BEST of the BETS

Bet #94 - 5:30 Galway - 75/25 split win bets on Captain Maverick (6/4) & Aafoor (13/2)

Backed two in this race. First one is the favourite Captain Maverick, he outran his odds of 28/1 on debut to finish 2nd at Bellewstown. The 3rd, 4th & 6th from that race had previously finished 2nd, 3rd & 4th in a race at Down Royal, their similar positions in relation to each other across two races suggests to me that Bellewstown race is a reliable piece of form. The 3rd horse, Harry The Rogue, who had finished right next to Captain Maverick has been given a rating of 77. As he is recieving 6 lbs from the 2nd fav Megarry here, it means the latter will probably need to run to 80+ to beat the favourite providing he runs to form. Also a formline through Absolute Advantage/Guest Star/Chou Chou gives Captain the edge over his main rival.

Of course trainer's record at Galway has also played a big part in me backing this. Dermot Weld is 4 from 8 (+10.51 LSP) in this race.

My 2nd selection is the newcomer Aafoor. I look out for this type of horse in this these races (median auction maiden). It's important to know the difference between an auction maiden and median auction maiden. In an auction maiden the weights are determined by sales price of the horse, but in a median auction maiden the median sales price of the sire is used instead. This sometimes leads to very favourable situation for some horses like in this case with Aafoor, his sire Qurbaan's median sales price is below €12,000 which means he is getting weight from a few of the others in this race, but he is actually the most expensive runner in race having sold for €70,000 at Goresbridge Breeze-ups, which btw was among top 15% at that sale. To put this into context, if this was an auction maiden he would be giving weight to others but here he is receiving weight. Whether he is good enough to win or not is a different matter, but race conditions certainly favour him.

He is from a very good Shadwell family, that included top class horses like Midway Lady & Eswarah. In more recent past, dam's half sister Raabihah was a Group 2 winner on Good to Soft in France. Trainer's record in this race is not great though, 0 from 8 runners (2 placed).