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 chosen settings for the H4C report...
...have yielded the following trio of qualifiers for Friday...
...and I can still fall back upon our daily list of 'free' races...
- 2.40 Lingfield
- 3.00 Huntingdon
- 3.30 Huntingdon
- 3.55 Dundalk
- 4.00 Huntingdon
Three on the bounce from Huntingdon hardly seems random, but that's the luck of the draw and I think I'm going to shun the free races to look at the two H4C report horses in the 3.40 Lingfield, a 7-runner, Class 5, 4yo+ fillies A/W handicap over a left-handed 1m2f on standard polytrack...
No LTO winners here, but Rikona won two starts ago and was a runner-up on her last outing. Sundayinmay was also a recent runner-up, as she has been three times in her last five contests. Elsewhere no real form to consider.
D Day Odette has made the frame just once in her eight winless race career and she now drops in class to run here, but both Sundayinmay and Miss Elsa step up a level. Connections of another 8-race maiden, Thefastnthecurious, will hope that a first-time visor helps their mare make the frame for the first on the A/W after three failures to date.
Yet despite the field's apparent poor form and lack of wins, three of the seven (Rikona, Midgetonamission and Miss Elsa) have all scored over course and distance, whilst Sundayinmay is two from three over a mile and a half on this track. Star from Afarhh, like the two maidens mentioned above, has failed to win at either track or trip.
She (Star) has been off the track the longest of this group, but at 37 days since her last run, the lay-off shouldn't really matter. Only Rikona has raced in 2023, finishing half a length behind the winner over 1m3f at Southwell on New Year's Day. She's one of four 4 yr olds in the race with Miss Elsa the "veteran" at seven!
With this field having a combined win & place percentages of 11.48% and 31.97% respectively (39 places including 14 wins from a combined 122 starts), I'm not to hopeful of gleaning much from Instant Expert, but you never know until you look...
We're obviously only going to get reds from the two maidens at the top of the card and most of these have toiled at Class 5, but Miss Elsa has respectable figures at least, especially just on the All-Weather and at 16lbs lower than her last win, might be well weighted here. The two runners drawn lowest have the best records here at Lingfield. With the lack of much data action above, I think I should see if the overall & A/W place figures can help us...
...where Rikona looks a very strong candidate to make the frame here, as do Sundayinmay and Miss Elsa. Midgetonamission loves it here at Lingfield and gets the trip readily, but all her form is at Class 6. It's interesting (to me, anyway) that the two that look best on that last graphic are drawn at polar opposites in the stalls in berths 1 and 7, so it's time to consult the draw analyser to see which, if any, of them might be best suited. My usual caveat is in place, of course, that over 10f, the draw should have the same effect as over 5f, but let's check that draw analyser...
And aside from what looks an anomalous set of figures for stall 4 (poor Star from Afarhh), my caveat seems to be pretty accurate. Yes high draws do better than low draws, but if you look at the actual data, there's really very little in it...
The Pace Analyser, however, does give us more to work with from those races above...
...showing a pretty clear advantage to biding one's time in mid-division. We log how every horse runs in the UK and we can show you the last four outings for each of these seven runners and it's a score of around 2 we're looking for. Higher is OK, but hold-up horses haven't done well at all..
...and we've got a mixed bag here. Miss Elsa likes to race prominently, but tends not to lead. Rikona's best form has come from a hold-up position. I'd expect Thefastnthecurious to be fairly advanced in the field with Miss Elsa. Sundayinmay and D Day Odette look like our mid-div runners we were looking for and although Star from Afarrh led last time out, I suspect she'll be held up with Midgetonamission.
There's a fair bit of conjecture and interpretation there, admittedly, but I think Sundayinmay just about shades the pace verdict, as she marginally did on draw. We can combine the draw & pace data to form our unique Geegeez heat maps as follow...
...where mid to high drawn mid div runners win most often closely followed by the high drawn leaders, whilst the high drawn mid-div runners & leaders again score well on places. Based on what we've seen above, here's how I think the race might unfold in draw order...
In truth, I think it's going to be a falsely-run race with nobody really wanting to take it on and that would just play into the hands of the 'better' runners here. A few of these might be better off breaking out and having a go at it, most are expected to lose anyway.
Summary
For me the two best runners in the race are Rikona and Sundayinmay, sadly the bookies (as of 4.50pm) agree with me and have them as 11/8 and 5/2 market principals and it's probably an indictment of how poor the race is when the top weight and 8-race maiden (D Day Odette) is next in line at 4/1. If any were to emerge from the pack to challenge the favourites, then Midgetonamission certainly loves it here and at 18/1 with both Hills & Bet365 paying three places, she might be worth a couple of pennies as an E/W interest.
The 1-2, however, should be Rikona and Sundayinmay and I think I'd like the latter from the H4C report to beat the former.
Other Recent Posts by This Author:
- Tix Picks, Saturday 04/01/25
- Tix Picks, Friday 03/01/25
- Tix Picks, Thursday 02/01/25
- Tix Picks, Tuesday 31/12/24
- Tix Picks, Monday 30/12/24
