Stat of the Day, 12th July 2014

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day, 12th July 2014

Squats was beaten by 2.75 lengths at Ascot on Friday afternoon, in a promising if ultimately unsuccessful handicap debut. He attracted some support to shorten to an SP of 3/1 from our advised 7/2 and ran well enough in the main.

He raced prominently, but relinquished the lead and the race at the furlong pole when headed and soon beaten. Yet credit given where credit’s due, he kept up to his work and stayed on despite not having the pace to go with the leading pair. We don’t back E/W at those kind of odds, but his efforts were at least rewarding for his connections who picked up a reasonable prize for the place.

There will be wins for Squats in the future. Friday just wasn’t his or our day.

Last selection of the week comes in the second to last race of the day, the…

9.00 Salisbury

A 9-runner, Class 3 open age handicap over 1m 2f on Good to Firm ground, where Roger Varian gives a handicap debut to his 3 yr old filly and 5/1 BOG (PP) chance Almashooqa. This filly comes here after a couple of good runner-up finishes when narrowly defeated on both occasions and it’s interesting to see her pitched in here, when there are easier maiden races available to her.

It’s also of note that Roger brings her here to Salisbury. He doesn’t send that many here and she’s his only representative today. In fact he has only sent 32 runners here in his training career, but 8 winners from 32 (25% SR) is a healthy amount and although the 4.97pts profit has a modest ROI of 15.5%, it’s one I could live with!

Five of the eight winners came from the fifteen handicappers he has sent here, and that 1-in-3 ratio is excellent as are the 10pts (+66.7% ROI) profit generated by them. If we only consider those running at odds of 5/1 or shorter, the stats are even impressive, albeit from a small sample size. 5 winners (and 2 others placed) from 10 runners makes for an impressive 50% strike rate and the profits of 16pts is quite remarkable at an ROI of 160%.

Roger Varian is also another of those trainers who seems to just know when to blood a horse into handicap company at the right time to get them to win first up. 23 of his 112 (20.5% SR) handicapper have won on handicap debut and the 28.7pts profits from them are the equivalent to 25.7% of stakes invested.

The optimum price range for these runners is the 2/1 to 13/2 range, a bracket we play quite a lot for SotD and where Team Varian’s record is 15 winners from 58 (25.9% SR) for 30.3pts (+52.3% ROI) profit.

Roger’s also not averse to stepping his horses up in trip for their handicap debut, a ploy used 65 times in total with 14 (21.5%SR) of the 65 going on to win, with the resultant 24pts profit equating to a return of 36.9% above investment. If we refer back to the preferred odds of 2/1 to 13/2, we get 11 winners from 36 (30.6% SR) for 29.3pts, an excellent ROI of 81.3%.

Almashooqa was sired by the renowned Dubawi, whose offspring have a good record over this ten furlong trip over the last few years. In fact since 2010, his progeny have won 30 of 133 (22.6% SR) races when sent off at odds of between 2/1 and 12/1. They have produced an ROI of 45% via 59.8pts profit to date.

Today’s Good to Firm ground shouldn’t hold any fears to a daughter of Dubawi, as 50 of the above 133 races were on Good to Firm with 15 winners providing a 30% strike rate and an ROI of 103% via very healthy profits of 51.5pts. Once again, it’s a small sample size, but 11 of 35 good to form runners were winners in the 2/1 to 7/1 bracket, a 31.4% strike rate generating 19.8pts (+56.5% ROI) profit.

Almashooqa reopposes Group 1 entrant Tearless on better terms than when defeated by a length and a quarter last time out, but Tearless’ mere presence at the head of the market means there’s some value to be had in the price of our selection, upon whom I’m placing a 1pt win bet at 5/1 BOG with Paddy Power. I wouldn’t be surprised if she shortens up in the 21 hours between now and race time, so I strongly suggest that you…

…click here for the latest betting on the 9.00 Salisbury

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Here is today’s racecard.