. It would be very tidy if she could make it 50% at Aintree.

She jumped some of yesterday’s fences with feet to spare and I remember marvelling at the way she was clearing the fences in the Becher Chase. While not as formidable as in the bad old days, you still have to jump 30 of them and, Tiger Roll apart if he shows this time, there won’t be a horse better equipped to handle them, or the stamina test needed if it does turn soft.

As I said earlier, only three mares during the last 132 years have won the Grand National. Equally amazingly in its entire history only three grey horses have ever won it, The Lamb, twice in 1868 and 1871; Nicolaus Silver (1961) which my dad told me he’d backed after I got home from playing in the London Grammar Schools six-a side football championships at Chiswick that morning, and Neptune Collonges in 2012.

Snow Leopardess is already guaranteed one distinction if she does succeed. She’ll be the first grey mare to win it. Probably the early winning mares, namely Charity (1841), Miss Mowbray (1852), Anatis (1860), Jealousy (1861), Emblem (1863) or Emblematic the following year would have had other duties to perform.

Assuredly they would have been worked on farms, maybe pulled the milkman’s float or the brewer’s dray and then needed to be walked however many miles from their home base to Liverpool for their big race day. It could well be the case that one or more of them might have had a foal, but we can say for sure that Snow Leopardess would be doubly unique – the first grey mare to win the race and the first to add having a foal to that singular distinction.

As the enormity of the potential situation gathers momentum, rather in the manner of Andrew Gemmell three years ago when Paisley Park won his Stayers’ Hurdle, or through Rachael Blackmore’s domination of Cheltenham last year, you can expect a media barrage. Charlie, I hope you are ready for it.

Dermot Weld duly won with his Cheltenham possible Falcon Eight in his novice test at Thurles on Thursday. Having looked to have a lot to do half a mile from home, magically he had completely eroded the gap from the leaders in a trice. You were allowed to see just a glimpse of the class he showed in winning the Chester Cup off 104 last May and a little brushing up of the jumping technique could produce another giant step forward.

My friends who have the 33/1 run guaranteed for the Albert Bartlett on the Friday will be hoping for dry weather. The beauty is, having backed him for Thurles, they know canny Dermot will not let him run if it turns soft at Prestbury Park so they are in a win/win situation. Especially if he win wins!

Focus this week is on my long-term boss Raymond Tooth’s return to ownership with the Ian Williams-trained Glen Again who makes his hurdles debut at Fontwell on Thursday. If he runs as fast and jumps as beautifully as he looks – which the trainer suggests he might – Ray could have some fun for the rest of this season and for a few more. Fingers crossed, as they say!

- TS

Your Survey Feedback

/in /by

A couple of weeks ago I invited some feedback specifically on the editorial content side of what we do here at geegeez.co.uk. It's important for me, for us, to be clear that we're providing information that is of interest to you. After all, both your time and our financial resources are limited; so it makes sense to optimise each. That's why when you speak, we listen. Here's what you said in the survey...

Question 1: On a scale of 1 (not for me) to 7 (YESYES!) how interested are you in reading about...

 

While the focus is mainly on the 7's - you really want more - it is important to consider aggregates of 5's and 6's, too. Those "nearly 7's" imply a yes and, taking 5-6-7 as a whole, it is very clear where your democratic priorities lie.

You said you want more on trainer angles, draw/run style, system building, and general form reading.

It is hard to understate the type of racing betting audience this marks you out as: you are, fundamentally, a different breed from the average viewer of RacingPost.com, AtTheRaces.com and so on; and a very different animal to those casuals who think SportingLife.com will sustain and nourish them. You are a smarter, and more inquisitive, breed; and you are much smaller in number.

The flip side of this question reveals that ante post betting is of limited interest to many, as is pedigree chat and, to a lesser degree, sectional timing. On that basis, we've dropped the ante post pieces, and will not go too frequently to either the pedigree or sectional wells (though I will continue to pen occasional pieces on the latter, as I believe that one's relative novelty in UK means it has yet to see its demand rise - but it will, in my view).

 

Question 2: Which of those subjects are you MOST interested in?

