Coral Lanzarote Handicap Hurdle: Big Race Trends

[White Feather]

Age of Winner:

Looking at the past 22 editions of the race (note that there are 23 results in our analysis due to the dead heat in 2006), the race has been dominated by 5 to 9-year-olds. The 6-year-olds have fared much the best, with an impressive 11 wins from 22 editions. No other group comes close to that 50% win rate, but extending the window to cover 5-7-year-olds accounts for 86.96% of the winners.

Weight Carried: 

Ahead of the 2024 edition, the minimum weight for the race is 10st2lb, with the maximum burden the standard 12st. As such, the bottom two entries on the above chart would carry a little more if lining up this year. Nevertheless, results show a strong bias against those runners shouldered with a big weight. During the period in question, no winner carried more than 11st7lb on the day, with 16 of 23 winners (69.57%) carrying 11st or less.

Rating of Winner:

The average rating of the winner in the current century is 131.60. However, from the above chart, we can see that this rating is showing a definite upward trend. This pattern is no real surprise, as the quality of the Lanzarote Hurdle has steadily increased in recent years, with the race being granted Listed status in 2013. Interestingly, the race lost its Listed status in 2023, but that doesn’t look to have hurt the quality of the entries.

Finishing Position Last Time Out

When weighing up any handicap, it is always tempting to favour the in-form runners. You wouldn’t have gone too far wrong if following that strategy in this race. 50% of winners had also won on their previous start, whilst 63% had at least managed to finish inside the first three. However, that still leaves 37% who left a poor display behind to come home in front. A solid recent outing is a plus, but if a horse has other factors in their favour, it may pay to forgive a subpar performance.

Days Since Previous Run

The key takeaway from this result is that only two horses have managed to win this following a break of two months or more. Fitness from a relatively recent run appears to be a distinct advantage. Overall, 20 or 23 winners had run between 11 and 60 days ago.

[MCLARKE]

Claiming jockeys have a good record in this race, winning 6 of the last 10 runnings from 42 attempts with a lsp profit of 79 points

Horses that have won just 1 of their last 6 races have recorded 6 wins from 54 runs with a profit of 80 points

Horses that last ran 24 to 78 days ago have won 9 times from 87 attempts with a profit of 78 points

Distance winners have recorded 7 wins from 81 with a profit of 44 points

This leaves the bottom weight GOOD LUCK CHARM available at 25/1 (6 places)

[MCLARKE]

Good Luck Charm finished 4th for an each way return

The winner Jay Jay Reilly at 33/1 (56 BSP) was in the top 2 (ticked all the boxes apart from being a distance winner)