In brief
- Battle Fever is 2.10 favourite, a 41.2% implied chance once the bookmakers' margin is removed, but he races off an official rating (OR) of 88 having never previously run off higher than 81.
- Nothing in this eight-runner field has a single recorded run in today's going group, and the course profile favours low draws, which have won 16.5% of 635 runs at 6f 6y against 9.1% of 606 from high.
- The RaceMetrics Model Price (RMP) rates Harley the shortest in the race at 2.23 against a market price of 3.50 — he won over this course and distance three weeks ago and is the selection.
One 80/1 run at York has made Battle Fever favourite. It has also cost him 7lb
This is a moderately concentrated market rather than a one-horse one: Battle Fever at 2.10 and Harley at 3.50 account for most of it, with Sea Mirage and Onslaught the only others inside 13.0. The interesting part is that the RaceMetrics Model Price (RMP), the fair price struck this morning, has the two market leaders the other way round.
RMP makes Harley its 2.23 favourite, a 44.8% chance, against a market implied chance of 24.7% — a gap of 20.1 points in his favour. Battle Fever it prices at 4.34, or 23.1%, some 18.1 points below what the market is asking you to pay. That is an opinion to test rather than a verdict, so let us test it.
The case for the favourite, and the bill attached
Battle Fever's York run was genuinely good. Second of 20 in a Class 2 at 80/1, beaten six lengths, beating 95 per cent of his rivals that day, and the in-running note has him pressing the leader over two out and leading over one out before the winner went by. The speed figure of 70 is the only figure in this race at or above the class par of 66, the figure a typical winner at this level runs to. His Future Form score of 70.1 — a measure of how the horses he has met have since run, where 50 is par — is the highest in the field. He is drawn one, prominent by style, and sits in the draw-and-pace combination that has done best here.
The bill: the handicapper has him on 88, and his previous highest mark at this code was 81. He carries 9-9 in a race where the median OR is 73. RMP's own note before York read "Won Class 4 latest, but yard out of sorts and stiff rise", and he ran anyway — but that was 81, not 88. Kevin Stott's fortnight registers as warm on Form Temperature, which compares a rider's last fortnight against his own five-year strike rate; four wins from 21 rides, a spell that comes up about one time in three.
Why Harley makes more sense at the weights
Harley made all over this course and distance on 11 August, unchallenged and comfortably, off a mark of 75. That produced his best speed figure of the last 90 days (62) and it came from a win. He is up 3lb to 78 for it, which is a good deal cheaper than 7lb. His form line reads 52321 — placed or better in all five starts, with a distance-band record of 1 win from 4 runs and 73 per cent of rivals beaten in that band.
Collateral form, which compares horses through rivals they have both met, has him 4.93 lengths the better of Sea Mirage and 7.12 better than Boutblummintime, both at high confidence. Ed Bethell's yard has 12 winners from 49 runners in 28 days with actual against expected wins of 1.27 (above 1.0 means more winners than the market expected), and Daniel Tudhope rides.
The pace shape is the other thread. Eight prominent racers, no confirmed front-runner, moderate pace expected — and the course profile at this trip rewards low draws and horses that lead, at an impact value of 1.78 (1.0 is average). Harley has the joint-highest pre-race pace rating in the field (8) and made every yard last time. Somebody has to go on.
The honest objection
He is drawn seven. High draws have won 9.1% of 606 runs at 6f 6y here; low draws 16.5% of 635. That is a real negative and the market drift from 3.00 to 3.50 may be reading it the same way. His best figure of 62 is also short of the 66 par, and his average of recent in-frame figures sits 8.3 below par — weak on that measure, as every runner here is. And on soft ground he is unproven, as is everything else: not one runner in this field has a resulted run in today's going group. Sire evidence is all there is, and it is unremarkable — Soldier's Call 19 winners from 212 in this going group at an actual/expected of 1.02, Sands Of Mali 14 from 87 at 1.49.
Of the rest, Sea Mirage is the one who could make it awkward: he was 3.25 lengths behind Harley at Hamilton in August off 74 to Harley's 75, and today he meets him 6lb better on official ratings with a 5lb claimer up. RMP prices him at 11.83 against 11 in the market — no argument there. Onslaught's yard has 13 winners from 83 in 28 days at an actual/expected of 1.56 and he is on the bottom mark, but stall eight carries a draw impact value of 0.2. Wild Terrain gets first-time blinkers and a tongue tie six days after finishing last of seven.
Verdict: Harley to make his C&D win count, with Battle Fever the obvious danger on figures and draw, and Sea Mirage the weights-adjusted one.
