I’m writing this King George V1 race preview, because it’s my favourite race of the entire year. Whatever’s happening, whoever is with us, I force everyone to stop and watch it.
It’s going to be no different this year.
Although it’s traditionally very difficult to find the winner in this competitive race, I always like to do a preview of it.
I was planning of having this race preview finished a bit earlier, but the Christmas Bailey’s was begging to be drunk last night, so I woke up a little later than intended!
During this analysis I’m going to be using the RA Pro Members software. If you’ve not yet grabbed your free trial, you can get it here.
Analysing The Race
There are just five runners for us to look at in this race:
I’ve circled two of these horses. They’re circled because the trainer is P Nicholls, who has an excellent record in this race.
He’s had a 21% strike rate, across 39 runners, and a place strike rate of 41%. His A/E is 1.12, but currently is sitting at a small loss of -0.59.
I’m going to start by sorting by our PR Odds, which is our tissue line. Any horse highlighted in green is offering value odds, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll win.
The above image shows the race card sorted by the PR Odds, and I’ve also opened the overlays which show how this score is combined.
The strongest horse based on the PR Odds (which are merged with the live Betfair odds) is Cyrname, the same as the market.
However, if we look at the raw scores, you can see that Footpad is considered to be significantly better, and both Footpad and Cryname are likely to be contenders.
This means that the live Betfair odds have significantly pushed our tissue odds of Footpad up and Cryname down.
Using the 5279 CFR rating, we can see Cyrname is ranked best and Footpad is ranked second best.
If you’ve noticed, there’s no fourth ranked horse, this is because the fourth ranked was Thistlecrack, who is now a non-runner and automatically removed from the race card.
Interestingly, we can see both Ciabn Des Obeaux and Aso haven’t had a good race for a long time.
That always give me cause for concern.
So far, Cyrname and Footpad look to be the strongest, although Lostintranslation is the second favourite in the market and one to be aware of.
Using Speed Graphs
The Race Advisor speed graphs are unique to the RA Pro Members Club.
They show you which horses are improving or declining, over specific race conditions, at a single glance, and I’m going to use them to help us find which of the horses may be strongest in the this competitive King George VI race preview.
This gives us an interesting picture. I’ve filtered the races on the speed graph so it only shows Chase races on Soft ground.
On the right-hand side you can see that Clan Des Obeaux has 144.49 in brackets after it’s name. This is the horses average speed figure over the conditions set on the graph.
It indicates that Clan Des Obeaux is likely to be amongst the fastest on these conditions.
You can also see its figures in purple on the graph.
However, there’s very little difference between the runners in the race.
If I expand the filter to allow Soft to Heavy and Good to Soft ground conditions as well, we get far more races showing up.
Interestingly, Footpad has now got the highest average speed figure.
But… I haven’t put any distance conditions in.
Before I do that, let’s limit the races to only those at Kempton.
Doing this shows that Clan Des Obeaux, once again, looks to be the fastest.
Finally, I’m going to look at all races the horses have been in over 2 miles 6 furlongs or longer.
There’s only one horse that has raced at Kempton, in a Chase race, on soft (or similar) ground, over a similar distance.
And that’s…
By now, you’re probably not surprised to see that the runner is Clan Des Obeaux.
You can see by the information in the pop-up, which you get by simply hovering your mouse over a point on the graph, that this horse raced on Boxing Day last year at Kempton and won.
Removing the course filter, Lostintranslation starts to look good.
We have to drop the distance down to about 2 miles 2 furlongs before we begin to get the other runners appearing on the graphs again.
So…
At the moment we know that Cyrname and Footpad look to be the strongest based on numbers, but on the speed graphs Clan Des Obeaux and Lostintranslation look most likely to be able to keep the speed under the conditions.
Confusing?
I agree.
That’s why we don’t want to bet in super-competitive races on a day-to-day basis!
Now I’m going to run a Monte Carlo simulation on the race.
