In evenly matched handicaps form cycles are all important and stable patterns can be an important piece of information in establishing where and when horses are likely to produce their best.
Racing And Sports' trainer database is a great tool for finding stable trends and patterns and one that presents itself at Flemington this Saturday is the Danny O'Brien stable's record on their home track.
Click here to see Danny O'Brien's stable statistics
Since 2001 the O'Brien yard have put a saddle on 2841 runners at metropolitan meetings in Victoria, returning a strike-rate of 13% and a profit on turnover (POT) of -13.7%.
Solid numbers, but if we narrow in on their home track, Flemington, we see a spike to a strike-rate of 15% and a POT of +8.7%.
What we can take from that is that that yard win more often at home and the market isn't fully awake to that fact.
That's the sort of slight edge that we need in evenly matched handicaps at this time of year and the yard looks to have a typically strong home team going to Flemington this Saturday.
The pick of their runners looks to be Second Bullet who posted his two peak performances in home track wins over the summer months and looks set for more success this time in on the back of his solid return at Caulfield last time out.
His performance first up at 1800m has him in the thick of the chances on Saturday before we factor in the likely improvement that he should make returning to his home deck with the benefit of a run.
Again we can look to stable stats for a lead to how he should race second up.
O'Brien's horses typically need their first time out, striking at 10% (8% metro) and improve to strike at 12% (10% metro) second up.
This pattern points to third up being the ideal with the stable when again their strike-rate improves, this time to 19% (16% metro) and impressively over the course of 1022 runners returns punters a profit on turnover of +7.5%.
So third up is probably when we really want to be on Second Bullet but it's well worth noting that he was first up at 1800m off a relatively short spell campaign and that may well point to him being a run ahead this time around.
Timeform ratings suggest as much, a rating of 102 first up at Caulfield far and away his best performance off a break - well clear of the 88 he ran to first time out last September before quickly improving to post a 98 second up and 99 third up.
Ultimately, he looks well placed at Flemington tomorrow where his peak form sets the standard, and prices around $3.80 are appealing.
For an each way play we will head to Race 5, a competitive race for the three-year-olds, where another home track hero, Atlantic City, presents some value around the $6.50 mark.
He improved sharply second up from a break when second to Shockaholic who got the drop on him after a softer run. He was at his best third up last campaign when winning and posting a solid speed figure, and looks on track to do something similar here.
THE MELBOURNE MAIL
Bet Of The Day: Race 3 #6 Second Bullet @ $3.80
Each Way Play: Race 5 #7 Atlantic City @ $6.50
