Looking at Lingfield ....

Morning All ,
                  Its a nice n quiet week after the kerfuffle that was Cheltenham and i think today we can have a look at Lingfield or more pertinently the Favourites  @ Lingers..
                                                

The AW track at Lingers is rather unique and fairly basic in all honesty as you can see but the draw can have a major impact especially in races upto 1m where the draw bias is more prevalent.

" Key Characteristics >>>

The Lingfield all weather course uses polytrack and the surface is probably the fastest of all the A/W racecourses in the UK. The believe is that front runners cannot win at Lingfield and because of this you often get falsely run races as nobody wants to lead. It is actually possible to win from the front if a horse gets given a soft lead. Otherwise the final turn which is preceded by a downhill section appears to act as a kind of slingshot similar to that in cycling, and the lead can change many times in the last furlong as horses shoot from the pack. The turf course is used a lot less often than the A/W course, however a strong bias appears to exist in that the far rail away from the grandstand is a lot quicker than other parts of the course. This fact means that in longer races front runners are favoured as they are able to bag that far rail, and any challengers have to come round them on the slower ground " .

So today we can use this information to help us decide on what Favs to back and which we should be laying...or in some cases just leaving alone all together....

RACE 1 : MINSTRELS GALLERY @ 4.1
This won its maiden at Southwell back in March 2012 was given a rating based upon that of a rather high 78 it then raced in the Craven Stakes which is a huge jump in class and although down the firld it got to within 12L of the impressive Trumpet Major unfortunately this also pushed its core rating upto 87 it then went Hcapping and come last or towards the rear in every race it entered and the 87 was looking crazy high so it started to fall as you would expect but in Dec 2012 after running 11/12 again it suffered an injury that sidelined it for 15 Months upon its return to racing at Kempton it started off at a more realistic 52 and it ran ok coming 2nd , slowly away it had the very good Robert Tart nursing him through this , cajoling at midway and Fleetwoodsands just had the edge that day however putting this into perspective this was a Grade 6 affair with the 3rd home rated just 52 and the winner coming home off a mark off just 48 ( former 52 rated ) which makes this a very low grade race and i think a rating of around 48 - 56 will be the limit of this horses ability and anything racing against it that is genuine and higher rated or has better form will probably beat it.

Now this is the right race for Minstrels Gallery with most of these racing garbage , out of form or just plain useless but there are still at least 5 solid runners in opposition which makes this a Good Value LAY imo as the list in opposition is as follows....

1. PETERSBODEN @ 9.0
2. FINAL DELIVERY @ 5.3
3. LITMUS @ 18.0
4. DANIEL THOMAS @ 5.50
5. SCAMPERDALE @ 20

Now its my belief that any one of this five could win and worse case scenario is a TRADE as Robert Tart ( todays rider ) kept it hung out back  ( started slowly ) and made no effort to make early inroads so its my thought that this tactic will again be tried today as the pace is likely to be provided by Litmus , Scamperdale and Final Delivery and at the very minimum this will trade at 6.4 in the run so there is profit to be made there imo...Plenty to think about , plenty of options and good luck if you decide to get involved...for me its a straight LAY unless of course come pre race its drifted right out to 6+ then i will just take the easy option...;-)...

Result / Synopsis : MINSTRELS GALLERY Won this very easily and looks a cut above these and could easily get involved with anything upto around 66 so im suggesting this has 10lb in hand , R Tart grabbed a good spot in around 4th all the way hanging off a slow pace and moved to the front around the bend , lengthened and quickened and pulled away with ease...hit a high of 5.1 in the run from a BFSP of 3.37 i traded out as soon as the first 1f had run as it was obvious new tactics were being tested...