In the early eighties I came up with a method of study for the Handicap Chase - the most complicated and hard to call of all horse races in my opinion. I called the method the eight point plan because it took into account eight (arguably nine) factors of every horse in the race. In about 1983 I computerized the method naming the program Papillon. In the year 2000 by amazing coincidence, a horse of the same name ran in the biggest and most well-known Handicap Chase of the year, the Grand National. Providence dictated that I had to back it. I put 100 pounds each way, my biggest ever stake, on the horse and the rest is history. Needless to say that was a good year!

Since and before then the Papillon method as I now call it has proved remarkably effective at producing winners in Handicap Chases with a strike rate of around 35% which may not sound so great but the most impressive aspect is the number of winners it yields at long odds.For that reason and because this meeting is so full of Handicap Chases, I have elected to use it to profile this race today.

So, the factors that count most, in Handicap Chases in general, are: Trainer, Jockey, Recent Form of the horse, Course and Distance record, Going Preference, Weight, Age, Speed capability (often interchangeable with Handicap rating). Most of these factors are obvious and speak for themselves. Age and weight is an interesting study which considers past winners of this or similar races- actually this is most akin to the general methods employed by the Racing Profiler. For the benefit of today's race, I had to find a Leicester Handicap Chase run over a similar distance during February of last year as my guide. The winner was a 9yo carrying 11-3 and so those are considered the optimum age and weight for this race.

As you can imagine it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to study all these aspects for ten runners (as we have in the race today). So I have taken the work out of it for you here and come up with a shortlist of three horses who jointly lead on all of the named factors combined: Mokum, Bubble Boy and Cousin Nicky. This is totally unsatisfactory though as the method shows no way to seperate multiple selections.

So to one more source of inspiration: A Handicap Chase over a similar distance (2m7f) at another similarly large and galloping course. In this case, Worcester. That race was most clear in the Papillon factors that counted most: Weight, unsurprisingly, although the weight range of 10-7 to 11-0 was favoured now rather than 11-3, speed and going ability with a likely place in the frame for any horse carrying a dominator jockey.

When those characteristics are applied to this race, we have an altogether different selection as only one horse is even in the weight range and happily he is the speed leader of the whole field. Stable-mate to aforementioned Cousin Nicky, Plum Pudding now becomes the horse in focus. No dominator jockey but a near dominator in AP McCoy ought to find a place also for Rate of Knots.