The 2000m Listed Tattersall's Club Cup at Randwick on New Years Day is what I call my bread and butter type of race. I have long learned open company races of this type are where I can make money. I especially like this type of race if I have a firm opinion that one of the well fancied runners has several factors against it as if I am right then the other well fancied runners must be value.The prepost betting in "The Sportsman" had Rabbuka at $2.80, Rainbow Styling at $2.90 and Spinney
The 2000m Listed Tattersall's Club Cup at Randwick on New Years Day is what I call my bread and butter type of race. I have long learned open company races of this type are where I can make money. I especially like this type of race if I have a firm opinion that one of the well fancied runners has several factors against it as if I am right then the other well fancied runners must be value.
The prepost betting in "The Sportsman" had Rabbuka at $2.80, Rainbow Styling at $2.90 and Spinney at $4.60 and I felt the market had it right as they were the top three I came up with as well in my initial "these are the chances" process. I felt the Ballargarney formline from the Gosford Cup and the defeat by Macknuckle in the Canberra Cup was not strong enough so I was down to two for the A position. A look at the chartform showed Rabbuka had 2 runs at 2000m for 1 second but I am aware at this distance you need to investigate further just to make sure about distances like 1900, or 2100m which can be omitted in some chartforms due to distance range factors. The real form showed Rabbuka had run at 1800m to 2400m eight times for 2 wins at 1800m and 1900m. A deeper look showed the 1900m win was in a Class 3 event, the 1800m win was third up (like today) when he beat Wittgenstein by 0.2L (a Class 5 winner the start before and the 2400m run was the run before a spell, which I usually forgive.
The fact was that although he had run some excellent on face value runs around 2000m he was still a 2000m maiden at this level. The run that made me risk him was the 2nd in Listed company behind the fairly good horse Ballack in Group 3 company in Queensland on May 09. On face value that should have been good enough for this race except for one key factor: it was Rabbuka's sixth run from a spell = rock hard fit yet he was beaten by Ballck who was 2nd up. Just on fitness alone Rabbuka should have finished ahead of Ballack. Here he was today 3rd up over 2000m with 58kg and he started to look a worry.
Rainbow Styling's fresh form (that's 1st and 2nd up to me) was an abysmal 0 from 9 but with 5 seconds buried in the statistics. If we eliminate those 9 runs we find the raw figures show 4 wins from 9 runs at his third run plus from a spell. His previous run, 3rd up was at 2000m (Rabbuka had won 3rd up at 1800m beating a Class 5 winner) beating an average horse in Delago Star (beaten 1.3L to Spinney in the Gosford Cup) but what swung me totally was his two runs around Joku (just won a Listed race in Doomben on Dec 26)last campaign when beating that runner by 1.3L over 1800m. It was the sort of form I want to see.and the result was just perfect: Rainbow Styling won and I laid Rabbuka on Betfair.
To some punters the $3.60 was just a well fancied horse price but on the above form lines $2.50 would not have been unreasonable in a race of few chances. The difference in percentages (27.7 versus 40.00) gave me what I thought was value.