Again, you have provided a very clear steer for us to work from. For this question, respondents could select only one of eight options. Almost a third of you chose general form reading, and over a quarter chose system building. Another quarter shared your votes between trainer angles and draw/run style content, meaning almost five-sixths of the love was for just a half of the options. We'll be bring you plenty more from those corners of the content globe.

 

Question 3 was the inverse of Q2, and asked which subject you were least interested in. You can work that out from the above and it need not clutter this shortish piece.

 

Question 4: How often do you read...

I found these responses particularly interesting as a barometer of what we're doing right and not quite so well.

On the plus side, it's brilliant that so many of you engage with our daily bulletin emails: they have a chunk of info in them, including some awesome stuff from the archives (all of which is hardy perennial and as useful now as it was when penned, so maybe hardly re-pennable... there's a pun in there somewhere!). They also link to the relevant course guides and free races / features of the day.

And those bulletin emails link to daily news articles which we syndicate from the Press Association. We do that to provide on these 'ere pages as much of the more transient intel as you're keen to absorb; your feedback suggests that this content is only an occasional consumption for many/most. Fair enough, and noted: it's there for those who want it.

I was (pleasantly) surprised to see how popular the trends articles continue to be, and not surprised that Racing Insights remains a staple of many visitors' daily habit. The pivot away from Stat of the Day was not without turbulence back yon, but I hope longer-term readers can see the slightly different value provided by its replacement.

 

Question 5: What could we do MORE of?

A free text question allowing you to say what you want, what you really, really want... 219 replies, and I think word clouds express the general sentiment best in such cases. So here's one of those.

What you'd like to read more about, in word cloud format

The gist is more of what we're currently doing, but also some additional trends output (I'll have a think about this because I feel there's a "right way and a wrong way" to present historical profiles), system content, ratings components and form guides.

The ratings part is a challenge, mainly because I believe such number sets require a HUGE amount of work and rework: it would probably take a year or two full-time to create something and even then it might only be 'quite good'.

 

Question 6: What could we do LESS of?

177 replies this time, and we'll word cloud it again:

Things you'd like to see less of in geegeez content terms

 

Generally speaking, this was a 'null response', with lots of 'nothing', 'all fine as it is' type of replies; but quite a few suggested a lack of interest in ante-post content and, to a lesser degree, sectional articles. Of course, I don't expect anybody to read everything on geegeez, so please do feel free to skip certain pieces... as I'm sure you do!

 

Question 7: If you were the boss, which one thing would you change? It might be adding something, removing something, changing the way we do something. It's your call!

There were 208 replies here, and I thought a lot of them were excellent! So, rather than word cloud them, I've actually reproduced them 'as is' below. You're welcome to ignore or to read through at your leisure. And, of course, if you've any burning suggestions as "boss of geegeez for a week" - or you just want to second or third one of the ideas below - please do leave a comment! 👇

[scroll-box]More short, sharp webinars explaining certain aspects of the site
Adding % rivals beaten

Perhaps once a month one of the contributors going through a Race Card and selecting their picks
More actual race reviews rather than ‘angles and systems
lots more choice in query tool, for me its the single most important tool in Geegeez,

More system n report building functions using multiple choice of report types expand query tool function.

Best value bet of the day

Trainer analysis Green in form red cold in racecards

Add saddle cloth numbers to the Full Form and Profile pages

Adding a 6 month tab to IE and maybe taking out field size and adding something more trainer related to that race in the end column
Making Form Listings clearer and more user friendly. I find myself using Racing Post Form as it is what I am used to and though it has less information / parameters it is an "easy" read.
Other than lowering the price (JOKE - you offer great value) it’s hard to think of anything. Maybe an online community for like minded folk as mentioned above would be good. I’d also make px form visible when you click into a horse from the race card!
find a lay angle
See above
I would stop promoting other products, as it eats into the integrity of Geegeez.
NOTHING SPRINGS TO MIND

Just to repeat what I have already said, I am new to this but thoroughly enjoying the journey. I have a lot to learn and all articles are welcome. Great work!
More pedigree back ground
Short list of trends qualifiers.
Emphasis on potential of horse rather than just form - most horses ‘haven’t done it yet’ so how can we get better at spotting those well handicapped (HotForm is ace one this)

