Head First or Last ?

Realign put a season that had been an unmitigated disaster back on track on Saturday landing a Haydock gamble thanks to some rare help from the handicapper for a Somerville Lodge runner and the unkindest cut of all.

On his first run since the gelding operation he bolted up and will be a relatively short price to back that up if he runs under a penalty this weekend.

Headmaster has been comparable to Realign due to the fact that he has been the subject of two massive gambles at Goodwood a remarkable 28/1 into 85/40 in a Class 2 Handicap. Then again at Sandown following excuses made for the Goodwood run he was sent off 3/1 favourite in another competitive Class 2 event.

He disappointed in both as did Realign in his two races before Haydock on Saturday, but that is where the comparables end.

Realign had run to a Timeform rating of 94+ and a speed figure of 86 before his two disappointing runs. He was then dropped in the handicap from what the yard considered a very lenient mark of 92, to 87 for the Haydock run.

Headmaster on the other hand has only been dropped 3lb to 85 from 88 for what were definitely worse performances and has only ever ran to a Timeform rating of 87 and a speed figure of 79. The gambles clearly indicate the yard thought the mark of 88 was good but those two performances in no way suggest he is only 2lb inferior to Realign and the figures suggest he is probably a minimum of 7lb probably 10lb behind his stable mate.

Headmaster was gelded before he reached the track and his first three runs were very promising. There were many excuses offered for his first two handicap runs, but at Sandown only the soft ground can be offered as an excuse. One of the reasons for the support in both races was the fact that his dam, One Master was a Group 1 winner on Heavy ground. However as we often state in this blog any run on Soft Ground at Sandown is forgivable.

What we cannot ignore is that the drop to 85 allows him to run in a Class 4 handicap which if it had been his first run in out of Novice company after his three maiden runs, would have looked Maximum Bet time .

The question is returning to a mile will Kempton on the AW play to his strengths? The first fact is he will have to overcome a wide draw in stall 10.

I am not worried about the opposition, if he is the horse that was considered good enough for that level of support in Class 2 handicaps he will blow the opposition away in the same way Realign did on Saturday.

The gamble at Goodwood race was lost in 50yds when he was bumped coming out of the stalls and forced wide. At Sandown he was ridden up with the pace but pulled really hard and although the pace held up he was the first beaten and was given an easy race once all chance had gone.

There will be a strong pace here from others drawn high and Marquand given his mounts tendency to pull hard at 7f will have the option to try to settle the gelding in behind and then produce him with his run in the home straight. Or let him stride on as he did at Windsor on his second outing in the hope that he will settle better out in front.

The Windsor run suggests he stays a mile, although being bred on purely sprint lines and his dam never winning at that trip. The other anomaly is although he ran well enough on the AW at Lingfield on debut there is no history of significant AW success in his breeding.

As always i have gone to the trends for the final say. Haggas has sent 13 3yo’s to run in 1m handicaps at Kempton after the 1st September in the calendar year since 2015. This includes 10 that were sent off as 1st or 2nd in the market. The result 0-13 !!

This is another comparable completely different to the Realign numbers at Haydock which showed a win % of over 33%. I will watch Headmaster without investment. The early price of 8/1 is big for a Haggas runner of this profile but I am not tempted.

No Bet Recommended