Stat of the Day, 1st June 2013

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day, 1st June 2013

No back to back success to close a profitable May, as Interior Minister just failed in his bid to land the spoils last night. Our 3/1 shot opened at 4’s on track, but eased into 7/2 at the off. Cathy Gannon kept him close enough tot he action to be able to mount a late challenge and he was fairly flying at the death, but the line arrived too soon. He officially went down by a head, though it looked closer st the time and he was gaining with every stride, but the 2/1 favourite just about held on.

I’m heading to Scotland today in a bid to kick June off with a winner in a five furlong, Class 2, conditions race. The going is set to be good to firm (good in places) for the seven runners contesting the…

2.20 Musselburgh:

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times of late, I do like to look out for Course and Distance winners returning to “the scene of the crime”, especially when running on the back of a win last time out and certain tracks lend themselves to horses with previous course successes. Musselburgh is proving to be one of those such tracks: since the start of 2011, sixty-nine former C&D winners have run here on the back of a win last time out and fifteen (21.74%) of them have been successful with a place strike rate of over 42%. In 2013 alone the figures show three winners and two placed from just eight runners. These three winners have produced level stakes profits of 9.36pts at Betfair SP = 117% of stakes invested and there are two such qualifiers today : Suzis Connoisseur and Withernsea and it’s Withernsea that will be our selection today.

Withernsea is trained by Richard Fahey, who also has a good record at getting back to back victories out of horses with CD next to their name. In the same 2011 to today timeframe as earlier, Mr Fahey’s record with such animals is twelve wins and seven places from just forty-four attempts, giving strike rates of 27.3% and 43.2% for the win and place respectively. The record for 2013 is 2 wins from 5 for 7.57pts at betfair SP.

So, the horse qualifies as a selection on two counts, but I have to admit that the sample size is too small to tie the two together, as the Fahey yard has only run three former C&D winners at Musselburgh on the back of a win in the last two and a half years, although one of them did also win!

So, what do we know about the horse, Withernsea, itself? He made his debut at Ripon just over six weeks ago and was a little slow away, which is deadly in a 5f sprint, but picked up well in the latter stages to come home in fourth place, less than four lengths adrift and he came on well for the experience when running here at Musselburgh four weeks ago. He left that debut run behind him by securing a pillar to post victory over today’s course and distance. He made all up against the rail that day, stayed on strongly and looked full of running at the end of the race, he’s drawn against the rails again today and seems the type who will progress further in time.

This is, of course, a step up for him and this tougher task allied to the presence of a short priced favourite, means we’ll end up with a far longer price than the 7/4 he returned last time out. Justice Day is highly likely to go off at odds on, but I think he’s there for the beating today, as there’s more than a nagging suspicion that this 5f race might be a little too sharp for him with the early pace and that he may well be better suited to the 6f he won at last time around.

Our selection is to be ridden by Tony Hamilton today and Tony has already ridden 21 winners for Mr Fahey from 99 rides this season alone for level stakes profits of 61.45pts at Betfair SP with two winners from nine rides here at Musselburgh.

As I said above, the price of the favourite means there’ll be a bit of juice for us in our bet and we could actually hedge our bets and go Each Way today, but fortune favours the brave and as such the call is a 1pt win bet on Withernsea at 6/1 BOG. This price is on offer at Stan James, Paddy Power and BetVictor, so you can take your pick, if you…

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