Blindly Backing RPR’s? Winner Or Loser?

Morning all. Inputting the Racing Post Ratings to the Proform Software is a fairly simple task. You just need a subscription to Raceform Interactive and the relevant importer. I have dabbled with the system builder over time with regards to RPR’s and they will simply not provide you with the depth of the Proform Ratings or Speed Figures when it comes to base systems. There may be some profitability to a small level though so I will have a little play with that today and see what we can find.

My thinking is that the best angle to look at for now to keep things simple is looking for the horse that achieved the highest RPR last time out but didn’t win it’s race. Those that won would have penalties to carry and may have moved up in grade so let’s keep things simple and have a look at the base figure from 01/05/2016.

Not too bad a base figure. Profitable to BFSP but not to early prices. Fairly decent strike rate which would be expected from runners that performed to the best figure last time out. My guess would be that we may get one or two profitable race types and maybe a couple of bad ones so let’s now present that by race type and see where the land lies.

Fairly consistent strike rates here but two race types that have made losses. I must admit, for almost all of the main systems I run I tend to ignore bumpers. They are a unique event with babies effectively and whilst there are some pretty strong angles in those contests they are just not for me. So for now, I am going to remove NHF races and also Chases as they clearly make a fairly steady loss. This improves our profitability to over 600 pts to BFSP.

Next let’s take a look at race class. This is one which will cause plenty of discussion. Some will strongly make a case that if something works it will work in all grades. I am not a believer of that and think you can profit in some grades with certain criteria, but not others. Here’s how we break down…..

 

A bit of mix and mash. You can see that clearly class 4 races provide a nice profit yet class 5 falls off a cliff. The fact that when you see class 1 races provide a profit but a much lower strike rate that tends to set the alarm bells ringing in terms of sustainability. We all know in the better races that the market is very much top heavy and the best horses in general tend to come out on top at that level. Having looked at the results there are plenty of decent priced winners so that may be something that we can delve into in much more detail at a later date. Horses that have run to the highest RPR last time out in class 1 races that the market is completely ignoring. The green across the board on PRB/PRB^2 and Wax from class 3-6 is encouraging, although the big loss in class 5 races remains a concern. So how shall we take it forward? I think before we start eliminating classes I want to have a quick peak at the breakdown of handicaps and non-handicaps so here that is.

Well I wasn’t really expecting that. Most systems you create using speed figures or the like sway towards handicaps. Clearly this does not! So lets use just non-handicaps and have another look at the classes to see if there are any big changes.

Well eliminating handicaps has certainly removed loads of the red and has even made class 5 races profitable. Just goes to show that any change that pops in your head is always worth looking into. Only thought of the handicap/non-handicap split whilst typing. At this stage you could eliminate class 2 and 3 if you really wanted too but I don’t think there is much need at this stage. I won’t bore you with all the testing I went through from this point. I looked at classifications and there wasn’t too much to tell. Some obviously made losses but they are relatively small. Group 1’s not surprisingly had much the worst strike rate (7.14%) but made a profit largely due to Wings Of Eagles Derby win in 2017 where he returned at a BFSP of 65.10.

Next thing on the agenda was age. Not surprisingly two-year-olds were not good and the data falls off a cliff at the age of 10. So for the purpose of this we are going to use 3-10 year olds only. I had a quick look at profit by course. This is another subject which is largely open to debate. Some think it’s just cosy back-fitting to take losing courses out. I’m a little on the fence as there are some fairly clear reasons why some systems won’t work at certain tracks, but just not being profitable is not one of them. For instance, since using Proform if I had eliminated Chelmsford from all system bets, I’d be MUCH RICHER. I sort my p&l by course every year and it is always the worst performer.

