Racing Insights, Wednesday 27/09/23

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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...

• 2.00 Bellewstown
• 2.10 Sligo
• 3.40 Goodwood
• 5.02 Redcar
• 7.30 Kempton

My own personal settings for the TS report...

...have sadly yielded no UK qualifiers, so I'm going to take a look at the 3.40 Goodwood, an 8-runner, 3yo+, Listed flat race over a right-handed 1m2f on soft/heavy ground...

Bill Silvers and Sierra Blanca both won their last outings, but both are coming back from lengthy absences of 152 and 325 days respectively, during which time the latter has moved yards from Aidan O'Brien to Freddie & Martyn Meade. My Prospero was a runner-up last time out and all bar Rousay have at least one win in their last five starts, but she has been beaten in each of her last seven since a Listed win 13 months ago.

All bar There's The Door and Bill Silvers raced at Class 1 last time around, but this pair step up 1 and 3 classes respectively and the latter is making little appeal so far! Aside from Bill Silvers and Sierra Blanca coming off breaks, the rest of the field have allr aced in the last two months and the two coming off breaks are the only ones yet to win at this trip.

Three horses have won at this venue before and all three (King of Conquest, Savvy Victory & There's The Door) are former course and distance winners, as shown below on Instant Expert...

...where off admittedly small sample sizes, King of Conquest and There's The Door are the eyecatchers. Rousay looks weak at course/distance and Savvy Victory has struggled to win Class 1 contests with a 1 in 7 record. He has only made the frame on one of his six defeats at C1 too, as seen in these place stats...

...where again King of Conquest and There's The Door score well, as do My Prospero and Persist. My Prospero's record at Class 1 reads 133442 with a Listed success and two narrow defeats when third home at Gr 1. He was a runner-up beaten by just half a length in a Gr 2 at York last time out and sets the standard on form here. He's drawn in the high third of the draw today over a track/trip/going that hasn't actually shown much of a draw bias...

...so none of this field should feel they're already at a disadvantage based on which stall they've been allocated, but the pace profiling does have a bearing on the outcome, as those races above have favoured runners willing to take it on early...

...essentially suggesting that the further forward a horse runs, the greater the chance of success and that's repeated in the place data too; those racing prominently or leading have bagged 55.74% of the places from just 45.28% of the runners, which is 23% more than expected.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a front-runner in this pack, although King of Conquest set the pace when wining at Newmarket in May (four races back)...

...and we may end up with a falsely run race, which would play into the hands of the better quality runners.

Summary

Based on past exploits, My Prospero has to be the one to beat. His Class 1 form is excellent and ran really well last time out. His pace profile suggests he's going to be handily placed to keep an eye on what's going on around him and if he 'gets' the soft/heavy ground, should be landing this one. The problem for me is that he's 8/13 and 8/15 with the two firms showing prices and that's way too short for me for a horse with no heavy ground experience and just one outing on soft.

That's not to say he won't 'get' the ground and go on to win, of course, but I see little value in the odds available. A positive side to such a short fav is that we might get better E/w prices about others and the one I fancy as the main challenge has to be King of Conquest. He ticked the Instant Expert box and might well set the tempo here and he's currently 13/2, which is a little longer than I thought he'd be, if truth be told.

That's still a little on the short side for an E/W bet, though, so if you wanted to look further down the card/odds, bottom weight There's The Door might be the one at 20/1!