Race In Focus: Zone in on high-drawn runners in Saturday's Cambridgeshire

If the Ayr Gold Cup was considered to be a difficult punting race last weekend, make sure you check out this year’s renewal of the Cambridgeshire Handicap at Newmarket!

A near-maximum field of 29 runners will go to post to contest this 1m1f handicap on the Rowley Mile, which has an attractive prize pot of £200,000. The trends for this race are pretty mixed, though it’s notable that older horses have a six-four edge over three-year-olds in the last ten editions, and the last six winners have been drawn between stalls 21 and 29.

The latter statistic is the most important, especially when you consider that Very Talented, who finished third in 2016, is the only horse to have hit the frame from a single-figure draw in the last six years. 

Recent evidence suggests that those drawn low, and therefore race in a group towards the far-side rail, are significantly disadvantaged. That data encapsulates Cambridgeshires that have been run on ground ranging from good to firm to good to soft, which are the potential parameters that we are dealing with this time around.

As a result, I don’t want to be going near anything drawn in a single-figure post. That rules out William Haggas’ hat-trick-seeking Protagonist, Dual Identity and Kitsune Power among others. Of course, trends are never foolproof and those horses can win. But if they do, I won’t be cashing in.

Mujtaba has drawn nicely in gate 16 and deserves to head the market given his enticing profile and that he’s 3lb well-in at the weights. But Haggas has gone cold in the last fortnight with a record of 3-37 (at the time of writing on Friday morning) and also had a similar proposition beaten in the aforementioned Ayr Gold Cup seven days ago. That is enough to put me off at his price.

I’m going to throw two darts in here - the first at an improver and the other at a proven quantity. George Boughey’s Totally Charming is the former. This four-year-old has improved 19lb since joining his young trainer in January and looked like a horse to follow when he scored in front of big crowds on All-Weather Finals Day and Oaks Day. 

He earned a RPR of 103 for the second of those victories, a strong-staying success over the talented but frustrating Revich at Epsom, but fell short of that level when he returned just 12 days later in the Royal Hunt Cup at Ascot. Totally Charming still ran creditably in ninth (he would have been sixth if Frankie Dettori didn’t ease up), but Boughey believed that sub-par performance came as a result of the quick turnaround.

He’s been given three months off since, gets ideal ground conditions and a first-time tongue-tie is fitted. Off an attractive mark of 97, Totally Charming could provide William Buick with another notable winner this term.

Perotto is the other horse I’m interested in, especially because he has been completely overlooked in the market. Marcus Tregoning, who won this in 2012 and 2014, has clearly aimed this horse at the Cambridgeshire and the booking of Irish jockey Billie Lee, who has never ridden for the yard, seems pretty significant.

His victory in the 2021 Britannia proved that he is best suited by a big field and, although he has not won since, only two of his subsequent 11 appearances have come outside of Group or Listed company. Simply, Perotto has been facing superior horses on a regular basis.

You can put a line through his last four efforts - they were all tactical affairs that featured fields of six or fewer - and it is fair to expect huge improvement now that he is back in a race that will set up perfectly. Off just 3lb higher than his Britannia success and breaking from stall 20, watch out for this underrated longshot.

Recommended bets

Totally Charming (3.40 Newmarket) @ 17
Perotto (3.40 Newmarket) @ 34