With regards to this system some interesting nuggets appear. Cartmel (quirky track) shows a 62.50% strike rate. Ripon 60% and Plumpton 57.14%. They are pretty impressive numbers. I glanced at things like no. of runners etc and not too much cropped up. One thing that I did put in is on race distance. 4/5f Sprints showed a significant loss and this is something that doesn’t really surprise me. Draw biases and luck in running play a much bigger part in those races especially on tight tracks. So I will lob those on the rubbish heap and we have a finished base figure. Let’s take a look……

So there we go. Just under 1000 pts profit over the space of the four seasons. The EP has moved into profit as well and we’ve improved the overall strike rate to 25.03%. This would not be something that I would look to back blindly, I do feel this has opened some doors to investigate some pretty interesting angles for us to look at over the coming weeks. I’m intrigued by the class 1 angle for sure and maybe breaking that down. I do think that this as a base may be pretty volatile. You might have a some big winning runs and some fair losing ones too, just doing base figures I won’t go into drawdowns at this time.

Years totals were:

2016 -19.35

2017 +742.97

2018 +1.48

2019 +238.51

Quite possibly something that could go into your automated BFSP betting with BF Bot Manager.

You can do this with all sorts of different ratings. I don’t actually think there are more than a handful of people that even put the RPR’s into Proform. Timeform Ratings would be another interesting one to look at and many others. With the spare time we have at the moment, research projects are going to be a plenty!

Hope this has been at least of minor interest. If anyone has any ideas for other things to look at, feel free to ask!

Stay healthy,

 

Mark

 

Tracker Focus 17th Oct 2019

 

RASPBERRY – 14th Oct, 5.25 Wolverhampton

Clearly had an issue after tailing off at Newcastle last month but just caught the eye here with running left in the tank over this sharp five. She wasn’t really touched with the whip until she couldn’t win and is starting to look quite attractively handicapped now. If the handicapper is lenient there is a good chance that she will slip into a 0-65 next time. I would not be surprised to see her upped to 6f next time or back at Newcastle with the stiff finish.

ROCK OF ESTONIA – 15th Oct, 6.30 Kempton

This is a very small note. Has been given a few very quiet runs since switching yards and after this effortless run will almost certainly be dropped to close to his last winning mark. A couple of his best efforts came on the Fibresand at Southwell and I would not be surprised if he is being lined up for a run there. Just stick in your trackers for now and monitor.

RECTORY ROAD – 15th Oct, 7.30 Kempton

He’s been on my radar a while now having been running in the very competitive mile races at Kempton and constantly getting outpaced. In the first-time hood here he has again travelled sweetly in rear and steadily kept on. There are a couple of things to note here. Firstly the winner could have been chucked in and secondly, this night everything that was winning was on or very close to the pace. Nothing was coming from the rear. I think he’ll definitely win and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was over 9f at Wolves or indeed 10f. Keep on side for now.

TULANE – 15th Oct, 8.30 Kempton

Very small note. Held up (not a good idea tonight), hampered and stopped in run 3f out. Made up rapid ground from over 2 out until roughly the furlong pole and then got a little tired and the effort fizzled out. Mark is falling and should be upto getting involved when given more of a chance.

 

Proform Power Ratings Profits? Can It Be Done?

Afternoon one and all, I hope this blog entry finds you all well after the festive season. Happy new year to everyone. In the words of John Lennon Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear.

So in 2017 I had a good look at various aspects of trying to win without thinking using the data we get from Proform. As mentioned many times before the DTR system put together by Proform continues to work very well. The speed figure systems that were on previous blogs also continue to perform, although they are certainly more effective on the turf than the all-weather. On the back of previous posts I got a lot of feedback and messages revolving around the issue of backing them all with bookmakers that provide best odds guaranteed, the difficulty of getting on, and if there are angles to look at for Betfair SP, thus making it much easier for people to get on. So today I thought I would have a good look at the POWER RATINGS and see if there are any smaller angles we can find simply revolving around them and how we can try to making a profit simply from using Betfair SP that can add a bit more in the way of the profit column.

So first things first let’s run the system builder and get the results of the top power rated horse in all races since January 1st 2011……

 

So as you can see, backing them blind over the course of the last 6 years would not have been a sharp route to the Bahamas. Over 2341 pts lost to BFSP over the period.  Just to get absolute clarity and a clearer picture I’ll break down those results and present them year by year….

