Racing Insights, Wednesday 12/04/23

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In addition to the free daily feature, we always open up a number of racecards to non-Gold subscribers and for Wednesday, they are...

• 3.25 Nottngham
• 4.25 Nottngham
• 4.35 Southwell
• 7.15 Gowran Park

My own personal settings for the TS report...

...have generated quite a few runners for me to consider...

...but as I don't really do the Flat in April nor Irish racing at the best of times, I'm self-restricted to picking a race from either Kempton's A/W card or the jumps meeting at Southwell and it's to the former I go, as the 7.30 race featuring Ivan Furtado's Moai is the highest rated of the race I have TS report qualifiers in. In fairness, I'm fairly sure that Moai stands little/no chance of winning the 7.30 Kempton, but hopefully there's still a bet for us from this 13-runner, Class 4, 4yo+ A/W handicap over a right-handed mile on standard to slow polytrack...

My starting point is always the card itself as it gives us an easy/gentle introduction to the runners and the five aspects I consider first are...

FORM : Arctician is the sole LTO winner and comes here on a hat-trick, having made the frame twice before a pair of wins. Golden Sands and Intercessor both won two starts ago and both have made the frame in three of their last four with the latter winning twice. Tollard Royal, Darwell Lion and Fantasy believer are the only others with a win in their last five outings, as all three won five starts ago.

CLASS : Lots of movers here, as one (Golden Sands) steps up a class, whilst six (Spinaround, Rhythm n Rock, Darwell Lion, Hieronymous, Fantasy Believer & Cliffs of Capri) all drop down one level, whilst one (Spirit of the Bay) raced two grades higher at class 2 LTO.

WHAT'S NEW? : Featured horse Moai wears cheekpieces for the first time, whilst Longlai makes a first run for Michael Wigham's yard after leaving Richard Hannon, having won just two of fifteen.

COURSE/DISTANCE : All bar five (Spinaround, Darwell Lion, Moai, Longlai & Intercessor) have already won here at Kempton, whilst all bar the in-form Arctician have won over a one mile trip. Six of the field (Tollard Royal, Rhythm n Rock, Spirit of the Bay, Hieronymous, Fantasy Believer & Golden Sands) are former course and distance winners.

DAYS SINCE LAST RUN : Six of these (Cliffs of Capri, Darwell Lion, Arctician, Moai, Fantasy Believer and Spinaround) have all raced inside the last four weeks. Golden Sands has been off for six weeks and Hieronymous for almost two months, but five of these (Rhythm n Rock, Intercessor, Spirit of the Bay, Tollard Royal & Longlai) migfht well need the run after layoffs ranging from 145 to 279 days.

The above helps me build a pros and cons list for each runner and then I check their performance on similar going/class/weight via INSTANT EXPERT...

...which based on win stats would appear to favour runners 2 to 8. Arctician seems to have struggled on the slower A/W track here at Kempton, whilst Golden Sands' numbers are at least not in the red and it may well be this inside-drawn runner might be more of a placer than a winner, so let's check the place stats too...

...where again the top half of the field (2 to 7 actually) look strongest, but Arctician's Kempton numbers do include 4 places from 7 and Golden Sands looks well set for a decent run under these conditions, but will stall 1 be a help or a hindrance, as my next port of call is...

THE DRAW : where there appears to be a definite advantage in being drawn low if you look at the graph, but the actual numbers aren't really that far apart...

...and whilst those drawn closest to the rail might well have that advantage on paper, it's likely to boil down to how they use their stalls position and that's why we need to consider...

PACE : with those races above favouring those racing furthest forward...

Based on this field's most recent outings, Golden Sands and Intercessor look like being the ones trying to blast out (from stalls 1 and 13 respectively!) early to vy for the lead with Moai, Spirit of the Bay and Cliffs of Capri the early back markers...

Now although a low draw and a leading position are the two generally favoured options, the HEAT MAP says that high drawn leaders have gone best of all here. This is possibly due to those drawn lowest getting cramped for room on the turn, but they have still won more than their fair share here...

And when we apply that heat map to out racecard in draw order, the two front-runners at either end of the draw come up very favourably indeed...

Summary

I think that the top two in the market, Tollard Royal (best priced 5/2 at 5pm) and the 5/1 Arctician are probably the best runners in the race and if I was to suggest one of those, it'd be the in-form Arctician. The fav could well need a run after 204 days off track and it has been 18 months since an A/W run and that might just be the difference. Both are drawn in the same draw sector with similar pace profiles, so I'd be siding with the longer-priced form horse today.

I'm not massively confident, mind, so it'd be small stakes on Arctician and I'm more interested in the two pace horses from each end of the stalls. They're sure to go off quickly and might well grab themselves a decent, soft lead early doors. Both are in decent nick, both are priced attractively at 18/1 with Paddy Power/Betfair paying four places. so both Golden Sands and Intercessor could be decent E/W bets here. The latter has, of course been off the track for nearly six months, so that might reduce his chances, but he has previously won after a 353-day break and both of these receive weight from the rest of the field.

As for feature horse, Moai, not finishing last would be an achievement here!