Tag Archive for: ffos las racecourse

Tix Picks, 20/11/24

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Another winning ticket yesterday but, again, the dividend was measly meaning profits were, too. Still 25% ROI is not terrible and clawed back some of the Monday deficit. Wednesday is my final contribution in this stint - Chris is back tomorrow - and I think we'll stay over jumps.

It's cold out there, Hexham failing to beat the frost, but we currently have jumps racing from Ffos Las and Warwick; and all-weather meetings at Kempton and Dundalk.

If you're new to Tix Picks, it's worth taking a moment to review the links in the next section; if you've been before, let's crack on...

What is Tix?

A video explainer can be found here.

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A few more pointers can be found in these articles:

https://www.geegeez.co.uk/exotic-betting-multi-race-bets-part-1/

https://www.geegeez.co.uk/exotic-betting-multi-race-bets-part-2/

Today's pools

Today's meetings, pools and minimum guarantees are as follows, including a £50,000 placepot guarantee at Kempton...

 

 

 

Across to west Wales today as we tackle the Ffos Las placepot where soft ground means runners abound.

12.15 Ffos Las - Leg 1

A lot  has to be taken on trust with short-priced novice hurdle recruits from the point fields. In the case of Buckna, at least, we have the fact his point had some depth and his price tag was £350,000. Oof. A. Admiral Stewart was beaten in his bumper having won a point to point, and he also goes on A. It's hard to see both of those two off the ticket.

12.50 Ffos Las - Leg 2

A competitive low grade novices' handicap chase next, with a shortish favourite in Montys Soldier. He was a staying on fourth in a good ground Fakenham novices' handicap hurdle over two and a half miles last time, and gets a lot of condition changes here: fences, more galloping track, softer turf and an extra half mile in trip. He should handle those differences based on pedigree and prior form but it's not a given so he'll have company on my main 'A' tickets. The Scorpion King is experienced, has performed well on soft and sees this range out fine; he's A team, too.

Shillanavogy won a 2m4f soft ground handicap hurdle and was a narrow second in a similar race to this last time. He handles soft, has nearly won at the trip and should run well if fit enough after six months off. Wide To West have soft ground three mile form but has been off for seven months and his trainer is not firing on all cylinders at the moment. Hobb's Delight has been going close but on quicker turf; he might handle softer well but he's yet to prove it and I'll leave him alone. Wonder Of The Seas is more attractive as a place play, with three silver medals in his last four runs, two of them on a deep surface. B's bar Hobb's.

[Casting Aspersions might run better than his price first time in a handicap]

13.25 Ffos Las - Leg 3

Assuming he can jump, dual bumper winner Blue Las should make the frame. A banker. In case he can't, Andy Amo is an obvious alternative for a trainer (Rebecca Curtis) with a good record in the race and whose bumper form implies this sort of test should be ideal. B.

14.00 Ffos Las - Leg 4

This 0-100 novices' handicap hurdle could see any of a number spring forward on what they've shown so far. The established form is with Greenways, but he's never raced on soft ground and is short enough with that to prove. Lady Harriett looks more solid, with form on soft and at the trip and as an easy last day winner. Fresh Speculation has been consistent in defeat but shoulders top weight against more interesting rivals. He, like Greenways, could easily make the frame, but won't be on my ticket.

Atreides was unlucky not to win two back, his run coming too late and, if his seven pound conditional can elicit a tune, he's a player. B. Just Aidan has been well backed early in spite of middling form and seven months off. It's possible he's stepped forward for his summer and is a tentative B.

I'm going to throw some rags on C here, as well, because it could go that way. Handicap debutants Jukebox Joker and Dish Of The Day, as well as Greenways and Fresh Speculation. I don't really like this race!

14.35 Ffos Las - Leg 5

Another 0-100 handicap chase but this time most of them are what they are: exposed handicappers. Favourite is Lermoos Legend but he doesn't love this sort of ground and has top weight. Supasunrise and One Last Glance look much more reliable against race conditions. Both on A.

