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...
- 12.55 Southwell
- 1.00 Clonmel
2.20 Fontwell- 3.05 Catterick
Neither UK option above enthuses me too much, but we do have an interesting looking race to cover in the 2.30 Catterick, an 8-runner, 5yo+ handicap chase over 3m6f on soft ground...
Bushypark won this race on heavy ground by 3.5 lengths last year and comes into having won last time out, as do Court At Slip and Crixus's Escape. Court At Slip has won three of his last six and Bushypark is two from six, whilst Ladronne and Glittering Love are both winless in ten starts and Shadows In The Sky is a six-race maiden.
Bushypark and Ladronne both raced at Class 3 last time out, but the other six all step up at least one class with the bottom two on the card, Crixus's Escape and Shadows In The Sky both making a double step up. Bushypark and Shadows In The Sky are the only two runners without any headgear or tongue ties and half of this field are already 10yrs old or more.
The entire field has raced in the last two to four weeks, so all should be race-ready. Bushypark's success in this race last year not only makes the sole course and distance winner, but also the only one to have won at this trip. Elsewhere, only Ladronne has won on this track and that was a 3m1f chase way back in mid-November 2022 and was the last time he won a race (he's now a pound lighter that run).
More race-relevant stats can be found via feature of the day, Instant Expert...
...where last year's winner Bushypark is the early eye-catcher. No Cruise Yet and Glittering Love have decent soft ground records and the former has also won a couple of stayers' chases, whilst the latter's 0 from 9 at Class 3 is a bit of a concern. Court At Slip is largely untested under these conditions, but did win over 3m3½f on soft ground last March.
From a place perspective...
Bushypark again catches the eye off a fairly small sample size, but I'm drawn to No Cruise Yet on that data, because of the larger number of runs. The issue there seems to be a record of just one placed finish from four at Class 3, which would be a concern to be if I didn't that he'd had three races at Class 2 and finished 132 in those three, so he shouldn't be outclassed here.
This pair are highly likely to be up with the pace, especially Bushypark, who doesn't seem to run any other way if his last four runs are anything to go by...
...and the report of last year's race said..."jumped well throughout, made all, ridden and ran on"...
He is however, some 5lbs higher than his last/highest winning mark and he concede chunks of weight all round, but our pace analyser suggests his front-running style is the way to go here.
Summary
There's a lot to like about Bushypark's chances of winning this race for a second time on the bounce, but I fear that fellow pace-maker No Cruise Yet might well stalk and ultimately outstay him.
If these two do battle and take too much out of each other, that could open the door for the third horse on the pace chart, Court At Slip to get involved too.
This could well be a fairly tight contest as 3m6f soft ground chases go, but these are the three I'd want to focus on and if pushed to put one slightly ahed of the others, I think I'd side with No Cruise Yet.
All three are sadly sub-6/1 in the 5.30pm market, so I've no E/W selection today.