Learning is a good your ideas and my problem solving works well and having a tracker is very helpful best information that I keep my information when my memory of what I’ve backed I’m 58 but wished I had this earlier in my life thanks Matt and team

The biggest thing I'd love to see is advanced race pace mapping insight. I love your feature to help inform me on pace but I'd love to see it go further e.g. horse strike rates in slowly or fast run races, toggle fast early pace vs slow early pace to see if average position of horse changes , win and place stats to change based on predicted fast even or slow early pace etc. I think you get the idea
I would like to see the option to change the race cards between "standard" and "at a glance" on gold as in the RP. It's easier to look at large fields with my old eyes lol.
Hi, I sent an email a few months ago regarding the follwing but never received a reply. I had an idea to show hot/cold trainer in a horses form. To show if the trainer was in good or bad form at the time of that run. I think this could throw up an interesting angle when a horse has gone well despite the stable being out of form then returns with the stable going well.
AS ABOVE
Ability to place a bet through the Geegeez website via a betting partner
Nothing in particular comes to mind
THE ADDITION OF INTERNATIONAL GROUP RACES.
Create a "Geegeez rating" for each horse (where possible), by pulling together all the RPR/Topspeed/PeterMay ratings, add in instant expert scores, profiler scores, trainer / jockey form, Draw PRB, etc
Simplify the way for MOST of us to arrive at the possible winner .
More filters on the QT and make it more user friendly especially for mobile (if possible!)

I have built my own dashboard for race analysis so really admire your work, I would make more use of hovering over something making a tile pop up, as clicking through when information is dense and bottomless is just not as nice a UX in my opinion. But I like the approach and should make myself more familiar with your offerings

Make the sorting of lists 'nested' as with Xcel. So things sorting equal are in the order of the previous sort
I'd just like the five-days from Ireland on the tracker for planning purposes and Ireland is my focus over Britain, but obviously, you're British-based. If in time, you could add the point-to-point form from whatever database you use and French form as well, that would be brilliant. It all helps to pain the picture! Great work, thank you.

provide exchange information and recognise no sensible bettor will go near a bookie

Return of a tipster, does not have to be every day.
See 'What could we do more of?"
I would like to see a 'FORM' selection (1-2-3) made by GeeGeeze for each race

highlight when you think short-priced favourites are poor value
Adding HiRPR (like HiOR) and customisable filters to Full Form tab in order to cover more than one going type/distance etc. Possibly, ability to ‘pair’ columns in Instant Expert to only show data for races where 2/3 columns apply, such as course and distance.

With the multitude of data and stats based information, reports and form I believe the bet finder needs and should have past data results of the combinations selected to give a better feel for whether the parameters and combinations selected have any substance in a similar way to other reports and inline drop downs show runs/wins/P&L/prb etc.
Make sure punters could see tips give trials before vip if doing vip tips help people learn betting
Your doing great
Add significant function to Query Tool
Very comprehensive and interesting site. Keep it going. My game plan is to cover monthly costs in year one and then looking for profit
Bring back Stat Of The Day

A one stop shop for all the pace/draw biases, so a one pager of the tracks where front runners do well. Obviously I understand though that the data and biases may change as time goes on.
In big races, combine trends with horse & trainer form, draw where relevant - then come up with a short list of 'probables' - probably in an easy-to-read matrix format
Why would you want to change something which already works

see above
do h/caps only

For national hunt racing trainer reports could have hurdles or chase as well as the all and handicap tabs as a filter

As I said above what i like is if you really have a strong fancy for other wise I don't like to have a bet if it doesn't run as you thought that's horse racing I don't like second guessing
Providing Dobbing stats relevant to today's race conditions.
Not sure glad I'm not the boss 🤣

Make IE more flexible for the user
Add jockey and trainer sole representative at the meeting.
improve query tool..needs a lot to get up to others

Something similar to Racing Posts signposts section, all the relevant info condensed

Adding a trainers record at the track and a particular race

i find im overwhelmed at times so select articles ...less is more
MORE IRISH ARTICLES
back to lay software
Reduce the subscription for international patrons as the relativity of the exchange rate makes it difficult to buy gold subscription

TMI
do more syndicate ownership
"I love the site, loads of information but like any hobby you need to stay up to date and use the tools/skills on a regular basis to get the most out of it. When my yearly gold subscription came out of my bank I nearly asked for a refund, but I reminded myself of how good the site is and decided to give it another year.

