Stat of the Day, 11th July 2018

Tuesday’s Pick was…

5.00 Pontefract :Quoteline Direct @ 4/1 BOG WON at 11/4 (Held up behind, headway on inside over 3f out, went 2nd over 1f out, ridden to lead inside final furlong, kept on to win by four lengths)

Wednesday’s pick goes in the…

5.55 Kempton :

Before I post the daily selection, just a quick reminder of how I operate the service. Generally, I’ll identify and share the selection in the evening before the following day’s race and I then add a detailed write-up later on that night/next morning.

Those happy to take the early price on trust can do so, whilst some might prefer to wait for my reasoning. As I fit the early service in around my family life, I can’t give an exact timing on the posts, so I suggest you follow us on Twitter and/or Facebook for instant notifications of a published pick.

Who?

Divine Messenger @ 9/4 BOG

In a 14-runner, Class 5, A/W Handicap for 3yo+ over 1m on Polytrack worth £3105 to the winner…

Why?

This 4 yr old gelding is having just his third handicap run today, having made the frame in both previous efforts.

He was a runner-up on hcp debut in mid-April despite (a) being off track for 144 days and (b) being stepped up from 6f to 1m for the first time, yet was only beaten by 0.75 lengths with the horse in 3rd, 4th and 6th all having gone on to win since.

Then 42 days later (49 days ago), he broke his duck with a win here at Kempton in this grade over course and distance, comfortably steered home to a 4 lengths success by today’s jockey Adam Kirby who was riding him for the first time.

He is trained by Emma Owen, who might not be the most famous of trainers, nor does she have a huge string of horses to work with. She’s also not an obvious starting point for an SotD selection as since the start of 2016, her runners have only won 9 of 184 (4.9% SR) for a loss of 71.6% (-38.9% ROI), but as ever we’re not advocating blindly following a trainer, we’re looking for an angle that suggests a clear MO.

And closer inspection of Emma’s numbers highlights something to me, because of her 9/184 record, she’s 8/63 (12.7% SR) for 5.64pts (+8.95% ROI) here at Kempton and whilst those SR & ROI figures aren’t really up to SotD standard, they are certainly out of the norm for Emma’s overall profile and as such are worth examining.

From that 8/63 course stat, handicappers are 8/56 (14.3% SR) for 12.64pts (+22.6% ROI) and suddenly we have something interesting to work from. Further analysis of these 56 Kempton handicappers shows…

• 8 winners from 52 (15.4%) for 16.64pts (+32%) from male runners
• 8 winners from 50 (16%) for 18.64pts (+37.3%) competing for prizes less than £4k
• 8 winners from 44 (18.2%) for 24.64pts (+56%) over trips of 6f to 1m
• 7 winners from 37 (18.9%) for 26.28pts (+71%) at Classes 5 & 6
• 6 winners from 25 (24%) for 30.9pts (+123.6%) after a break of 16 to 60 days
• 5 winners from 19 (26.3%) for 35.5pts (+186.7%) off marks (OR) of 61 to 75
• 5 winners from 7 (71.4%) for 19.34pts (+276.3%) at odds shorter than 5/1
• 3 winners from 5 (60%) for 19.27pts (+385.4%) ridden by Adam Kirby
• and 2 winners from 5 (40%) for 14.6pts (+292%) who also won last time out

I accept/appreciate that the 56 runners aren’t the biggest sample size, but the numbers above do suggest that this is the kind of race Emma’s horses do best in and from the above…Class 5/6 males racing over 6f to 1m for less than £4k prize money off a break of 6 to 60 days are 7/23 (30.4% SR) for 40.3pts (+175.1% ROI) and these include…

• off marks of 61-75 : 5/14 (35.7%) for 40.48pts (+289.1%)
• sub 5/1 shots : 4/5 (80%) for 15.98pts (+319.6%)
• under Adam Kirby : 3/4 (75%) for 20.27pts (+506.8%)
• and LTO winners are 2/3 (66.6%) for 16.6pts (+553.3%)

And finally, as it looks like our pick will go off as favourite today and we know that backing favs can be a costly procedure, it’s worth knowing that since 2011 that Adam Kirby is 169/463 (36.5% SR) for 82.8pts (+17.9% ROI) on Class 6 favourites, winning 22 of 54 (40.7%) for 23.5pts (+43.5%) over a 1m trip!

…all of which points to…a 1pt win bet on Divine Messenger @ 9/4 BOG, which was widely (over a dozen firms) available at 1.20am on Tuesday morning. To see what your preferred bookie is offering, simply…

…click here for the betting on the 5.55 Kempton

Don’t forget, we offer a full interactive racecard service every day!

REMINDER: THERE IS NO STAT OF THE DAY ON SUNDAYS

Here is today’s racecard

P.S. all P/L returns quoted in the stats above are to Betfair SP, as I NEVER bet to ISP and neither should you. I always use BOG bookies for SotD, wherever possible, but I use BFSP for the stats as it is the nearest approximation I can give, so I actually expect to beat the returns I use to support my picks. If that’s unclear, please ask!