Horsham Race 6 Preview: Fast Tempo And Kingsley's Top Four

Twelve go around for $100,000 at Horsham on Sunday, and the shape of the race is the story: a fast tempo, two-thirds pressure, and a field split cleanly between horses that will be rolling forward and horses conceding them a long start.

The race

Horsham Race 6 jumps at 4:30pm AEDT on 18 October, over 1400m, with the rail out at its True Entire Circuit setting and fine weather overhead. Topweight is Figlio D'argento (1) with 60kg; Cat Noir (12) and Spex (13) sit at the bottom of the scale on 55.5kg. No official Golden Bullet or Good Roughie has been issued for this event, so the read here is Kingsley's rated card alone.

The pace picture

The tempo band is Fast and the pressure reading is 68.69 per cent, which is the engine room of this preview. Predicted in-running position (ppir, where 1 means a horse settles closest to the lead) has Figlio D'argento at 1 from barrier 8, with Endless Summer (2) at 2 out of gate three and Naraghi at 3 from the inside alley. Coronationhercules is next at 4 and Spex at 5. That is a genuine cluster of forward runners rather than one uncontested leader, and at that pressure figure the back half of the field is relevant.

And the back half is deep. Royal Infantry is the furthest back on ppir 12, Mr Independent 11, Col Klink 10, Stargust 9, Final Countdown 8 and Cat Noir 7. The sharper the scrap up front, the more those closers come into the equation — which is exactly why Kingsley's four picks are drawn from both halves of the map.

Kingsley's selections

His top pick is Spex (13), rated $7 against a $6.50 market this morning — so he has her a touch over the odds rather than under. The case is weight relief: she won by five lengths at Tatura carrying 62.5kg and comes back 7kg today, a swing that matters more than most form lines in this race. Only five starts in, 1400m on her mark, and his read is that nothing in this field gets past her in the early stages.

His second pick Endless Summer (2) is rated $8 against a $7 market. He hit the line hard at Bendigo last time, beaten a length after doing the work outside the leader, he is third-up and fitter, and barrier three puts him in the firing line from the jump. On the map he is the most obvious danger to the favoured runner.

His third pick Cat Noir (12) is rated $16 against a $14 market, and she is the one whose price hinges entirely on tempo. Resuming and ppir 7, she will be giving them a start — but if the front end tears into each other at that pressure reading, she is the horse built to profit. His fourth pick Final Countdown (9) is rated $12 against a $10 market, a mare who was held up and tightened before bursting clear at Murray Bridge over this exact trip, better than the margin suggests, and who trains on this track. She is up in the weights and drawn 11.

The pointed note is Col Klink (6), rated $5 against a $3.90 market this morning. Kingsley has him comfortably longer than the market: the win came on heavy ground, he is up in trip again and he maps at ppir 10. He is happy to take that on.

The metrics

CAM is the composite ability rating, and Cat Noir tops the field at 89.4328, with Colour Our World (8) second at 85.56 and Spex third at 82.4437. CSW rates class, speed and weight against the clock, and there Colour Our World ranks first on 89.72, Mr Independent (3) second on 88.7 and Naraghi third on 88.46.

Cruising speed measures how fast a horse travels before being asked, and Spex leads it outright on 87, ahead of Endless Summer on 85.5 and Figlio D'argento on 83.5 — a tidy fit with the three of them mapping prominently. Acceleration is finishing speed, and Cat Noir's 104.366 is the single biggest number on this card, clear of Colour Our World on 94.62 and Col Klink on 90.5806.

What to watch: how hard Endless Summer and Naraghi press the early speed — the harder they go, the better Cat Noir's closing sprint looks.

Pre-race analysis, published before the jump. 18+ · Gamble responsibly.