Catterick: Dapper Man

Dapper Man is a straightforward horse to analyse. He needs 5f, fast ground and the opportunity to set the tempo. We can therefore throw-out his last two runs on turf because they have come on soft ground, go back to Beverley and he ran a fine race to finish 5th, losing places at the finish as his stamina gave out.

When Dapper Man is faced with 5f, in single digit fields, with going described as ‘good to firm’ his record is 152112112. Limit that sample to races of class 5 or lower and it improves to 112112.

For the 2.15 Catterick we are therefore attempting to predict the going (weather) more than the race itself. There are bits of rain forecast but the wind and warm weather works in our favour. Dapper Man is also well drawn in stall 1 and races off a competitive mark. We also have to consolation that he won over course and distance in 2018 on going described as ‘good to soft’ so even if we get the weather forecast wrong we don’t need to rip up our tickets.