The reason I nearly cancelled is because if I’m honest I don’t engage with the content outside of the race cards, the articles are too long, too many graphs and charts, I don’t have the time to digest the information (and act on it if I do find something interesting) and I don’t particularly enjoy reading on a screen. Personally I would much prefer a short 2-10 min video discussion/presentation on the topics that you write the articles about, even shorts (20-30 seconds videos) in the format of the 'elevator pitch', just tell us key information."
"I do like your in-depth trainer studies; perhaps more of them - and a review of the performance of the key tips from those a year or two later, to see how they’ve done.
Your recent review on Harry Fry and Dan Skelton was really good on both trainers. This emphasised the value of backing Harry Fry’s supported novice chasers. Unfortunately for all of us, he’s just had two chase winners all season so far. "

"As per my comments in 'more' - think strategically and develop 2-3 year plans because what is used now will probably not be as useful by then. For all of my sports betting I am more interested in (raw) data than interpretation and am always looking for quality data to enable me to make betting decisions (golf now has some real good sources).
Reading this back it sound a little bit negative on the service you provide. I only joined this year so I am probably not making full use of what you have to offer and I do really like the offering especially the way it's presented and can see how far you have come over the last few years. "
With so much info a more concise list of potential horses expected to run well
Not sure

Making the query tool better or drop it.

???
The adverts to join Geegeez Gold when I first log in. I already subscribe to Gold, so they are irrelevant to me.
one site with all sectionals available.
A structured pathway to learning for the novice punter.
Annual subscriptions but for weekend and festival racing, as many times I dotn have access at work to assess the racing on each working day

I would strive to continue to making geegeez the best site in the world (probably)
Allow users to suspend QT Angles and then reinstate them as required, without counting towards their 300 limit. My Epsom fast ground system is only needed for 3 months a year!

Nothing to change
Nothing I can think of, its an excellent source of data and might i add great value for money. Keep it up.
In the Tracker ( using mobile) the add notes button is to close to the remove horse button ( of the tracked horse above/ below ) and you can lose horses from the Tracker.
More articles on trading and pedigrees

Make Excel downloads available.
Shorter video's with less flickering around!
Put up a horse on Saturdays and big festival days with reasons for selecting it.Thanks and best of luck 👍
Longest Travellers would be good, with links to race to check horse/trainer/jockey form as well as how much the race is worth - a column added to the Racecard view/ instant expert for each horse travel distance would be ideal!
Adding pre-race predicted pace score into query tool
Pace
De clutter BLOG section. Suggest move older articles to archive later articles place under separate headings e.g racecourses, pace&draw, trainers, handicapping etc. making them easier to locate.
Having some kind of blank canvas with each race card for own working out ie spread sheet with just runners names when Iam doing a tissue have to write the runners down on paper which is time consuming
Nothing comes to mind.

"Add some kind of grade or points to say if this race was run above or below the standard/ medium for this class of race. It would save me buying the Weekender 😀
"
I’d love to see an angle for a sire’s debutants/2nd run.
Nothing that I can think of

Not sure

nothing happy with the product
It might be me, but I don't find the Query Tool particularly user friendly. I use Horseracebase.com for trends, systems, horse profiling, queries etc.

