It’s the Great St Wifred today and it’s yet another of those imponderable 6f handicaps with a host of runners. So I thought we should look at previous winners and create the Great St Wilfred – A winner’s profile.
So what does a typical winner of the Great St. Wilfred look like?
Age wise the winner won’t be a 3yo or older than 7, so that’s a starting point.
Ratings wise, the last few years has seen a rise in the typical winner’s handicap rating. We now look for horses rated in the 90s with a ceiling of 100.
Good recent form appears in the figures of most of the previous winners with 8/10 having ran in the last 21 days, although Pepper Lane came here from Royal Ascot after finishing down the field in the Wokingham, when winning the race for a second time. And 7 of the last 10 had run 3 – 5 times that season so they were fresh but honed for the job.
The draw has changed significantly here over the last few years. When I started profiling, the winner used to be drawn close to either side and you wouldn’t want to be up the middle. But in recent years the winner has come from stalls 9 – 12 on 6 occasions with 3 winners being drawn 1 – 6. So you wouldn’t want a high draw here.
Running style has also been important as 9 out of the last 10 have either made all or been prominent before taking over 1f out.
Course form I think is also significant as 5 of the last 6 winners had previously won a race over this course and distance.
I am now happy that the winner will have a profile that fits in with these facts.
I think we should start with the draw and eliminate any horse drawn higher than 12. The remaining horses are: Shropshire, Captain Ramius, Clear Spring, Supplicant, Bondesire, Fast Shot, Barkston Ash, Majestic Moon, Out Do, Confessional, So Beloved and Tatislu.
We can delete Shropshire and Captain Ramius due to their rating being too high and Supplicant as he is only 3. Leaving us a list of 10. From here, we are going to eliminate anyone who hasn’t won over c+d. So goodbye to Majestic Moon, Out Do, Confessional, So Beloved and Tatislu.
We are down to our final 4 and there isn’t much separating these if I’m honest. But we’re confident that the by creating the Great St Wilfred – A winner’s profile, the winner will come from: Clear Spring, Bondesire, Fast Shot and Barkston Ash.
But as I often do, I am going to eliminate 2 of them and leave us with a couple to bet on.
I just feel that Bondesire is better over 5f and therefore he is given the chop and Barkston Ash has been on the go a long time and ran 9 times already.
Finally I would just like to point out that the bookie of the month for August here on Fortune Palace are Racebets. I strongly recommend that people head over to this Racing dedicated site and take advantage of their offers.
Great St. Wilfred Handicap – 3.30pm Ripon – Saturday 16th August 2014 – Best Bets
Fast Shot – @ 20/1 with Racebets
Clear Spring – @ 18/1 with Racebets
