A new week for the ‘Nap of the Day’ begins on Wednesday, where the focus is the all-weather meeting at Lingfield.
| Lingfield - 13:25 |
The Defiant |
9/1 |
At Lingfield, it’s the third race that I’m primarily interested in on Wednesday. The horse in focus is The Defiant, who made a pleasing return to action following a break over course and distance back in January. Little more than a repeat of that effort would likely see him make his presence felt a bit more than the early odds suggest now that he eases in grade.
Vastly experienced and far from unfamiliar with running on the all-weather, the gelding has delivered several promising efforts in races of this nature, while he’s now dropped to what can be described as a lenient rating, sitting 2 lbs below his last winning mark, while his jockey also takes off a handy 7 lbs, which let’s be honest, leaves him to be very well weighted ahead of this race.
Can be a serious all-weather player at this level
In general, like most horses whose bread and butter is lower-level handicaps, the nine-year-old has a patchy record, though he has three wins to his name from ten Class 5 runs over five furlongs on the all-weather, hitting the places on two further occasions. That's a 50% win/place record. Even that 30% win record makes odds of 9/1 (10% implied probability) look generous.
What we cannot ignore is the fact that the mount of Jack Dace won his penultimate Class 5 all-weather race over this distance, scoring with a decent amount of authority at Chelmsford back in March. He did so from 2 lbs higher in the handicap. In fact, this is now the lowest that he’s ever been in the weights for a Class 5 handicap over five furlongs on an artificial surface.
Having recently wound up with a very respectable effort in a better race than this over course and distance, he really ought to get involved here.
Quite frankly, when we put everything together, odds of 9/1 look too large. Given all the positives, should this horse be this big? For my money, absolutely not, thus he goes down as a value bet.
Based on a £10 level-stakes example, the Nap of the Day (after 85 Naps) has a running P/L of +£25.00 (since switching to being published here (10/09/2024) rather than on the ‘Nap of the Day' page).
For those interested, here’s a monthly profit and loss breakdown (again based on a £10 level-stakes example):
September 2024 = +£34.00
October 2024 = +£6.00
November 2024 = +£15.00
December 2024 = +£50.00
2024 Overall = +105.00
