Total Performance Data tips

Published 20.50 10/03

Looking ahead and we have a very difficult Thursday card to try and find some solid prices to get after the competitive nature of the first couple of days, this card does look a little more punter friendly. 

For what it’s worth, I felt that both Wodhooh and Fact To File would be very hard to beat against their respective rivals in the Mares’ Hurdle and the Ryanair and wouldn’t put anyone off the short-priced double. That didn’t leave me with too many races to get excited over at this stage, but there was a horse in the Pertemps Network Final Handicap Hurdle (4.40) who caught the eye on his way up the handicap ranks.

I have been keen on Melbourne Shamrock for the Pertemps for a while and once he qualified last month, I felt like he was going to be my main play in this race. He is certainly unexposed and having missed some time as a novice hurdler, it looks like a long-term plan from Emmet Mullins and his team.

However, he qualified on deep ground at Navan in February and just held on from Minella Sixo, who was 0.39s faster in the final furlong. The more the ground dries, the more my enthusiasm is cooling for him and when I had another look at this race, I found a decent case could be made for CHAMPAGNE CHIC.

Jeremy Scott’s six-year-old has taken a huge step forwards this season and after impressive wins at Wincanton and then at Haydock in his qualifier, he comes into this race on a decent upward curve and a mark of 131 could underestimate him as a stayer.

He reached a top speed of 32.3 mph on Good to Soft ground at Haydock as he closed all the way up the home straight to win going away. He was the fastest horse in each of the final three furlong splits (14.54, 14.90 and 16.51s) and recorded a run-out speed of 27.74 mph, which was 5% faster than any of the other runners.

That was just his eighth start and only his fourth in handicap company, so it is perfectly feasible to think that there will be more improvement to come. The changes to the qualification rules have made it harder to get a progressive horse into this race, but he looks to be capable of more improvement than most and so I want to be with him each-way.

You can find sectional times, stride data, speed statistics and jumping performance metrics on the RESULTS page of attheraces.com.

The global database of sectional times, stride data and performance metrics is available through Total Performance Data.