Rowleyfile Preview: Lincoln Handicap

It is good to have the Flat “proper” back after a winter that seemed interminable at times, but turf racing on the level comes with its own problems for the analyst. For instance, nothing over jumps quite compares with the complexity involved in unravelling the effect of the draw.

British stalls numbering was altered in 2011, meaning that what preceded that has to be recoded on right-handed courses but not on left-handed courses, horses usually (but not always) get shuffled across when there are non-runners, the draw may have a different effect in different field sizes and on different goings, and more besides.

Then, of course, the draw needs to be viewed in conjunction with pace: if all the early pace is on one side of the course it could overturn a more usual bias in the draw.

That should be borne in mind when considering how this factor may affect the season’s first big handicap, the 32Red-sponsored Lincoln at Doncaster on Saturday.

We do, however, at least have the option of increasing the sample size by considering races similar to the Lincoln (handicaps over Doncaster’s Straight Mile with more than 16 runners) and not just the Lincoln itself. These are the findings.

A small bias in favour of higher numbers (16 to 22 in Saturday’s field) becomes a much bigger one when the ground is softer than good, and the ground will surely be quite a bit softer than good for the Lincoln. Being drawn in the middle (8 to 15) has not been the place to be.

As against that, three of the six horses with Timeform Early Position Figures of 2.2 or less (indicating a pace-forcing style) are drawn low, and only one (Big Country, 2.1 EPF, stall 16) is drawn high.

We can also look at some more conventional “trends”, concentrating on the last 10 runnings of the Lincoln itself. A “profit/loss” figure based on level staking has been introduced on the tenth anniversary of the birth of Betfair SP, though such a measure is subject to a good deal of variance.

Four-year-olds have been clearly best in the last decade, winning just over twice as often as might be expected by chance and beating a fairly sizeable proportion of their rivals.

Those weight-carried figures are rendered less useful than they might be as no horse will carry less than 8st 12lb on Saturday.

It is reassuring to see that horses with good chances on Timeform weight-adjusted ratings have fared well, while horses returning from long lay-offs have performed fractionally better than par.

I also looked at the % of rivals beaten of trainers in handicaps since the turn of the year, though sample sizes are too small in some instances to matter. Nonetheless, James Tate (69%), Michael Bell (65%), Henry Spiller (63%) and Charlie Fellowes (62%) can be considered to be “in form” by that measure.

Michael Bell trains Fire Brigade, and it is easy to see why the four-year-old has been popular, especially with Ryan Moore having been booked, if less easy to see why he is as short as 5/1. Of those near the front of the market, I prefer Addeybb, though there is not a lot of juice in his price (around 13/2), either.

I must admit to having had an ante-post bet on something at a bigger price already, and the horse in question still looks very backable to my eye.

Leader Writer is no longer at 25/1, but he is still bigger than the 9/1 at which I would price him. He has a high stall – 21 of 22 – plenty of pace to aim at given his hold-up style, a trainer in form (Henry Spiller), and a promising recent effort to his name.

That effort was a two-length fourth to Chevallier in a useful handicap at Lingfield last month in which TPD sectionals show the pace was steady but Leader Writer was fastest of all in 22.1s for the final quarter of a mile having got a bit lost on the home bend.

That is fair shifting – only two horses out of 2184 managed quicker than that at course and distance in the whole of the three-year period covered by TurfTrax – but Leader Writer had just too much to do.

He had proved his worth at a straight mile on soft going when winning readily at Ascot last September on just his third start since coming from France and gets to go off only 5lb higher than that on Saturday. I can’t help but think Leader Writer would be shorter with a more fashionable outfit, but Henry Spiller – with six winners to his name already this season – looks to know his stuff.

The Lincoln is also a good race for an each-way bet, all other things being equal. The best-price win book is 116% at the time of asking (you would have to stake £116 in proportion to the horses’ odds to guarantee a return of £100 whatever the result) but the place book is 95%, assuming a quarter of those win odds for the first four places.

The Lincoln is going to take plenty of winning, no doubt, but in Leader Writer we have a horse with strong credentials, even if he does not tick all of the usual trends’ boxes.

Recommendation: 1 pt each way LEADER WRITER at 16/1, ¼ the odds 1, 2, 3, 4