By Ben Aitken

NOTE: You can click on any image to view in a new window, and you can download a PDF copy of this article on this link

Introduction

Following on from my previous article - The Power of Proform: How Speed Figures Can Help You Uncover Future Winners – I’ll now be aiming to pinpoint some horses to follow, using the Proform Speed Figures as my basis to find these horses...

Today I’m heading to Doncaster and the Class 2 Handicap Hurdle that was run on Saturday 27^th January (12:55 race)...

Horse to follow: RICH SPIRIT (S Smith)

To start with let’s look at how the race panned out on the Proform Speed Figure front...

As you can see the race looks strong on the Speed Figures... the Speed Class Par figure was 72 and the first three home all ran above that figure... the fourth horse ran to a figure bang on par and the fifth and sixth home ran just a smidge below par... so on Proform Speed Figures this looks like a decent piece of form to keep on the radar...

The winner – GEROMINO – was a comfortable enough winner, posting a figure that was the second best of his career, having been able to run off a mark only 2lbs higher than the course victory he had recorded the previous month. He’s a consistent type and is clearly benefiting from the assistance of his 10lb claimer, and although he could go in again if they keep making use of the claimer, he was raised to a career high hurdle mark (OR 136) off the back of this run and is a bit of an exposed type, being an 8yo with 31 career starts in the bank...

As such it is the runner up – RICH SPIRIT – who catches my eye...

The Sue Smith trained 6yo was making his handicap debut here and was travelling strongly throughout the contest, unfortunately for the youngster his inexperienced told in the closing stages (he was the least experienced runner in the field with only 6 previous starts), with the Iktibas gelding producing some scrappy jumps as he tried to make a move to challenge for the win down the Doncaster home-straight.

He will have learned plenty from the run, however, and the 6lbs rise he received for the run (up from OR 120 to OR 126) shouldn’t in any way be enough to anchor him given the Proform Speed figure he produced here on Handicap debut.

To add further meat to the bone... Sue Smith has some very solid stats with her Handicap Hurdlers during the January to February period, especially when it comes to her Male 5yo & 6yo’s that already had at least 1 previous Handicap Hurdle start on their CV...

Assuming the horse has come out of the race well he will hopefully be out before the end of February, with the above set of figures telling us that Sue Smith has a history of placing similar types to RICH SPIRIT to best advantage during the first couple of months of the year...

RICH SPIRIT should be a worthy addition to your trackers, and he can hopefully land the second victory of his career in the coming weeks/months...

 

By Ben Aitken

Horse Racing analyst and website owner at www.narrowingthefield.co.uk

Race Trends analysis and horse profiling alongside personally researched systems and angles are my preferred analysis and betting methods

Proform user for over 10-years