10th May
3:50 Ffos Las - Win bet on Twojayslad @ 8/1
It’s a risky one because of the age as my selection is 12yo. Despite the age, he has not had a lot of racing as he missed out whole of 2019 and most of last year. Since his return he has picked up two wins this season, first of those in a veterans chase at Doncaster then at Ludlow in January.
Last two races have been a bit disappointing and have seen him beaten 25+ lengths in both of them, but there are possible excuses. Distance was probably on short side for first of those, his record over less than 3 miles is 1 win and 0 places from 10 starts. Other 3 wins (from 8 runs) have all come over today’s trip of 3 miles, and he has placed over further. Last run was in class 2 (even if it was a veterans race) where he went off at 25/1 so nothing was expected.
His career strike rate is quite good for this level, with 4 wins from 22 races. Trainer doesn’t send many horses to Ffos Las but has a good record from limited number of runners here, 4 from 22 (+4.88 LSP) over NH course. Charlie Todd is good value for his 3 lbs claim, and he has been on board for horse’s last two wins, so his return looks a positive.
Age is the main problem, and I spent a lot of time thinking about this as not many of them win at this age. But there are no 5 and 6 yo’s in this race, and I wanted to see how old horses have done in this situation, and results are surprisingly good for 12yo’s in class 5 races that contained only horses aged between 7 & 12 (veterans races not included) as shown below. A word of warning about this stat though, sample size is quite small and most of the wins came before 2014, for whatever reason it hasn’t done so well since 2014.
There are plenty of dangers, Hang Tough is still unexposed but price looks quite short for him. Robin Of Sherwood has a good record here and is turned out quickly after pulling up last week, and perhaps most interesting is Kapsize, although still a maiden, he wears cheekpieces for first time on only 2nd start since joining Peter Bowen and seems to have attracted a bit of support.