A rare midweek post for us, motivated by the Ebor handicap (3.25, York) today.  At the risk of stating the obvious, good racing analysis is often simply about knowing when to use the right tool for the right job – eg. the same methods you would use to analyse a 5 furlong sprint at Epsom will not do you much good in finding the winner of the Grand National.

Big handicap races are often in a category of their own, and therefore trend analysis, analysing the profile of previous winners of the same race, can be a useful method which helps narrow the field in looking for the winner of such races.

Here are the significant past trends that I think are worth concentrating on in the Ebor Handicap:

1.  Previous winners are generally lower in the handicap, carrying lower weights.

2.  Older horses (generally 4 and 5 yr olds) have been favoured, rather than 3 year olds, in the last 10 years (though no 3 yr old is running today!).

3.  Lower draws (somewhat bizzarely for a longer distance race) have always been favoured.

You can look at the racecard and make your own analysis by applying these trends.  For me, 2 horses stand out that qualify by doing so:

Elyaddi, drawn 3 and ridden by last year’s winning jockey and Bernie The Bolt, drawn 2 and ridden by Jimmy Fortune.  Desert Sea is drawn 1 and is also low in the handicap, but I don’t like the odds of a 7 year old winning.  Looking at the form, I like the chance of Bernie The Bolt to keep improving and with a win and place bet at a price of 16/1.