Racing Insights, Friday 01/03/2024
Friday is Horses For Courses (H4C) report day at Geegeez and this feature does exactly what you'd expect, as it shows the full course history since 2009 of any horse running that has previously had a run at that track, sorted by number of wins, but this can be changed to any column at your discretion.
As well as today’s race time, course, horse name, jockey and trainer name, there is a breakdown of runs, wins and places, and profit and loss calculations for both win and each way betting. And as with all Geegeez reports, there is a ‘Today’ and a ‘Tomorrow’ (for the next day’s racing) view.
HINT: Layers might like to look towards the lower end of the report, for those with negative performance at the track, but please refer to our User Guide for further information.
My fairly restrictive chosen settings for the H4C report...
...have sadly yielded no UK qualifiers, but your own chosen parameters might give more joy. Thankfully, this free report is, of course, backed up by our daily list of 'free' races...
- 2.37 Lingfield
- 3.00 Newbury
- 6.45 Dundalk
- 7.45 Dundalk
...from which I'll tackle the first on the list, the 2.37 Lingfield, a 12-runner, Class 2, 3yo A/W handicap over a left-handed 6f on standard polytrack...
FORM : Bottom-weight Balon D'or is the only one of the twelve runners without a win in their last five (or fewer) outings, having been beaten in all ten starts since winning on debut almost eleven months ago. Those with multiple wins in the recent formline include Brave Empire (3 from 4), Salvuccio (2 from 4), Billy Webster (3 from 4), Blue Prince (2 from 3), Beyond Borders (3 from 3 and 4 from 6), Photosynthesis (2 from 5) and McLoven who is 2 from 3; Brave Empire won last time out, Billy Webster comes here seeking a hat-trick and Beyond Borders completed a hat-trick last time out, so plenty are in good form.
CLASS : Only five of the field ran at Class 2 last time out, as top weight Rosario was a Group 3 runner-up, whilst McLoven was 8th of 9 in a Class 3 handicap and moves up a level here. Bigger steps are taken by Billy Webster (won), Beyond Borders (won), Photosynthesis (3rd of 6) and Balon D'or (3rd of 6) who all raced in Class 4 handicaps, whilst Salvuccio's last UK run saw him win a Class 5 novice race and I suspect this will be tougher.
WHAT'S NEW : Quite a bit it appears! Rosario and The Coffee Pod are both on handicap debut, whilst Salvuccio and World of Darcy make just a second handicap appearance. Photosynthesis, Salvuccio and Blue Prince all run for the first time since being gelded and the latter has been highlighted as a fast finisher, whilst Balon D'or wears a cheekpiece/tongue tie combo for the first time.
LAST SEEN : Rosario, The Coffee Pod and McLoven have all been off the track for 20 weeks and might need the run, as might Beyond Borders after a 16-week absence. Elsewhere, aside from Billy Webster's 8-weeks off, the remainder of the field have all raced in the last 21-26 days.
COURSE/DISTANCE FORM : Blue Prince (Newcastle, Southwell & York), Beyond Borders (Newcastle, Pontefract, Thirsk & Wolverhampton)), The Coffee Pod (York) and World of Darcy (Nottingham) have all won over this trip away from Lingfield, whilst both Brave Empire and Photosynthesis are course and distance winners. McLoven has also won here but over 5f. Much of this will show below in Instant Expert, of course...
...and if we remove Turf runs...
...we initially see that Rosario and The Coffee Pod are on A/W debuts. Overall Balon D'or looks vulnerable at both class and trip, whilst G'day Mate has a full line of red across both codes, whilst World of Darcy's Class 5, 6f win at Nottingham is all that stands between him and a line of red too. Conversely, Brave Empire looks a solid contender on the above data and this is backed up by his place percentages...
...where my attention is also grabbed by Blue Prince (trip), Beyond Borders (trip) and The Coffee Pod (class & trip), which is handy as I suspect the bookies might pay four places here.
With a dozen runners attacking a bend on a 6f sprint, the draw might have plenty to do with the outcome here today and the stats from past similar places look like this...
.with those drawn in the lowest third (ie stalls 1-4) winning 1.18 times more often than those in stalls 5-8 and 1.37 times more often than the highest third. As for the places, those figures are very similar at 1.14 and 1.27 and this advantage in being drawn low is highlighted by the PRB3 figures...
...where the first 5 (possibly 6/7) in the stalls would appear to have a clear advantage. If we then look at how those 130+ races above were won...
...we see another clear advantage forming as the further forward a horse has raced, the better its chances of making the frame and ultimately winning have been and unsurprisingly, low to mid-drawn pace-setters have been the most successful in those races...
The pace tab on our racecards show how the runners have approached their most recent UK races, enabling us to (a) make a reasoned assumption to how the race will unfold and (b) see where exactly in the stalls that early pace is going to cone from, as follows...
...where the suggestion is that McLoven will attempt to hit the front early and try to stay there, whilst the likes of Salvuccio, Rosario and Blue Prince are going to have to pass plenty of traffic if they want to win. If we put this data into stall order, we get this...
...where the four of the top five pace scores are in the lower half of the draw and when we place that graphic over the heat map from the last 60 such contests...
Summary
The inference from the pace/draw stats and heat map is that McLoven will run a big race here and whilst not an obvious winner based on a poor run last time out and a 140-day absence, he is 2 from 2 on the A/W including a win here over 5f on handicap debut last September where he made all. He'll probably need the run, but I'm not quite ready to discount him as an E/W possible if I can get a decent price about him.
Beyond Borders is next of interest on that chart and is in great form, winning each of his last three outings and he's also 2 from 2 on the A/W, but like McLoven, has been off a while. His A/W runs have both been on tapeta, so it's a polytrack debut and he's up 5lbs for a 0.75 length win, which makes this tough. I'll probably discount him from my win considerations, but he too could be an E/W possible. G'day Mate is the other standout from pace/draw, but he was only fourth of five behind Brave Empire here over course and distance last time out, so that rules him out and brings me to Brave Empire himself. Not ideally drawn, nor fast away and I think that might be his undoing, as it might well be for Rosario, which is a pity as I think they might be the best two in the race.
Rosario makes an A/W debut and I just can't back him, based on that plus the pace/draw stats and his 140-day absence, but something niggles me saying he just might win. Brave Empire was suited by the way the race unfolded last time out, but pace/draw relegate him to the ranks of E/W possible too and I'll be honest, I'm struggling to find/pick a winner here!
Let's look at the 5.10pm market to see how those mentioned so far are priced and I see that we have Rosario at 11/2 (PP/betfair), Brave Empire at 7/1 (bet365), Beyond Borders at 10/1 (generally) and McLoven at 22/1 (PP/betfair/Hills) and I think I'm going to have small E/W bets on the latter trio; Rosario is just a bit too short.
I could make a case for Photosynthesis and Salvuccio, but they're not attractively priced enough for me at 7/2 and 7/1, so I'll stick with my trio of E/W hopefuls.
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