Irish Lincolnshire Trends Ratings

The Irish flat season well and truly gets underway at the Curragh tomorrow with the 21-field Irish Lincolnshire handicap taking center stage. The race has thrown up plenty of surprises in the past, with winners at starting prices of 25/1, 33/1 and 20/1 in the last few years, so we shouldn't be afraid to backa big-priced outsider... and, by the looks of things, we won't be.

Yesterday, our new-style trends ratings (which are currently on trial on the flat before the season really gets into full swing) was unlucky to miss out on place money with 25/1 shot Dick Doughtywylie in the Winter Derby, who finished 4th. Grandeur, however, our other bet, was disappointing and couldn't overcome a wide draw, and that puts us in a 4 point deficit at the end of the day. You may have noticed we've doubled the stakes from last year, but ultimately, whether we are in profit or loss will be the same as if we were staking 1pt per selection.

Today, we're going to analyse the race using both methods - last year's and this year's. This is to see which trends analysis system is giving us the best results, and this will be the one used throughout the rest of what is sure to be an exciting season.

New Style

So, first for the new trends ratings. Here are the main trends we used, without boring you with the details:

• 8 of 10 winners were having their first flat start of the year
• 7 of 10 winners finished in first 4 on last turf start
• 9 of 10 winners had gained 1 to 3 career flat wins
• 10 of 10 winners had won over 1M to 1M 2F
• 9 of 10 winners had not won a race worth more than 15K
• 9 of 10 winners had won a race on ground softer than good

And here were the results:

1. Diesel Ten 40/1 (BetVictor and Bet365) - 85 
2. Stuccodor 5/1 (Racebets) - 81
3. Shipyard  17/2 (BetVictor) - 79

Old Style

You may remember how we did the trends analysis last season on the old blog. We analysed and crunched the data surrounding three main areas - the draw, the horse's place last time out, and the market positions - and then added in trends surrounding recent form. Every horse was simply awarded one point for every criteria they fitted.

We worked with the same form trends as in the new style ratings, but we left out the second because it clashes with the place last time out trend. Here are the scores:

1. Diesel Ten 40/1 - 7
2. Afonso De Sousa, Stuccodor, Cheval Rouge, Shipyard - 6

So...

The trends all point towards a massive upset with 40/1 shot Diesel Ten the winner in both cases. So:

1 pt e/w on Diesel Ten 40/1 - 4.40 Curragh
(Bet365 are offering that price and you can sign up for an account with them below to take advantage of their special offers and free bets.)

The very best of luck as always, and remember to only bet what you can afford to lose.

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