October has arrived. The weather is turning wet and colder. The evenings have become darker and so the racing is moving on to the all weather for the winter. Having spent a lot of time building various models and data banks for the 7 tracks in France that have an artificial surface, I am in a position to be able to offer detailed analysis of races that are largely overlooked by the wider racing world. Whilst it is possible to see a potential star appear on the PSF at Deauville or Chantilly, Calandagan in October 2023 is the most recent example that I can think of, those horses tend to be the exception rather than the rule. The racing at Marseille Vivaux is a fair example. This is the smaller of the 2 tracks in Marseille and with a complete circuit measuring less than 6-furlongs, there is an enormous emphasis on early speed and track position. Although the standard of racing at this track can be towards the lower end of the scale, Group 1 winners like Tiger Tanaka and Marianafoot have run here in the last few years.
I try to focus on 3-year-old form on the All-Weather. The racing program in France allows every horse to have opportunities to win prize-money throughout the year, regardless of their level of ability, but as a result by the time horses are 4, they can become relatively exposed in a short space of time. As a result, I find that most of the older handicappers take it turns to win, especially in the winter months. Similarly, the 2-year-olds that are running on the PSF at the end of the year tend to be either exposed maidens or backward types that are running in the hope of picking up prize-money against weaker opposition. As a result, that leaves me with the 3-year-old races.
I have included some analysis of a couple of the 3-year-old races from Marseille this Wednesday below. A key point to note about Marseille is that there are certain connections who target the racing here, most notably the horses owned by JC Seroul and so it was no surprise to see those colours land a treble on the card. The 3-year-old handicap, won by Kyloa, produced some of the best figures on the card, but the fact that the Perret yard used their other runner Tashanka as a pacemaker definitely aided their cause. This wasn't a pacemkaing plot to the level that Ballydoyle sometimes resort, but it wasn't far off that. As a result, I would be quite happy to take her on next time. Kyloa has 2 wins from 7 starts, but the handicapper has given her a 2.5-kilo rise here for a win in a race that setup perfectly for her to come from off the pace. She is unlikely to get this kind of setup again and I thought that the 3rd placed Skimbleshanks was much more interesting. He carried 5-kilos more than the winner and was forced widest of all around the home turn. The sectional times published by France-Galop show that he ran the fastest final 3-furlongs in the field and with a defeat of just under 3-lengths, he has been left untouched by the handicapper on a mark of 33.5. Both of his career wins came at this track in November 2023 and from a similar mark, it is hard to ignore his claims next time.
I'll add one final point about the Class 3 conditions race for the stayers at the end of this card. A race over 2,600m is over 2 circuits of the track and as you can see from the data, it can often produce very slow times as the jockeys effectively amble their way through the first 2000m of the race. That is clearly true in the case of the Prix Du Port De L'Eoube, where the winning time run by Almanabaa was over 9-seconds outside of the course standard. The race became a 3-furlong sprint, with the winner coming home in 36.98s from that point, a finishing speed of 109.08%. That's not unusal for this type of race at Marseille Vivaux, but it does often mean that the form over these longer trips will not translate to more conventional tracks in the area like Pau and Lyon La Soie. If Almanabaa or one of the placed horses were to line up away from Marseille next time, I would definitely be keen to try to find an angle to take them on with as this form will be given more credit than it should be in the market.
As the season progresses, I will add further notes on the All-Weather racing to the blog and I will also make my data sheets available with those posts to try to bring more focus to these races. Marseille Vivaux held a relatively typical meeting on Wednesday, but with a couple of angles to explore from the data and the form, it felt like a good place to start as the winter season gets underway.
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