Rowleyfile Preview: Royal Hunt Cup

Having spent, or possibly misspent, over 30 years analysing horseracing professionally, I am confident that the draw is the most difficult and fiddly part of the day-to-day puzzle.

Not only do you have to recode it in Britain for races prior to 2011 (though only if they took place on courses categorised as right-handed) and for non-runners, which usually but not always cause stall numbers to shuffle across, the draw can have a different apparent effect on different types of going.  

Then there is the positioning of the stalls themselves. Stall one may be on a completely different part of a course on one day than on another.

That last problem is negligible where the Royal Hunt Cup on Wednesday is concerned, as a maximum, or near-maximum, field ensures that stalls cover the whole width of the track, but the other problems still obtain, and more besides.

What I ended up doing to ascertain the apparent effect of the draw for this race was to combine the figures for it and for the highly similar Britannia Handicap over the last decade, while also looking at how they played out on the three occasions on which the ground was softer than good.

It is not clear at this stage just how soft the ground will be come 5 o’clock on Wednesday, but some forecasts have a deluge arriving earlier in the day.

The effect of the draw was measured by % of rivals beaten for the stall in question and the stall on either side for “all going” and for the two stalls on either side with “soft going” (where the smaller sample size requires a measure less subject to variance).

I have also excluded the stalls occupied by reserves (10, 20 and 30) in anticipation of their non-participation, which would lead to the shuffling across exercise mentioned above.

In summary, a small advantage to horses drawn in the middle and against horses drawn low and fairly high becomes a larger one in favour of those drawn in the middle and against those drawn low when the ground is softer than good.

It can also be seen that “the pace” – as defined by those horses with consolidated Timeform Early Position Figures of 2.2 or less – is exclusively middle to high, starting in stall 14 (stall 13 in the presumed absence of Exec Chief in 10).

Overall, there is rather less apparent pace in this year’s Royal Hunt Cup than in other races of this type.

We can also look at so-called Ten-Year Trends for the race, with % of rivals beaten again the best measure of those shown. These are some of the more useful ones.

Four-year-olds have won seven of the last 10 Royal Hunt Cups (plus the two immediately prior to 2009), but that has been from a large representation. The main take home is that veterans have not performed well in the race in recent years.

There is little in it in terms of position on most recent start, which is a story in itself as you would expect a prominent one to outperform an out-the-back one much more than has been the case.

There is also little in it when runners are separated into “favourites”, “outsiders” and “in-betweeners” on Betfair SP, with stakes varied in line with the horses’ odds.

Horses with good chances on Timeform weight-adjusted ratings have fared well, as have those in the narrow 9 st 1 lb to 9 st 3 lb weight band.

What can we conclude?

Well, I would not be chuffed with the draw in stall 1 for the short-priced favourite New Graduate if I were on him already (I am not). I might not be especially pleased by stall 3 or stall 7 for the well-fancied pair Kynren and Settle For Bay, either, and it remains to be seen whether Raising Sand’s berth in stall 32 (29 in reality) is all that good.

In the end, I came round to thinking it may be worth taking a chance on Afaak, who is in the sweet spot in terms of weight carried and is very near it in terms of the draw if the ground eases.

The Charles Hills-trained gelding was second to Settle For Bay in this 12 months ago and runs off the same mark here, whereas that rival has gone up 6 lb. Afaak failed to win thereafter but ran creditably other than in a visor on his final start.

Afaak also won at Doncaster and was second in the Silver Cambridgeshire on good to soft going back in 2017, so conditions should be okay. His 263-day absence might be a concern, though horses with such profiles have performed well enough over the years. The fact that Afaak tends to race prominently without leading may be considered a plus.

Ultimately, though, what matters is that Afaak is a big enough price to justify the risk. Mathematically, this is a better race to tackle each way than win only, if not to a large degree.

There is no getting away from the fact that the Royal Hunt Cup is both ultra-competitive and difficult to crack, so stakes should be kept small.

Recommendation:

0.5 pt e/w AFAAK at 25/1 (1/5 the odds first five places)