Nothing really can’t fault anything on the web site.
Same as ' What could we do MORE of'.
I would make the a-z runners report a CSV as per other reports

Absolutely love Geegeez so the answer I’m afraid is nothing springs to mind
Add Betfair Win and Place prices if possible
Able to export data from query tool
Assure your faithful that you won't sell the website to ANY third party anytime soon and that the even then it will be only to someone wanting to provide exactly the service you currently provide and never to a company whose interest is in bending the truth of statistics to suit their own aims and ignoring the interest of horse racing enthusiasts.
Proximity Form on Instant Expert 🙂 ps/ lovin that proximity is now within the recent form tab - Cheers
Advice on how YOU use the reports and features
Everything fine as it is.
The thoughts of trainers through a weekly/monthly column ?
"Hard to say as I don’t have access to all your data. A daily PATENT or LUCKY 15 with decent-priced horses would be useful (4/1+). As most outlets just stick with favs (this could be a Premium feature).

Don’t try to do too much. Pursue an idea and explore it properly. For example, choose a trainer (or 3) and properly assess their chances using your tools on a daily basis (if they have no runners then fine).

You could also do this by course (pick a handful that have a lot of meetings like Wincanton or Ascot).

Offer personalised training sessions on how to use your software. Following videos is only useful up to a point and there’s no substitute for real-time questions."

Less Emails
"Don’t like the having the how to use Geegeez stuff at the bottom of every racecard..but it’s not a deal breaker
Keep doing what you’re doing. If it’s not broke don’t fix it
Best regards "

Help with profiler please . If you review the card and take down the horses you are interested in from say 8 to 4 that doesn’t feed through to the profiler page so all the 8 are still there . Might be me but it’s the only frustration I’ve got with the site .
the weight horses carry with regards to form some can carry big weight some can't
Adding more to the query tool, such as 1st run under that code or 1st run for yard. Also trainer targets (attempts in race etc)

I'd charge a little more for what you have and include more ante-post race analysis and "tipping" (I know it isn't tipping, but race summaries might be a better way of putting it)
Daily news More

I'm satisfied at present.

"When going through a race I often end up using trainer snips, which is really good, to check on a trainers record in a novice race on first start record, or a trainers record with a horse fresh '+60 days' if its been on a break. Obviously that tool's great for seeing what the trainer is like if it has a runner that meets those requirements on that day.
But what I'd like is to be able to see a trainers record when it doesn't meet those requirements on the day, the reason being that a horse may have run poorly after a break and is having its second start, in that scenario I'd like to see the trainers record after a break to potentially dismiss that run, but on the day they have no qualifiers running after a break so I can't see it. So a trainers 'snips' section that includes all data. I have no idea if this would be difficult, the info. is there, but I guess it would be a huge database to be on hand all the time.
Hope this helps."

It’s only trivial but I’ve started using Proximity form.. it would be ideal if you could add them to the drop down horse form on the main racecard page rather than full form. So you can scroll down and browse all the horses at once.

Explain PACE diagrams. I look at them but unsure if I'm reading them correctly
Add French and German Group 1&2 form to Instant Expert

Would add Irish especially and or English point to point form useful for novice races nh
More trends info
no idea, I dont want to be the boss.
Add betting moves /relevance to form cards to use in current race analysis
Have a simpler step by step article about Query Tool
Not sure on the P2P sources of data - if that could be added would be helpful - I use France Gallop for the French runners info - can find a P2P ditto - overall EXCELLENT which is why GG keeps winning best in class - very well done to the team ; - )

"I'm retired, punt for fun, like studying form most mornings - probably not your normal gee-geez punter. I use GG as a secondary source of information to the Racing Post paper and website. I use RP for most of my studying, and GG as additional source, or prime source when I try to work out the way the race will be run. Your Pace feature is unique and if I was boss I'd do all I could to utilise, develop and promote that function before the Post use their resources to add the feature themselves. They're a bright bunch of lads and must provide pace data soon so GG need to kick on.

You've done well to invade their market as well as you have, and to give the more data-based punter the tools with which to work. Your probably better looking after their needs than those of 1 77yo Post reader. There aren't that many of us left!"