Ileny Royale is an interesting one at a price. Ex-French, he ran better than his finishing position last time and gets the tongue tie that was a feature of his better French form for the first time in UK today. I'm not sure about the ground for Lelant, Esperti or Faitque de l'Isle; but Bobbi's Beauty will go through it and may try to lead - the trouble is, she's having her first run for eight months for a yard out of form.

I'm taking more B's with Rock On Rita, Higgs and My Granny Lily all expected to cope with conditions. But I could easily have this race wrong.

15.10 Ffos Las - Leg 6

A trappy mares' handicap hurdle closes out the card and I'm again, reluctantly, taking on the well-backed favourite Hedera Park on the basis of no form on soft. The support suggests connections think he'll handle it and he'll be in the frame if he does; but there are three places to go at so we can still get the job done.

Cast's Tasha has all the weight but is fully proven in conditions for a trainer, Ben Clarke, who has started the season well. It's Easy should benefit from this stouter test than two miles last time and goes in deep ground. Both on A.

Elusiveness has the benefit of a run and gets first time cheekpieces. I'm convinced she'll stay but I respect connections. B. Sanda Rena's best run was on soft and she gets a tongue tie for handicap second start; that's enough to guess onto B. And Triple Nickle is very consistent and handles any ground. B.

*

Which for 2p lines before multipliers gives us the below (£26.40 staked), as it looks in the Tix software. Do give it a try if you haven't already. Even if you just want to do a 2x2x2x2x2x2 perm or some such, just put all your picks in the 'A' column and that will get you a 5% bonus on any returns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Luck!
MATT

Racing Insights, Tuesday 06/08/24

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Tuesday's free offering from the GOLD service is the The Shortlist feature, a simple – and usually brief – report highlighting those horses with a largely ‘green’ profile in the Instant Expert Report each day. It covers win or place stats, and can be viewed for both today’s and tomorrow’s racing.

GREENis good (33% or better win rate) – worth 3 points
AMBERis quite good (16-32% win rate) – worth 1 point
REDis not so good (0-15% win rate) – worth -1 points
GREY means there is no available data for that factor - worth 0 points

The final column, ‘Score’, is the sum of the previous five ‘colour’ columns, with 15 being an all green profile, and 9 being the lowest score appearing on this report.

HINT: The best bets are not necessarily the highest scores. Rather, they are often the biggest difference between a Shortlist horse and the ‘best of the rest’ in that race.

N.B. Shortlist selections are unlikely to make a profit, at SP at least, to blind backing. Our recommendation is – and has always been – that The Shortlist should be a starting point rather than an end in itself. That said, it continues to highlight horses whose chance is better than recent form - and its odds - imply. As ever, please refer to our User Guide for further information!

And this how The Shortlist looks for this Tuesday...

As usual we still also have our daily list of 'free' racecards, which are as follows...

  • 6.00 Roscommon
  • 7.00 Roscommon
  • 7.17 Chelmsford
  • 8.47 Chelmsford

...but Salamanca Lad from the The Shortlist feature interests me more than the two UK A/W races above, so let's head towards Trimsaran for the 4.50 Ffos Las, a 6-runner, Class 5, 3yo flat handicap over a left-handed mile on good to firm ground...

SALAMANCA LAD comes here in great form, completing a hat-trick of one mile wins when scoring at Sandown six days ago. A 6lb penalty for a half length win makes life tougher here, as he's now 14lbs higher than five weeks here.

ARKHALIA FLYNN has raced just five time and has made the frame in each of his last three, winning once, He's down in class here after a decent third of eight at Yarmouth almost three weeks ago where the pace of the contest didn't seem to suit him.

DASHINWHITESARGENT got home by a neck in a novice race at Wolverhampton last time out to open his account at the sixth attempt. He's now back in a handicap off the same mark as when second at Epsom in April, so could go well here too.

FASTER BEE has yet to make the frame in six Flat outings and is an 11-race maiden overall. His two handicap runs this season have seen him come home 9th of 11 and last of ten, beaten by around seven lengths each time. He's down in class and weight here, but I don't like him for this one.

