Racing Insights

Racing Insights, Thursday 16/11/23

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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  • 12.30 Market Rasen
  • 1.15 Taunton
  • 3.10 Sedgefield
  • 3.15 Punchestown

Aside from a 5-runner Listed race at Market Rasen, there's nothing higher than a Class 4 contest in the UK on Thursday, so with that in mind, I'm going to swerve the free races and potential weather disruptions and head down to Essex for the 6.00 Chelmsford, a 12-runner, Class 4, 3yo+ A/W handicap over a left-handed 7f on standard polytrack...

Top weight Sir Oliver is our only LTO winner in the field having won a 12-runner handicap over this trip at Lingfield nine days ago beating the re-opposing Riot (5th) and Jilly Cooper (12th) by 1.15 and 42 lengths respectively. Riot is however 5lbs better off with the winner today. Consistent placer Revolutionise, Society Lion and Englebert all made the frame last time around and G'daay, Society Lion, Eden Storm, Hot Chesnut and Engelbert have all won inside their last six outings.

The bottom three on the card are our class movers with Hot Chesnut down a level and Engelbert & Spacer up from Class 5 with the latter now blinkered for the first time, whilst Maxi Boy now makes a debut in a visor. Most of the filed have had a recent run, but Society Lion has had ten weeks off and Revolutionise races for the first time since a narrow course and distance defeat over seven months ago.

Maxi Boy is the only runner in the field yet to win over this trip and five (Sir Oliver, Revolutionise, G'daay, Riot & Hot Chesnut) have scored over track and trip, as seen here on Instant Expert...

...which although not painting too impressive a picture, does suggest the likes of Sir Oliver and Revolutionise might go well here. Riot, Little Boy Blue and Spacer are short on standard going wins, G'daay and Little boy Blue have poor Class 4 records on the A/W and Sir Oliver has struggled to get ahead here at Chelmsford in the past, whilst Hot Chesnut has hardly set the world on fire at this trip.

With not much winning form/green boxes above, it might prove prudent to look at the place stats to at least see who might be in the mix here...

...from which, I think I want to focus more on the runners in stalls 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 & 10...

...over a course and distance that our Draw Analyser suggests that there's very little to be gained from any particular stall...

On bare stats from 60+ races, it looks like high draws win more often, but low draws make the frame more consistently, so I'd be inclined to suggest the draw here, isn't as influential as race tactics aka pace might be and if we look at those races above through the Pace Analyser, we get a familiar Chelmsford picture...



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...where prominent runners do well, but upfront is really the place to be, which should suit Maxi Boy, Sir Oliver and Revolutionise more than the other three on my whittled down version of Instant Expert...

...if they run like they normally do, of course!

Summary

If after discarding half of the field after the Instant Expert analysis, I'm left with the six runners above, then I'm more drawn to the first three named but Maxi Boy hasn't won any of his last seventeen and will need his first-time visor to perk him up a little. I'm not suggesting he can't/won't make the frame, but early odds (Only Hills showing prices at 2.30pm Wednesday) of 10/1 aren't doing it for me. Had he been 16's or bigger, I might have been tempted with a couple of quid.

This leaves me with Sir Oliver & Revolutionise and I suspect they'll finish in that order, but that suits me fine with a 5/1 win bet and a 17/2 E/W option at the time of writing.

Riot is the current 7/2 favourite and that sort of makes sense now that he's 5lbs better off with Sir Oliver with only just over a length to make up, but he tends to be held up and might well leave himself with too much to do here to win, but could well make the frame and even split my two picks.

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