Good Morning Friend, 

Another scorching day in store but no 3m+ chases for me to dive into so I've tried to share something of interest for my readers who enjoy their flat racing, repeated down below. 

Two of the many challenges for us racing enthusiasts can be both a lack of time and indeed knowing where to even begin looking on any given day. My aim with these Flat Pointers, and indeed my daily stats content, is to provide a daily starting point/way in, as a foundation for winner finding. 

I do like a trainer stat/angle or two as if you think you've found a pattern of behaviour or a habit (esp track & jockey related), it gives you a bit more confidence before trying to work out if the horse is good enough to compete today etc. Only ever one part of the puzzle of course. 

My EW beer money on the Richard Hughes horse was never in much doubt and for most of the trip I thought he'd be closer than he eventually was, but as is often the case around there, the pace held up and the front two didn't really come back. A solid if unspectacular staying on 3rd. He's clearly moderate enough but will pop up again in an AW handicap before long I suspect. 

Below you can find a few Flat Pointers for this evening's Sandown card, applicable to runners today, in the next few days and further into the future. If you like your trainer angles there's a few below worth noting. 

Before that - in the next few days i'll be busy trying to see if there are enough dreamers and racing fanatics who wish to join my new Racing To Profit Syndicate. 

I sent out a further email to my 'interested' email list yesterday, which you can read HERE >>>

If you'd be interested in hearing more, and maybe even signing up when it all goes live on Thursday, do pop your name on this list HERE >>> 

I won't be emailing this list on Thursday and those on the 'interested' list will get first refusal. 

It's an exciting new adventure and as with everything I do on here I'll be working hard to add as much value as I can to your experience of this great game.  

He's got two runners on the card this evening, Barn Owl above and Dancing Harry in the last. They both could be worth a glance, well, certainly stats wise. James Doyle and Ryan Moore are doing the steering and I assume that Roger and Jason Watson have now formally broken ties as he's not on any of his, hasn't been for a few weeks and is elsewhere today. When he can call on the very best jockeys around I suppose it makes sense but no doubt something else has gone on there. Anyway...

Roger does rather well in Sandown handicaps:-

Barn Owl makes his handicap debut here and Roger has been decent enough with handicap debutants in the last 2 years: 16/70, 28p, +29 SP. He's 3/11, 5p at Sandown with those in that time also.

Roger is also in fine form at the moment, 7/22, 11p in last 14 days, 70% rivals beaten.

With Jason no longer riding for Roger, or not as often, the booking of James Doyle may become more significant, we shall see.

In terms of the horses...

Well Barn Owl is the only LTO winner in the race and this is just his fifth start, for all that everything in here is fairly lightly raced. It's an interesting looking 3YO only handicap, but open enough on paper I think, no stand out to my eyes as yet. Plenty of his races have substance and enough of his form suggests he may be better than this mark in time, that Lingfield race has produced 6 subsequent winners, Kempton a further 8 including splitting some 90s horses. There isn't much pace on paper in this so it could become tactical, and this horse was able to be switched off LTO, tracking a sedate pace. It was the first time he hit the front in his life also I think and he did idle a bit, first run after a wind op also. He could come on for it, and the experience. Conditions look fine and given the stats above, pace set up, his form, I think 7/2, 4s is just about ok for 'star rating' purposes, I probably wouldn't want shorter but in theory he should be bang there.

Dancing Harry - well he has the stats to support above also and there's a chance Ryan tries to make all here in a race lacking much pace. Tynecastle Park can go forward if he has the class/pace to do so in this line up, but Ryan should either lead or sit second and in the final 6f these may all be playing to his tune. The horse doesn't like winning too often but has been consistent, he stays, some of his form reads ok (and on RPRs that run LTO was 2nd best figure he's produced, 86), he's placed twice at the track, gets a 1st tongue tie and Ryan rides him for the first time. I don't understand his doubters/knockers really, not in a riding sense. He remains one of the very best in the world. He rides this CD ok also, 3/10,6p in recent years. It looks an open enough race, they all have some questions, and maybe he can add to his tally here.  

Other stats of possible interest... when flicking through that 20.10 race a couple of other stats caught my eye...

I think that's enough stattage for today, read, absorb, note, ignore as you please! :)

Good luck as always, Josh