Saturday's feature gets the full treatment: a single-race live guide to the Group 2 Visit Malta Hungerford Stakes at Newbury, seven furlongs on ground riding Good To Firm, with the live model table sitting under the write-up exactly as it does on the dashboard. This is the format our Ebor Festival coverage runs next week, four days of it, starting Wednesday.
Nine go to post and the model has an unusually firm view of the race, with its top percentage more than double the second pick. The write-up below walks through why, and where the case against comes from.
How we read a race
Every horse in a race holds a TPR percentage and every field sums to 100, so the numbers read like the model’s own market. The engine chips show ability, current form and operating level; the sparkline is the last five race figures. Ten quick answers sit in the primer below, and the full walkthrough of every metric is in the complete data guide.
Visit Malta Hungerford Stakes (Group 2)
7f | Class 1 Group 2 | 9 runners
TPR percentages · every field sums to 100
The percentages rarely commit this hard in a Group 2. One horse holds 33 of the race's 100, more than double the 16 of the second pick, with the rest of the field scattered from 12 down to 3. The race shape is gentler than most seven-furlong contests here, a moderate pace forecast with only two confirmed front-runners, which puts a premium on being close to a steady tempo rather than owning raw finishing speed. Two of the nine carry conditions figures that stand far above their market position, and one of those is also the horse likely to be setting the fractions.
Symbol Of Honour is the 33, and the number is built on the most current evidence in the field: his latest run returned a figure of 194, the best any of these has produced at any stage, and his Newbury track figure of 183 says this course brings out his top level. His going figure of 145 on Good To Firm is comfortably clear of the pack behind, his yard's one-month figure of 112 is running ahead of its twelve-month baseline of 108, and his prominent racing style is exactly what a moderately-run seven furlongs rewards. The model's percentage amounts to better than a one-in-four chance before the market opens its mouth, and everything in the profile is pointing the same way at once, form, course, ground, pace and stable.
Prince Of India heads the chasing pack on 16 and is the most convincing of the alternatives. His going figure of 136 is second only to the favourite among the principals, his distance figure of 120 says seven furlongs is his trip, and his trainer's one-month figure of 99 against a baseline of 91 marks a yard in genuine form. The reservation is positional: he races mid-division, and if the pace forecast of 5 proves accurate there may simply not be enough happening up front for a closer to run into.
The interesting outsider is Witness Stand on 10, because his conditions figures read like a different race: 175 on this ground, 141 at this trip, and a track figure of 207 at Newbury that is the highest number of any kind in the field. He is also one of only two confirmed front-runners, so in a race with little early pace he could get an uncontested lead on a course he plainly loves. The model holds him on 10 rather than higher because the underlying level has to be taken on trust against these, but as each-way propositions in a nine-runner Group 2 go, the shape of the race is doing him every favour.
Symbol Of Honour's 33 rests on the field's best current figure, its best course form and the right running style for the likely tempo; Prince Of India is the pick of the rest, and Witness Stand the pace-angle outsider.
The full field
The day at a glance
Where the data landed, race by race.
The data, explained
New to the numbers? Quick answers below, and the full walkthrough of every metric lives in the complete EquiAnalytix data guide.
What is TPR?
TPR (Total Performance Rating) is EquiAnalytix's proprietary rating, built from a database of more than 836,000 runs. Every horse's number is derived from race times adjusted for class, going, pace and race shape, so it measures what a horse actually did rather than what the handicapper thinks of it.
What does the percentage mean?
Every horse in a race holds a TPR percentage and every field sums to 100, so the numbers read like the model's own market. A horse on 33 is being given a one-in-three chance before the betting market has its say.
What are the conditions figures?
Going, track and distance figures isolate a horse's best performances under today's exact conditions. A horse with a high going figure on Good To Firm has already produced its best on this ground, which matters far more than a career-best achieved in a bog.
What is the pace forecast?
Each runner's early-position style is profiled from its past runs, and the race pace forecast aggregates them. A low number means few confirmed front-runners and a steady early gallop, which historically favours horses ridden close to the pace.
More racedays, read by the data
Every runner, every race, every day
Everything this guide runs on, the percentages, the engine readings, the figures, the pace maps, lives on the dashboard for every British and Irish race. From 27p a day.
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