Racing Insights, Wednesday 22/05/24

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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...

• 3.00 Yarmouth
• 4.00 Yarmouth
• 4.40 Warwick
• 8.10 Southwell
• 8.20 Gowran Park

My own personal settings for the TS report...

...have generated just two possible runners of interest...

...and it's the latter that I'm going to look at today.

Liseo runs in the 8.30 Kempton, a 6-runner (it was 7 but Believe In Stars has been withdrawn), Class 3, 4yo+ A/W handicap over a right-handed 1m4f on standard to slow polytrack...

DAVIDEO drops in class here for his first run in 222 days, during which time he has been gelded. His last win was four starts and ten months ago over today's trip at Newmarket and he now runs on the A/W for just the second time, having been a four-length runner-up here at Kempton over a mile back in November 2022.

CANNON ROCK also drops in class after a disappointing 10th of 11 (22 lengths down) over 1m6f at Newmarket earlier this month, but did win over today's trip on the A/W at Southwell in March, three starts ago, although he was only 6th of 14 here over 1m3f in April.

LISEO is the only course winner in the race, having won here over 1m3f at the start of April on his last A/W outing. He's far better on the A/W than the Flat, having won two of five in 2024 so far. Up in class today, but did get to within 1.25 lengths of the winner in a Class 2 here over 1m3f in November.

ARTISAN DANCER is anther better suited to the A/W (5 wins and 10 further places from 21) than the Flat (unplaced in 7) and was a winner at Wolverhampton five starts ago in early February. He's a consistent placer, so I suspect he'll be in the mix once again.

APPIER is four from nine on the A/W, but it's almost a year since his last win (at Lingfield six starts ago). He raced at Ascot 11 days ago after a six-month break and looked like he needed the run in an eight-length defeat.

IMPHAL makes a yard debut for Paddy Butler today and makes a first non-NH appearance since early July 2019 and a first A/W outing since finishing fourth or eight here at Kempton over two miles way back in August 2018. I'm not sure what the plan is here for this 10 yr old, but he's probably best left watched today.

Instant Expert...

...says Liseo on standard to slow and Kempton (one and the same, of course), whilst Appier's A/W record over the trip is excellent. The place stats...

...say pretty much the same thing, but also show Artisan Dancer as another possible for the frame.

There's rarely a draw bias on the A/W in small fields over trips of this length and this is no exception either...

...I suppose stalls 4 & 5 have placed more often, but there's not a great deal to be gleaned from those numbers above. It's a slightly different story when it comes to assessing pace, though, as those willing to set the tempo of the races have seemed to shade it...

...which would be really helpful if we had a runner keen to take it on. Sadly, this looks like being a falsely run race with none of the six seeming keen to lead the way if their more recent efforts are anything to go by...

Summary

Unusually for an A/W contest, we've little/no help from either draw or pace, but we do have some useful data on Instant Expert, we know who is and who isn't in form and we have the info from the TS report.

So based on what we do have, it's the sole course winner, in-form Liseo from the TS report. Horse and yard do well here and Hills' (only book open at 3.15pm Tuesday) 9/2 looks more than fair.

The 3/1 Artisan Dancer is probably my next best, but if you wanted an outsider who could go better than the odds might suggest, then the 15/2 about Appier is interesting.