Add distances to trainer form to give a better picture of trainers general form a 20/1 beaten a length can tell more than an odds on winner also proximity could be utilised
Nowt
Not much at all to be honest

Some in who was clear so see
Add days since last run angle to the query tool for creating betting angles systems

Complete overhaul of the user interface for building angles.

going at each course on the day & if the going suddenly changes make one aware of it
Analyse actual races with Gold, preferably before the event, but after would also be good
I’m more in to trading horses pre race so I get all I need only using free version at the moment I would like to no more about Dutching horses in double and trebles perms plans to cut the number of bets More perms snd plans would b great like the lucky15 plan
Ability to export Instant Expert to Excel
Whilst the website provides loads of information it is a pity that you do not offer the opportunity to watch replays either in full or just the finish of a race. This information is available elsewhere for free so by adding this feature this would really make you the number 1 website for the total job of finding winners. A link to the BHA website for checking latest going reports would also be helpful.
More in depth analysis in Irish Racing.
more race trends
You are doing a great job and very creative. I am glad you are the boss 🙂
The price
Personally, I would like to see the Sire, Dam, Dam Sire on the racecards.
don't know
Trainers sending single runners long distances to meetings.
Change the way racing insight is used ie use new features each week

race trends, I like making my own but it takes time I don't know if there's a way to make query tools race trend friendlier

Shorter more focused videos
sorry notsure again
Think everything is pretty much covered above, at least getting feedback from your data base is the right way to go, to gauge if the mix is right in terms of content offered.

Wouldn’t remove anything think you’ve got most stuff covered

not sure
maybe incorporating 1st call sectionals to the pace map if possible

Me personally id like you to pick just one race maybe couple of times a week. And put a selection up and see if we are reading the race correctly if that makes sense. Not a tipping service but more an educational kind of thing.
I struggle with the Query Tool, it’s just not intuitive enough for me.
Being able to disect more in query tool, such as highlighting novice, maiden, claiming races
Nothing What I don't like others will and vice versa
Make query tool easier to work/better designed
Nothing - all good as far as I'm concerned. Thanks Matt.
Bring back STAT OF THE DAY... Chris doing Racing insights, is like putting Ronaldo in goal. your not getting the best out of him.
Have a Horses current OR on their Full form page when looking back at previous form (currently shows rating for last run I think) The Nirvana would be if the current OR was alongside the result for each Horse. Eg, I’m looking at a race today, I look back at the result of a Horse’s last race and I can see the current handicap mark for the Horses in that race, so I can immediately see for example that it beat Horses now rated 125, 130 & 135 in a Novice and is today running off 120. Appreciate that might be difficult but it would make a massive difference to my form study.
Customer service
See query tool message above.
Offer a life time membership again or if someone takes a yearly offer like i did for £297, offer them the chance to pay monthly(£24.75) or quarterly(£74.25) the following year because with covid money has become tight, I'm sure many members myself included could have afforded to stop! and we do miss geegeez.
If you could provide BSP as well as SP it would be awesome.

Query tool top/bottom weight performances

Sadly I still loved Stat of the day AND double Dutch, but I understand completely why they’ve gone
highlighting horses that match a particular trends or criteria
I realise this one is pretty unrealistic, but my ultimate choice would be a selection from yourself/the writers in races (even it's it one meeting a day/week) rather than just having the RP spotlight pulled through.

Maybe asking for articles by subscribers on subjects put forward by yourself

Shorter and more concise videos.
Don’t know
make it more like old past superform simple

More horses / trainer trends for courses

Make the query tool as useful as Flatstats / Horseracebase
Just keep doing what you do best

Have a geegeez forecast based off the data and angles...bit like Timeform
Bring back SOTD
The only thing I would introduce is race replays, but I am not sure that is practice.
More info on jockeys normal riding weight

"Well as I said ratings and conditions
and draw are the only way.
Sectionals ,pace ,and all the rest you cover are ""by the way"" . You guys can't see the Trees for the forest...sadly
Try telling in advance how a race will be run, times are irrevelant except where two divisions of a race are run,especially maidens/ novices
Etc."
I wish you would include more races, so we can drop the short price horses and play more races whereby the horses are no less than 7/2.