 

So quite clearly you get a fairly consistent strike rate in and around 25% but a healthy loss to go with it to Betfair SP. So just like on previous efforts how can we now break this down to try to find an angle or two to turn those negative results in to positives? Let’s start by having a look at all of the same results but this time around I will break them down by their different race types. Maybe they are more profitable on the flat than jumps etc. Here is what we get…..

 

The first thing to obviously notice is that bumpers have a much better performance than anything else, clearly 94 points profit over the span of 6 years is not going to get the juices flowing though. That is a topic that I will almost certainly touch on in the near future as there are definitely some angles to be exploited in bumpers. Largely though, this breakdown doesn’t tell us an awful lot more. Mostly negative figures, especially on the turf, which is completely the opposite to looking at the speed figures. Before I try some other things just to get a bit more clarity, I want to run the same report again but this time I want to look at the different race classifications, just to make a mental note of any particular races that the Power Ratings are very strong in. Here is what we got…

 

Making some notes from what we get here you can see that races at the highest level seem to do pretty well. So grade 1-3 and group 1-3. That is fairly obvious, the top rated in the highest level contests tend to be the best horses in training and should produce a high strike rate. I will write a separate blog post on this area at another time as we approach the flat season. So to sum up at this stage there are no glaring angles to producing a high profit return, so it’s time to start thinking slightly out of the box. What can I change, or look at that may increase the profitability of those Power Ratings.

So what is the most common thing we hear across the world of social media when it comes to making a long-term profit from your betting? That’s right, VALUE. What happens if we look at horses that are top rated, but the market underestimates their chance? Surely this provides us with some value if the horse is top rated but the market has them at a big price? Bearing in mind that the overall loss on all the runners was -2341.60 pts, I started to run the reports in stages to see how the profit and loss reacted to gradually increasing the SP of the top rated horse. Here is what happened…..

The above represents all top rated with an SP of larger than 3/1.

This one represents all top rated with an SP of larger than 5/1. Starting to get the feeling this is going somewhere as that negative figure is getting smaller and smaller.

We move on to an SP of 8/1 and above. Only minus 62, so we are getting ever closer to a profit.

Ta da!!!!  We’ve made it to some profit. 10/1 and above.  A profit of 560.77 across the 6 years gives us an average of 93.46 pts per year. Whilst this is not a huge amount, it is another positive figure to add to the overall figures from your statistical betting. Clearly this is a system that will not suit a lot of punters. It has a very low strike rate of just under 6% and a lot of patience will be needed. Having said that, patience will provide some rewards, it only provides approximately 3 selections per day. 12th February 2011, What A Warrior won at Warwick as the top rated at a Betfair SP of 126.98.

Before I closed the book on this I wanted to have one last look, and this time taking those positive figures from above and once again having a quick look at the results through their race type just to make sure there isn’t something I’m missing.

You can see that chases have a negative impact on the results and that if you put a line through jumps racing and just ran this on the flat, all-weather and in bumpers, you would increase your profitability once again.

The big downside to this approach is that it works off SP. Clearly at 8am when we may be placing our bets, you have no idea what the SP will be, so to give it a very accurate reflection, you would need quite a hands on approach and placing your SP bets close to off time. I’m pretty sure that if you use the overnight prices as a guide and place BFSP bets on anything that is 10/1 or bigger at 8am for instance. This will still show a very similar profit level. If you have the luxury of BOG accounts, then this system again is fairly simple to operate. 93 pts a year is certainly not life changing, but when you add it to the portfolio we have already to started to build, it is more money in the profit column. I hope you have found this mildly interesting again. If you haven’t yet stumbled across Proform before, feel free to click on the image below which will take you directly to the website, where you can find all the information you need.  I will be back in the next few weeks with another piece on yet more Proform angles. Happy punting!

