Crystal Ball at the ready to predict what Fergus Cameron does to Wolverhampton for tonight.

After a week of few opportunities, a list of non-runners  and close misses it is disappointing to find nothing of significant interest for subscribers on Mondays Wolverhampton card and only the one dubious selection on Tuesday. Or is it? The same amount of work goes in to every card so finding nothing always feels like effort wasted, but at the same time if we can't find an advantage, one of the best weapons at our disposal, as fellow bettors is not having to bet, unlike the bookmaker who need to price every race on any card.

There is always a degree of relieve when a particular course is out of kilter that we aren't drawn in, and so frequently it is Wolverhampton. This isn't a new experience and the surface work isn't the catalyst. Having visited and felt with my own hands the surfaces of each of the All Weather courses led me to the belief that Fergus Cameron's management plays a big part in the poor surface and erratic nature of Wolverhampton. To endorse this belief, it is no coincidence that the identical surfaces at Kempton Park and Lingfield Park do not suffer to the same degree. The question for me has always been 'is the erratic nature of Wolverhampton been by design or accident?'

Having predicted last night's marked slow down after two previous meetings had return times not too far from the slow side of standard in a personal email, I thought it would be a good exercise to look at performances based upon conditions.

This level of analysis obviously lends itself more favourably to where we have some depth in knowledge on past performances so 2yo and 3yo races should be viewed with a degree of scepticism. Also at first glance you may feel that there is lack of information with plenty of blanks but using some imagination (and a trend line) you can gauge where the performance level should fall.

With the benefit of hindsight in the going being as predicted here are pre-race breakdowns on yesterdays 3yo+ races. Further left are fastest conditions - Further right slowest conditions broken down in 0.5 increments with the black box defining the predicted going.

Ok, granted that an 11-10 favourite shouldn't be that hard to find so let's take a look at another race from last nights card.

      

Here we have to use some imagination as we have only Royal Etiquette registering within the expected going range and there is clearly a downward trend. Captain Caroline by comparison trends upwards unlike the remainder of the field and won at 12-1

One more.

By a hares breathe Presumido looks to have an advantage marginally over Sarah Berry but both trend down. Unfortunately we have no knowledge of French Press preferences and it takes the prize with Presumiso 2nd and Sarah Berry 3rd.

So what of today's 3/4 meeting at Wolverhampton.  I will be posting today's full meeting breakdowns in the subscribers area before racing is under way.

Good Luck