The pace tab on our racecards helps to make a reasoned assumption based upon a field's most recent runs as to how their next race might unfold. This information is vastly under-used by UK bettors, but we feel it's that important that we make this info totally free for all races every Sunday & Monday.
This, of course, includes our daily free races, which for Monday are...
- 2.35 Ayr
- 5.50 Killarney
- 8.20 Killarney
- 8.30 Wolverhampton
I don't really do Irish racing, as most of you know and the Ayr race is a 7-runner novice event where the field of 2 yr olds have a total of ten races between them. This hardly builds up a reliable pace profile, so we're off to the 8.30 Wolverhampton, a 12-runner, Class 5, 3yo+ A/W handicap over a left-handed 6f on standard tapeta...
The indications from Bet365 at 6pm Sunday were that it was a three-horse race (other bookies say four)...
...but if one was to fail we might have a nicely-priced E/W prospect, especially with most firms paying four places so let's see...
At 100/1 in places, I'm just tempted to discard Thunder Sun from the off, but let's crack on with a field with no LTO winners, although Bill Plumb is two from three and Rogue de Vega has a gold and two silvers from hios three career starts. Caesar's Pearl won two starts ago, but we're a bit light of decent form here and Araifjan's chances of ending a 12-race cold spell won't be helped by a step up in class.
Mohareb, Blue Flame, Sergeant Pep and rank outsider Thunder Flame all step down a class here, whilst it's a double drop for top weight Belle Fourche in a race that sees the in-form Rogue de Vega make a handicap debut.
Blue Flame has already won here at Wolverhampton over 7f, whilst Belle Fourche, Bill Plumb, Sergeant Pep, Murbih and Araifjan are former course and distance winners. Of the other half dozen runners, Mohareb, Asadjumeirah and Caesar's Pearl have won over this trip on another track.
The top two on the card, Belle Fourche & Mohareb return from breaks of 231 & 128 days respectively. Bill Plumb has been off for almost ten weeks, but the others have all been in action in the last eight weeks with Asadjumeirah and Erosion Risk having raced this month already.
We have four three year olds in the field in the shape of Rogue de Vega, Sergeant Pep, Caesar's pearl and Erosion Risk and they get a 5lb weight allowance, which should be very useful especially for the in-form handicap debutant Rogue de Vega.
Instant Expert's lowdown on this field's past A/W records show seven former standard going winners and five Class 5 winners as well as the course and distance winners from earlier. Changing the criteria will also give you three Class 3 winners and three to have scored at Class 4...
...and it's definitely the top half of the card that catches the eye, aside from Mohareb. He's already a no from me, based on the above, as are Araifjan & Erosion Risk and if we did exclude Thunder Sun, we're left with eight of our original twelve. We've omitted runners from stalls 2, 3, 4 and 12, so if Sod's Law is anything to go by, the following draw stats will tell me to look for low drawn runners!
I've gone back as far as I needed to get at least 100 past similar contests and thankfully getting a low draw isn't the be all and end all, but high draws can be a struggle...
If we look at the PRB3 stats, then we're advised that the first seven stalls are the place to be...
...and then we need to look at our daily feature pace! Those 110+ races above have tended to go to those displaying good early pace...
Leaders win more than their fair share of contests here, but the data above suggests that prominent runners rein them in late on. Now if Instant Expert wants us to look at horses with lower saddle cloth numbers (1-7?) and those drawn 1 to 7, that's only Bill Plumb and Rogue de Vega. Hmmm, what if either of those have a pace score of around 3.00 or higher? Let's see...
Summary
It's Rogue de Vega for me here and 5/1 looks more than fair about an unexposed, in-form three year old receiving a weight allowance. He's drawn well and has a good pace profile and although only three races in, has yet to run a bad one.
Of the others at the top of the market, I do like Bill Plumb for similar reasons to the selection, but I don't like him quite as much and 4/1 is too short for an E/W bet. Sergeant Pep looks too long at 10's with bet365 and would be a decent E/W pick at that price, but I'm not really keen on anything else.
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
