Racing Insights, Thursday 25/01/24

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...

• 1.35 Southwell
• 3.10 Huntingdon
• 3.25 Gowran Park
• 4.45 Newcastle

...the highest rated of which is the 3.10 Huntingdon, a 9-runner, Class 1, 5yo+ Mares' Listed Chase over a right-handed 2m4f on good ground...

All nine of these have won at least one of their last seven outings with top weight Pink legend winning four times, but she didn't win last time out. Mayhem Mya, Plenty of Time and Sacre Coeur did though, as did Brides Hill who comes here aiming to complete a hat-trick.

Eight of the field are carrying 11st 2lbs here with the 137-rated Lady Adare best off at the weights, but Pink Legend is rated 8lbs higher than Lady Adare, but carries just 4lbs more, whilst Brides Hill is rated a further 8lbs better than Pink Legend and carries 2lbs less, so she's effectively 10lbs to 34lbs well-in with her rivals here.

Sacre Coeur was a Class 2 winner last time out whilst Mayham Mya, Plenty of Time and Midnight Mary all raced at Class 3, so all four are up in class today. The latter is just one of two previous course winners (but only 3 have raced here in total!), having won a Class 5 3m1½f hurdle here back in March 2021, whilst the other, Pink Legend is a course and distance winner by virtue of winning this race in 2022. Carole's Pass and Mayhem Mya are the only ones yet to win over a similar trip to this one...

There's not a great deal of data in Instant Exert above, but Pink Legend is certainly the eyecatcher with her 5 Class 1 chase successes and whilst her rivals haven't quite been as successful, the place stats show that most of them  have acquitted themselves quite well in this grade...

...with La Renommee doing particularly well over this trip. The fields' most recent outings suggest that the likes of Midnight Mary, Pink Legend and Sacre Coeur will be the ones setting the tempo early doors...

...with hat-trick seeking Brides Hill being held-up, but past similar races here at Huntingdon haven't shown any real pace bias...

...as I'd like to see a bigger dataset for mid-division runners before ruling them out. In a race like this where I've no draw or pace bias to work with and Instant Expert hasn't really narrowed things down, I find that the cream generally rises to the top naturally.

Summary

If we're not getting much from Instant Expert from this race by means of whittling the field down, then we refer back to the card and form. And for me, the best two horses in the race are 2022's winner Pink Legend and Brides Hill. The latter comes here on a hat-trick and is a good 10lbs well in at the weights with the former, so I'm going to agree with the 4.40pm market and suggest that the 6/5 Brides Hill beats the 9/2 Pink Legend.

Sadly these bets don't excite me, so I'm looking for double-digit odds runners as possible E/W bets and my gaze falls on the 11/1 Sacre Coeur and the 12/1 La Renommee. The former has progressed nicely over fences, finishing 1131 in her four efforts last year and could well run on for a place, as indeed could the latter who was a Listed class runner-up last time out and has a great record over similar trips with 3 wins and 3 further places from just 7 attempts at 2m4f/2m4½f.

Other Recent Posts by This Author:

• Racing Insights, Saturday 07/09/24
• Racing Insights, Friday 06/09/24
• Racing Insights, Thursday 05/09/24
• Racing Insights, Wednesday 04/09/24
• Racing Insights, Tuesday 03/09/24