Racing League Week 6 Preview
Southwell
We are already on the final night of the Racing League in 2025 as we head to Southwell on Thursday for the last 7 races. At this point, it will be a shock to see anything other than a victory for the London and the South team given their lead of 125 points. However, whilst Matt Chapman may already have written his victory speech, there are still points and prize money to play for.
We start at 5:45 with a 12-furlong handicap and the horse that makes the most appeal is Cotswold Cottage for trainer Faye Bramley and the East team. Although she is a 5-year-old, she is very lightly raced after just 6 starts and coasted to victory at Ffos Las last time, where she ran the fastest 7th and 8th furlongs in the race with a race best top speed of 40.44 mph. The handicapper has raised her 7 lbs for that effort, but she won with a lot in hand at Ffos Las where she had the highest peak average strdie frequency figure at 2.45 per second. That turn-of-foot could be key from stall 4 as it should allow her to get out of the gate and into a prominent position. Faye Bramley has had a solid first season, operating at a 22.7% strike rate in handicaps, with 40% of her runners hitting the frame. Whilst a mark of 63 may look unappealing, Cotswold Cottage is open to any amount of improvement and should take another step forward as she steps up in trip.
The next couple of races look far too competitive for a confident selection but in the stayers handicap at 7:15, Artisan Dancer makes a lot of appeal. He finished 2nd at York last week, making good late headway from the rear to chase home Santorini Star and if he can repeat that effort, he should be hard to beat. Settled in rear, he finishes strongly, closing with furlongs of 11.49, 12.06 and 12.87s, recording a better top speed than the winner (39.93 mph) and running the final half a mile in a time that was 0.67s quicker than the progressive winner. Artisan Dancer has won 6 times in his career and 5 of those wins have come on the All-Weather, including 3 wins on the tapeta and having been running consistently on the turf, the return to an artificial surface should be enough to see him get his head in front again for Team Scotland.
In the 1 mile 3 furlong handicap at 8:15 we have one of the stars of the season in Crowd Quake. He has already won 7 times this season for Stuart Williams, including a victory at Chepstow for the East team earlier in the Racing League. Despite being drawn wide in stall 12, he isn’t easily opposed but there is some hope from the data that the other runner for the East team, Charmaine, might be a better value play. We haven’t seen her since she finished 3rd on the opening night at Yarmouth, but that form behind Fantasy World has worked out reasonably well and having been switched inside on a night where the prominent racers had a clear advantage, that effort can be upgraded. She ran the fastest 9th furlong in the race (11.48s) when making ground in the straight and given that the winner and 2nd had much longer average stride lengths, she can be forgiven a slightly tired final furlong given the amount of ground that she had to make up. She recorded a better top speed figure than the 2 horses that finished ahead of her and given that all 3 career wins have come on the All-Weather, including a win over this course and distance in March, she makes a lot of appeal for a good draw in stall 5.