Racing Insights, Thursday 30/05/24

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...

• 3.00 Ffos Las
• 4.00 Lingfield
• 4.20 Ripon
• 5.25 Ripon
• 5.30 Fairyhouse
• 6.47 Limerick

...and I suspect that of the races above, we'll get more Instant Expert data from the 4.20 Ripon, a 9-runner, Class 3, 4yo+ flat handicap over a right-handed 1m2f on soft ground...

Bottom-weight Ey Up It's The Boss is not only our sole LTO winner (or even placer for that matter) in the pack, having scored here over track over trip 11 days ago, but also our sole class riser, as he steps up two classes today, Conversely, the top three in the weights are all down in class, with Bennetot and Loyal Touch down from Class 2, whilst Zarabanda was last home of eight in a Listed race, as she has been for three races on the trot!

None of our seven LTO losers even made the frame, but all bar Bennetot, Bodorgan and Titian have won at least one of their last six outings. Rogue Sea is the only runner in this field without a run in the last six weeks and he now races for the first time since mid-September 2023, having moved yards to bryan Smart and undergone a gelding operation during his layoff.

Bennetot and Bodorgan have yet to win at a similar trip, but Zarabanda, Baryshnikov, Cockalorum and Ey Up It's The Boss have all won over course and distance whilst Rogue Sea's last win (51 weeks ago) was over 1m3f on this course and it's two of our course and distance winners that initially catch the eye on our feature of the day, Instant Expert...

Baryshnikov's poor return at going, class and trip have already put me off backing him and Zarabanda is only let down by a lack of wins at this trip (her best results have been at 1m/1m½f), but her soft credentials are the best here with Cockalorum also faring well. From a place perspective, we still seem to be looking at the same horse, drawn in stalls 3 to 7...

....but our draw analyser would suggest those drawn 1 to 5 would be the ones to beat, particularly from a place perspective...

...so that could be especially good for three of our course and distance winners, Cockalorum, Ey Up It's The Boss and Zarabanda.

If we then run those 20-odd races (I know it's a smaller than preferred sample size) through our pace analyser, we find that the wins have been spread fairly equally around the four possible running styles, but from a percentage point of view, you really want to be backing leaders/front-runners here and even more so if if you're angling towards an E/W pick...

That 63.64% place strike rate is quite telling here, so if Cockalorum, Ey Up It's The Boss and/or Zarabanda are front-runners, then they look like good bets to make the frame at the very least, so let's check the field's pace profile...

...and it looks like the pace is going to come from the lower end of the draw with Loyal Touch and Cockalorum the most likely front-runners here.

Summary

Cockalorum, Ey Up It's The Boss and Zarabanda are all course and distance winners and all scored well on both Instant Expert and draw, but when it came to pace profiling Cockalorum was the standout of the three and he's got to be good for a place here as he steps down in trip.

Only Hills had opened a book at 2.25pm Wednesday and they were sadly only offering 6/1 about Cockalorum, which is a bit short for E/W betting for me, but don't let me put you off if those odds are acceptable. Loyal Touch was the early 10/3 favourite and his low drawn front-running could well propel him to a place too, but I think the price is a bit mean based on his Instant Expert scores and an indifferent effort last time out.

If Cockalorum drifts, then I'd definitely put him up as an E/W option, but on the other hand Zarabanda looks a bit long as the 11/1 outsider, as she seems to tick plenty of boxes here apart from pace, but there's a chance she gets towed along by the two front0runners inside her and the pace/draw heat map for this race suggests her centrally drawn mid-division running style might not be disastrous either...

...so Zarabanda at 11/1 E/W is the option that currently interests me most with Cockalorum, Ey Up It's The Boss and market leader Loyal Touch all hoping to be in the mix.

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