Racing League Week 3 Review - Chepstow
The Racing League moved on to Chepstow for the 3rd meeting of 6 and despite a slightly mixed set of results, Team East managed to hold on to their advantage, reaching the halfway stage of the 2025 campaign with a 16-point lead. The night began with an impressive win for Team Yorkshire and Roberto Caro. Winning for the 4th time in his career, Adrian Keatley’s charge stayed on very strongly to hold the closing pair of King of Light and Addison Grey. As you might expect for a competitive 6-furlong sprint here, there were 9 horses that took 5.2s or less to reach 30 mph and a fast early pace led to a race that became a testing sprint, with a finishing speed of 98.5%. A winning time of 1:10.03 was 0.44s quicker than the TPD expected time for the grade and having raced prominently throughout, this was a superb effort from the winner as a result. The data would suggest that the key to this victory was the length of his stride. At a peak average of 25.96 ft, Roberto Caro had the longest stride in the field and that allowed him to gallop on, finishing under a long rein ride from Joanna Mason and holding on by a neck despite having a slower final furlong split than the 2nd and 3rd placed horses. All 3 wins in handicap company have come in 6-furlong races run with a finishing speed below 102% and a strong early pace on a galloping track like this appears to be the key to him. He shouldn’t go up by more than 3 lbs for this win and so if he were to get a similar setup next time, he may well be able to back up his first win of 2025.
The 2nd race on the night went to Team London & the South as Shamrock Bay got the better of a protected battle with Lir Speciale to win by a short head. The data from TPD shows that there was very little between the pair over the final half a mile, with a difference of just 0.09s for their finishing times over the last 4-furlongs and given the fact that the pair were over 3-lengths clear of the rest, Lir Speciale can be considered an unlucky loser on this occasion. Much like the first race, the stride length data provides the answer as Shamrock Bay recorded a peak average of 26.33 ft, considerably longer than the 25.12 ft peak recorded by Lir Speciale and there’s no doubt that he was the worthy winner having also recorded the best run-out speed in the field at 36.91 mph. This was a first win since August 2024 for Daniel and Claire Kubler’s charge, but he had certainly been knocking on the door having finished 2nd to Mr Swivell on Night 2 of the Racing League at Wolverhampton 7-days earlier and there’s no reason to think that he won’t be capable of running well again next time, even after the handicapper has a say.
The most impressive winner on the card must be Jane Chapple-Hyam’s Flag of St George, who ran out an easy winner of the 7-furlong handicap at 7:00. Racing on his own down the centre of the course under David Allan, he asserted at halfway and ran the fastest 5th and 6th furlongs in the field, ultimately winning by 3-lengths. This performance backed up his recent return to form when he landed a handicap over 7-furlongs at Ascot in July and having raced alone for the majority of the race, there is every reason to upgrade this performance further. A top speed of 43.89 mph ranked 1st and having been the fastest horse in 4 of the opening 6-furlong splits, he readily put this field to the sword. Flag of St George led home a 1,2 for Team Yorkshire, who enjoyed 2 winners and 4 places from their runners on the night.
The 12-furlong handicap at 8:00 saw Beylerbeyi complete a hat-trick after earlier wins at York and Newmarket. He finished with closing furlongs of 11.12 and 11.88s to run down Winston Junior. The runner-up did very little wrong and looked to a winning chance at the 2-furlong pole, but he lacked the tactical speed of the winner, who came with a sustained run down the centre of the track to win by three-quarters of a length. Jessica Harrington’s 3-year-old is still a maiden after 7 starts, but he bumped into a winner who is in the form of his life and given the way that he finished this race, with the best run-out speed in the field at 34.45 mph, he shouldn’t be a maiden for too much longer, with the step up in trip likely to bring out further improvement.
The night ended with a superb result for the current league leaders Team East, as Crowd Quake made every yard of the 10-furlong handicap, beating his team mate Salamanca City by a length and a half. This was Stuart Williams’ horses’s 6th win of 2025, a run that has already seen him rise 24 lbs in the handicap and on this evidence, he may not yet have reached his peak this year. Crowd Quake recorded the fastest opening 2-furlong splits in 16.08 and 13.40s and dominated the race from that point onwards. A finishing speed of 109% might suggest that he was favoured by a front-running ride, but the overall winning time of 2:06.82 was still 2.52s faster than the TPD expected time for the grade and this performance might suggest that even with another rise from the handicapper, he may not be finished with his winning streak.