Racing Insights, Wednesday 28/08/24

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

...and have highlighted just one runner of possible interest...

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

• 2.15 Catterick
• 4.05 Musselburgh
• 5.18 Bellewstown
• 7.30 Kempton

...and I think I'll have a look at Baraq and the 8.00 Kempton, an 8-runner, Class 4, 3yo A/W handicap over a right-handed 1m3f on standard to slow polytrack...

None of these managed to win their last race, but Baraq did make the frame, when 3rd of 14 over a mile at Southwell at the start of the month. He is however, a 4-race maiden and both South Pole and Liam Swagger have yet to get off the mark too, after three and six attempts respectively. The whole 8-runner field has won just 7 of 46 so far, but have made the frame twenty times (43.5%)

Liam Swagger has only raced in a handicap once before and it's the first crack for South Pole, Niigata and featured runner Baraq. South Pole and Niigata both run for the first time since being gelded and both will sport new equipment; South Pole will be tongue-tied and Niigata will be blinkered.

Niigata also steps up a class here, as does Baraq, but New Chelsea and True Wisdom drop down a level, whilst Into battle drops two classes.

The two who have recently been gelded haven't raced for nine and eleven weeks, but the other half dozen have all had an outing in the last four weeks and both Magico and Into Battle have already won here at Kempton.

Those wins will show below on Instant Expert, but with a field only having seven total wins, we'd better also look at the place stats...

Magico and Into Battle seems the best positioned based on the win stats, albeit off a very small sample size of races. New Chelsea is the most experienced at this level and has made the frame in half of his six defeats, but the concern already is that he always seems to find at least or two runners too good for him and I suppose you can say the same about Liam Swagger at the trip.

Our Draw Analyser says there's little to be gained from being drawn in a particular section of the stalls, although runners in stalls 1 and 2 have relatively poor records, which might not be good news for Into Battle and New Chelsea, but I wouldn't rule any horse out based purely on the draw stats over 1m3f here at Kempton...

Pace, however, is a different story, as hold-up horses have found it really difficult to win from behind here...

Thankfully, we don't seem to have any hold-up types in this race, although Magico was slow away three starts ago...

Summary

So we've an inexperienced field and no real pace or draw bias to help us whittle down the contenders, but New Chelsea has made the frame five times from nine and Baraq has done so three times from four. Into Battle and Magico were the initial standouts from Instant Expert and I think I'd want these four rather than the other four runners in the race.

Into Battle drops two classes here and that might just tip the balance slightly his way, but otherwise I don't think there's that much between the four of them. Perhaps the market as of 5.40pm Tuesday will help...

...or maybe not! Sod's Law seems to have prevailed here; there's no E/W route out for me to hedge my bets and I'd probably agree with the bookies that Baraq might be marginally better than New Chelsea and Magico, but I wouldn't invest too much of your time nor money on this one!