RUN FOR THE SUN has yet to win a race after five starts and hasn't made the frame since finishing second of nine at Yarmouth on debut a year ago. Was only third of five at Doncaster last time out, beaten by three lengths and others make more appeal to me here.

QUESTIONABLE has only made the frame once in six starts when she was a runner-up beaten by a short head at Haydock in late-May. She hasn't kicked on since, finishing 4th of 10 and 7th of 9 in two subsequent runs and was a good 8 lengths off the pace last time out.

So far, this looks like a race of two halves with the top half of the card vying for the two places, whilst the bottom half of the card will be trying not to get beat by too much!

Salamanca Lad has won four of twelve starts, but his five rivals are a combined 2 from 33, having made the frame in just 10 of those 33 so I'm guessing that we'll get more info from the stat side of Instant Expert than we will from the win data...

Once again, it looks like we should be focusing on the top half of the card and the class 5 results fort he bottom half tell their own story here. Salamanca Lad's 6lb rise could be an issue, too as could his draw out on stall five. There's not a huge draw bias here, but those drawn lower have tended to get the better of an admittedly small sample size of races...

...but I suspect the tempo of the race aka pace will be more of a determining feature here and that's true to an extent, as leaders have had the best of it here...

and these stats then, in turn, help to form part of this pace/draw heat map...

...which suggests that many pace/draw combos have a chance here, but if we look at how our field have approached their most recent races, we see that the pace is going to come from the two drawn highest, placing them firmly in the green here...

...but it's Arkhalia Flynn who looks most ideally positioned of the six.

Summary

From the write-ups and Instant Expert, the top half of the field ie Salamanca Lad (from the The Shortlist feature), Arkhalia Flynn and Dashinwhitesargent were the ones to focus on. Arkhalia Flynn has the slightly better draw and subsequent pace/draw combo and this allied to Salamanca Lad's 6lb penalty makes Arkhalia Flynn my tentative pick here in what will be a close affair.

Salamanca Lad should, in turn, have too much for Dashinwhitesargent, so it's an Arkhalia Flynn/Salamanca Lad 1-2 for me today.

Only bet365 had opened the book by 4.15pm Monday and here's how they saw it...

Racing Insights, Tuesday 16/04/24

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Tuesday's free offering from the GOLD service is the The Shortlist feature, a simple – and usually brief – report highlighting those horses with a largely ‘green’ profile in the Instant Expert Report each day. It covers win or place stats, and can be viewed for both today’s and tomorrow’s racing.

GREENis good (33% or better win rate) – worth 3 points
AMBERis quite good (16-32% win rate) – worth 1 point
REDis not so good (0-15% win rate) – worth -1 points
GREY means there is no available data for that factor - worth 0 points

The final column, ‘Score’, is the sum of the previous five ‘colour’ columns, with 15 being an all green profile, and 9 being the lowest score appearing on this report.

HINT: The best bets are not necessarily the highest scores. Rather, they are often the biggest difference between a Shortlist horse and the ‘best of the rest’ in that race.

N.B. Shortlist selections are unlikely to make a profit, at SP at least, to blind backing. Our recommendation is – and has always been – that The Shortlist should be a starting point rather than an end in itself. That said, it continues to highlight horses whose chance is better than recent form - and its odds - imply. As ever, please refer to our User Guide for further information!

And this how The Shortlist looks for this Tuesday...

...where the first pair would be of the most obvious interest and we do still also have our daily list of 'free' racecards, which are as follows...

  • 2.40 Naas
  • 3.30 Newmarket
  • 3.40 Ffos Las
  • 5.00 Naas

...and as I can't resist stayers' handicaps on difficult ground, it has to be In Rem and the 4.50 Ffos Las for me today. It's an 8-runner (fingers crossed for E/W bettors), Class 4, 4yo+ handicap hurdle over a left-handed three miles on heavy ground...

