Stat of the Day, 17th July 2014

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day, 17th July 2014

Neither jockey Louis Steward, not horse George Cinq did anything wrong at Sandown on Wednesday evening, they were just beaten by a horse that had a stronger finish.

In fact, it looked as if they’d delivered the perfect ride, coming from last to first between the 2f and 1f poles and looked well set to core at 6/4, vastly shorter than our 7/2 advised price. Unfortunately for them and us, the original favourite Billingsgate dug a little deeper and found a bit more to just get back in front to win by a neck.

In fairness, William Buick rode a good race on the winner, who made full use of his weight for age allowance and looks set for better things than this in Godolphin blue.

I like to pick winners, but when you’ve had the best price and your selection has done all it can and got very close in a decent scrap, then sometimes you just have to smile and move on. Something I fully intend to by taking on an odds-on favourite in Thursday’s…

3.55 Leicester: 

Where I’m backing Laftah at 6/1 BOG with Paddy Power in a Class 4 handicap for 3 yr old fillies to be run over 7 furlongs.

Firstly, I’m happy to oppose the favourite who looks ridiculously short at as low as 8/13 with BetVictor, meaning we’re going to get decent value about our selection, who I expected to be nearer 3/1 than 6/1.

Our filly is trained by Roger Varian…

Roger is a man in form with four winners and four placer from his thirteen horses to have graced a track in the last six days and he also has a good record here at Leicester, where 9 of his previous 41 runners have proved successful. This 21.95% strike rate has already generated 17.9pts (+43.7% ROI) profit, but the best form has come since the start of the 2013 campaign with 7 winners from 26 (26.9% SR) producing 16.4pts (+63% ROI) profits.

Today’s jockey is Paul Hanagan…

Also a man in good touch at present as shown by his 8 winners from 37 (21.6% SR)  in the last fortnight and despite not riding as often at Leicester as maybe some of the other tracks, he does perform well here. To date he is 11/85 (12.9% SR) in handicap contests here at Leicester and this has given rise to level stakes profits of some 19.6pts, or 23% of stakes.

This will be Laftah’s first crack at a handicap…

Roger Varian’s flat handicap debutants have won 23 of 114 (20.2% SR) races with the resultant 26.7pts profit being the equivalent of 23.4% of all stakes invested, whilst at the Class 4/5 level, he is 17.63 (27% SR) for 45.2pts (+71.7% ROI)

Her last run was at Class 5 and now she steps up a grade…

Roger has stepped 97 handicappers up by 1 grade in the past and the 21 horses that have won represents a strike rate of 21.7% at an ROI of 55% courtesy of profits of 53.3pts. As is often the case, eliminating the short-priced runners and the longshots produces optimum results and this is no exception. from those 97 stepping up in class, the record for horses priced between 5/2 and 12/1 is 15 winners from 57 (26.3% SR) for 45.3pts (+79.5% ROI) profit.

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Plenty of food for thought there, but there’s more to this one than just stats. She has been very progressive in her three starts to date. She was 4th on debut at Haydock in May over a mile on good ground, before running very creditably to finish 2nd three weeks later over 7.5f at Beverley.

The going was probably on the soft side for her that day but she stuck to the task and was only beaten by Muajiza, who subsequently stepped up in class and won again, before going on to contest a Listed race at Pontefract last week.

Laftah then moved on to more similar conditions to today for her third and final outing, a 7f maiden on good to firm ground at Salisbury three weeks ago, where she held off the favourite by three parts of a length. She looks quite reasonably treated off an opening mark of 79 and comes here in better form than the favourite who was third last time out.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if Paul Hanagan tries to win this from the front, Laftah is usually quick away, she’s got a better draw (stall 3) then the fav who is stall 7 and if she’s allowed an early lead, could prove tricky to peg back, giving us a really good chance to collect on a 1pt win bet on Laftah at 6/1 BOG with Paddy Power.

She was 15/2 when I first spotted her (7pm) and she’s likely to shorten further as time progresses, so I suggest that you…

…click here for the latest betting on the 3.55 Leicester

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Here is today’s racecard.