Stats Guide: Chesham Stakes

Last year’s race

Winner: Holloway Boy
Jockey: Daniel Tudhope
Trainer: Kark R Burke
Owner: Mr Nick White & Mrs E Burke
Age: 2
Weight: 9st 5lbs
Starting Price: 40/1
Season Form Figures: Seasonal debut
Previous Best: –

By Paul Jones

The race conditions changed for last season’s running in that now either the sire or dam had to have won over 9.5f (not just the sire), so that should increase the prospects of more runners.

It is usually the case of the fewer runs beforehand the better, but few were prepared for Holloway Boy to win on his debut at 40/1 last season! Fourteen of the last 25 winners had won their sole start, whereas four of the last 10 (Berkshire, Richard Pankhurst, Churchill and Battleground) were beaten on their only previous run, while 1996 winner Shamikh was also having his racecourse debut.

Alfred Munnings started a short-priced favourite to give Aidan O’Brien a fifth Chesham success in the last seven runnings last season (and sixth all told), but eventually came up well short. In fact, it proved to be a real Tote Placepot buster, with the 1-2-3 at 40/1, 80/1 and 33/1.

The previous season, however, O’Brien’s Point Lonsdale extended the strong record of the leading fancies, as 29 of the last 34 winners could be found in the first four in the betting and 15 of those winners started favourite (including joint-favourites), while all five odds-on shots within that time period were successful.

Two of O’Brien’s five winners were fillies and they have won four times in the last 21 years, including a 1-2 in 2017, and so must be respected, given they are heavily outnumbered and also have the Albany option over a stiff 6f.

Pinatubo was giving Godolphin their third win in this race in 2019 en route to becoming Champion Two-Year-Old, and they also ran their Derby winner Masar in this race to finish third in 2017, so the Chesham has featured two domestic Classic winners in its last seven runnings (Churchill being the other and two Champion 2yos) and looks to have become a much more fashionable race of late.

The Johnston stable like this contest, saddling the second and fourth three years ago and last year’s third and fourth. It takes a tough two-year-old to win over as far as 7f in a race of this quality at this stage of the season, and toughness is the hallmark of their training operation. Although out of luck with their runners in the last decade (though the yard was unrepresented on three of those occasions), including the 5/4 favourite in 2018, the stable’s previous six runners heralded three winners and a third.

The Gosden yard have supplied three winners, two runners-up and a third, but the most eye-catching trainer stat of all is that up until last season the Cole stable’s previous eight runners had all placed at worst, including four winners between 1991-2013.

Seven furlongs in mid-June is a real test of stamina for two-year-olds, so no surprise whatsoever that stamina-laden sires have a good record. Of the last 26 winners, 12 were by offspring of stallions whose Sire Index was over 10f (the 2015 winning sire Youmzain is a high as 14.4f) and 10 more winners’ Sire Index’s were over 9f, comfortably so in the vast majority of cases.

At a glance summary

Positives:
Had one start
The favourite
By stallions with a Sire Index of at least 10f
Trained by Aidan O’Brien or the Cole, Gosden or Johnston stables
Owned by Godolphin
Fillies

Negatives:
Outside the first four in the betting
By stallions with a Sire Index of under 9f