Weekend Racing Review - return of the Presse

There was not a great deal of action over the past week, so this will be relatively brief blog, looking back on the chase action at Lingfield and Thurles.

Lingfield 21st January - Chases

Thankfully the big freeze has finally been seen off and it allowed for Lingfield to return on Sunday with some decent action, particularly over fences, which I'll attempt to analyse using the adjusted sectional chart below. L'Homme Presse was (arguably) the star attraction on the card and he made a visually pleasing reappearance. It took a bit of time for him warm to his task, trading a lot bigger than his starting price on Betfair. The times show they went very slowly in the early stages, and Protektorat was allowed to dictate. The injection of pace came on the approach to the home straight, where L'Homme Presse challenged the leader and they ran this section 12 lengths quicker than average. This was potentially too quick, and resulted in a fairly average finishing effort from 3 out. Overall, I am struggling to be that positive about the performance, the finishing effort was comparable with JPR One, despite the slower early pace. The evidence suggests this was a fair bit behind L'Homme Presse's best and, although it was another step in the right direction for Protektorat, he also remains someway off his best.

I would argue the performance of the day came from JPR One, in a race where havoc was caused at the first fence, with Djelo departing and Master Chewy potentially having his chances ruined. Nonetheless, this was a big step up for the winner from his Sandown effort. The time compares quite favourably with 155-rated handicap winner First Flow, although they possibly went a bit too quickly in the middle of that race, leading to a steady finishing effort. JPR One, on the other hand, went reasonably steadily up to 4 out (somewhere in between L'Homme Presse and First Flow) but produced a very solid finishing effort. I would rate JPR One in the low 150s on the back of this performance and he would have definitely gone very close had Djelo and Master Chewy not had their mishap. He is clearly a fair bit behind the best of the Irish in terms of the Arkle picture, but could have place claims, should the race cut-up a bit.

Thurles 21st January - Chases

Times often go out the window when it rains, as it is pretty much impossible to determine how the ground deteriorates, so the chart below needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Having said that, the races below were run back-to-back and it is interesting to see just how far behind Allaho was, when compared with Harmonya Maker, the winner of the race before. Both races looked to be run at a fairly even pace and even factoring in worsening ground, finishing 20 lengths behind the mare suggests Allaho remains a long way behind his very best. It is a weak looking Ryanair, but I would be very negative about his chances for that race.