All the best

MG

 

 

Wednesday 3rd Jan

Morning all. It has been an interesting few days across all sports. Well done to those of you that backed Native Robin the other day, he was so weak in the betting throughout the day, but the result was never really in any doubt. He absolutely tanked through the race and could have been called the winner a long way out. The SP of 11/1 (16 BFSP) was a decent touch for those of you with BOG.

On the NHL front, good to see Vegas and Boston continue to win and contract in price. Some of the bookmakers reacted to the bets and prices from the other day, some are still sleeping. Hills cut Boston from 33/1 into 14’s within a day or so. They were mightily impressive again last night winning 5-1 on the road in New York.

Trainers with runners today that have a win and place strike rate of above 50% in the last 10 days:

Nick Williams 75%

Warren Greatrex 72.73%

Kim Bailey 63.64%

Donald McCain 52%

Tim Easterby 50%

A couple of eye catchers worth noting going today. CRITICAL THINKING (7.10) would have gone very close to winning last time had he not got caught out off a slow pace. He’s well handicapped on his old form. Back up in trip with Cameron Noble claiming 3lbs off his back, he looks a cracking bet today at about 9/2. I have had a small saver on SANAM in the same race who could be absolutely lobbed in on his first handicap start for Ed Dunlop.

At Southwell today there are a few speculative wagers to look out for too. In the 1.10 FABELLA BERE steps up in trip. She got outpaced and plugged on last time over a mile. She is bred to like the surface and the slower tempo today might find her in the mix. She’s about 20’s on Betfair. Later on in the final race (3.40) the two complete outsiders MINING ROCKS and GONEWITHTHEWIND are both of the smallest interest. Mining Rocks has never been here before and is bred to appreciate the surface. He’s on a tumbling mark and another 7lbs is taken off by the young rider. Gonewiththewind has dropped to a career low mark, the rider takes off another 3lbs, he’s down in grade. They are 34’s and 60’s on the machine, so I’ll be having small plays at those prices with slightly better interests in the place markets.

Good luck today.

MG

Sunday 31st December Racing Notes

Evening all. Having had a good delve in to the racing on the final day of 2017, I have come across one or two that are worth throwing a couple of quid at.

First up I’ll give you some latest Proform Stats that could help with your punting today.

Trainers In Form:

Trainers with a win & pl strike rate of over 50% over the last 10 days.
Nick Williams 85.71%
Mark Johnston 80%
Michael Easterby  66.67%
T Lacey 66.67%
John Butler 60%
Robert Stephens 60 %
Kim Bailey 57.14%
Jennie Candlish  54.55%
Simon Dow 50%
C Byrnes 50%

 

NATIVE ROBIN (2.35 Warwick) caught the eye and went in the horse watcher on the back of his run at Exeter a month ago. He’s been out of sorts since his return to the track after 18 months on the side lines but at Exeter showed a bit more when getting outpaced over a trip short of his best, before running on a bit once beaten. He’s been dropped another 3lbs for that so is now 6lbs lower than his last winning mark. Add into the mix going back up in trip and a drop in grade back to a 0-105 and he looks an interesting contender. If he’s come on for those two runs he’s a decent bet.

On the opening shows he is available at 6/1 general. 2 pts win.

ADMIRAL BLAKE (3.00 UTTOX) is another well handicapped beast that should be monitored in the betting. Testing conditions are no problem for him and his run in what turned out to be a betting farce at Exeter last time should not be underestimated. Although beaten a long way he plugged on ok at a trip short of his best. Having won at the turn of the year off 75 & 82 a couple of years ago, he should be very capable back down to this basement mark. James Best takes back over in the saddle and he gets in this race off a lovely racing weight of 10 stone. Not beyond the realm of possibility that he returns to some form here.

At 16/1 (Bet365) he is definitely worth having a point each way.

