Handicapping and Integrity on the All-Weather

Today, this betting blog dishes out some gambling advice in the form of what to beware of when betting the all-weather racing. Monday saw some interesting shenanigans at Lingfield Park with some good examples of how poorly all-weather racing is regulated in this country.

The 3.00 at Lingfield saw two substantial gambles, with some really big bets on two horses which have raced for the majority of their careers in Ireland: Oxford Gold and Sovento. The latter ended up going off 15/8 favourite and winning by a neck, although it could have been more. Sovento last raced in the UK in October 2010 when he won over 1m4f at Kempton off a handicap mark of 59. He had since raced four times in Ireland, the closest he ever got to winning one of those races was being beaten 10L into 10th place at Roscommon, even the less cynical of race readers would argue the horse wasn’t given the best chance of winning these races.

However, despite this and despite the fact Sovento won when he last ran on the all-weather and in the UK, he was given a mark of 52, 7 pounds below when he won at Kempton a year earlier. There is no logic for this drop at all, all-weather marks can be different to turf marks and Sovento hadn’t proven he had lost his form on the all-weather; a drop of 7 pounds given he won his last start on the all-weather was madness and one can hardly blame the yard for plotting a huge gamble and pulling it off.

Even if you argue he deserved to be dropped 7 pounds for his poor form in Ireland, the stewards should have held an improvement in form enquiry given they held one for 40/1 poke Shirataki in the last race; he had a similar number of duck eggs next to his name, but he wasn’t gambled! The bottom line is, the horse shouldn’t have been dropped in the handicap unless his Irish form was judged to be representative of his overall form and handicap mark and if this was the case, they should have held an improvement in form enquiry into his previous runs. The BHA have not followed their own rules and procedures with this horse in any way; it’s nothing short of incompetent and has played into the hands of a gambling stable.

I should also mention the ride on Russian Storm in the last, who was the subject of an early morning pre 10am gamble before drifting right out to 20/1 on Betfair and was given an incredibly soft and sympathetic ride by Jemma Marshall. Jemma was found guilty of failing to take all reasonable and permissible measures to obtain the best possible placing and banned for ten days. She should consider herself lucky she doesn’t ride in Singapore and try the same tricks out there having read about this fella (note the penalty).