Racing Insights, Wednesday 01/05/24

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My own personal settings for the TS report are fairly restrictive...

...but have still highlighted the following trio of qualifiers...

...30-day form...

...course 1-year form...

and course 5-year form...

• 2.40 Pontefract
• 4.00 Ascot
• 4.15 Punchestown
• 6.35 Punchestown
• 7.15 Brighton

Yet for all those options above, none of the UK races are any better than Class 4! We've three races with more than one way in, so we'll take one of those, the 7.30 Kempton as our featured race. Recent course specialists Tate & Crisford(s) send Swift Victory and Labalaba respectively to take each other and and half a dozen more runners on in a Class 4, 3yo A/W handicap over a right-handed mile on standard to slow polytrack...

The top two in the weights, Swift Victory and Surveyor, along with Jayyaah were winners last time out and all three had been runners-up in their penultimate outing, so all three are clearly going well, as is Sennockian, whose runner-up finish at Wolverhampton a month ago ended his 100% (3 from 3) record on the A/W and with Mr Baloo having won three of his last five, we could be in a for a decent scrap here, although seven-race maiden Ebt's Guard might feel the pressure.

All three handicap debutants (Surveyor, Jayyash and Screaming Eagle) are up in class today, whilst Labalaba will make a second handicap appearance whilst wearing a first-time tongue-tie & hood on what will be his first run since being gelded during a 223-day lay-off.

That break is the longest of all eight runners and whilst Swift Victory and Ebts Guard have been rested for 163 and 189 days respectively, the majority of the field have raced in the past month.

As for relevant past form, we have Instant Expert below, of course and we've two former course and distance winners in the shape of Swift Victory and Jayyash, whilst Mr Baloo won here over 7f three weeks ago. Surveyor won over a mile at Lingfield last time out and Sennckian has won at Newcastle, Lingfield and Wolverhampton over 1m/1m½f this year already. The bottom three on the card, Labalaba, Screaming Eagle and Ebt's Guard have yet to win at either track or trip...

There's not a lot of data to work with, especially on the A/W, where Sennockian and Mr Baloo seem better suited in this grade than they have been on turf. Labalaba makes an A/W debut here and the bottom two on the card are both 0 from 2 on the A/W, but both have made the frame on both starts...

Mind you, all those with any A/W experience have decent place records, so that last graphic isn't overly helpful and sadly that's also the case when we try to work out which stall(s) would be the best to run from, as over the last 200 or so similar races, there's very little advantage to be gained from the draw when it comes to winning races, although those drawn lowest (Sennockian, Swift Victory, Jayyash) would appear to have a slightly better chance of making the frame...

If we then look at which tactics have worked best over those races, we see that the further forward a horse raced, the better its chances were of making the frame...

...but that prominent runners won slightly more often than leaders, but there's not much in it, if truth be told, probably just a couple of wins either side. What we do know is that leader/prominent runners have a win strike rate of 16.2% (mid-div/hold-up are at 9.1%) and a place strike rate of 40.4% (mid-div/hold-up are at 28.4%) and that they've won 57.9% of the races and provided 52.2% of the placers, despite only making up 43.5% of the total number of runners, which based on this field's most recent outings...

...could be good news for Labalaba, Surveyor and Sennockian in particular.

Summary

You could very easily make a case for most of these here and whilst Labalaba could have every chance, the lay-off and an A/W debut is a worry. In fact, I think I want to focus on those with a recent run, so that takes Swifts Victory and Ebt's Guard out of the equation too. Screaming Eagle is 0 from 3 so far and has been beaten twice here at Kempton, including as a short-priced favourite last time out. Those two Kempton races haven't generated winners and they look weak in retrospect, so the Eagle won't land here for me.

This leaves me with four (Surveyor, Sennockian, Mr Baloo and Jayyash) to consider and all have run well recently with Sennockian probably the form pick ahead of Mr Baloo. Jayyash is the only course and distance winner and Mr Baloo has yet to win over the trip, although he has won here. We didn't get much from the draw stats, although those drawn lowest (Sennockian & Jayyash) would appear to have a slightly better chance of making the frame, whilst the pace data pointed us towards Surveyor and Sennockian.

There's probably very little to choose between the four of them, but if pushed, I think I'd have them as Surveyor / Jayyash / Mr Baloo / Sennockian and with the 4.55pm market looking as follows...

I think I'd have a small go at Surveyor with E/W plays on both Mr Baloo and Sennockian.