Racing Insights

Racing Insights, Thursday 09/03/23

Thursday's free feature, the Instant Expert racecard tab is one of Geegeez readers' most popular tools because it has the unique ability to condense the entire form profile of every runner in the race into a single, easily digestible, view covering 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.

We make this feature freely available to ALL readers EVERY Thursday for ALL races, including, naturally, our selection of 'free' races as follows...

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  • 1.30 Wincanton
  • 4.35 Carlisle
  • 5.15 Newcastle
  • 5.25 Thurles

...from which I'm ignoring Carlisle (weather) and Thurles (not a fan of Irish racing) and I'm going with the 1.30 Wincanton, a 7-runner, Class 3,  5yo+ handicap where they'll go right handed over 21 fences on good ground, that is reportedly firmer in places, but showers are forecast. The trip is just shy of 3m1½f after a 60yd rail movement and here's the card...

Stormy Flight and Windance both won last time out, whilst Bbold, Minella Buster and No Hubs No Hoobs all failed to complete their races, but the latter did at least win two starts back and only Trixster is winless in five, despite being one of just two (along with Stormy Night) to not have an incomplete run in that time.

Three of these (Valsheda 5th LTO, Bbold & Minella Buster both pulled up) ran at this Class last tim, but three (LTO winners Stormy Flight & Windance plus 6th placed Trixster) step up a level and bottom weight No Hubs No Hoobs is up two classes after a fall here over C&D when he reportedly bled.

He had, however won over course and distance here two starts back, on Boxing Day, making him the only C&D winner in the pack. None of the others have won here, but three (Bbold, Windance & Trixster) have won over a similar trip to this one. No Hubs No Hoobs' C&D last run was two months ago now, but Bbold and Minella Buster have been off longer at 73 days, with the remainder all seen in the last month.

Feature of the day, Instant Expert condenses the relevant form profile of the field into a simple to view graphic, which for all NH races looks like this...

...where Stormy Flight has struggled to win at Class 3 (50% place strike rate, though) and is up 9lbs for that last win and Trixster looks ill at ease with the class & distance. Minella Buster is also 9lbs higher than his last win four starts back, but the relatively unexposed Windance is only raised 3lbs for a 16-length success at Fontwell a months ago.

Chase form alone  looks like this...

...where some of the figures don't look as bad if we ignore hurdling form.

Past similar contests have not been kind to hold-up horses...

...but a fairly even amount of success has been shared by those adoption a different running-style. This field's last four outings look like this...



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...and bottom weight No Hubs No Hoobs looks the most likely to be the back marker, but I should add that quite a few of these have inconsistent styles.

Summary

Short and hopefully sweet today, but the two LTO winners, Stormy Flight & Windance have to be the two to focus on. There's not really anything jumping out from what I've written above.

STORMY FLIGHT seems to have got his head around chasing and has been a runner-up and then a winner in his last two otuings after a fairly indifferent ten races since winning over hurdles at Uttoxeter almost three years ago. He won quite comfortably lkast time out, getting home by six lengths, but is up in class here and rated 9lbs better, which might eat plenty of a six-length win.

WINDANCE won back to back handicap hurdles in March 2021, but was off track for 580 days from his last hurdle run (May '21) to making his chase debut just three months ago. It took a couple of attempts over fences to get it right, but he won by 16 lengths at Fontwell a month ago, easing right down in the process, yet is only raised 3lbs here.

There's not really a great deal between the two and both won LTO and both are up in class and weight, but Stormy Flight is up 9lbs for a 6-length win and Windance is only up 3lbs for a 16-length romp. He's less exposed (10 races to 24) and with Anthony Honeyball's runners in such great form over the last month, I'm siding with Windance over Stormy Flight.

The bookies disagree and both Bet365 and Hills have Windance at 3/1 with Stormy Flight at 5/4 and 13/8. Both firms are paying three places here and the 7/1 Minella Buster and/or the 9/1 Valsheda might make foir decent E/W bets, especially if the latter gets a lead.

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