The Worst Tipster In The World?

I am the worst tipster in the world! It’s mainly for this reason that I have never given out a tip on the blog and I never give anyone tips. Obviously, I could be a very good tipster in practice but every time I give someone a tip, it loses! It’s been like this was since school to be honest and that’s why I never tell anyone to back a horse. I’m not going to change that now………

Below is my thinking on a horse running at Sandown tomorrow night. But to be able to understand the horse, you need to be able to understand the 9.20 at Nottingham on the 5th of July!

Below is the result from the Racing Post:





The Racing Post reviewer for this race commented that “this was a moderate contest where the winner was allowed a soft lead.”

I would argue that subsequent events have shown that this was a particularly strong 0-70 handicap and as such, there is a very well handicapped horse running tomorrow night at Sandown.

Before I discuss what I think, let’s look at the facts.

Since this race, 9 of the horses have since run. Out of these 9, 5 horses have won their next race (all handicaps). Interestingly, 3 of the beaten horses were priced at 40/1, 50/1 and 50/1 in the above race. Therefore, we can exclude them from our calculations since they are clearly not handicapped to win a race and are very poor horses.

Hence, 5 of the 6 horses who have run have won next time out. Amazingly, the horse who didn’t win was priced at 2/1 fav in a competitive handicap and ran very poorly. The fact it hasn’t run since implies that there was maybe something wrong with the horse which can explain its poor run.

So, we may have the situation where 5 healthy horses have run since and all have won since.

One of the interesting aspects concerning this race was the fact that the front two were 7 lengths clear. Having watched the race again, it is clear that the front two had the run of the race and kicked on early which allowed them to open up a sizable lead on the field and the rest of the horses appeared very one paced.

The fact that the winner has since made all off a 6lbs higher mark and is now rated 14lbs (Yes, 1 full stone higher!) implies that it isn’t surprising it managed to beat the rest (all bar the sick horse) by 7 lengths plus.

When the handicapper came to assess this race, he had to look at the field in 2 different groups. He decided to raise the winner and the second by 6lbs (too little going by subsequent win of first and fact second was 2/1 fav next time) and he decided to drop the rest of the field anything between 1lb and 3lbs.

Subsequent wins by the 3rd,5th,7th and 10th have shown that the form of the 2nd group was also very strong. Therefore, we can choose to exclude the front two from the calculations now. For simplicity, let’s exclude the 3 donkeys from the calculation that will never win a race.

We now have this picture:




As you can see, out of this group of 5 who raced, Golden Prospect had little chance in winning this little race. On average, each horse it was racing against was actually 7lbs better than its current mark.

Tomorrow night, Golden Prospect races off a 3lb lower mark than it ran in that little race. So, the fact it finished second was an amazing achievement and implies it has 10lbs in hand of the handicapper.

For those of you who don’t understand handicapping…..

If Harare ran in tomorrow’s race, it would race off a mark of 70. Golden Prospect would run off a mark of 66. So, Golden Prospect would receive 4lbs from Harare.

Last time, Golden Prospect gave Harare 5lbs and only lost by ½ length. Hence, it would be 9lbs better off for getting beat ½ length!

It would be 11lbs better off with Flashy Max for beating it a short head!

It would be 12lbs better off with West End Lad for beating it by 8 lengths!

It would be 8lbs better off with Eton Fable for beating it by 10 lengths!

If Flashy Max was running in tomorrow’s race, it would be a likely favourite since it has won its last 2 races.

What price is Golden Prospect in tomorrow night’s race??????

Sporting Life tissue is 20/1 and Racing Post tissue is 16/1…….

I rest my case your honour!

Graeme (Worst Tipster in the world!)

P.S. The horse is entered 5 times in 5 days as it doesn’t like soft ground. It needs firm ground but the trainer knows this, hence he’s willing to waste entry fees on 5 races. It may not run at Sandown tomorrow night unless it stays dry but it will run somewhere I imagine in the next few days as they wouldn’t enter it 5 times unless it was ready to run!