More blog post type articles.
"At the risk of this becoming an essay I find that Gold is at the same time absolutely brilliant and practically useless. That is not meant to be an insult to Gold itself and is most definintely aimed at the user, but I find that there is simply too much information and I suffer from the oft-mentioned overwhelm. The result of this is that I feel I cannot spend the time I would need to sort out the relevant information from the less vital nuggets and so I tend to end up not bothering at all. (I am on the autistic spectrum - not on the Rainman level but enough to affect how I use data and information. I need to have time to analyse to my satisfaction or I can get a little stressed. What I can't do is dip in and out quickly).

I find that if I look at reports and find a horse I then discover reasons not to back it once i check the pace or instant expert tabs. Or I find a horse in instant expert but then the pace looks wrong or the form points to too much weight today etc etc. In the end I usually run shy and back nothing. A quick check of my obsessive-personality-structured spreadsheet shows that in total I have placed 180 bets as a direct result of Geegeez obtained info or insight since I signed up for Gold and have made a total loss of £33.23 over that time. This may be down to bad luck or bad choices or insufficient faith in the 500 bets I could perhaps have made but didn't which might have made me a healthy profit, but it is certainly not what I need to fund the lifestyle I would much rather be enjoying than the one in which I seem to be stuck!

The fault for the above results lies with my choices and not the information available. However, the effect is that I will not be renewing in February despite the fact that I would gladly tell any horse racing fan how amazing Gold is.

I have long thought that rather than a binary choice of all the info in the world or virtually nothing that there could be a 'Silver' option which contains some of the manifold Gold benefits without serving up the whole a la carte menu. Which bits should be included and which shouldn't and what the price should be are, of course, the tricky areas. Ideally the member could pick and choose which bits they would want but I realise this could be problematic for the programmers to engineer. At the end of the day I am just tossing the idea into the brainstorm meeting and leaving it to the management to thrash out the details!

Anyway, thank you so much for the great content and information and the time you all clearly take to provide the same and best wishes for the future.

"

Pretty happy with the balance tbh
More form explanantory videos.
Make it all free !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sort can't think of anything I want to change
"I was going to suggest a make your own card, but that's already in progress. Thanks for everything you all do.
"

Building more of a community perhaps?
Somehow create a quick view summary of the profiler tab, using filters selected so all horses data can be viewed at the same time
tricast or exacta articles - perms or pointers for the big handicap on a Saturday

Monthly subscription offers instead of 6 month and yearly winter warmer offers
A tipster competition
Improving the ability to visualise the performance of QT angles and perform admin (update and delete)

Is there any way to incorporate prize money won by Horses

I would be grateful if there was a quick way to find out whether horses are more likely to run up sequences in better grade races - for example are they more likely to do it in Class 2 handicaps than say Class 6 ones. And how much more likely are they to do it.i
Continue to improve the query tool. The dates can be annoying as it includes todays runners before they have run unless you manually alter the date.

Definitely, without a doubt, I would get a new SP service provider, to give the correct price of a horse, like sporting life. Also I wouldn't change any of today's information once the race is run. It's almost impossible to back test a betting strategy or system on Geegees because the information you are looking at on yesterday's races has all changed because the race has been run, like jockey stats, trainer stats, horses win %, then what? This information is all useless information once the race has been run because it's all changed. Even horses, if you go back and see how a horse run in 2020 and it's jockey and trainer stats and is races, it's all changed and updated automatically to today's information. That's no good for back testing a system. Nice questionnaire, it covered a lot. Thanks 😁👍
Apart from the expansion to the query tool (which I can't wait for!!) maybe some more trainer angles in relation to the jumps. For examples trainers record first time over hurdles and fences. And when a trainer is highlighted in the first time headgear/surgery report if we could see the stat that on the race card when we click on the trainer icon that would be helpful
In reference to my comment above - I like the fact that Geegeez is a one stop shop for me in the main with my betting. Maybe improving the timeliness of the fast results coMing through
as stated, 5th place result would help me, save me trying to find it
Having to constantly log in is a pain, a small pain

Look at the site's search functionality. I do sometimes find it very difficult to find articles that i've read previously, with most search strings returning 'news' items that are not what i want. Really don't know enough about how practical that would be but anything to increase the ability to search would be appreciated.
Shorter videos
Have a cheaper silver version with all the basic facilities but maybe no tools or reports
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Matt

 

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