It’s that time of year again where the punters at Kempton will be nursing bulging bellies from the festive food and wine, and thanking the white bearded one for bringing them something that they’ve always wanted.
There’ll be first time racegoers, seasoned racegoers and the festive bunch who do the racing once every year. Which happens to be Kempton on Boxing Day. But everyone congregates to have a good time and see the stars of the day fight it out over the testing three mile slog round Kempton in the… King George VI Chase.
So today I’m going to try and get the winner from a range of ratings.
To do that I’m going to start with a couple interesting figures to keep in mind. In the 63 runnings of the race since 1937, only 8 horses have successfully defended the crown.
• Pendril 72/73
• Captain Christy 74/75
• Silver Buck 79/80
• Wayward Lad 82/83
• Desert Orchid 88/89/90
• The Fellow 91/92
• One Man 95/96
• Kauto Star 06/07/08/09
That’s just 11 times in 63 running’s, so if Silviniaco Conti were to defend its crown it would be a feat on its own.
In the last five years the winner has either been the favourite or second favourite, the officially top rated horse has only gone on to win twice and the last 5 winners have been the Racing Posts top rated horse.
Also, in the last 5 years the winner has at least placed on its last outing and comes into the race boasting a minimum of a 50% win rate.
So, with that knowledge I’ve chosen to use ratings that will tell me what average it produced in its last 4 races and whether the horse is likely to perform on the ground conditions and the distance.
I will also use a rating that will tell me what are considered to be the strongest ranked horses in the race.
Starting with my first rating, in the last 5 years the winner has come from the top three rated. The top rated has come in twice, the second rated has won once and third rated has also won twice.
Using a projection rating, which tells us the likely performance of the horses, the winner has come from the top four in the last 5 years with the top rated coming in once, the third rated twice and the fourth rated twice.
The lowest actual rating was 172, which was 3rd rated, and the highest rating was 193 which was fourth rated. All five figure were 182, 193, 172, 187, 190 which gives us an average rating of 185.
If we take a look at the distance ratings, the winner has come from the top two in the ratings over the last 5 years with the 2nd rated providing three from the five.
The lowest rating was 179, second rated at the time, and the highest rating was 192. So, with figures of 179, 187, 185, 192 and 191 we get an average figure of 187.
Next we look at the ratings the horses have achieved over their last four races. The lowest figure from winners in the last five years was 170 and the highest was 196.
The average over the 5 year period is 186 with ratings of 196, 193, 170, 186, 186. Only twice has the winner come from the top three in this rating, and the other three times the winner were all fifth rated.
The figures of 169, 184, 188, 186, 185 are the figures the winning horse has achieved on the ground conditions for the day, with all bar one coming from the top three in the ratings with the above figures giving us an average rating of 182.
So, in the image above you can see all the ratings that I’ve been talking about. These mean:
Rank = overall ranking of the horse
P = is the figure the horse may be able to run too
G = is the average figure on the ground conditions the horse has run too
D = is the average figure over the distance the horse has run too
L4 = is the average figure the horse has run too over the last 4 runs
RPR = Racing Post Rating
OR = Official Rating
L6 = last six form figures
If you look at all the figures, we’ll start on the left and over the last 5 years the winner has come from the first 3 in the rank rating which gives us… Cue card, Wishful Thinking and Al Ferof.
Next, looking at column Pm we know that the winner has come from horses rated in the top four of this rating which adds Wonderful Charm and last years winner Silviniaco Conti into the mix.
Onto the next column and we know that the winner has come from top two in this rating which doesn’t add any more runners to our list, but confirms two of the runners we already have in… Al Ferof and Silviniaco Conti.
With the next rating we can add Double Ross to the mix.
With all the above criteria we have the following runners as potentials:
- Silviniaco Conti
- Al Ferof
- Cue Card
- Wishful Thinking
- Double Ross
Silviniaco Conti :-Â We know that there have been 8 horses that have defended the title out of 63 runnings of the race which equates to this happening 11 times and coupled with the ratings fact that the winner has come from the top 3 in the rank rating gives us 2 negatives towards this contender on the plus side it falls inside the projected rating coming in at number 3 with a figure of 202 which is well above the average and beats the top figure over the past 5 years again its figure of 185 over the distance it comes in the top 2 slightly below the average but smack bang in the middle of the range.
When we look at the ground ratings it comes in number six a couple of points below the average figure and near the bottom of the range is, we can say another positive for this contender is the fact it is outside of the top 3 in the L4 rating and bang on the money at being number 5 we also know that it placed in its last race has a 50% win rate and gets the Kempton 3 miles. We have the top RPR and the top OR this is a strong contenders.
Al Ferof :- This contender falls within the top 3 of the rank rating, which the winner has come from in the last 5 years but falls outside the projected rating by 1 but has a figure of 198 which is well above the average and is higher than the range over the last 5 years, we fall short when it comes to the ground rating at 168 which is well below the average out of the top 3 but is only 1 point lower than last years winning figure.
When we look at the distance figure it comes out as number 1 in the ratings a clear 10 points ahead of its nearest rival which can only be a plus. Its figure of 202 for its L4 rating puts it at number 6 but is well above the average and only 1 point below the 5th spot. Again this contender was placed last time out and comes into the race with a 50% win rate, but it is only 4th on the RPR and 4th on the OR we know that this contender also gets the 3 miles here and is and is considered to be a strong contender as well.
Cue Card :- This contender is the top rated in the rank rating which we know has won twice in the last 5 years. When it comes to the projected figure it comes in at number 4 well above the average with a figure of 201 and higher than the range of the last 5 years as is with the ground figure of 192 which falls in the top 3 is well above the average and also higher than the range.
Distance wise it has a figure of 181 which outside of the top 2 at number 3 is below the average and only just inside the range, but it does come second with a figure of 208 in the L4 rating which is well above the average and higher than the range. We only have a 45% win rate and we were outside the places in the last race also second with the RPR and second with the OR. As always this contender has to be considered.
Wishfull Thinking :- Number 2 in the rank rating is favourable, number 2 in the projected rating is also on our side with a good figure of 205 which is well above the average and better than the range. It does fall outside the top 3 ground wise but is bang on the average but only just creeps into the range. doesn’t produce a distance rating because it has only run once around 3 miles which was last year at Aintree coming 2nd of six, comes in joint third on the L4 rating is only 6th when it comes to RPR and 5th officially and boasts only a 34% win rate
Double Ross :- This contender comes in at number 10 on the rank rating and comes in at number 7 on the projected rating with a figure of 195 which again is above the average and higher than the range. It comes out favourably ground wise coming in at number 2 with a figure of 193 but falls short again with a figure of 145 in the distance rating, over its last 4 runs it comes in joint third with a figure of 206, but the RPR and OR turn against us again and with unseating our rider last time out and only having a 17% win are other negatives to put into the fold.
We know that Silviniaco Conti, Al Ferof and Cue card get the trip, so its best to concentrate on these 3 for win purposes Silviniaco Conti ticks the boxes for 7 out of the 9 of the ratings and and other factors considered and will also probably go off in the top 2 of the betting. Al Ferof can only tick the box for for 4 from 9 and Cue card again can only muster up 4 from 9. Silviniaco Conti had both of these behind in last years race by 3.5 and 11 lengths respectively, Cue 2nd Al Ferof 3rd he comes into this race in good form.
A lot of the runner for the King George this year fall into range of figures for the past 5 years so it should be a very competitive race but a few have doubts over the trip and you need to be able to get the 3miles and more at Kempton, because of the pace the race is run at.
Silviniaco Conti for the win
Wishfull Thinking to run into a place at a big price.
