Palmerston North Free Ratings & Selections – 27 August 2018

It’s been a busy time for the Formpro Ratings.  We seem to have managed to negotiate through the shark-infested seas of a major migration.  The good news is that we can provide this won’t be happening again soon!

The one thing that hasn’t changed is that the Ratings continue to find winners … and it will be my job to try and find the winners and also a runner that the price says will win but the Ratings beg to differ.

Last week, the wires were crossed and I got the mixed up!  The boss has had a chat and like Warriors it’s time to bounce back.

No Login Required This Week

Just a note that this week, you won’t need to login to see the Ratings.  From Tuesday, it will be back to members only.

David

Bet of the Day – M3 Race 4 – Benny Burrito (1)

I almost made Benny the bet of the day last week and as it turned out I should have.  That said, my strike rate finding winners is always a lot higher after the race has been run and won.

Based on last week’s effort, his recent form, the draw and the quality of the field, I think you would have expected Benny to be paying around $2.20-$2.50.  However, the money’s come for a runner from Australia having his first run in NZ – Blazin’ Carter (3).  The import has some good form from Sydney and looks to have trialled well.

It certainly isn’t the strongest C5 field we’ve seen at Palmerston North so on paper it looks like a two dog race.  In his favour, Benny has the 1 draw and we know that last week he was able to get through along the rail and win.  Interestingly, Blazin’ Carter looks a little slow away and hasn’t placed from 2 starts in box 3.  There’s also the first up syndrome – we won’t know how he races in NZ until he races.

So while there is some unknowns, I still think Benny provides some value at $2.90.

In the end, he didn’t win by much but he did win and at $2.90 was fair value.  As we noted, if the Aussie import hadn’t started, he would have run a lot shorter than $2.90.  The Predictor’s second and fourth picks made up the tasty trifecta too.  Now to see how whether the Fish flops or fizzes!

Lay of the Day – M9 Race 5 – Monster Fish (8)

When I did my first analysis of the fields before the bookies had put their prices up, I had marked this down as an extremely open race with a number of chances.

Perhaps it shows why I’m not a bookie!  The bookies have Monster Fish at a very short priced favourite paying $1.95FF.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Monster Fish win – he’s clearly one of the main chances.  But based on the Ratings, it’s hard to argue that he’s that much of a clear cut chance.

Box 8 always makes me a little nervous and the stats show that it is the least successful at Palmy.  That said, that says nothing about the Fish.  What we do know is that across all his starts in NZ and Australia, he’s had 15 wins and 11 of those have been from boxes 1-3.  The Ratings would suggest a number of runners have run best times the same or better than the favourite and likewise his recent form is matched by other runners too.  He has a slight edge on box speed but it’s hardly statistically relevant and still has to overcome box 8.

Bigtime Twinkle (5) and All About Space (3) look like they will have the early speed while Djay Dynamix looks to overs at $7 given his record over the 457m at Palmerston North.

So it looks a case of poor value – the Fish could well win but I wouldn’t want to back him at less than $2.  I think he’s more of a $2.50-$3 chance.  That potentially means there could be value in the exotics and also the Rugs Challenge for M9.  The bookies will have booked 3 points for the pink rug and the pink rug is currently favourite for the second rugs challenge.  If the Fish doesn’t win, it means there will be value elsewhere.

We’ll have to wait until the last race on the programme at 4.42 to find out.

As Roso said, there were plenty of hard luck stories in the race.  To be fair, the Fish wasn’t one of those – he got to the lead and got run down.  So while the Ratings didn’t find the winner all that easily, the point of the exercise was that the Ratings highlighted that Monster Fish was no $1.90 chance either.  So that made a much more successful day with the Bet of the Day getting home and the Lay of the Day not quite getting home.

Rugs Challenge – M3

Given how open the races look on the card today, the Rugs Challenge is a great way to have an interest across all races in a meeting and also find some value.

In M3, using the Predictor, the top three chances are boxes 1, 5, and 8.  Rugs 1 and 5 both have only 8 runners while box 8 has the full 10.  The pink (8) has opened at $6.50 while the yellow (5) is the rank outsider at $31.  If the Predictor is right, the yellow is not likely to score many points until the second half of the card so could potentially get out further.  You always have to rate the chance of the Red Rug but there only looks to be one standout chance with Benny Burrito in Race 4.

If you like the Rugs Challenge, keep an eye out for a new feature on the greyhound ratings.

Update after race 3 – if your lucky number is 2, then you would be pretty happy.  Three races down and three wins to rug 2!  It’s still not over but a couple more places will make 2 tough to run down.  To be fair, we expected rugs 5 and 8 to show up in the second half of the card but it’s a lot tougher now.

Update after race 10 – box 1 shared the spoils with box 2 with 8 just two points away.  So we got a result but not a great return.

The rugs challenge for M9 looks very open especially if the Fish gets beaten or should that be battered?