If you watch a lot of sprints on the Flat, you will do plenty of thinking about the draw. It is a fundamental angle in sprints that a bad start equals catastrophe. An obvious corollary is that nabbing a good position offers a big edge, and a good draw helps with that no end.<\/p>\n
There is a fair chance I overindex the draw in my mental model. It put me off Eye Of Dubai<\/a> in Saturday’s big sprint at Ripon. He was arguably the right favourite on form, but in stall two of 12 he was as far away from a rail as you can be. On Ripon’s straight course, that is supposed to matter.<\/p>\n There is a school of thought that suggests certain draw biases disappear, or at least flatten, in the autumn. Given this column has been on a theme of seasonality in recent weeks, giving this theory a good runout is a good way to wrap up the project.<\/p>\n Read the full story<\/p>\n Read award-winning journalism from the best writers in racing, with exclusive news, interviews, columns, investigations, stable tours and subscriber-only emails.<\/p>\n Subscribe to unlockRacing Post digital newspaper (worth over \u00a3100 per month)Award-winning journalism from the best writers in racingExpert tips from the likes of Tom Segal and Paul KealyReplays and results analysis from all UK and Irish racecoursesForm study tools including the Pro Card and Horse TrackerExtensive archive of statistics covering horses, trainers, jockeys, owners, pedigree and sales dataSubscribe<\/a><\/p>\n Already a subscriber?Log in<\/a><\/p>\n