The example of Lord Denning illustrates the importance of a horse's record over the race distance. I don't kknow why some of you don't regard it as important, because plenty of winners had good distance stats prior to a race.

Lord Denning
1st up run (14th April) - 4th beaten 1.25 lengths over 1250m at Canterbury

2nd up run (11th May) - 13th beaten 8.75 lengths over 1400m at Randwick (blundered at start, examined by vet, injured during the race)

3rd run (1st June) - 1st over 1500m at EF at big odds.

Points to consider:

1. Dist: 1 win and a 3rd from 2 starts. Had also won 3 race at 1550m. (4 out of 5 career wins at 1500-1550m) So 1500-1550m distance range is the horse's best range!

2. Dropped 3kgs in weight

3. Trained by Hawkes

4. Career: 22% win and 45% place.

5. Retained the same jockey despite going from Randwick to EF.

6. Prizemoney stats not good though - 2nd last in a field of 17

7. Rising from a 3yo+ Welter to an open handicap - thus the weight drop. Field not that strong though.

8. Sydney form prior to LS failure was good. I know some people don't like formlines, but it worked here - ran a good 4th to Kootoomootoo and a good 5th to Terrible Taurus. Neither horses are world beaters, but none of the horses in the EF race were either.

9. pre-post odds of 25/1

Given the horses ability over the distance, if you overlooked the LS failure where it had excuses, the horse was massive overs.



[ This Message was edited by: lumbarsua on 2002-07-12 12:09 ]