Great St Wilfrid Trends Preview

Thought I would take a look at a few of the trends ahead of this weekend’s Great St Wilfrid Handicap at Ripon this Saturday. I have no idea what my ratings will have as top but I can’t imagine that Markab will be too far away while Tamagin and Judge ‘N Jury are also likely to be up there on the ratings.

However, this is about trends not ratings but before I get to the most relevant trends I will have a look at the draw over Ripon 6f of 10+ runners since 2003. Loads of stats/trends analysis I have read have said high draws are the ones to concentrate on but I’m not convinced. Overall in races over 6f since 2003, apart from stall 15, the high draw is not such an advantage as it appears to be. In fact stalls 3-12 look to have very good win strike-rates and stall 1 and 2 have good s/r’s for placed runners so it could be argued that low to middle is best. The winners % are in green with the placed % in purple.

Also, if you look at the St Wilfrid renewals that contained 20 runners or less you will see the following –:

2004 – 11-5-12-20 (19 runners)
2006 – 12-7-8-6 (19 runners)
2008 – 11-16-9-12 (20 runners)

So basically 10 of the 12 places in recent years where there were 19 or 20 runners were filled by horses drawn between stalls 5 and 12. High draws only dominated in fields with 22 runners or more and even then not to the extent that some experts would have you believe.

So with that in mind here is my stats rundown…

So with favourites having such a poor record the recommendation at this stage would be to go with JUDGE ‘N JURY at best price odds of 20/1 which looks a massive price. It seems at first glance that the Pivotal gelding is better over 5 but he was staying on well when winning two outings ago and possibly hit the front too soon before staying on well last time in the sprint at the Shergar Cup. He races prominently and if held together for a bit longer should be able to pounce as he is certainly in good hear. I will wait until my ratings before looking at the other runners. Markab is sure to run a big race but looks underpriced. Of the others Valery Borzov, Tamagin, Jimmy Styles and Striking Spirit would be of major interest if in the top-4 of my ratings.

Discuss in the forum.