Stat of the Day, 2nd October 2013

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day, 2nd October 2013

SotD’s recent barren spell continues, but there were signs of revival yesterday as we hit the crossbar with 5/2 (SP 9/4) shot Wakanda, who finished just four lengths behind the winning favourite who made all.

It was only Wakanda’s third race and I’d expect a good effort next time out, perhaps one to keep an eye out for?

We’re taking a short 35 mile drive North today to tackle the…

3.10 Newcastle

Where I’ve got my eye on a 4-year-old filly, running for the first time in 101 weeks! Today is actually only the fourth career appearance for Fanoos, who was formerly with John Gosden, but now makes her debut for William Haggas.

Mr Haggas has a decent record with horses running their first race for him: he has a 16% strike rate in the last three years with all horses aged 3 or over on debut for his yard and with those attracting market support (ie general SotD territory of 8/1 or under), the record reads as 12 wins from 47 (25.53% SR) for profits of 24.15pts, an ROI of 51.4%.

Now, we know that Fanoos hasn’t run for almost two years, but when last seen she ran well enough to finish second at Leicester in a race that has produced several winners, notably including Aubretia who now 3/5 in Class 4 races since that Leicester maiden.

In the last three years, the Haggas team have a record of 11 winners from 38 (28.95% SR) with horses running off a break of 5 months or more who were first or second home last time out. That is from blindly backing them and although the 2.46pts profit only represents a return of 6.5% above stakes, it is another angle to consider.

Of those 38 runners having rested after a top 2 finish,  there were 11 winners from 34 (32.35%) for 6.46pts (+19%) for those running in the top three of the market and the best returns came from those in the top three of the market and priced in the 15/8 to 13/2 bracket: the general range I like to work in for SotD anyway!

That record reads 6 winners from 21 = 28.6% strike rate for profits of 10.54pts, or 50.2% of stakes, by eliminating those with little chance and those too short for my liking.

Fanoos is currently third favourite at 3/1 and she’s far closer to the two ahead of her than she is to the next one down, so she fits the bill nicely today and if she can pick up where she left off, she stands as good a chance as any today.

She did show signs of ability in her three runs for John Gosden back in those three maidens in 2011, where she seemed to be progressing nicely: 4th of 6, beaten by 7 lengths was followed by a 4th of 12 (3 lengths) before running to within a neck of winning last time out. Now although she’s had a change of yard, she’s still owned by Hamdan Al Maktoum and I’d have thought it unlikely that he’d keep a horse off the track for almost two years if he didn’t think she could eventually come back and win races.

This isn’t a strong race by any stretch of the imagination and a return to past form should be enough today. The variables, of course, are that she might need the run and that she might not be the same horse as she was. The cheekpieces are being applied for this comeback run, possibly to help her focus on the task in hand.

It is these doubts that are stopping her being shorter in the market than the 3/1 BOG with bet365 today. I’m on Fanoos at that price, whilst SkyBet go 7/2, but non-BOG, which mightn’t be a bad thing actually. All of which suggests that the prudent option is to…

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