Hi
nagwa
I had a look at the race (7.00 Epsom) as there is not a single suitable sprint today (and too many tomorrow!).
I wasn't happy to see three 3yos in the field of eight, but at least two of them have winning ratings of sorts, so I could assess seven, leaving Cobalt Blue, who hasn't shown much promise but is with a good trainer, the possible wildcard.
All seven of the assessables ticked the Ability column (either had proved they had it or had run well enough for me to assume they may have progressed sufficiently, given their ages).
Three ticked the obvious Form column, Alazwar, Metahorse and Secret Strength, because of winning or finishing close enough, form lto.
When I activated the macro which highlights possible horses with hidden form, another three popped up. Gdaay, Little Boy Blue and Seductive Power. Having looked at them individually, the first two are what I regard as false positives - they have an initial feature which makes it worth checking for less obvious form but the checks soon suggest not. Seductive Power is more interesting. A decent performance on 05/04/23 over today's trip (though only four runners) then three runs over a mile, without doing anything exciting. Dropped slightly in class today in terms of field (on average ORs) maybe will do better but doesn't fit my current profiles for less obvious form so of no further interest.
That leaves the three okay on Ability and with obvious Form.
Alazwar has done nothing of note since winning on 03/09/22, until flagging himself as having obvious form lto when a close 4th. But that was in a very much weaker field than his win, off 8lb less in the ORs, and he was 6th in the betting ranking in a field of 11. The key horse (the winner of that race, Archduke Ferdinand), was the complete outsider at 33/1 and in his previous race had been 7th at 80/1. The form looks dire to me, especially as Alazwar is going way back up in class today.
Metahorse won a nursery last summer but only three runners so of very questionable worth. Since that win, like Alazwar, nothing until lto when 3rd of ten in a 3yo only, which always raise question marks for me. In that race he was 2nd favourite, which is something, but the key horse, Pearly Star, was 7th in the betting and 3rd the time before that when 5th in the betting. (Has been out since but only 6th of eleven). Form maybe a touch less dire than Alazwar. Like Alazwar, up in class today.
Secret Strength. At least won lto but was sixth of eleven in the betting and the key horse, Night Arc, was even more of an outsider, being 9th in the betting. In his previous race Night Arc had been 6th at 28/1. NA has been out since and came 2nd, but at 10/1. About as dire as Metahorse's form and like Alazwar and Metahorse, going up in class today.
Something will have to win, but none of the eight comes within a mile of my understanding of VDW's idea of "a winner in [rather than of] the race" and nothing I've seen from a brief look makes me think it would be worth putting in serious time on any of them.
So, honestly I haven't a clue which of this very poor bunch is less likely than the others to lose. I suppose the two who might conceivable surprise are Seductive Power (because of the drop in trip) and Cobalt Blue (because Varian doesn't usually train complete lemons).