Nap of the day though without doubt has to be MYSTIQUE MOON (1.45 Lingfield). The son of Shamardal has won two of his three starts so far, only losing out to another rapidly progressive Godolphin inmate last time out at Chelmsford. He’s been raised 9lbs for being beaten last time but that race is full of decent form. His successor Arabian Hope won the Ganton Stakes (Listed) at York. Native Soldier won off 75 and Ebbesbourne won off 80. Whilst plenty of these are on the way down, Mystique Moon is still on the up and can take this with a view to being back here on Good Friday.  Alfred Hutchinson is well handicapped and likes it here so should be a danger and monitor the run of Cherbourg. Out of the weights here, but may end up better than this mark at some point in the near future.

Opened at 11/4 tonight with Bet365. I’d be surprised if he was better than 6/4 at the off. 3 pts win @ 2/1 general price.

Will update any others later.

MG

 

 

 

Trying to find a golden nugget for the coming weeks…

Evening one and all. Hope this post finds everyone well and full of winners. An interesting week in the racing world with nothing much happening in terms of major news, other than Aidan O’Brien getting ever closer to Bobby Frankel’s record for group one winners. Enable will also stay in training at four, which is fantastic news. Longchamp anyone?

My one note from the action the past week or so would be that I’ve convinced myself that Clemmie is now the real deal. Given her pedigree she is surely going to improve for going up in trip and is very exciting. Whether she goes on to win the Guineas next spring is something we have to wait seven months to find out. One thing I’m pretty sure of though is if she doesn’t run again this season and she turns up at Newmarket in May, she’ll be 6/4 on the day, so if you like long-term investments, the 4/1 around is probably for you.

For those of you that follow my ante-post NFL prop bets it was great to see Leonard Fournette have a big weekend. Through five weeks he now has 466 yards and the each way money at 40/1 for leading rusher is definitely a live voucher. Whilst I still have him outside the top three, the way the Jag’s D keeps them in games, their run first nature can only assist in the rookie having a big first season. Let’s hope he stays healthy.

Right so this week, with little time on my hands I wanted to take a slightly different approach and just see if I could find a little nugget for the upcoming jumps season. I started off playing around with the Proform system builder and looking at the fate of favourites and horses at the front of the market to see if I could see any glaring angles.

Not an awful lot showed up, other than similarly to the flat, there are a handful of tracks where favourites have an excellent record. So I changed tack slightly and given we are at the start of the season I started to look at trainers that have their horses in good nick on the back of a break. So I ran a query in to Proform looking at all trainers performance in National Hunt races (chase, hurdle & NHF) on the back of a minimum 60 day break. This threw up plenty of profitable trainers but almost of them were on the back of the odd massive priced winner that skewed the P&L figures.

So again a bit of trimming down and I decided to limit the next search to handicaps only and now we start to pick up one or two potential angles. Five trainers stood out with exceptional strike rates and a lovely healthy profit. I won’t mention them all but I’ll certainly give a positive mention to Olly Murphy who has had a terrific start to his training career in 2017.

From the above criteria, Olly has had 12 runners and 4 winners. So as the winter progresses, he is certainly someone to keep an eye on.

The trainer that stood out above everyone else though was the excellent KEITH DALGLEISH. These figures are represented as always from Jan 1st 2010.

Keith has had just 26 runners in handicaps chases/hurdles in that time on the back of 60+ days off the track, of which 13 have gone on to win with a profit of 41.26pts to BFSP. That is a 50% winning strike rate. What is just as interesting about these figures is that of the 13 that got beat, 9 of those traded at 50% or less of their BFSP in running. So there is no doubt at all that Keith has his horses bouncing and ready to roll in the national hunt season on the back of a break in handicaps. Certainly an interesting angle for all of you that like to trade pre-race or in running.

One thing I would add in to the argument is that all of the winners were priced between 6/4 and 8/1 which would suggest that they were well fancied too. If we run the system again looking at his runners that had an SP of less than 9/1, suddenly the strike rate leaps to 72.22% (83.33% win & place). A total of 13 winners from 18 runners.

