Stat of the Day, 31st May 2014

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day, 31st May 2014

Three Cliffs drifted like a barge in the market on Friday, moving out from what I thought was a reasonable 3/1 BOG price to an SP of 6/1.

He ran well in patches for his handicap/turf debut but was outpaced in the midsection of the race before staying on to take second close to home.

16/1 outsider of the six Royal Warrior took advantage of a brave ride from Oisin Murphy to make all and win by a length and a half.

May has, on the whole, been good to us and I hope to round off the month with one more winner, so we’re off to HQ for the….

4.40 Newmarket:

And another of Roger Varian’s handicap debutants, Pretzel. We may well have got on the wrong debutant at Brighton on Friday, as Three Cliffs was the runner-up, but Tears Of The Sun ran out a 12/1 winner an hour later to improve his record with horses on handicap debut.

This now means that when running horses on their handicap debut in races on the Flat and in classes 3 to 6 he has a record of 21 wins from 88 (23.9% SR) for 41.7pts (+47.4% ROI) profit. Those sent off in the 2/1 to 7/1 bracket have won 17 of 64 (26.6% SR) for 30.7pts (+48% ROI)

Pretzel steps up in trip for his handicap debut and becomes the 80th Roger Varian horse to do so. 18 of the previous 79 (22.8% SR) were victorious, producing 20.8pts profit for an ROI of 26.4%.

Those stepping up in trip and priced between 5/2 and 8/1 have won 13 of 47 races (27.7% SR) for 38.7pts (+68% ROI), whilst those stepping up between a half and two furlongs have 13 of 63 races (20.6% SR) for 10.4pts (+16.5% ROI).

Incidentally those stepping between 0.5 and 2 furlongs AND priced between 5/2 and 8/1 are 10/37 (27% SR) for 27.8pts (+75% ROI) profit.

Pretzel was a winner of a 7f maiden on his only start to date, when beating Mutakayyef by a length and a half over 7 furlongs here (albeit on the Rowley course) seven months ago. Mutakayyef has since gone on to lose by just a neck in a Listed contest four weeks ago before landing a maiden at Sandown nine days ago.

Winners of maidens last time out tend to do very well on the July course here at Newmarket, as from the 163 such horses sent off at 14/1 or shorter, there has been 35 winners for a strike rate of 21.5% and level stakes profits of 89.7pts, or 55.1% of stakes.

Pretzel now runs on the back of a seven month break and Roger Varian does well with runners coming back from a break after a good run last time out.

In the month of May over the last three seasons he has had 9 winners from 21 horses reappearing after more than five months since winning or finishing second on their last run. 9 from 21 is a healthy 42.9% strike rate and has generated 19.3pts profit, an ROI of some 91.8%.

All nine winners came from the 14 horses sent off at below 7/1 for a strike rate of 64.3% and level stakes profits of 26.3pts (+187.7% ROI)

All of which points to a good run from Pretzel, so I’ll be placing a 1pt win bet at what looks a decent 5/1 BOG with Coral. For all the other firm’s prices, simply…

…click here for the latest betting on the 4.40 Newmarket

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Here is today’s racecard.