Racing Insights, Tuesday 17/01/23

GREEN is good (33% or better win rate) – worth 3 points
AMBER is quite good (16-32% win rate) – worth 1 point
RED is not so good (0-15% win rate) – worth -1 points
GREY means there is no available data for that factor - worth 0 points

The final column, ‘Score’, is the sum of the previous five ‘colour’ columns, with 15 being an all green profile, and 9 being the lowest score appearing on this report.

HINT: The best bets are not necessarily the highest scores. Rather, they are often the biggest difference between a Shortlist horse and the ‘best of the rest’ in that race.

N.B. Shortlist selections are unlikely to make a profit, at SP at least, to blind backing. Our recommendation is – and has always been – that the Shortlist should be a starting point rather than an end in itself. That said, it continues to highlight horses whose chance is better than recent form - and its odds - imply, but please refer to our User Guide for further information.

This usually brief report looks like this for Tuesday with a couple of races of interest...

...and this free list is complemented by the following 'races of the day'...

• 2.50 Clonmel
• 3.00 Chepstow
• 7.00 Southwell
• 8.30 Southwell

And I suppose with two of the three Shortlist horses running in a 'free' race, I should be focusing on the 3.00 Chepstow, where Emmpressive Lady and Come On Gruff will take on eight others in a Class 3, 4yo+ handicap hurdle over 2m3½f on soft (heavy in places) ground...

None of these managed to win last time out, but Come On Gruff did at least make the frame, beaten by little more than half a length after a three mile slog at Kempton. Conversely Emmpressive Lady was the only one of these to fail get round on their recent outings, although she had entered that race seeking a hat-trick. Come On Gruff won three and five starts back and New Found Fame won four back on debut, but the rest of the field are winless in five.

He now makes just a second handicap appearance, as does top-weight Iamastar who is sporting first-time cheekpieces and a tongue tie after being well beaten on his UK debut two months ago at this grade. Speaking of class, Gladiateur Allen , Kateson & Ballyellis all drop a class, whilst Come On Gruff moves the other way from Class 4.

Most of this field have won over a similar trio with top-weight Iamastar and bottom-weight Blacko the two exceptions, but only Kateson has won here at Chepstow, having prevailed over 2m4f some 50 months ago.

Eight of the field have raced in the last eight weeks, but Emmpressive Lady's last outing was eleven months ago, whilst Ballyellis hasn't been sighted since August 2021. The 10 yr old could be excused for being a bit rusty, but he did win over 2m at Fakenham 22 months ago coming off a break of 14 months, so his layoff might not be the negative you'd expect and with two wins and a place from four on soft ground, he might be a surprise contender here.

The Instant Expert stats for this field show that all bar Iamastar have at least one win on soft/heavy ground, we've got half a dozen previous Class 3 winners and as per above 8 distance winners, but just to have won here at Chepstow...

The stats suggest that Emmpressive Lady & Alnadam are proven in the mud and the former probably makes most appeal of all ten on that graphic which also highlights that the bottom four in the weights all now carry at least 10lbs less than their last win over hurdles, whilst both Come On Gruff and Alnadam are rated at least half a stone higher than their last wins.

Our pace analyser says that leaders make the frame more than any other approach, but they are often beaten by prominent runners sitting in behind them primed for a run...

...as 42% of placed prominent runners go on to win, but only 18.2% of leaders hang on. One in three mid-divisional running placers have gone on to win, which is better than the 29.2% of hold-up horses. As we log each UK run, we can now see how this field have approached their last four races...

And based on the above, I'd expect Kateson & Blacko to set the pace with Ballyellis & Come On Gruff the prominent chasers. Mid-division is where we'll probably see Alnadam, Emmpressive Lady and Gladiateur Allen with New Found Fame & Forecast our hold-up horses. I've purposely left Iamastar out of those assumptions, as I don't know enough about his running style to formualte an assumption.

Summary

After the above, I fully expected Come On Gruff to be the favourite at around 5/2, which he is at 4.30pm with Bet365, meaning that Hills' 10/3 might offer some good value at the sharp end of the market. He's in decent enough form, scores well on Instant Expert and has a good pace profile for this race and I'd expect him to be the one they all need to beat. Our other Shortlist runner, the only mare in the race, Emmpressive Lady, will need to come from a bit further back but I'd expect her to be involved late on and should be good enough for a place, but I'd need more than the current 11/2 to tempt me into an E/W flutter there.

If there was to be an E/W option, then Alnadam at 17/2 might provide it. He hasn't tackled hurdles since winning over this trip at Hereford 22 months ago on soft ground and has spent that time getting beaten over fences, but he now reverts to the smaller hurdles 8lbs higher than that win, but some 2lbs lower than his most recent win (over fences 11 months ago).