None of the eight managed to win last time out, but Ballymagroarty Boy, Mahland, Longshanks, In Rem, Fevertre and Monbari all made top three finishes. Mahland and Longshanks have been runners-up in each of their last two starts, whilst Fevertre has a win and a runner-up finish from his last two.

Fevertre's recent good form might now be checked as he steps up a class to run here, but this contest might prove a little easier than Minella Blueway and Thunderclap's last outings as they both make a double drop down from Class 2 action last time. Mahland no runs in a handicap for the second time after a narrow half-length defeat at Exeter recently.

Ballymagroarty Boy and In Rem are the only two horses to have won at either track or trip and they have both, in fact, won here over course and distance with the former doing so four starts and four months ago when winning for the first time in five years, whilst In Rem won here in October 2021 at the start of a sequence of five consecutive victories over trips of 2m5½f to 3m2½f and as you'd expect from a runner on The Shortlist, he's the eyecatcher on Instant Expert...

...mind you, the bar looks to be set fairly low, as Minella Blueway is 0 from 4 on heavy ground; Ballymagroarty Boy, Longshanks and Fevertre have struggled to win Class 4 races and Ballymagroarty Boy's return at this trip is lamentable at 1 win from 14, but he has (somewhat surprisingly!) made the frame in nine of the thirteen defeats...

...numbers that in isolation give him a great chance of making the frame again, whilst Thunderclap and Monbari look a little vulnerable.

In the past, it has paid to be up with the pace here over hurdles at Ffos Las in contests of 2m6f and beyond on ground deemed as soft or 'worse'...

...which based on the field's more recent efforts could be good news for Mahland, Longshanks, Monbari and Ballymagroarty Boy...

...whilst featured runner In Rem led the way last time out before eventually finishing third at Exeter. He was three lengths behind the re-opposing runner-up, Longshanks, that day but is 3lbs better off today, suggesting the two might be much more closely matched here.

Summary

I though the 'best' two horses in the race might well be Mahland and Longshanks, but based on their last run and the weight adjustment here, In Rem will be closer to Longshanks. And it's Mahland, Longshanks and Fevertre who arrive here in the best form. In Rem was the immediate eyecatcher on Instant Expert, but it was hard to ignore Ballymagroarty Boy's place numbers and he also seems well suited by the pace profiling, as do Mahland, Longshanks and Monbari.

Based on the names featured in that quick summary above, Mahland and Longshanks are the ones who feature most, so should really be my 1-2 and I'd have them in that order. That said In Rem could well overturn the LTO placings with Longshanks and it's hard to ignore the place claims of Ballymagroarty Boy. Hopefully the market at 5.50pm will help me formulate any potential bet.

Having checked the odds, Mahland would still be my winner here, but I think 11/4 is a bit mean/short, so I'll pass on that option. 5/1 looks fair/reasonable about Longshanks, but I don't see him winning the race and 5/1 is no E/W price in my eyes, but that can't be said about the 9/1 and 10/1 being offered about In Rem and Ballymagroarty Boy respectively and I think a couple of small E/W plays there might be the call for me.

Racing Insights, Monday 23/01/23

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The pace tab on our racecards helps to make a reasoned assumption based upon a field's most recent runs as to how their next race might unfold. This information is vastly under-used by UK bettors, but we feel it's that important that we make this info totally free for all races every Sunday & Monday.

This, of course, includes our daily free races, which for Monday are...

  • 2.00 Ffos Las
  • 3.30 Ffos Las
  • 5.10 Southwell
  • 6.30 Wolverhampton

...from which we'll look at the 3.30 Ffos Las, a 12-runner, Class 3, 4yo+ handicap hurdle over a left handed 2m4f on soft (heavy in places) ground...

FORM : No Tackle won last time out, whilst Rocky Man and Equinus were both runners-up. Emmpressive Lady, Jimmy Jimmy and Sabbathcial all failed to complete. In addition to our sole LTO winner, four others (Emmpressive Lady, Rocky Man, New Found Fame and Sabbathical) have all won at least one of their most recent outings. Jimmy Jimmy has failed to finish four of his last five!