So whilst it’s short and sweet this week, and won’t throw up that many selections. When Keith Dalgleish  has a runner in a handicap hurdle or chase on the back of a minimum 60 day break and is a single figure price, you should probably have it on side.

I’m open to any kind of suggestion for something to look at for next week. Feel free to post in the comments and I will take a look.

Have a top week. Thank god the international break is over!

Mark

Pomme’s time to shine & a large priced dart…

I’m looking forward to Pomme switching to a mares race ahead of the 2.50 at Carlisle tomorrow. She has shown lots of promise on all her starts so far and I’m pretty sure if you look at the figures that you can make a good case for her to be favourite in this race.

If you want more details on why I like her then you can read back through previous posts. Which One Is Which and Lastbutnotleast make this an interesting contest. The latter has a penalty to carry but has shaped like this step up in trip will suit, whilst the former is under priced on what she’s achieved.

They clearly had a choice here with Pomme of going for a similar race to last time and getting her a nice mark or going for a mares race with a big chance of a gaining a win. The way she travels should suit Carlisle and she’ll hopefully be the last off the bridle before going on to score. Bet365 have opened up at 3/1. I think she should be favourite.

Elsewhere, I do have one of the interesting horses running today in the form of CASTANEA (5.20 Kempton). Now let’s not go mad, he’s a 42 rated 18 race maiden. So let that sink in, this is not a bank job and it has health risks attached to it but I do think there is a case to be made.

I get the feeling there may have been one or two issues in 2016 as he started to look awkward. He was given a six month break on the back of his last run in July before making a very interesting return over an inadequate 8.5f at Wolverhampton on Jan 26th. Here are my Proform notes.

This is probably one to come with a health warning. An 18 race maiden that has clearly had a few issues. Throw in the fact that he’s now rated just 42 and this should not be one to go over board with but certainly of interest as we’ll get some juice in the price because of the profile.

I’d urge you to watch the replay of the run at Wolverhampton on January 26th 17, which was his first run for 6 months having previously been seen running terribly at Ffos Las and Brighton in mid summer. Now watch closely. The first thing to note is that the trip was short of what he needs, he clearly wants about 10f, so it was obviously intended as a prep run or cobweb blower. Second thing to note is watch the draw, missing the break, wide trip early, and the effort on board to actually get close….

Now I must stress that there could just be a chance that he is a rogue and that he was really well and fresh ahead of this run. There could also be a small chance that whatever was the issue previously has been sorted and he is ready to rock and roll.

His price is going to allow us some fun. He has opened up at 16/1 tonight and is a really good each way bet. The only negative might be that it may have been picked up by other race readers so he may get well backed. If he does, then he may not even try.

Before we go I must just give you the details of a horse to follow in the early part of 2017. CULLINGWORTH is the one, here are the notes…

I think he’s potentially quite nice horse to follw for 2017. Ran in quite a few conditions races early on before having a mid summer break. Most intersting run was certainly the last start of 2016 when running in a messy race at Chester 9/9/16 when a horse fell and traffic problems. The way he travelled through that race and the fact that he was hampered were both interesting considring how he finshed off. Although well beaten was doing excellent work late on. Definitely capable of achieving much more than 81 this year. The form of this race has worked out really well too.

Pomme – 2.50 Carlisle

Castanea – 5.20 Kempton. E/W.

Be lucky today.

MG

Fire Up The Testa Rossa!

I won’t dwell on yesterday. As I’d feared the mile was just no good for Gold Return and once she missed the break she was a million. She is certainly not one to give up on and will remain on the interesting list when conditions are more suitable.

I have a couple that I must throw into the mix today. First off I’ve had my first decent go on one since I started blogging again in the form of TESTA ROSSA (7.45 Newcastle). He has improved immeasurably over the last over the last 3 or 4 months and it is almost exclusively down to the test that the all-weather track provides. I am absolutely convinced that he would have won again on Jan 21st had he not been stopped in the run not once but twice. He gets to race off the same mark of 80 in here again tonight and I see no reason why he will not win again granted a clear passage. He is actually 2lbs better off as Lewis Edmunds can claim 5lbs rather than the 3 of Downing. The drop back to 7f doesn’t worry me, there is a chance given how he has raced that it may even suit better and there should be plenty of pace on.

