Rowleyfile Preview: Betfair Exchange Trophy

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Santa hats can be seen on the High Street, teeth-grindingly jolly festive songs are playing on the radio, the nights are about to start getting shorter again (hurray!), and there is a rock-hard valuable two-mile handicap hurdle to crack at Ascot on the Saturday beforehand.

The last-named, variously known as the Ladbroke, the Racing Welfare and the Wessex Trust in recent years, is now the £150,000-added Betfair Exchange Trophy but resembles its predecessors in most important respects.

Unfortunately, however, a look at the last 10 editions of the race (which was cancelled due to snow in 2009 and 2010) does not reveal a great deal that will help in solving the puzzle. This is not a good race for a “trends-based” approach.

The following are some of the more usually helpful factors to consider, measured by opportunity, wins, places, win-and-place impact values and % of rivals beaten.

Age makes little difference on the face of it, and nor does absence, other than a lengthy one which counts against only Fiesole and Not Never of the 21 engaged on Saturday.

A lower handicap mark and at least one win in the current season can be seen as minor positives, but there are a dozen qualifiers in each category this year.

Still, the absence of meaningful trends is arguably meaningful in itself: a more form-based approach is justified without the fear of the dice being loaded against you.

I had a go at pricing up each of the runners – using Timeform’s commentaries, form and time ratings, EPFs, and more – and only two of the 21 were significantly over the odds at the end of the process.

They do not include the favourite Jolly’s Cracked It, the dead-heating winner of this race way back in 2015. He advertised his well-being with a win at course and distance recently, for which he has been raised 9 lb, but that was only his second run in three years and his current odds look pretty skimpy in the circumstances.

They also do not include the next two in the early betting: Fidux, whose form is solid but who has gone up a lot in the weights, or Fiesole, who may not be as effective on this softer going.

However, Western Ryder looks worth his fairly prominent position in the betting, and a bit more besides, the way I look at it. He could certainly have a few pounds more on his back judged on his sixth in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, his fifth in the Greatwood Hurdle on his reappearance (when possibly needing the race) or his rallying third to Brain Power in the International Hurdle a week ago, all at Cheltenham.

The first-named and last-named resulted in good timefigures, among the best on offer in this large field, and connections are understandably striking while the iron is hot with a gelding for whom a well-run race and soft going looks necessary at the minimum trip.

I had Western Ryder disputing favouritism on these terms but he is a double-figured price.

The other to consider is the lightly-weighted Court Royale, a most progressive novice who won in good style at Taunton last time, prompting a favourable write-up for this race from the Timeform reporter.

A doubt where Court Royale is concerned is how he will cope with the still-softer ground forecast at Ascot, but it was nearer “soft” than “good” that day at Taunton and Court Royale found plenty to come well clear with the runner-up.

This is a sizeable step up in class but Court Royale does not deserve to be almost the outsider of the lot.

A slightly easier problem to solve is how best to support your selection, whatever that selection might be. The fact is that this is mathematically a better race for an each-way bet than a win-only bet, and that is written even before considering any additional incentives bookmakers may make in this area.

The win book for the Betfair Exchange Handicap Hurdle is about 124% at best early prices, meaning that you would need to stake a total of £124 in proportion to each horse’s odds to guarantee a return of £100 regardless of the result, but the same figure for the place market derived directly from that win market is 103%/£103.

Neither represents positive expectation, but that place market is quite close to it, and so the recommendation is to back the two aforementioned horses each way.

Recommendations: 1 pt e/w WESTERN RYDER at 12/1, 0.5 pt e/w COURT ROYALE at 33/1, ¼ odds first 4 places