Rowleyfile Preview: 32Red Casino Handicap

The mile-and-three-quarter handicap for three-year-olds plus at Haydock on Saturday is not the race it used to be and is not quite the race it promised to be either.

The Old Borough Handicap, as it was known until becoming the 32Red Casino Handicap a year ago, nowadays faces competition from an even more valuable three-year-old-only event over the same distance on the same card.  

This year’s race looked like it might be a strong renewal at the five-day stage, but only 12 of the 26 have stood their ground, and – disappointingly if perhaps unsurprisingly – none of the dozen is a three-year-old.

That is a shame, for three-year-olds have an excellent record in the race in the past decade, from an admittedly small representation. In their absence, four-year-olds are a better proposition than older horses, if to a lesser degree.

The following are those age trends, plus some others, over the last 10 years.

In addition to “younger is better”, horses running off higher marks – but not very high marks – have over-performed as measured by those all-important place impact values (factor by which horses have placed compared to chance) and % of rivals beaten.

A last-time place, and certainly a last-time win, should be viewed as a positive, and a shorter turn-around has been better than a longer one, if not by much.

Moving onto more specific analytics, the pace profile of Saturday’s race makes for interesting reading. Three of those declared are confirmed front-runners (as judged by Timeform’s Early Position Figures) and a couple of others tend to race close up.

The upshot is that Saturday’s race, which will probably take place on good to soft going or softer, promises to be a thorough stamina test in which a prominent racer may get forced into doing too much too soon.

One angle that does not look likely to be especially productive in this instance is that of “trainer form”, as measured by %RB in handicaps in recent weeks. There is little between the best (Iain Jardine, 59.4%) and the worst (Jim Goldie, 44.3%) of those with runners and a qualifying sample size.

Ultimately, the true test is whether or not a horse is available at odds bigger than those at which you think they should be trading. I make this quite an open race despite the small field size, with little value among those among the favourites on the sponsor’s opening show. But one at bigger odds makes some appeal.

That one is the Mark Johnston-trained Jaameh, one of five four-year-olds in the field, and one whose mid-division racing style could prove well suited to how things pan out. He has been in creditable form for pretty much the whole season and arguably ran better than generally appreciated when third to his highly progressive stable-companion Hochfeld at Newmarket last time.

That race was run in a good time, making Jaameh the pick on last-time Timeform timefigures, and the gelding was going on at the end having still been only sixth in the penultimate furlong. Softer ground here should be no inconvenience: indeed, he won in the mud at this course last year.

Jaameh is much the same horse as My Reward from Goodwood a couple of starts back but gets a few pounds off that rival (who has won since) here and is more than three times that one’s early price.

He looked to be a potential pattern performer when winning at Chester and Newmarket earlier this season and gets to go off 96 here, marginally his lowest mark since.

That is not to say that Jaameh has a favourite’s chance. But, all told, I thought he should be around 9/1 and fifth in. He can be backed at bigger than that, and competition nearer the event may improve matters further.  

The indications are that the 32Red Casino Handicap will not be an especially propitious race for each-way betting: place-odd %s are much the same as win-odd %s judged on the early prices, and any non-runners could affect place terms adversely.

So, the recommendation is to back Jaameh win only. He needs to up his game, but not by much at all in my book in the absence of the promising types this race usually attracts.  

Recommendation: 1 pt win JAAMEH at 14/1