Rowleyfile Preview: Ladbrokes Trophy

Mill House, Arkle, Arkle, Bregawn, Burrough Hill Lad, One Man, Denman, Denman, Many Clouds, Native River. The names of the best winners of Newbury’s Ladbrokes Trophy – which you may well still refer to as the Hennessy Gold Cup (don’t let me stop you) – are like part of a roll-call of jump racing’s all-time greats.

There have been some less memorable ones over the years, but there is no such thing as a bad winner of the race. Every year, there is a feeling that one or two of the runners could catapult themselves to stardom. Even this year, when – to be honest – the race is weaker than usual. 

Fourteen declared runners have been reduced already to 13, which will be the smallest field for the race this century. Still, there is quality in there, and a winner also if only we can find it!

As usual with these pieces, I looked at the last 10 editions of the race from a “trends” point of view, weighing up the results, not just through winners, but through opportunities, places, impact values and % of rivals beaten also, the last-named a particularly valid measure.

The following were the most interesting findings.

Of those, that age-related effect is comfortably the most interesting. Horses under the age of seven (all but two of the 27 being six-year-olds) have won twice and placed eight times, which is around one and a third times as often as by chance. More impressive, however, is that they have beaten 58.9% of their rivals, where 50% is par.

Those are encouraging figures for anyone thinking of siding with one of the trio of remaining six-year-olds in Saturday’s race: namely, Elegant Escape, Dingo Dollar and Thomas Patrick (Kemboy will reportedly not travel), all of which are set to carry more than 11-00 to boot.

For good measure, all those four have a recent run to their names, whereas four of their remaining 10 rivals do not. There have been winners and places from horses coming to this race on the back of lay-offs, but not as many as could be expected by chance and that %RB figure is a bit below par also.

Another likely feature of the Ladbrokes/Hennessy is a strong pace. No less than 10 of the runners have Timeform Early Position Figures of 2.2 or under, indicating that they habitually race close up. Good judgement of pace in the saddle and the ability to see out the trip thoroughly are likely to be at a premium.

Dingo Dollar comes here after a respectable fourth over hurdles at this course in November: an effort which suggests he could get involved but not that he is suddenly about to take off on his return to bigger obstacles.

It is difficult to get away from the impression that the most valuable piece of form on show is the recent listed chase at Sandown in which Elegant Escape beat Thomas Patrick by half a length.

There were only four runners in that, but all of them were smart and the time was really good: Timeform has it by some way the best on show. Sectional analysis confirms that they went a strong gallop: indeed, the leader was a few lengths ahead of par mid-race, and that leader was Thomas Patrick.

The Tom Lacey-trained gelding looked all over the winner (traded at 1.11 in running) but flagged late on and was caught with 50 yards to go. It was, nonetheless, a fine performance from Thomas Patrick, and from Elegant Escape, too, though I would have fancied the runner-up to gain his revenge were they to meet again at the same weights.

As it is, Thomas Patrick is 5 lb better with Elegant Escape at Newbury on Saturday and has to be considered the best-handicapped horse in the race despite being several pounds higher than when winning well at Aintree in April.

Crucially, Thomas Patrick is a doughty stayer, for whom the recent rain has been a plus. He has jumped notably well in all his chase starts to date, never looking like falling. It is difficult to see him running anything other than well providing Richard Johnson does not get suckered into doing too much too soon on him.

There is little to be said for going each way, unless you can snag some of the non-standard terms out there, and in any case Thomas Patrick looks a good bet to win.

His price has contracted in the last few days, but he deserves to be clear favourite in my book, and the trends do nothing to discourage that view.

Recommendation: 1 pt win Thomas Patrick at 9/2