Rowleyfile Preview: Christmas Special

Like many racing fans, I suspect, I view Christmas with mixed feelings: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are now the only days in the calendar with no racing planned for Britain and Ireland; on the other hand, what follows is worth waiting a bit longer for than usual.

An excess of top-notch racing action from the likes of Kempton, Chepstow, Wetherby and Leopardstown – not to mention lower-level support from a multitude of lesser tracks – becomes a most welcome distraction from the more banal excesses that accompany the Festive period.

This year, the sport’s enthusiasts have a wonderful present under the Christmas tree marked “do not open until 3:15 pm on Boxing Day”. The 32Red-sponsored King George VI Chase features a for-the-ages showdown between last year’s winner and thoroughly proven top-notch chaser Cue Card and the brilliant hurdler and enormously promising chaser Thistlecrack.

The latter’s highest Timeform performance rating is 169, achieved in this year’s World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, but there is little doubt that he could scale even greater heights, and his three wins out of three over fences have suggested he is a natural for this discipline, also.

That said, Cue Card has run to higher than 169 on 11 separate occasions, starting with the Arkle Chase way back in early-2012, and his win in the Betfair Chase at Haydock last time was backed up by an excellent overall time and some very good sectionals. He is every bit as good as ever.

You should not feel obliged to take sides in an encounter of such epic magnitude – some things transcend betting – but if you do I suggest you be with Cue Card, who is usually as safe as houses and has nothing to prove.

Yanworth was originally a short-priced favourite for the 32Red Christmas Hurdle at Kempton on Boxing Day but is now being challenged for that position.

Quite what he has done to deserve even the latter is not clear to me. He looked short of pace when beating Lil Rockerfeller narrowly over nearly two and a half miles at Ascot on his only start this season, despite receiving weight from that rival, and Lil Rockerfeller would be very few people’s idea of Champion Hurdle material.

Both The New One and Vroum Vroum Mag (who gets a mares’ allowance) have run faster than Yanworth in recent starts, with the former properly impressive in going from the front at Cheltenham last time and the latter a shade unlucky not to beat Apple’s Jade in Ireland judged on sectionals.

A simple lay of Yanworth is tempting, but that means you also get some throwaway types on your side, so splitting stakes between Vroum Vroum Mag (Editor's Note: Vroum Vroum Mag withdrawn since publication) and The New One is probably a better way to go.

It is difficult to tell exactly what will run, and where, across 11 meetings in Britain and Ireland on Boxing Day, but followers of sectionals/time analysis should keep an eye out for the novice hurdler Elgin at Kempton and the useful Flat horse Examiner at Wolverhampton.  

The former may have to face the highly-touted Jenkins in the main meeting’s opener but achieved more on the clock in beating the smart bumper performer Dubai Angel at Newcastle than did Jenkins in winning his sole start over timber at Newbury, where his jumping was far from polished.

That Newbury race has worked out quite well, admittedly, but Elgin gets a 3 lb allowance and looks like representing value.

Several of those engaged in Wolverhampton’s £20,000 Betway Handicap contested a similar event on the course earlier this month, with Mythical Madness winning and Examiner in third. It was a messy affair, however, and sectional upgrading – available in Timeform’s unique Sectional Archive – suggests that Examiner, who finished best of all, is the one to be with this time.

The Coral Welsh Grand National at Chepstow on the day after Boxing Day is too big a race to get lost in the tidal wave of racing, but it is easy for it to creep up unexpectedly and leave little time for proper analysis.

It is a race for which “trends” tend to be useful, given its value and unique requirements, though those trends need to be handled with care in one important respect. Some Welsh Nationals have been postponed until after the turn of the year, which has skewed age-related stats along the way.

The following headline figures include an adjustment for that, and are, as usual, presented with measures including Impact Values (performance compared with chance, where 1 is par) and % of rivals beaten (with 50% being par).

Younger is better. Specifically, there is a divide between horses aged eight and younger and those aged nine and older. There have been considerably more of the former, but they have also provided nine of the 10 winners and 28 of the 40 first-four placings. The % of rivals beaten is above 50, though not hugely so.

It is probably best to be a bit sceptical about those weight-carried figures, as most effects could be expected to be gradual rather than up and down, though there is a distinctly poor return for horses carrying higher-than-average but not the highest weights.

A good chance on adjusted Timeform ratings is a distinct positive (phew!), as is at least one win in the season under review, especially if coming last-time out.

The declarations for Chepstow’s big race of the year will be made on Boxing Day, so some guesswork is involved at this stage. But readers may wish to include (in rough order of preference) the six-year-olds Arpege d’Alene and Native River and the eight-year-old’s Carole’s Destrier and Viva Steve on any shortlist if they make the final field.

I am glad to say that according to my figures, 2016 will end in profit for recommendations in these previews, with 117 pts staked and 161.39 pts returned to the time of writing for a +37.9% return on investment.

If the worst comes to the worst, the following Boxing Day advices will not drag those figures down too much. Thank you for reading, and here’s hoping for more of the same in 2017!

Recommendations:

1 pt win ELGIN (12:55 Kempton)

1 pt win VROUM VROUM MAG (not declared), 1 pt win THE NEW ONE (both 14:40 Kempton)

1 pt win EXAMINER (15:45 Wolverhampton)

2 pts win CUE CARD (15:15 Kempton)