Royal Ascot 2010: Royal Hunt Cup Preview
THE ROYAL HUNT CUP – ROYAL ASCOT 16TH JUNE 2010
Swift Gift
They don’t come any tougher than the Hunt Cup where a final field of around 25 battle-hardened handicappers run over a straight mile. By using a few robust trends, however, we can soon reduce the contest to a more manageable size.
This is one of only three races at Royal Ascot where the Queen actually presents the trophy (the other two being the Gold Cup and the Queens Vase) which, while an interesting fact, doesn’t help us to narrow down the field any.
So let’s move on to more material matters: by looking back at the past winners of this race we can see that in the last 24 renewals of this race, all bar two of the winners were aged either four or five years old, which helps us quite a lot.
This is a very strong age trend that covered five of the first six horses home last year (despite nearly a third of the field being made up of horses aged 6 and over) and in the last 11 years, covered 36 of the 44 win and placed horses.
If we apply this to the 73 declared runners we can eliminate 26 straight away, which means over one third of the field has been removed with just one key trend.
Now let’s review how weight has affected the outcome of this race by looking at the fact that every winner since 1999 has been officially rated 91 or higher. From our remaining list, we can eliminate a further group of horses, leaving us with 31. At the other end of the weight and ratings spectrum, all of the past fourteen winners carried 9 stone 5lb or less.
Assuming Forgotten Voice stands his ground and carries the top-weight of 9-10, we can lose all of those rated within 5lb of him meaning another five runners can be dismissed.
We are now left with 27 runners to concentrate on.
Being one of the most prestigious handicaps in the racing calendar, we would expect to see winners of the Class 2 Royal Hunt Cup to have shown good form at, or around, this sort of grade. In fact, eleven of the last twelve winners of the Hunt Cup had already won a race at Class 3 or higher which excludes a further six runners.
Current form is a useful asset in any race and, with all of the last 11 winners having run first or second in at least one of their previous three runs, the Hunt Cup is no exception.
Applying this to the remainder reduces our options to a round dozen, and there are still eminently sensible angles to apply.
For instance, given the number of runners that take part in the Hunt Cup (usually 25 or more), it is hardly surprising that previous form in a big field is hugely advantageous. Indeed, every winner in the decade from 1999-2008 had been placed or better in a handicap with 16 runners or more.
This run came to an end last year when the winner Forgotten Voice defied this trend (incidentally it was the only trend that he fell down on).
As he was a very lightly raced horse (just 3 runs) and was obviously handicapped very nicely I’m willing to overlook his failure to meet this particular trend and carry on looking for a horse with placed form in a big field of handicappers.
Of the dozen left, only seven of them have proved themselves in these conditions.
As an Irish trained horse hasn’t won the Hunt Cup for over 25 years I will be reluctantly overlooking David Marnane’s pair – Dandy Boy and Bangalore Gold – and plump instead for a domestic runner leaving, a shortlist at this stage of Tartan Gigha, Suruor, Manassas, Mull Of Killough and Swift Gift.
And finally, as the race gets nearer and the final race declarations are made there are a couple of other factors to look out for. Firstly, it’s always worth noting any horse carrying a penalty in the Hunt Cup as they have had a terrible time of it over the years.
In fact in the last 14 years there have been thirty horses to have run with a penalty, and all thirty have been beaten including the red hot favourite Bankable in 2008. In last year’s race, Dunno was the sole runner to carry a penalty and he finished 14th of the 25 runners.
The second factor to note in a big field of runners like the Hunt Cup is the draw. In the last 11 years those drawn in middle to high stalls have had a terrible time with just 4 of the 44 win and placed horses coming out of stalls 16-25. The full breakdown looks like…
Stalls 1-5 have provided 18 win and placed horses
6-10 9
11-15 4
16-20 2
21-25 2
26+ 9
Looking at those figures and seeing that last year’s first three home were drawn 1, 5 and 4 you could even say that those drawn 1-10 have a massive advantage.
So look to the low-drawn members of that quintet for your Hunt Cup wagers.
