Rowleyfile Preview: Golden Mile

Some races offer little when analysed using “trends” – which may be a useful finding in itself – while others offer plenty. The Unibet-sponsored Golden Mile Handicap at Goodwood on Friday comes into the latter category and is the subject of this preview.

Several factors look meaningful, some of which are shown below, but it is worth reiterating up front that the way in which trends information is evaluated is important and is often flawed elsewhere.

If you look at winners, and winners alone, you may well imagine effects are there which simply do not exist. Winners should be viewed in conjunction with opportunity, and doing the same with placed horses, resulting in a place impact value (factor by which a horse placed compared to chance), is better still.

Better than both, however, is the % of rivals beaten measure which uses a horse’s finishing position and the field size of the race in which it was running to give richer and more powerful data.

There is a world of difference between finishing second in a 25-runner contest and finishing last in an 8-runner one: a win-only approach treats them the same, if it acknowledges losers at all.

These are the findings for the Golden Mile, with 1.00 being par for impact values and 50% for rivals beaten, and higher figures being better.

Three-year-olds have had a small representation of 16 in the last decade but have won three races in that time, which is three and a half times what might be expected by chance. The figures for places are less impressive, but still positive, while 62.2% of rivals beaten is punchy, too.

Those draw figures are similarly strong and a bit more robust for good measure. There have been winners from stalls 9 and over, but only a couple of them, while stalls 1 to 4 and, especially, 5 to 8 (which may avoid some of the crowding up the inner) have fared notably well. The returns for horses drawn very high have been dismal of late.

A mid-range handicap mark, a good chance on Timeform weight-adjusted ratings, and a place (but not necessarily a win) on a horse’s most recent start can all be viewed positively.

That final category – Performance at Betfair SP – theoretically backs each horse to return 100 points in proportion to its odds and shows that horses under 11 (10/1 in old money) have delivered of late whereas those between 11 and 20 have not.

Other things to consider are that there is not a huge amount of pace for a race of this nature – only Vale of Kent and Zhui Feng have consolidated Timeform Early Position Figures of 2.2 or less, indicating front-runners/pressers – and the current form of the trainers with runners.

Roger Varian (66.0% rivals beaten), William Haggas (63.4%) and David O’Meara (61.7%) are best of those with a decent sample of handicap runners since the start of Royal Ascot.

As is nearly always the case with these things, no one horse ticks all the boxes, while the majority tick at least one.

I am particularly drawn to the two three-year-olds in the field – Beat Le Bon and Dark Vision – with the former drawn in stall 3 and the latter in stall 19 (18 in the presumed absence of the two reserves).

Beat Le Bon recorded a smart time – the joint-best in this field after adjustment for weight carried now – when coming late and hard to win at Haydock last time, for which he is one of five in this field set to carry a 3 lb penalty, and before that won impressively at this course.

Both those efforts were at 7f, on good going, but he shapes as if well worth another try at this longer trip. There is plenty there in his favour, and not much against. He could easily be quite a bit shorter in the betting than he is.

Dark Vision is returning to the scene of his most notable success, in the Vintage Stakes last year, though he was helped by coming from off an overly strong pace that day. His recent second at Newmarket shows him to be back in form, though that was at 10f and on firm ground.

It is worth including the four-year-old Game Player in calculations, also. He is drawn 1, which may come with a few problems, but looks over-priced given his good recent run of form.

A win at Lingfield has been followed by places here and at Ayr, with that Scottish foray (in which he possibly should have won) seeming to prove his stamina for this trip.

A 20-runner handicap is mathematically a good vehicle for an each-way bet, or each-way bets. The recommendation is to support Beat Le Bon and Game Player by those means.

Recommendation: 0.5 pt e/w Beat Le Bon at 14/1 and 0.5 pt e/w Game Player at 14/1, one-fifth the odds first five places