Hi all,
Inside today’s main piece I’m looking ahead to the weekend’s big race action.
It’s the Dubai Future Champions Festival at Newmarket this Friday and Saturday.
The Group 1 bet365 Fillies' Mile (4.10) is the highlight of a high quality Friday’s card. The supporting races include one Group 2 and two Group 3 contests and the normally competitive Old Rowley Cup (Handicap).
ITV Racing are covering five races from Newmarket, two from York and for jump fans two from Persian War Day at Chepstow. It’s a bumper Friday afternoon of action on ITV4 more akin to a Saturday than a Friday.
The Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes (2.00) is the highlight of the second day of action at Newmarket’s Future Champions Festival. The supporting card includes three Group 3 races and weekend’s big betting race the marathon Cesarewitch Handicap (2:40).
ITV are covering five races from Newmarket and four more from York on a nine race programme. It's’ the final day’s racing on the Knavesmire of the season. It doesn’t seem that long that I was looking forward to the Dante Meeting.
Cesarewitch Handicap (Heritage Handicap)
The Cesarewitch makes for an especially thrilling event, because it usually sports a huge field of runners. The maximum number of starters allowed on the track is an impressive 34, making the Cesarewitch one of the highlights during the Newmarket Future Champions Festival.
The Cesarewitch was first run in 1839. It is named after Tsesarevich Alexander, who later became Tsar Alexander II of Russia.
Combined with the Cambridgeshire Handicap, which was also first run in 1839, the Cesarewitch forms what was known as the Autumn Double.
A marathon contest for stayers run over two miles and two furlongs starts in one county Cambridgeshire and finishing in another Suffolk.
Ten year trends
All the last ten winners of the Cesarewitch shared the following traits:
Stall: 1 to 25
Stalls 25 & higher are 0 winners from 94 runners, 7 placed.
Wins on the going: 1+
Runners who had never won on the prevailing going are 0 winners from 128 runners. 13 placed.
Last race distance: Not 1m 5 ½ f to 2m
Horses who had run in races between 1m 5 ½ f & 2m on their last start are 0 winners from 152 runners, 17 placed.
Wins at the track: 0
Horses with 1+ course win are 0 winners from 28 runners, 3 placed.
Ignoring the course winners trend due to the small sample. That’s 100% of the winners from just 24% of the total runners. I think it’s a strong trends race, but the usual caveat applies when it comes to trends. “Past performance is no guarantee of future results”.
Trends Verdict: Given the race is 2m 2f its rather surprising to see a draw bias in action but there is due to the size of the field. You must go back to 2011 when Frankie Dettori gave Never Can Tell a peach of ride to defy stall 36. So, yes you can defy a stall higher than 25 but its hard.
Contenders:
Forty horses were left in the race at Monday’s final confirmation stage and it looks like the full field of 34 will be filled.
The Gordon Elliott trained Pied Piper had been the gamble of the race even before the booking of Ryan Moore. The 5-year-old is now general 9/2 for the race and looking at his hurdles mark he looks well handicapped off a mark of 96.
Given we don’t know his draw I wouldn’t want to be getting involved at his present price and if he’s get drawn out wide, I would be happy to take him on.
I have a dozen on my initial shortlist. Wordsworth, Tritonic, Jesse Evans, The Shunter, Vino Victrix, Temporize, Golden Shot, Bashful Boy, Geremia, Sheishybrid, Lady Percival & Grand Providence. The latter is in, even though she’s a previous course winner having won the Cesarewitch Trial over C&D last month. I don’t have the time to go through all 12 now so I will wait until final declarations. However, my final three selections are unlikely to come from outside that group.
In tomorrow’s column I’m going to show you how I approach a big handicap like the Cesarewitch.
Wednesday Preview
I mentioned in yesterday’s column about the start of the ‘real’ jumps season at Chepstow on Friday. Well, there’s an early treat for Irish jumps fans today. At Punchestown the Grade 3 Irish Daily Star – Best For Racing Coverage Chase (4:10) see’s the seasonal returns of Minella Indo, Conflated, Delta WorkandPanda Boy
Conflated & Delta Work are trained by Gordon Elliott who’s saddled the last three winners of the race and 6 of the last 10.
Conflated third in last year’s Gold Cup is top of the six runners on Official Ratings (OR’s) but doesn’t have the best of records on seasonal return. Dual Cheltenham Cross County Chase winner Delta Work has won first time up in the past but has 12lb to find with his stablemate on OR’s with Conflated.
Minella Indo the 2021 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner and runner-up in 2022 is having his first start since a dreadful performance in last year’s Gold Cup. However, the 10-year-old did win on seasonal reappearance in January.
Panda Boy brings solid handicap form to the race. The 7-year-old was a ¾ length 3rd of 28 in the Paddy Power Handicap Chase at Leopardstown last Christmas and was 5th of 27 in the Irish Grand National. He’s got plenty to find on OR’s with the other three mentioned and this may be used as a prep for a valuable staying handicap chase in the coming weeks. One to note for the future.
Fighter Allen has even more to find on ratings, but he does have race fitness on his side and gets the addition of the first time cheekpieces. This is much tougher than when winning at Sligo two weeks ago.
Wednesday Selection:
I’m not going to Punchestown for today’s selection. Instead there a couple of interest at Kempton this evening.
Kempton
Mount Olympus (7:30) and Treacherous (8:00). The former might be a 5-year-old, but he’s been an improver since joining Alan King winning three of his four starts including the last two. He’s 4lb but looks set for another big run. His biggest rival looks to be Barrier who returns from a 4 month absence and has just had the four starts.
Top-weight Treacherous is a seven time course winner including five over today’s distance. He didn’t run well at Newcastle last time but hasn’t been running to badly this season and is just 1lb above this last winning mark. Hopefully can bounce back to form at a venue that suits from a handy draw in stall 1.
7:30 – Mount Olympus – 4/1.
Good luck with your Wednesday bets.
John