Clearly Safe Voyage is a sharp improver and could be a huge danger but I had them much closer together in the market than they are and at 7/1 I think he represents a decent bet. If it is your way I couldn’t put you off backing him each way as I can’t see him out the first three, but he’s a decent bet for me at the prices.

The other one I have to give a positive mention too is FLY TRUE (2.30 Lingfield). Jeremy Gask’s filly should in my opinion have won last time and I’ll be backing her to gain some compensation today. She’s a hold up horse with an excellent turn of foot. Granted round here she will need some luck, but if the gaps come she will go very close. With Mossgo and Come On Dave in here they should go a relentless clip that will bring the closers in to play. It will be hair-raising late doors but I’m convinced she’s better than her current mark.

TESTA ROSSA – 7.45 Newcastle – 3pts win @ 7/1.

FLY TRUE – 2.30 Lingfield – 1 pt win 9/2.

Be lucky today with your punting….oh and COYI

Another blank day! Article writing time for @weighedinracing

Morning all, just a post to let you know we have no eye catchers running today. Having been doing racing commentaries for the last three days I will be spending today in my office doing all the videos since Saturday so we should have plenty more to add to the interesting list.

I will also be writing my first eye-catchers article for Weighed In Racing (@weighedinracing) today too. This will contain 3 or 4 of the months biggest eye catchers that have yet to run since and should be placed firmly in your trackers.

Just to touch on one or two of the horses that I’ve mentioned so far. Pulsating is definitely being messed about with so we’ll strike her off. Cold Fusion got pretty well backed at Southwell, well from 40’s into 25’s, but just ran terribly. I will keep an eye on him for now but can’t see him being a betting proposition in the near future on the back of that.

Good luck today!

All the best

MG

A couple of eye catchers for today and a word on Pomme

Morning all. I will start off by just touching on the run of POMME yesterday at Doncaster. After being off the track for over a year, she ran an absolute cracker to finish 4th. Indeed had she jumped the last couple of flights better she would have probably placed. The way she travelled into the race suggests that all of that ability is still there that I had hoped and she certainly becomes a project moving forward. I assume that they may take the option of a run in an equally competitive race next time so that they can get her a nice enough mark. Certainly one to follow with interest.

On to the action on Saturday and I have a couple to pass on that caught the eye last time. I will start with the obvious one in HEAD SPACE (4.15 Lingfield). He was a moral winner given the draw when last seen a week ago having got badly out of his ground and coming with a late rattle weaving between runners to get 2nd on the line. From stall 1 today, Kirby should be able to take a slightly more daring passage and if the splits come at the right time he could be hard to contain.

The 2nd runner that went on to the slightly interesting list last week is one to take a bit of a chance with tonight at Kempton. PULSATING runs in the 7.15 and is available to back as I write this on Friday night at a general 20/1. She caught the eye last week under Milly Naseb when getting slightly caught on heels and knocked about turning for home before picking up quite nicely in the straight in the end to be beaten only a length over what is an inadequate five furlongs. This improved effort came with the introduction of first time blinkers which seem to perk her up. They go with first time visor on Saturday which is no bad thing. There is plenty of pace in here with both White Royal and Ninety Years Young likely to go forward and with Kieran Schofield’s 7lb claim she has a lovely racing weight back at six furlongs which is a big plus. The down side is this is a much better race than she has been running in for a while and whilst that is a negative, we are getting 20/1. I think she should be played each way and if things go to plan and the splits come, we could have a nice voucher in our hands come 7.17!

So the bets away from the main action today are as follows:

Head Space 4.15 Lingfield – Win

Pulsating 7.15 Kempton – E/W.

Enjoy the star-studded card at Cheltenham today, I’m on TV duty all day so will soak it all up from the studio.

All the best

Mark