Stat of the Day, 12th March 2015

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day, 12th March 2015

I’ve been compiling SotD for well over three years now as part of a team with Matt and the occurrences of me criticising jockeys are as common as a QPR away win (for non-football fans, maybe an on-time and not packed train or Halley’s Comet), but I wasn’t impressed with Shane Gray at Southwell on Wednesday.

Shane has been in great form, so his ride on realize must have been a rare aberration as he seemed to be content to sit out at the back, then have to pass all the field very wide to win. And if that had happened, I too would have been content.

However, when you’re deep into a cold spell, the last thing you want is some guy tying to win a race Hollywood-style on an A/W track riding as deep as I’ve ever seen it and with terrible kickback. To avoid the kickback and get from front to back, he must have run almost another furlong sweeping so wide and as it was, he didn’t get there, finishing second, beaten by a length.

He was sent off as the 5/2 favourite, suggesting plenty of money was riding on that performance and I’d imagined there were some disgruntled punters. It’s bad enough making poor choices for SotD, but when I have a good one that is badly handled, it just makes my teeth itch.

Anyway, fairly well-tempered rant over (I wasn’t so placid at 2.35!), let’s move on to Thursday and more specifically, the…

3.35 Hexham:

A Class 4 Novice Handicap chase over 3m1f on good to soft ground, where the 4/1 BOG, 8 yr old gelding Auldthunder will attempt to repeat his win at Sedgefield from three weeks ago.

He’s trained by Micky Hammond who doesn’t send many of his jumpers here, but those that come here and attract some market support tend to go rather well. Since the start of 2009, those priced in the 15/8 to 15/2 range have won 10 of 25 races (40% SR) for level stakes profits of 23pts at an ROI of 92%. Those running in handicap company fare even better with 8 wins from 17 (47.1% SR) for 24.95pts (+146.8% ROI).

He comes here off the back of that win in a handicap chase at Sedgefield in the knowledge that since the start of 2010, male runners aged 6 to 9 in Class 3 or 4 races who won a handicap chase by 2 to 10 lengths on their last run which was 11 to 150 days ago (ie fit, but not rusty nor turned out too quickly) have gone on to win again on 203 of 863 occasions (23.5% SR) for 217.2pts (+25.2% ROI).

That’s a fairly broad spectrum of runners to aim at and can filter by age, class, race type, odds, days since run etc and you’ll create lots of positive angles, because the main stat is robust and has a large sample size. I’m not going to bore you with lots of permutations, but I’ll say this with regards to today’s selection…

8 yr old males now running in a Class 4 handicap chase who won a hcp chase LTO are 18/65 (27.7% SR) for 19.8pts (+30.5% ROI).

Not only was that win the first of Auldthunder‘s nine-race career to date, it was the first time he’d even made the frame, although he really should have won over this trip three starts ago when unseating his rider at the last fence at Catterick when well clear.

So, he really should be coming with two wins from his last three and he’s probably turned out quickly to take advantage of this better form, as since 2010 handicap chasers who won last time out within the previous 11 to 25 days after a string of 3 or more consecutive unplaced efforts, then went on to 76 of 340 follow up attempts in which they were sent off in the 7/4 to 10/1 odds range.

This 22.4% strike rate has so far generated 84.7pts profit at an ROI of 24.9%, from which we can add some parameters from the previous stat ie 8yr old males running in Class 4 contests off the back of a 2 to 10 length win are 7/22 (31.8% SR) for 16.5pts profit (+75% ROI).

Auldthunder is currently priced up at 4/1 BOG with at least 5 firms, I’ve chosen Boylesports, but you pick a different bookie when you

…click here for the latest betting on the 3.35 Hexham

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REMINDER: THERE IS NO STAT OF THE DAY ON SUNDAYS

Here is today’s racecard.