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 report...
...have yielded just one qualifier for Friday...
...but I can, of course, always fall back upon our daily list of 'free' races...
- 3.00 Newbury
- 3.12 Lingfield
- 3.33 Newbury
- 7.30 Dundalk
And I think I'll take a look at One More Dream in the 6.45 Newcastle, a 9-runner, Class 4, 4yo+ A/W handicap over a straight 7f on standard tapeta...
This looks like a pretty open contest with several holding claims. Featured runner One More Dream has two wins and two runner-up finishes from his last four, Lahab has a win and three places from four, Abruzzo Mia and Mumayaz both won last time out, whilst Danielsflyer has won each of his last three. Feel The Need and Streak Lightning are, however, winless in twelve and ten races respectively.
Streak Lightning's hope of breaking that long losing run don't appear to be helped by him stepping up a class here, as are One More Dream, Abruzzo Mia and bottom-weight Rory, whilst Mumayaz is up two grades today. All bar Feel The Need have had a run in the last three weeks, but he now returns from almost six months off, during which time he has switched yards and now makes a debut for Michael Herrington.
All nine runners have already won over this trip with only Lahab, Feel The Need, Mumayaz and Rory yet to score over course and distance. The latter pair, Mumayaz (over 6f) and Rory (over 5f & 6f) have, however, already won on this track and Instant Expert will document the field's form over the last two year's under similar conditions...
Fast0finisher Starshiba has been decent across the board, if unspectacular, whilst One More Dream has a great record at track/trip. Abruzzo Mia's numbers are creditable and Danielsflyer is probably the standout here. Streak Lightning has found it hard to win on going/class and distance and the going certainly hasn't favoured Mumayaz or Rory with the latter also struggling to win over 7f, although they have managed to make the frame in several of their defeats, according to the place data for those very races...
...which suggests that all of these have done well enough to make the frame quite often, whilst Feel The Need runs on the A/W for the first time. His introduction to this sphere of racing will come from a fairly high (7 of 9) draw, but our draw analyser suggests that this might be helpful from both a win and place perspective...
Personally, I remain unconvinced about draw bias on straight tracks, but that above is what the data tells us. I'm more inclined to take notice of any perceived pace bias than the draw stats if truth be told and for those 150+ races above, our Pace Analyser says...
...that leaders win more than their fair share of races here, but that those just following closely behind do have a tendency to pick them off and 'steal' the win. Any further back into mid-field can be a difficult place to win from, as those runners have only won 43.8% of the races despite having 54.9% of the runners and if we look at the field's last few outings...
This could be good news for Lahab, Abruzzo Mia, Starshiba and One More Dream and if we look at the pace/draw heat map...
...Abruzzo Mia would be the one to take from that piece of data.
Summary
An open-looking contest and when I wrote the piece just ater 3pm on Thursday I had no odds to work with, but I was more interested in (alphabetically) Abruzzo Mia (Form/Instant Expert/Pace & Draw), Danielsflyer (on form/IE), Lahab (form/pace), One More Dream (Form/H4C/IE) and Starshiba (IE/pace).
I've only ruled four out at this stage, but will return later with a decision, once I've seen the market and decided which (if any) represent enough value for me to want to suggest putting money down
OK, it's now 6.30pm and here's the market...
..and based on the above, I think I'm just going to play a small E/W bet on Starshiba. If pushed for a winner, my tentative selection would be Abruzzo Mia ahead of One More Dream.
