General / Simon Rowlands / 26 August 2009 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet View Market

Youth and experience have the edge respectively in the Cambridgeshire and the Cesarewitch Handicaps

The entries for the handicaps that constitute the autumn double - the Cambridgeshire on October 3 and the Cesarewitch on October 17, both at Newmarket - were released last week, with weights to follow shortly. While details of the ground, draw and more recent form of some of the contenders will become apparent only near the time, there is still plenty to go on, and ante-post markets have formed on Betfair. Big prices are on offer for those who can get ahead of the game.

I dealt with some of the "trends" surrounding the Cambridgeshire last year and took another look recently at the performances by various categories in the nine years since the race switched as a one-off to the July course in 1999.

Three-year-olds have indeed outperformed expectation in that time, despite what some might imagine. They have provided 67 of the 291 runners (23.0%), 2 of the 9 winners (Formal Decree in 2006 and Pipedreamer in 2007) and 15 of the 36 first-4 finishers (an impact value of 1.81). More to the point, they have beaten 63.0% of their rivals (50% is par) and been beaten 2.66 lengths less on average than all runners. That is an apparent advantage of nearly 6 lb.

There was a steady advantage to horses running off higher marks in the same period (across all age groups), but it was small.

My initial thoughts are that Fareer (available to back at [22.0] on Betfair) and Alazeyab ([50.0]) are among the most interesting runners, especially the former, who has not been seen since winning the Britannia Handicap at Royal Ascot.

You often need a listed/Group performer to win the Cambridgeshire, and Fareer might well have shown himself to be just that had he not had his powder kept dry during the summer.

The Cesarewitch will be run over 18 furlongs - twice the length of the Cambridgeshire - and has produced winners with markedly different profiles to the earlier race. This is not a younger horses' race in the way that the Cambridgeshire is. Indeed, horses aged 6 or older have outperformed those aged up to 5, though only to a small degree (53% rivals beaten, about 3 lb in terms of average cumulative lengths beaten).

Horses that ran off marks between 90 and 100 outperformed lower-rated and higher-rated horses, but again only slightly.

Far and away the most interesting angle I could find where the Cesarewitch is concerned is the record of jumpers in the race. Taken overall, "jumpers" (defined as those who had won over jumps previously) outperformed non-jumpers by about 4 lb, with half the representation of jumpers as non-jumpers.

Taking only those jumpers that ran off marks between 90 and 100 (27 qualifiers from 300 runners) saw the figures rocket to 70.8% rivals beaten and an apparent advantage of nearly 10 lengths and over 10 lb.

There were four winners (Landing Light in 2003, Detroit City in 2006, Leg Spinner in 2007 and Caracciola in 2008) and another 4 first-4 places. The latter is equivalent to an impact value of 2.47.

Bahrain Storm ([17.5] to back) and Fair Along ([25.0] to back) make plenty of appeal at this stage. They are both smart hurdlers - Bahrain Storm landed the valuable Galway Hurdle recently - who can be considered well-handicapped on some form. Fair Along was third in the race in 2007.

* * *

Speaking of ante-post opportunities, regulars on the Betfair "Horse Antepost" forum cannot have missed the saga that is the "Clerkwatch" thread.

Not having a spare lifetime in which to read the thread from start to finish, I asked the originator - the poster known as jonjo - to summarise it for me. My summary of his summary, is as follows:

"Clerkwatch was launched in order to hold Clerks of The Courses to account for inaccuracies regarding going descriptions, watering and the like. To this end, the views of various trainers (including Mark Johnston and Ger Lyons) have been sought, and a scale has been developed to gauge the relationship between going-stick readings and the apparent state of the ground. The BHA has been challenged to produce evidence that current levels of watering are justified on safety grounds.

"We would like guidelines brought in regarding the level of going-stick reading below which water should not be applied, though the BHA has clarified that Clerks are answerable to the course at which they officiate and not to a central authority like the BHA. Whether that is how it "should" be is open to debate.

"Hopefully, Clerkwatch provides quite a decent service to punters on the forum, especially at the bigger meetings, and at courses at which it seems reasonable to think that Clerks are regularly getting ground preparation and/or the reporting of the conditions wrong on a regular basis. We get input from a very wide range of Betfair forumites."

In the absence of any official voice, the Betfair forum is one of the few places punters can go to air legitimate concerns. It comes into its own with threads like this.

Long may it prosper, though I can't help thinking that Clerkwatch itself has prospered a bit too much: at the last view, it had reached 3699 posts!

Time for a "Son of Clerkwatch" thread, perhaps?

* * *

I will be taking a sabbatical in the coming weeks, as a result of moving houses and changing responsibilities. By the time I next write, I hope to have celebrated the successes of One Way Or Another in the Ripon Rowels Handicap next Monday and at the St Leger meeting at Doncaster (he is burning up the gallops again), and to be reflecting on a promising return to action by the talented but quirky King's Miracle.

There is no truth in the rumour that I am heading back up North in order to see more of my Wiltshire-based thoroughbred investments...

Tags: Alazeyab, Autumn Double, Bahrain Storm, BHA, Britannia Handicap, Cambridgeshire Handicap, Cesarewitch Handicap, Clerkwatch, Fair Along, Fareer, Galway Hurdle, Ger Lyons, King's Miracle, Mark Johnston, One Way Or Another, Ripon Rowels Handicap