Newmarket 27 August

[Spook]

I think there's a chance that this 2yo auction race is quite a bit better than the norm.

The quality of horses contesting these events is definitely improving as its one purse that the recession doesn't seem to have got to, and last year of course we had Wootton Bassett avoiding group races in favour of these events. The big fields normally ensure a price is available too. I've actually abandoned the 0.5 pts in the class par now when assessing these on a major track as I don't think it reflects the strength any longer

Leaving that aside, I've got a feeling that Saturday's card at HQ might have been run on drying ground? The times seem to get faster as racing progresses and although we have a couple run on the round course (I use the description loosely at Newmarket) which might bring rail movement and wind into the equation, I'm inclined to think that drying ground is possibly a better explanation given what we know about the weather of the last few days.

The race I had in mind was a bit of a muddling affair won by Mehdi but he carried 3Ibs more than Swiss Dream carried to victory an hour later over same C&D in an all age listed race in a raw time that was just 0.03 secs slower. That's no mean achievement for a 2yo

If the ground was drying out, than being second up he would have been running on some of the worst of it. With a lot of these races due up at places like Newmarket, Doncaster and Redcar in the next month or so, I've got a suspicion this card, and this race in particular is worth a second look for sourcing something.

My usual method for trying to solve these types of ground adjustments during racing is crude and involves a moving average, but it would give Mehdi 95.35 which would be competitive in these kind of races. I can also rate it at 91.41 too