Wednesday, October 29, 2008

November Handicap, Leopardstown November 2nd - The Key Trends*

- 8 of the last 10 winners carried 9-0 or less before jockeys’ claims were taken into account.
- Age seems irrelevant here as horses aged between 3 and 11 have won since 1998.
- Highly-rated 3yos do win this – Lounaos won off 98 in 2006 while Enzeli defied a mark of 102 in 1998 – but none of 8 older horses to win in past decade was rated higher than 89.
- Scottish Memories hadn’t run since the Champion Hurdle in March when landing this race in 2003 but preference should be given to race-fit runners; 9 of the last 10 winners had an outing in the previous 7 weeks.
- Respect in-form horses. Of the 9 winners to have had a recent outing, only 1 finished out of the first six. 4 were last time out winners, including 3 of the last 4 victors.
- Predominantly National Hunt trainers have dominated affairs lately - only John Oxx and Mick Halford (whose winner was the hurdler Golden Cross) have struck for the flat brigade since 1998.
- Athlumney Lad was a total trends-buster when winning this race last year having had 34 previous handicap starts – none of the other 9 winners in the period covered had run more than 7 times in handicap company.
- 7 of the last 9 winners had already won a handicap in the season of their victory.
- Look out for classy jumps performers. Of the last 7 winners, 5 had a published hurdles mark of 117 or more while Dorans Pride was a 157-rated chaser at the time of his win.
- Proven stamina is a massive plus – 7 of the last 10 winners had won over at least 14f on the level. Of the exceptions, Scottish Memories was a multiple graded winner over hurdles while Calladine had won a 3-mile handicap hurdle.
*Bubble N Squeak was first past the post in the 2002 renewal but was later disqualified when a banned substance was found in her sample– for the purpose of this analysis she has been considered the winner.

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