Rowleyfile Preview: Chester Cup

It is not often that you start a preview of a race run at more than two miles with a consideration of the effect of the draw, but the Chester Cup – sponsored this year by 188bet – is not like most races.

Taking place on a left-handed track of just over a mile in length, the historic race takes in more than two laps, of which the majority is on the turn. A maximum field of 17 runners means that there can easily be plenty of hard-luck stories, as a result of being forced wide, or having little room up the inner, or for other reasons.

One of the more sophisticated ways to consider whether or not the draw has had an effect is to consider the last 10 renewals (then discarding 2012, when there were no stalls) and to measure the % of rivals beaten for the stall in question and the stalls on either side. This is the result.

A higher % is better, and 50% is par. Fairly typically for scenarios similar to this, being drawn right on the inner is not the best, but being drawn just off it is. Being drawn wide is a disadvantage, but not an insuperable one. There are, after all, over two and a quarter miles in which first to get a good position and then to work your way into the race.

It should be remembered that non-runners usually mean that the remaining candidates shuffle across (allowed for in the data above), and that there are two reserves – drawn in stalls 5 and 4 – for Wednesday’s race.

The draw is but one element in the puzzle of the Chester Cup, but a reasonably important one. How the draw has panned out in terms of wins, places and impact values (wins and places compared to chance) can be seen in the following table, along with the same measures applied to other aspects.

Some of those win-only figures are quite eye-opening – such as that 5 of 9 winners have come from stalls 1 to 4, that none of 10 winners have come from either low or high handicap marks, and that 5 of 10 winners have come from horses who had been down the back last time – but they do underline how much variance is involved in small samples when the only option is a binary one.

Better measures are the place impact values and % of rivals beaten. By these, the over-performance of four-year-olds, of horses running off mid-range handicap marks, of those with good chances on adjusted Timeform ratings, and of last-time winners are both clear and robust. Interestingly, though, the next-best option for last-time performance after a win is to have run poorly.

What does it all mean where this year’s Chester Cup is concerned, then?

Well, we have one very good candidate on “trends”: Blakeney Point is the only four-year-old guaranteed a run, is one of only two last-time winners on the Flat and is drawn on the inside. And, if that is not enough, there are other reasons to like the chance of the gelded son of Sir Percy.

Blakeney Point tends to race prominently, and there are relatively few in the Chester Cup field of which that is true. He also comes from a stable – that of Roger Charlton – which has the second-best % of rivals beaten in handicaps since the start of the turf season of those with runners in the race on 61.1% (Sir Mark Prescott leads the way on 63.0%, while Hughie Morrison and Ian Williams are down in the 30s).

Will Blakeney Point handle the track? Well, he has won at Chester already, admittedly in a small field. The same can be said of only three of his rivals: Suegioo (drawn 16), Sea of Heaven (drawn 14) and Who Dares Wins (drawn 7).

If there is a concern it is that Blakeney Point’s good run of form has meant that he has been creeping up the handicap. He gets to run off 95 on Wednesday, which is 6 higher than for that latest win, which came in a tactical race at Kempton in which good-value claimer Kieran Shoemark showed enterprise. Shoemark has the ride again.

There is not much use in writing a series of articles which look at “trends” and then ignoring those trends when they point towards one contender above all others. There is plenty else to like about the horse in any case.

The Chester Cup will be a good each-way race if the field is 16 or more and four or more places are paid. The recommendation is to back Blakeney Point each way but also to win, with the place element guaranteeing a neutral result if the horse does indeed make the frame.

Recommendation: 1 pt each way, plus 1 pt win (3 pts in total) BLAKENEY POINT at 8/1, ¼ odds first four places