Racing Insights, Thursday 06/06/24

Did you know that the Instant Expert tab is by far the most popular tab on the geegeez racecards?

That's because it has the ability to condense the entire form profile of every runner in the race into a single, easily digestible, view. The report covers the form in terms of wins (or places), runs, and win (or place) percentage for each of going, class, course, distance, and field size. It also compares today’s official rating with the horse’s last winning official rating. The display is colour coded: green for a higher percentage rate, amber for a middling percentage, and red for a low percentage. Horses with no form under a certain condition have grey figures.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Where a horse has no UK/Irish form – i.e. it is having its first run in Britain or Ireland under Rules – it will not show up on Instant Expert at all.

This GOLD feature is so important that we make freely available to ALL readers EVERY Thursday alongside our usual selection of FREE races which, for this Thursday are...

• 5.10 Haydock
• 6.30 Leopardstown
• 6.45 Chelmsford
• 8.00 Leopardstown

Now, as most of you know, I don't really do Irish racing and that leaves me with a pair of uninspiring Class 5 UK races above, so I'm swerving those to look at whatever the highest-rated race might be in the UK instead.

And that appears to be the 3.25 Hamilton, an 11-runner, Class 2, 3yo+ flat handicap over a straight 6f on good ground...

...where only Glenfinnan was a winner last time out, although Kelpie Grey was a runner-up after three straight wins and four wins from five.

This initially looks a pretty open contest, yet aside from the horses named above only Persuasion made the frame last time out, but only Monsieur Kodi and Manila Scouse are winless in seven or more (7 & 10 respectively).

Only five of these (Roman Drago, Paws for Thought, Dare to Hope, Monsieur Kodi & Manila Scouse) actually raced at Class 2 on their last outing, as Glenfinnan, Raatea, Persuasion and Almarada Prince all step up from Class 3 whilst Kelpie Grey and Illusionist were both last seen at Class 4.

Paws for Thought, Illusionist and Manila will have their usual respective cheekpieces, blinkers and tongue tie in place today and Paws For Thought's jockey claims 7lbs whilst Almarada Prince will be ridden by a 5lb claimer in addition to him receiving an 8lbs weight allowance as a 3yr old. The whole field have raced in the last 12 to 39 days, so we shouldn't have any fitness issues here today.

Persuasion , Kelpie Grey and Manila Scouse have yet to win over this trip, whilst Paws for Thought and Illusionist have scored here over course and distance. Almarada Prince has also won here at Hamilton, albeit over 5f as the middle win in a hat-trick last Autumn.

When it comes to looking at out feature of the day, Instant Expert, I've also included the stats from Class 3, as none of this field has particularly shone in this grade...

...so I wouldn't necessarily use Class 2 form as my immediate way of weeding runners out! From the above, the lightweight Almarada Prince and Glenfinnan are the obvious eyecatchers with Paws for Thought and Roman Dragon also hitting two blocks of green, although the latter is now 8lbs above his last winning mark and might well be in the assessor's grip.

I think we should look at the place form too, in case any of these have been unlucky not to win, especially at Class 2...

Sadly, that's not the case today, the while Class 2 form is pretty abject, so I think we should treat this as a Class 3 contest after all! Persuasion is a regular placer at that level and Almarada Prince continues to tick boxes albeit off a very small sample size, whereas Dare to Hope and Monsieur Kodi have a combined 14 places from 26 starts over 6f, which is excellent. Illusionist looks the weak link right now, though.

As you'd expect over a straight 6f on good ground, the draw stats are fairly inconclusive, but this the data we have...

I'm a great believer in the value of assessing the draw in shorter distance races, but I am cautious about over-reliance in these straight sprints, where aside from stall 1 having the rail to guide the horse and keep it straight, there shouldn't really be an advantage and it's invariably race tactics aka pace that matter more. Thankfully we have that data too! Here's how those races were won...

...unsurprisingly favouring front-runners as often tends to be case in sprints, which could be really good news for Kelpie Grey, if this field's last four races are anything to go by...

Summary

The names that crop up most during my analysis are (in card order) top weights Roman Dragon and Glenfinnan along with the two runners to be ridden by claimers, Paws for Thought and Almarada Prince.

If I was to use this quartet as my shortlist, then I'd be inclined to suggest that the in-form Glenfinnan would be the most likely to win and that's probably why Hills have him as the early (4.10pm Wednesday) favourite at 4/1, which is probably where I thought he'd be priced.

The other three (Roman Dragon, Paws for Thought and Almarada Prince) are all more than capable of making the frame, as are no doubt three or four others, but at respective odds of 13/2, 8/1 and 16/1, there might be some E/W joy to be had!

Please Note : I'm off to Cyprus for a fortnight tomorrow (Thursday), so there'll be no column for Friday's racing. It's a work trip (looking at some hotels), so I'll still be writing the daily column when possible, although the timings of publication may well vary from day to day.

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