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 sadly yielded no qualifiers for this Friday, but we do still have our daily list of 'free' races...
- 3.10 Epsom
- 4.15 Chepstow
- 5.20 Tramore
- 7.35 Stratford
- 8.00 Down Royal
- 8.05 Stratford
...the best of which is clearly the Epsom race, but only five are set to go to post, so I think I'll take a look at the 7.35 Stratford, an 8-runner, Class 2, 5yo+ Hunters Chase over a left-handed 3m3½f on good to soft ground...
What A Glance won last time out and has had five top 2 finishes in a row, as has Go On Chez who comes here seeking a hat-trick, as does Fairly Famous who has won three of his last five. All eight have won at least one of their last five outings and all bar Law of Gold (Pulled Up) made the frame on their last run.
Most of these ran (at Cheltenham) four weeks ago and Go on Chez also ran earlier this month, but Annamix is the longest rested at 50 days and he's the only one who raced at Class 2 last time around, as the other seven are all up two classes today.
Course and/or distance wins are at a premium for this field, but Law of Gold bucks that trend, having scored over track and trip here when winning this very race three years ago, when offiically rated 12lbs worse than today. It's not a handicap, of course, they'll all carry 12st, but based on their official ratings the 139-rated Annamix is 2lbs better off than Fairly Famous and some 24lbs better than Lift Me Up.
Instant Expert's overview of the field's past endeavours under similar circumstances looks like this...
...and if truth be told, we're not gleaning much from the win side of things here, but we do have more to work with from the place data. From the win stats I have concerns about D'jango at the trip as he seems better suited to 2m7f/3m and his place record at this type of trip is the worst in the field, so I'd probably rule him out right here. Premier Magic has only made the frame once in four attempts in this grade and whilst that's a small sample size, others look better suited to this level than he, so I'm taking him out here too.
This leaves me with just six to consider, from which Annamix and Go On Chez make most appeal from the data above.
With regards to pace, there's not a huge advantage to any particular running style, although those racing in mid-division have an extraordinarily poor return whereas from a place perspective, the onus is clearly to find a front runner...
...so we need to look back at each runner's last few races, which look like this...
...and this is sadly not too helpful either with it looking like being a falsely-run race, but that should play into the hands of the better horses. It looks like I've picked a poor/difficult race here to analyse despite it being a Class 2 affair. In these cases, I tend to refer back to the racecard for some pointers.
Summary
Fairly short piece today due to the lack of viable data, so I'm going back to square one to summarise from the racecard.
Annamix is my pick today, he has won two of his last four and three of six since last Easter. He's the only one not stepping up in class and ran really well to finish third in the Foxhunters at Aintree behind Its On The Line, whose recent form reads 111211. Annamix scored well on the place side of Instant Expert and he's the highest-rated of all the runners, so is technically best off at the weights. He also seems flexible on pace based on his last four runs, so (without total conviction, it must be said), it would be Annamix for me here.
Best of the rest might well be Go On Chez who comes here on a hat-trick, having a 2 from 2 record in Hunter Chases and a form line of 1222211 since being pulled up at Cheltenham in October 2022 and I fancy him to just edge out the other LTO winner Fairly Famous, who is rated at just 2lbs worse than Annamix.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!