Racing Insights, Thursday 14/12/2023

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...

• 12.20 Taunton
• 2.20 Naas
• 3.40 Warwick
• 5.30 Chelmsford
• 6.00 Chelmsford

To be honest, none of those five make much appeal to me and the day's highest-rated UK race might well be a Listed contest, but small-field Novice chases don't float my boat either. Next best is the day's sole Class 2 race, so we'll head there and take a look at the 8.00 Chelmsford, a 9-runner, Class 2, 3yo+ A/W handicap over a left-handed mile on standard polytrack...

Top-weight Tacarib Bay was a winner last time out, as were Fantastic Fox and Desert Order who both seek to complete hat-tricks, but the latter might need the run as he makes just a second handicap appearance more than 14 months after he last raced. Excel Power and Rhythm N Rock are the only ones winless in their last six (7 & 9 respectively, actually) races.

Despite winning a Listed race at Newcastle four weeks ago, top-weight Tacarib Bay actually drops down in class here, but the bottom four on the card/weights, Rhythm N Rock, Batemans Bay, hat-trick seeking Fantastic Fox and Lord Bertie all step up from Class 3 with the latter making a yard debut for Jane Chapple-Hyam, having left William Haggas during the 12-week break since his last outing.

Aside from the obvious 423 day absence of Desert Order (he has been gelded in that time), only Diderot at 189 days has been away longer than Lord Bertie with the other six runners all having been out at least once in the last four to eight weeks.

Class-dropper Tacarib Bay and the returning Desert Order have both yet to win over a mile unlike their seven rivals, of which three, Diderot, Excel Power and the fast-finishing Fantastic Fox (who doesn't love a bit of alliteration?), are all former course and distance winners.

Despite winning a Listed race recently, Tacarib Bay shows up on Instant Expert with a 0 from 3 record at Class 2...

...but his rivals have hardly been prolific in this grade and I don't think he's going to be outclassed here. Diderot's Class 2 record is even worse, but Helm Rock and Fantastic Fox look well suited albeit from a small sample size of races, whilst Excel Power has more experience and wins to his name.

As Instant Expert is today's guest feature, we'll have a quick glance at the place stats, but they don't really help to separate the runners for us...

Here at Chelmsford over a mile the pace angle has been more of an issue than the draw, but both are important of course. What we have seen in similar past races is that the lower a horse has been drawn the greater its chances of placing and ultimately winning, whilst it's well versed about this track being a bit of a speedway where early pace is amply rewarded. A slight anomaly appears on the pace/draw heat map, though, with the mid-drawn leader faring best of all, one assumes it's to do with not having as sharp a turn to make, somewhat similar to a Formula 1 'racing line' through the apex of the bend...

The only issue we have with this field and the above data, is that there are no real out and out front-running types here, based on their most recent efforts...

...but I suspect that Desert Order, Excel Power and Lord Bertie from stalls 1, 3 and 5 will try to lead the way home from an early point, which makes Fantastic Fox's recent course and distance win very interesting, as the race report said..."held up in rear, pushed along over 1f out, soon made headway and switched left, ridden to lead inside final furlong, ran on well..." and all that came from stall 10 of 10!

Summary

Desert Order, Excel Power and Lord Bertie look like providing the early pace, but the former makes an A/W debut coming off a lengthy absence, the second-named hasn't won for over a year and the latter also makes an A/W debut and had two indifferent runs in September when last seen.

What I think will happen is that they'll drag the wider-drawn horses along and inadvertently set themselves up as targets for the in-form pair of Tacarib Bay and Fantastic Fox. This pair look most likely to succeed in my eyes and if pushed for a winner, I'd probably side with Frankel's fast-finishing Fantastic Fox (sorry!).  My 1-2 are best priced at 9/2 and 5/1 with the returning Desert Order a short-looking 2/1 or 9/4.

Elsewhere at bigger prices, Lord Bertie might be able to hold on for a place and be a reasonable E/W pick at 8/1, whilst feature of the day Instant Expert says that Helm Rock might be better than a 10/1 ticket might suggest.

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