Did you know that the Instant Expert tab is by far the most popular tab on the geegeez racecards?
That's because it has the ability to condense the entire form profile of every runner in the race into a single, easily digestible, view. The report covers 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.
This GOLD feature is so important that we make freely available to ALL readers EVERY Thursday alongside our usual selection of FREE races which, for this Thursday are...
- 12.20 Wincanton
- 1.55 Thurles
- 3.05 Thurles
- 3.35 Newcastle
- 7.00 Wolverhampton
The last of that list is the highest-rated of the UK free races, so let's consider the 7.00 Wolverhampton, an 11-runner, Class 2, 3yo+ A/W handicap over a left-handed 1m6f on standard tapeta...
Our sole LTO winner, Sonnerie Power has left Roger Varian's yard in th elast five weeks and makes a debut for his new yard here, but is up two classes. Of his rivals, only Capital Theory was placed last time around and he's up one class here, as is bottom weight El Picador, who is one of five (along with Prydwen, Nolton Cross, Rhythmic Intent and Inuit) who have been beaten in at least their last seven races on the bounce.
Nolton Cross has been off the track the longest at 75 days, but that shouldn't really be an issue here and he's one of three (Prydwen and Capital Theory being the others) to have already won here at Wolverhampton, but only Zealandia had won over today's trip before.
Feature of the day, Instant Expert, shows the field's success (or lack of) under similar conditions and we can show you Flat & A/W wins combined, as well as just the A/W data...
The obvious immediate standouts are Prydwen, Capital Theory and Nolton Cross, but they've hardly set the world on fire at Class 2 with just 2 combined wins from 31 efforts. Mind you, none of this field have particularly shone at this grade,but all bar Prydwen, Inuit, Sonnerie Power, El Picador and Oneforthegutter have won at Class 3.
When there's not much 'green' around on Instant Expert, I tend to then look at the place stats to see who might well run a decent race and be close to or in the frame, because one of those in the frame will go on to win! So here's the corresponding place data to those races above...
...where you could make a case for a handful of runners on Flat & A/W form, but the A/W data is considerably more clear-cut.
Somewhat unusually for a race of this distance, there is actually some semblance of a draw bias, although not huge with those drawn higher tending to do better from a win perspective...
...but this is somewhat tempered/conflicted by the PRB3 data which suggests the lower end of the draw tend to beat more rivals home...
...so maybe there's not a great deal to be made from the draw, I suppose it's down to how you interpret the data. What isn't in doubt, though, is the fact that front-runners really don't do very well over this type of contest...
...which, based on the evidence of the field's last few races, doesn't look too good for the likes of Capital Theory or Rhythmic Intent...
Summary
The two horses I like the most here, Chillingham and Capital Theory are the top two in the market at best prices of 9/2 and 5/1, but the former has little/no experience at trip/surface and the latter looks like failing to win by being the pace-maker. They're both more than capable of making the frame, but I'm not sure I want to put money on them and I think I'd like to focus on the others who made some appeal on Instant Expert ie Prydwen, Nolton Cross and Barenboim.
All three look like they could go well here and if I was pushed to nominate one as a potential winner, then it's be the 5/1 Nolton Cross who looks dangerous off his current mark. The other two might well need some luck in running, but at odds of around 9/1, they might well be of interest to E/W bettors.
PS No post tomorrow (Thursday for Friday) as I'm otherwise engaged, but back again with you on Friday.