"Wascal Wabbit" on the 2000 Guineas
Hello dear weaders, and welcome to my second attempt to send this post after my computer cwashed on the first attempt... dwat!
You may be wondering why I am witing with no r's today. In case you are, it is because I learnt some intewesting and slightly cuwious news this week. Its been bwought to my attention that therw' is a google language setting forw' Elmer Fudd!
In the spiwwit of the cartoon genius, I will twy to wite this as Mr Fudd... (some of my unkinder weaders may think the similawities don't stop there!)
Onto business, and today lets look at the histowical twends in the 2,000 Guineas with a view to finding the winner.
Firstly, weight and age are constants in the wace. All are thwee yearw' olds and all cawwy nine stone.
However, therw' are some stwong twends elsewhere...
Odds: No horse has won the wace at longer than 11/1 since Mister Baileys in 1994. Indeed, the winner has been in the first five in the betting in each of the last eleven wunnings of the wace, except one, when the winner was sixth in the market.
So lets scwub out all bar those with a chance of being in the first six in the market. This is not tewwibly helpful in finding the winner, but it does weduce our list to:
Teofilo, Adagio, US Wanger, Major Cadeaux, Diamond Tycoon, Dutch Art, Haatef and Stwategic Pwince. Of these, some will likely not fit the bill on the day.
The other point of note with wegards to the betting is that George Washington last year was the first favouwite to win since Zafonic in 1993, and there have been a few supposed 'good things' turned over at odds-on in that list.
So, I'll stwike out Teofilo. My wegular weader will know how keen I am to do that anyway! (Note, the one pwoviso herew' is that I weckon Adagio might start favouwite on the day).
Nine of the past eleven winners of the wace were twained by Stoute, O'Bwien or bin Suwoor. Of this stellar twiumviwate of twaining twiplets, only Stoute's Adagio is likely to be in the cowwect pwice bwacket. This must be a big positive if he is not sent off favouwite on the day.
Pwevious wun this season? Eight of the last eleven winners were first time out wunners. Only Haatef, Stwategic Pwince and Teofilo have that in their favour.
Pwevious form? Nothing too intewesting here (at first glance at least), as four winners had been unbeaten, the same number suffered one defeat, and thwee had had two weverses.
Dwaw? Vewwy vewwy intewesting! On first glance, the dwaw looks iwwelevant with winners coming fwom (seemingly) all parts of the twack. But comparw'ing the winning dwaw with the number of wunners weveals that no fewer than sixteen of the last seventeen winners were dwawn five or fewer stalls from either side. Although this potentially gives you ten horses to follow, if you're not dwawn within five of a wail, I say forget it! (Therew' are alweady sixteen horses jocked up out of a possible thirty, so I'd expect half the field at least to be dwawn out of it.
So there we have it: still a numberw' of impondewables, but I'm looking for a horse in the first five or six in the betting (but not favouwite), dwawn within five of the wails. I'd bet all that pass these tests.
If forced to make a selection, I'd go for Adagio (won despite a twoubled passage last time) and Diamond Tycoon (vewwy fast horse).
Other matters: "Spanish wefs, buy the cards" took a dwubbing last night, as did I, when the pwojected sanguine tub (or bloodbath if you pwefer) failed to matewialise. Although it was a well contested affair (as you'd expect forw' a match of such magnitude), it was also disappointingly well wefereed by the Spanish arbitwator (ok, so I'm just picking words with r's that I can turn into w's now!) Nevertheless, do not lose faith on this one. You will be wichly wewarded if you follow this stwategy.
Well, that's about the size of it for this post. Its actually a lot twickier than it may seem to wite like Jonathon Woss and Elmer Fudd speak. Twy it, and you'll see what I mean!
With warm wegards,
Matt 'Elmer' Bisogno
Matt Bisogno is a lifelong horseracing and betting enthusiast, and has published a number of statistical analyses of trainer patterns for horse racing betting purposes.
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