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...
12.50 Wincanton- 1.20 Chelmsford
1.35 Newcastle2.50 Fairyhouse
No jumps racing on Thursday and the sole remaining free race is a poor-looking Class 6 affair. In fact the whole Chelmsford card consists of 2 x Class 5 and 4 x Class 6. There's an evening meeting at Southwell, though, and this has 2 x Class 5 and 5 x Class 6 plus the race I'm going to look at : the 6.30 Southwell, an 11-runner, Class 3, 4yo+ A/W handicap over a left-handed 1m3f on standard tapeta...
The consistent (six top 3 finishes on the bounce) Qaasid was a runner-up last time out and bottom-weight Tiger Beetle was third on his last run, but we've no LTO winners and three of these (Barenboim, Howth & Furzig) have lost at least seven consecutive outings.
Top-weight Valsad makes his yard debut for Jamie Osborne and drops down a class to run here, as do Barenboim, Queen of Ipanema (1st time in cheekpieces), Cavern Club and Furzig. The fast-finishing bottom-weight Tiger Beetle steps up in class, though, as does Tenerife Sunshine, whilst Haveyoumissedme is noted as another fast finisher.
Valsad and Cavern Club have both been rested for just over three months and it's well over six months since Qaasid was turned out. The remainder have, however, all raced in the last month or so. If we go back to Qaasid, we see that he's our sole course and distance winner, but Valsad has also won at this track, landing a £52k, Class 2, 1m4f handicap three starts ago, He has also won over a similar trip to this one elsewhere, as have Barenboim, Cavern Club and Tenerife Sunshine.
Past relevant form is highlighted via Instant Expert, of course...
...and as seems to be the case right now, it's a pretty mixed bag. Queen of Ipanema has a great A/W strike rate, of course, but Qaasid and Sonnerie Power have both won just 1 in 7 on standard going. Barenboim has struggled to win at Class 3, whilst this trip hasn't managed to get Tiger Beetle or Howth to win any of 22 combined starts, whilst Qaasid is just 2 from 13.
We do know, however, that Qaasid is a bit better than the above stats might suggest, as he's a consistent/regular placer as shown by the place stats, where he suddenly looks like a force to be reckoned with...
...although his consistency is pushing him up the weights and he's now 8lbs higher than his last win and Cavern Club also finds himself in a similar predicament at 9lbs above his last win.
The tapeta track is relatively new here at Southwell and over similar distances with a similar field size, there doesn't to be much (if any) advantage to be gained from the draw...
...as leaders tend to win more often, but make the frame less often, whilst from a pace perspective it has paid to avoid front-runners...
...which might not be good news for Valsad if he forced to take up the running in the absence of a true front-runner...
...whilst the pace/draw heat map suggests high-drawn hold-up horses have done well, but not as well as the low-drawm prominent horse...
...and if we translate this data to our racecard...
...Queen of Ipanema is probably our high-drawn hold-up type and Qaasid our low-drawn prominent runner.
Summary
Queen of Ipanema has a great A/W strike rate and scoresd well on Instant Expert and on pace/draw and at 8/1 with Hills (5.45pm Wednesday), I think she's a good E/W prospect, especially with four places being available.
Qaasid is a regular placer who scored well on the place side of Instant Expert. He also fills the pace/draw role as low-drawn prominent and whilst he's not a regular winner, he's a reliable sort to make the frame and had he been a little longer than 13/2, I've have been tempted into another E/W bet.
As for a winner, you could make a case for a handful of these and none really stand out for me, so I'll leave that well alone, but leave you with the thought that the 9/1 Caver Club might be one for the frame too.
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
