Today's selection is Twelve Bars, running in the 17:30 at Kempton on the all-weather, the Unibet Supports Safer Gambling EBF Novice Stakes, a Class 3 over 7 furlongs on standard to slow ground worth £7,020 to the winner. He's a 2-year-old colt trained by Hugo Palmer, ridden by Oisin Murphy, and goes off at 5/6.
Worth flagging before anything else: the Expert View on this card is generic once more ("selected as today's top pick based on form analysis and expert ratings"), and there's no official rating shown, so we can't place him numerically against the rest of the field. As with other recent cards like this, we've built the case from what's actually on the page, and that's not a lot.
Form and class. His form line is simply "2": one run, a runner-up finish on debut, 12 days ago. That's a perfectly respectable start, since finishing second first time out suggests some ability, but it's the smallest sample there is. We know he was beaten once, and we don't know by how far, in what company, or how much improvement the card expects. A Class 3 novice stakes is also a decent level for a horse with a single run behind him.
Connections. Oisin Murphy is a top-class rider and a strong booking, which counts for something. Hugo Palmer's yard in Malpas, Cheshire, is a different story at the moment: 2 winners from 32 runners over the last 14 days, a 6% strike rate. That is cold, and it's the coldest yard figure we've written up in some time. A fortnight is a small, noisy window, and plenty of horses win from yards in a lull, but it isn't the form of a stable in a rich vein, and it needs saying plainly.
The Honest Assessment. Four things stand out. The first is the yard's 6% recent strike rate. The second is the thin published data: one run, no rating and a generic Expert View, so almost the entire case rests on the market and the jockey rather than anything we can verify from the card. The third is the surface: the going is standard to slow, and we can't tell from the card whether he has raced on the all-weather before, so we can't say how he'll handle it. The fourth is the price. At 5/6 the market is clearly fairly confident, and that may reflect home form or a debut run that read better than the bare result, but it's a short price for a horse with one run and a yard that isn't firing.
The Bottom Line. A debut second with a top jockey booked is a reasonable starting point, but this is one of the thinner cases we've put forward. A very cold yard, a single run, no rating and a short price leave little room for error. At 5/6 there's no each-way value to speak of, so this is win-only if you back it, and we'd suggest a reduced stake. If you only back selections with a stronger paper case, this is one where passing is a perfectly sensible choice.
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