The Monte Carlo Simulation
The Monte Carlo Simulator is one of our most recent releases inside the RA Pro Members Club software.
You can read more about how a Monte Carlo simulation works in this blog post.
Based on the simulation, Cyrname is the strongest, followed by Lostintranslation and Clan Des Obeaux.
Footpad comes ranked fourth (out of five). But you can see, using the second figure under each horse, the win rate in the simulation is very close for all the runners except Aso.
The best is Cyrname with a win rate of 26.13% and Footpad, in fourth, won 18.80% of the simulations.
So far everything is pointing to Cyrname being the best, with an open field on the rest.
The pace of the race is expected to be fast, as you can see below.
I’ve expanded this information so we can see what type of horses we’re looking for in this expected race pace, and put our overlay pace figures on.
Mid-Pack hordes most often win these races, however it looks like Clan Des Obeaux has a significantly stronger leader pace than Aso, the next strongest.
This is potentially bad for Aso, and good for Clan Des Obeaux.
If Clan Des Obeaux can keep the lead, then this horse could win. Whilst it’s likely Aso will try to keep the pace with Clan Des Obeaux, and run out of steam.
However, if Clan Des Obeaux can’t keep the lead, then Cyrname and Footpad look to have the perfect mid-pack pace to take the lead in the final furlongs.
All in all, we’ve confirmed that this is going to be very competitive, and normally I’d stay away from a bet in it.
But hey, it’s Boxing Day, and my favourite race of the year!
The only horse I’m comfortable in removing from the contenders list is Aso, who is also the highest odds horse. Although odds of 36 aren’t exactly hugely high.
Before I make any final decisions on how I’m going to bet, I’m going to look at each horses recent race history to manually check their performances.
This is something I always recommend doing when analysing a race.
Looking At A Horses Race History
Cyrname’s last three races were wins, over distances of 2 miles 5 furlongs at Ascot, including one at the end of November.
The ground was soft in the most recent, and good to soft in the previous two. He also had the same jockey that is riding the horse today.
Footpad won his last race on the 21st November, over 2 miles and 6 furlongs on soft ground. However it was in a significantly lower class race.
The previous race, in a similar class, he lost by 26 lengths.
Going back further, we can see that his third last race he was beaten by just 0.5 lenghths, but the going was good.
This runner had a string of high value wins in 2017 and 2018, but at a distance much closer to 2 miles than 3 miles.
There’s a possibility that he may struggle at this distance on soft ground.
A quick glance tells us that Clan Des Obeaux isn’t the same kind of winner that the previous horses are, with just three wins since 25th November 2017.
However, there are a lot of places, although the distance to winner is never particularly close.
The good news, is that he has regularly finished in a place position over three miles, on soft or good to soft ground, in high value races. Including winning last year at Kempton on Boxing Day.
Finally, Lostintranslation look to be another winner type, and has had two wins recently. One of which was over 3 miles 1 furlong on good to soft ground in a high value race.
Today he will be carrying three more pounds than the last race, and six more pounds than the 11-4 he usually carries. This could make it a little bit harder for him over the soft ground, when competing with horses that have carried the same weight over soft ground previously.
In Summary
Having gone through the race card, there are three horses which look to be the strongest. They are:
Cyrname, Lostintranslation and Clan Des Obeaux.
Cyrname looks to be the most likely for the win position, although it’s going to be hotly contested.
Lostintranslation looks to be a competitor for the win if the extra few pounds doesn’t cause it a problem on the soft ground.
Clan Des Obeaux has strong place contentions. If he takes the lead and nobody contests it, there’s a possibility he could stay the trip, although this horse tends to place rather than win.
How I’m Betting
Before I decide on how I’m going to bet, I like to look at the markets on Betfair.
Win Market
Place Market
3 To Be Placed
I’ve also done a screenshot of the returns you would get on a dutch bet across all three runners to a £100 stake.
As you can see, if one of the three runners won, you’d make just over £14 in profit back at current odds.
This could be a good way to bet if you’re risk adverse and are happy with a 14% return.
