Racing Insights, Thursday 14/03/24

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...

• 1.10 Hexham
• 3.30 Cheltenham
• 5.45 Southwell
• 6.15 Southwell

...and I suppose it would be rude of me to ignore the Festival completely this week, so why don't I cast my amateur eye (plenty of pro analysis elsewhere on Geegeez!) over the 3.30 Cheltenham? 12 runners are set to go to post for the Grade 1 PP Stayers Hurdle over a left-handed three miles on soft/heavy ground with more rain expected...

Crambo, Noble Yeats, Sir Gerhard and Teahupoo all won last time out, whilst Asterion Forlonge and Paisley Park were both runners-up. Paisley Park has actually been a runner-up in each of his last three and most recently here over course and distance in the Grade 2 Cleeve Hurdle, half a length being Noble Yeats, but is now 6lbs better off. Flooring Porter (winner of this race is 2021 & 2022) and Janidil also made the frame last time around, whilst Buddy One is the only runner here who didn't complete his last race, being pulled up before the last in Leopardstown's Grade 1 Jack de Bromhead Christmas Hurdle.

All horses will carry 11st 10lbs here, but the assessors have the field rated 10lbs from top to bottom with Teahupoo's OR of 162 the highest, 3lbs better than Sire du Berlais with Noble Yeats rated at 'just' 152.

We know that Flooring Porter won this race in 2021 and 2022, but we've four other course and distance winners in the race in the shape of last year's winner Sire du Berlais, Noble Yeats (from LTO), Buddy One and Paisley Park. Dashel Drasher (2m4½f hurdle) and Sir Gerhard (2m½f NHF & 2m5f hurdle) have also won on this track, whilst only Asterion Forlonge, Janidil and Sir Gerhard are yet to win over a similar trip in UK/Ireland.

Instant Expert suggests that both Dashel Drasher and paisley park have struggled to win races at this class and/or trip over the last couple of years, but that most of the field have had some joy on soft or heavy ground...

...whilst it's 3 years since Janidil last tackled a hurdle when beaten by 11 lengths as 5th of 19 in the Albert Bartlett here in the 2020 Festival.

As you'd expect from such a high class field, the place stats from those races above don't help me towards a winner or an E/W bet...

...but they do lead me to write Home By The Lee off at this stage.

The place data for similar contests here at HQ say that the further forward a horse runs, the greater its chances of making the frame, but that most runners come from off the pace, having raced in mid-division...

...which based on the field's last couple of outings suggests that whilst Dashel Drasher, Flooring Porter, Home By the Lee, Buddy One & Noble Yeats might well be ideally positioned to make the frame (4 places generally, 5 at SkyBet, of course!)

...they're probably susceptible to a late run for the win from one or more of Asterion Forlonge, Paisley Park, Sir Gerhard and Teahupoo.

Summary

My personal shortlist for the race wasn't too far away from the names taken from the pace chart above and consisted of Asterion Forlonge, Crambo, Flooring Porter, Noble Yeats, Paisley Park, Sire du Berlais and Teahupoo. This meant that Asterion Forlonge, Flooring Porter, Noble Yeats, Paisley Park and Teahupoo featured on both lists.

So, whilst I'd love to able to prove why Sire du Berlais might still have something to offer, I can't justify it if we're only going off the data above (no room for sentiment, eh?)

Of the five left under consideration, Teahupoo is probably the best horse in the race, but 7/4 is no kind of money for me to be involved with. I do like Noble Yeats, based on his course and distance win here last time out, but he only narrowly defeated Paisley Park that day and the latter isn't carrying a penalty this time. Asterion Forlonge's only Grade 1 win came four years ago, but he does make the frame regularly at this level, whilst Flooring Porter knows exactly what's needed here.

In the end, Teahupoo probably wins this, but based on the 5.45pm market...

...I'd still be interested in Flooring Porter, Paisley Park and Asterion Forlonge as E/W possibles with Noble Yeats just a tad too short, unless he drifts. Don't forget, it's 5 places if you can get on with SkyBet!

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