Not the evening I was expecting at Wolverhampton last night,
and I’m sure that subscribers were surprised at one of the most unlikely of the
evening’s selection landing the money!
There was no surprise with our first selection Elis Eliz taking
the opener at a ‘take or leave it’ price with small amounts of ‘Evens’
available.
We then watched in agony as Plucky Dip (3-1) and Ambitious Boy (9-1)
could only finish 2nd and 3rd after the first mentioned once
again found the trouble it has become notorious for finding.
There was three Al’s in the 7:30 and we were on the poorest
of the three as Al Mukhdam added to our misery and I was reminded of just how
poor Jamie Spencer is nowadays. Another placed horse, selection Delightful
Sleep heap it on when finishing second at 16-1 in the 8:30 after looking like closing
down Zaeem.
We then called in the cavalry with 3 selections in the 9:00 finale. Tiede Peak which we took at an opening show of 14-1 was backed down to 11-4
fav and you would be forgiven in thinking that the level of support made it
home and hose. The price did give us an ideal opportunity to recover stakes,
albeit by laying and shedding 3 points, Ballyfarsoon which was taken at an
opening show of 12-1 went off at 8-1: both blew the start and were tail end Charlie’s
finishing 4th and 11th respectively. The third selection in
the race proved far more fruitful! Poor Duke who had nowhere near the level of market
support of the fore-mentioned was taken at an opening show of 14-1 and won by a
very comfortable length coming the most unlikely of routes under Harry Bentley.
After witnessing Richard Hughes in the earlier races
successfully running the rail it might be tempting to reconsider regarding my
stance on wide draws and coming late and wide, but still the stats are stacking
up with draw. Here are last nights winners:
8 (8 runners) - draw 11 (11 runners) - draw 8 (11 runners) -
draw 1 (12 runners) - draw 7 (10 runners) - draw 8 (10 runners) draw 2 (12
runners) - draw 8 (12 runners)
still suggest to me that wide draws are still providing the
edge and that winners coming from inside draws could be upgraded. 87% of
winners coming from the higher half of the draw speaks for itself after 150
races!
Today, we move away from draw analysis on the new Tapeta
surface at Wolverhampton and with no fewer than eight 2yo races at Lingfield Park
and Kempton Park today perhaps the focus should shift to ‘Sires’
Both courses play host to the progeny of Rip Van Winkle in
Mistamel (2:30 Lingfield), Bombalurina (7:15 Kempton) and Ninepins (7:45
Kempton) who from a small data set provide a 2/3 67% in to their respective
races. Although races of this nature carry little of my money unless I have an
outstanding previous performance on the surface for the grade, I will be interested
to see how each of these fare and may get involved at double figure prices.
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