In the course of normal betting this would be an excellent return, and one I would happily take.
However, this is a fun-bet day for me, so I won’t personally be placing this bet.
The horse with the highest odds, out of the three I’ve shortlisted, is clearly Clan Des Obeaux.
I wouldn’t want to bet this horse to win, so I’d be looking either to bet it as an 80/20 bet or a straight place bet.
The question is… would it be better to bet this horse in the standard place or the three place market.
In the standard place market (2 to place), it’s currently being offered at odds of 2.44, and in the three place market it’s being offered at odds of 1.48.
A big difference.
The runner has a good chance of playing, but if Lostintranslation handles the extra few pounds with ease, then it Clan Des Obeaux may be fighting for the second place.
However, I think it’s very unlikely to come out of the top three unless it has an unexpected problem during the race.
Sadly, the market seems to agree with me on this occasion!
With all this in mind, I think I will be betting as follows:
Win bet on Cyrname
80/20 (80% of stake to place and 205 of stake to win) bet on Clan Des Obeaux in the standard place market.
I will keep an eye on the odds, and if there’s a possibility of reducing the liability on Lostintranslation, should it win, in either the win or place markets I will take it.
Now you know how I look at this race, I’d love to hear who you think has the strongest chance of winning, and who you are going to be betting on this year’s King George VI.
Please leave me a comment below to let me know.
And don’t forget, you can get your free trial of the RA Pro Members Club here.
Hi Michael glad to hear you had a good xmas day & followed everyone else in slight over indulgance!!!. I decided to look at the race acouple of days ago with info I had to hand at time. As to a winner I’ve come to same decision as you but in the place field I went for Lostintranslation,Footpad entered my thoughts as I can’t see them bringing it over from Ireland just for a day trip,so I mmay just slip into my local “bookies” for an ew after I had a couple of “hair of the dog” & my brain becomes a little wobbly!
Thank you, over-indulgence definitely happened! Footpad could definitely still do well, and place bet on it could be a good shout.
Hi Michael, my Fairy at the bottom of the garden system says Lostintranslation to win Happy and very prosperous NY to everyone Stuart
Thank you Stuart, and to you too! Lostintranslation seemed to have a difficult race from the beginning, was never quite running smoothly. It would be great if we could see the training reports on racing in the UK and IRE.
That is some preview with the only thing missing is when the horse had its last c**. I wish i had the tech savvy and was intelligent enough to use all the information at the hands of Race advisor users. Keep up the good work for your subscribers. i’m afraid it will always be too clever for me.
Thank you Roddo. I hope you were on the selections, although I went 80/20 on the Clan Des Obeaux and to win on Cyrname, we still made a 36% profit on the win market and a 108% on the place market. That’s a profit of £36.85 on the race to a £25 stake on each horse, or a 73.70% profit on the stake 🙂
Makes interesting reading but as you know a lot more about it than me, would this sort of planning work with more runners?. Also with ground conditions at the moment makes things more difficult.
Absolutely, this type of approach to form reading will work with more runners. The ground is difficult at the moment, one of the reasons my preferred race type is All Weather, but I know I’m alone in that most of the time 🙂
How much time do I spend on each race ? from start to Finish it’s around 1.25 Hours to 1.5 Hours, in advance it takes me 45 minutes which includes 15 year std trends and 10 year data on the PR & VDW & 5278 & speed rating data, on race day it takes 30 to 45 minutes to give me the final selections Using even more data on top of that and Dutch them. These are all high class handicaps big fields in general is it worth it ? a near 90% ROI and a Race S/R of 53% that’s from the last 17 Races and 29.5pts, this is after I made some alterations to the approach, I’m happy enough at moment.
A 90% ROI and 53% strike rate, that’s great to hear. How many races do you analyse on a weekly, or daily, basis?
2 to 4 races a week dependent on the races having a Stable 10 to 15 year trends history.
So somewhere around 3 to 6 hours per week 🙂