Stat of the Day, 1st March 2013

Stat of the Day: 01/03/13

Stat of the Day, 1st March 2013

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus (Happy St. David’s Day) to our Welsh readers!

February, unfortunately, ended pretty much the same way as most of the month had gone: disappointingly. Ocean Legend never got involved at all, beating just one other runner home after having drifted out to 8/1. There’s little more that I need/want to add to that!

All-Weather action again today from “Leafy” as we look at a 4-runner, Class 5 Handicap. The trip is 7 furlongs for the…

4.15 Lingfield

David Simcock’s yard is flying at the moment: 3 wins and 2 places from 7 runners in the last week and a 33% strike rate over the last two months is further proof that he’s a man in form. He’s saddled up fifteen winners from forty-six in that time, with a further eleven making the frame.

Added to this, David is the most successful trainer at Lingfield in the last two years (of those with runners today, of course!). He has an excellent 26.04% strike rate (25 winners from 95) and he has managed to get over half (54.74% to be precise) into the frame, making any of his Lingfield runners of interest to us, especially considering the form he’s currently in.

Yet, today’s selection might well look a bit of a punt in the form of Gabrial The Boss.

Gabrial The Boss is David’s only runner anywhere today and you’d like to think he wasn’t just sending the horse out on a two hundred mile round trip for the sake of a run. This horse has already won four races this winter, and has a record of two wins from four here at Lingfield.

His winter success has inevitably resulted in a rise in the weights and he did admittedly struggle in his last two races: both here at his track. He last won three races ago off a mark of 74, but ran off 77 over 10 furlongs and faded late on, whilst his latest outing was over a mile off a mark of 76 and although he went better that day, he weakened considerably in the final half furlong. Both those races, incidentally, were Class 4 affairs and he’s back to Class 5 racing today.

He also drops back in distance today to 7 furlongs and is back to that last winning mark of 74, where it is hoped he’ll make a bold effort to win the race from the front. He is more than capable of winning off this mark and whilst there are doubts over his ability to win at this shorter trip, those last two defeats gave me enough encouragement to think he might just go better than expected today.

His recent poor form allied to the drop in trip sees him as the outsider of four, but I think the odds on offer represent real value for a horse with undoubted ability. The best on offer at present is 7/1 BOG pretty much everywhere with 15/2 non-BOG available with Sporting Bet. As it’s a 4-runner race, you’ll not get offered place terms by any bookmakers, so my play today is 0.5pts win on Gabrial The Boss at 7/1 BOG plus a 0.5pt place bet at Betfair at Betfair SP (currently 3.00 for the place and 10.00 to win), but for your own preferred bookie, simply…

…Click here for the latest betting on the 4.15 Lingfield