SHAPESHIFTER

Friday's racing produced a good example of a 'weak fave'.

In the 3:45 at Southwell, Jockey Richard Johnson took Kack Handed to the front from the first hurdle offering up a steady pace to the field. 

Early on, the thought of "made all" crosses my mind but you simply have to remind myself that it is a 2 miler over hurdles and not a 7 furlong flat race.

Just over half-way, Kack Handed was still leading over the hurdles while Jamie Moore and Charlie Poste were content following.  It wasn't until around three furlongs out that they made a collective move to challenge the leader.

As they book-cased Kack Handed, this is where the analysis becomes apparent. 

Before Friday, Richard Johnson has ridden the horse 16 times, winning four.  But when the challenge came, he asked for a surge and Kack Handed's engine sputtered leaving Goodwood Starlight and Topenhall to battle for the win.

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The race before at Worcester was 20 furlongs and right at 2 miles, Kack Handed faded from contention.

The races for Kack Handed in April and May produced a win and two seconds.  But this was on ground with more give than last Friday and, most importantly for me, when looking at the horses that Kack Handed beat on thoses days, based on their subsequent races, I felt the competition to date had not been a strong and Friday's race would be too challenging.

Therefore, enough support to feel that the negatives outweighed the (perceived) positive of a step back to 2 miles and the flag for 'weak fave' was given.

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Friday also hilited the importance of waking with the previous day behind you and a clean slate.

On Thursday, I had flagged up 13 'weak faves' over five meetings, 4 of them winning with an average BFSP of 3.20.

I approached Friday's meetings no differently and uninfluenced by Thursday's performance and found five selections over three afternoon meetings finishing the week with a clean sheet. 

Despite compiling a long-list for evening racing that needed to be tightened and Mrs Shapeshifter expecting me to be focused on the screens until 8PM, I instead closed down for the week and spent the evening kicking a football around with Shapeshifter jr while Princess Shapeshifter rode her new bike around the park.


WEAK FAVES for 30-July
Selections based on the quality of the fields in their previous races

AYR
2:35 Dutch Heritage
3:05 Yours Ever

LINGFIELD
5:10 Mizbah
5:40 Norfolk Sky

YARMOUTH
2:45 Wordsaplenty
3:15 Soap Wars
3:50 Flynns Boy




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