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...
- 3.00 Newcastle
- 3.35 Newcastle
- 4.30 Newmarket
- 9.00 Leicester
...from which we're off to the July course at HQ for the 4.30 Newmarket, a 10-runner, Class 3 , 4yo+ flat handicap over a straight 7f on good to firm ground...
...a field where all bar Ararat have raced in the last four weeks. He returns from a nine-month absence but is the only LTO winner in this race. Elsewhere Mitrosonfire was a recent runner-up and both Benacre and Darkness made the frame on their last outings. The field are, however, a little shy of wins in their recent form lines as only Havana Blue (2 from 6), Persuasion, Ararat (2 from 4) and Lord Rapscallion have managed to win any of their last seven races.
Mitrosonfire, Able Kane and Waiting All Night might struggle to end their losing runs as they now step up a class here, as do LTO winner Ararat and bottom weight Lord Rapscallion, but Persuasion drops down a level.
Waiting All Night is the only runner in the field yet to win over this trip, as his sole win in 18 races to date was over 5f at Wolverhampton and he's 0 from 14 on turf but Darkness has won over a mile here at Newmarket, whilst Havana Blue, Ararat, Mitrosonfire and Able Kane are all former course and distance winners.
Instant Expert shows us quite clearly how difficult this field has found it to win over the last two years...
...with the returning Ararat probably the pick of the pack. I'm hoping that the place stats suggest that some of these have been unlucky, because I'm already getting question marks about Toimy Son (trip), Persuasion (class. track and trip), Mitrosonfire (trip), Darkness (going, class and trip), Able Kane (class & trip), Waiting All Night (trip) and Lord Rapscallion (Generally!); it might have been easier to say who I didn't have too many concerns about.
We'd better check those place stats!
...and they certainly show a few of these in a different light, especially Persuasion and Darkness. Their win stats make them hard to back outright, but they're certainly to strangers to making the frame. Benacre loves the trip and has placed here too, so these three could be a second look later along with Ararat (from the win stats) and maybe Havana Blue.
Benacre was a Listed class runner-up, beaten by just three quarters of a length over this trip on the Rowley track here last summer and that should stand him in good stead today as he lines up closest to the rail, now that Arabian Storm (who had been drawn in stall 1) has been withdrawn. That said, I don't think there's much to be gained from stalls position here today
...although those drawn higher have made the frame slightly more often, but there's really not a great deal in it and I suspect that much more will depend on race tactics, because the pace stats for those near-150 races above tells a pretty clear story...
...that being up with the pace is key here from both a win and place perspective. Leaders make up approximately 13.3% of the runners in those races, but have accounted for 28.5% of the winners, which speaks for itself and this looks like more good news for Ararat, Benacre and Darkness if their last few runs are anything to go by...
Summary
The above stats say that pace wins the race here over 7f and alphabetically Ararat, Benacre and Darkness are the three most likely to set the tempo of this contest. Ararat was the sole standout on the win side of our daily feature, Instant Expert, whilst Benacre and Darkness both had good place records, so I think that they're going to be my three against the field.
It's a bit of a gamble that Ararat will be race-sharp after nine months off, but if pushed to pick a winner, it'd be him and Hills were offering 7/1 at 4.15pm on Wednesday, which is bordering on E/W territory, never mind a win bet! Darkness and Benacre were trading at 11/2 and 6/12 respectively, so neither would take my fancy as an E/W bet, but I expect both to give a good account of themselves.