King of Stats: Trip to Paris on the cards following Goodwood Cup

Some great horses have landed Thursday’s feature on the Sussex Downs, the Goodwood Cup, from the likes of Yeats to Persian Punch.

The stayers will have their stamina tested to its limits at the end of the 2m trip, so it’s all about finding a horse with that little bit extra heart.

But while you could spend hours thumbing through the form, weighing up the pros and cons of the idiosyncratic track in relation to your selection, we’ve got a better solution.

Using five simple trends that have featured prominently in the recent renewals of the race, we see that favourite Trip to Paris (4/1) will take an awful lot of stopping.

Here are the patterns that make Ed Dunlop’s charge such a tempting proposition:

–          The last 17 winners had either won a Class 1 race or been placed in a Group 1 or 2 that season

–          The last 12 winners were priced at 8/1 or shorter

–          Only one of the most recent 18 winners hadn’t previously finished in the first three of a Group 1

–          15 of the last 17 victors finished in the first three on their most recent run

–          A horse’s stallion is important with nine of the last 11 Cup winners sired by a horse with a stamina index of greater than 10.8

It may seem like a foolish way to narrow down the field, but the Ascot Gold Cup winner stands out head and shoulders above his challengers.

The four-year-old meets every one of the above criteria, and is in fact the only one of the 12 potential starters that even matches four.

Simenon (4/1) and Eye of the Storm (12/1) are the only two in the field that fall down on just a pair of our standards.

Some will point to the fact that the jolly has to carry a 4lb penalty for his Royal Ascot win, but that shouldn’t put you off.

The last four horses to carry a penalty in the race have all at least placed, the outstanding Yeats winning twice with the extra weight on his back.

Trip to Paris may be no Yeats, but in this field he won’t have to be to make the trends pay again.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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