CLASS : Pileon, Whitehotchillifili & Gladiateur Allen are all down a class, whilst Equinus and No Tackle are up one grade with Sabbathical stepping up two classes.

WHAT'S NEW/DIFFERENT? : Both of those stepping up one class (Equinus and No Tackle) are on handicap debut, whilst New Found Fame is having a second attempt. Jimmy Jimmy makes both a yard and UK debut after recently leaving Gordon Elliott.

Emmpressive Lady is one of just two (Whitehotchillifili the other) mares in the race and she's running for the first time since a wind op, whilst LTO winner No Tackle wears a tongue tie for the first time.

COURSE/DISTANCE FORM : All bar Master Debonair, Equinus and Blacko hve won at a similar trip to this one, but top weight and class dropper Pileon is the only one to have won here, landing a 2m5f contest in January 2020.

LAST RUN : Emmpressive Lady's wind op took place during her 341 days off track, but all her rivals have been seen in the past two months with Gladiateur Allen turned back out quickest at 16 days.

Instant Expert highlights our sole course winner and the nine to have won at a similar trip noted above, but also shows that all bar one have won on soft/heavy ground, but that only three have won a Class 3 NH contest, yet four (Pileon, Emmpressive Lady, Master Debonair & Gladiateur Allen) have won at Class 2!

There's quite a bit of red on there, but much of it off small numbers of runs in fairness. Whitehotchillifili's 1 from 7 at the trip might need looking at, as might Gladiateur Allen's 1 from 8 and Sabbathical's 1 from 7, but the latter's 2 from 21 on soft/heavy is more of a concern, to be honest followed by his 0 from 8 at this track. Along with Jimmy Jimmy, who can't seem to get round I'd suggest that Sabbathical is amongst the weakest here and I'm discarding the pair.

The top four on the card have multiple wins on this going and Emmpressive Lady's 3 wins and 2 places from 8 is probably the pick of the pack. Overall, if we then switch our focus to place form, Rocky Man would seem best suited all round...

...and based just on the above place form, I'd going to cross Master Debonair & Blacko off for having no green and also Equinus for a lack of relevant experience : he's had three runs, all at 2m at lower grades and has yet to win. He's on handicap debut and might well need the benefit of a debut.

All of which leaves me with seven to consider and this is how they've approached their last four races...

That data suggests that Rocky Man and New Found Fame are likely to be waited with in a race, where the mare Whitehotchillifili is the one most likely to set the pace. Past similar races here haven't been kind to hold-up horses...

This actually poses a problem for me, as I think that Rocky Man might be the 'best' horse in the race, but closer inspection says he was a runner-up here over course and distance last time out , failing to make up enough ground from a hold-up position and losing by two lengths. A repeat of that run doesn't necessarily make him win this one and a 2lb rise in weight after not winning mighty well make him go down again.

Summary

I expected to be making a case for Rocky Man here and he might well go on to win, but I'm concerned about him trying to make up ground in the mud off a higher weight than last time out. That said, if there was a bit of juice in the price, he still might not have been a bad bet, but as a 15/8 or 2/1 fav, he's not for me. I think the two that fascinate me most are the mares, Emmpressive Lady and Whitehotchiilifili, particularly the latter.

The Lady has admittedly been off track for just over 11 months, but has had a wind op in that time. She was also pulled up LTO, but that was a 3m2½f affair on soft ground at Hereford, where she ran out of steam 3 out, just 3 days after winning over 2m7½f at a higher grade. This is much shorter and she'd won her previous two before that race and had actually won four and finished as a runner-up once in the seven races prior to that PU run LTO. She's currently 10/1 with bet365 paying four places and that mightn't be a bad shout.

As for Whitehot, she's a bit shorter at 15/2 but could also make the first four home, based on past place form. She has made the frame in 9 of 21, including 7 of 16 on soft/heavy. She has won a Listed race in the past and was beaten by less than 4 lengths in a Grade 2 race at Ascot a year ago.