Lingfield

The market favourite at around 5.9, and she has a genuine reason to be: two wins from four races at this exact course makes her the standout course specialist in the field. However, she could only manage 7th here just 39 days ago, beaten less than two lengths, so the course form cuts both ways. She's also the lowest-rated in the field by some margin at 72, which means she's officially considered one of the weaker horses despite being sent off favourite.

The best win rate in the field — two wins from five races — and her strongest record comes at exactly this distance, winning twice from four attempts at seven furlongs. Oisin Murphy is in fine form right now, winning 5 from 15 rides in the last two weeks. The concern is her last run, when she finished a distant 11th at Newcastle after a break, and she's been off for 116 days again since.

The most experienced horse in the field by a distance — 33 races compared to a field average of around 10 — and she's been racing in good heart recently, winning at Lingfield 28 days ago and finishing second here just a week before that. She's back at a course she clearly likes, but finished 5th on her most recent visit here 12 days ago, suggesting the track may have got the measure of her for now. Rated 8 below the field average, she's here on the strength of course familiarity rather than class.

The race editor has singled her out as the one to be on, and the key stat backing that up is her record on this type of surface: four wins from eight races on normal all-weather ground, a 50% hit rate that no other runner here can match. She's also the freshest in the field with a run just 33 days ago, and that recent Wolverhampton outing has since been boosted by the form working out well. The odds of 23.0 look generous if you believe in the editorial case.

Drifted out to 26.0 in the market and it's hard to argue with the bookmakers here: her last run was an 11-and-a-half-length defeat at Southwell just 27 days ago. She has one win from six career races, and that win came in very different form than she's shown since. The high draw in stall 11 adds another obstacle at a track where low draws have a slight edge.

The longest absence in the field — 230 days off the track — is the defining fact here, and that's a significant amount of time to make up for a horse returning to competition. Before that break she showed a decent level of form, winning at Chepstow and finishing second at Bath, but her last run before the layoff was a 6th in Class 2 at Goodwood, which was a step up in class that found her out. The high draw in stall 12 at a track where that position carries a slight disadvantage doesn't help either.

The lowest-rated horse in the field and carrying the lightest weight, but she has one crucial card to play: she has already won over this course and distance at Lingfield, which is a concrete piece of evidence that the track suits her. She's been off for 153 days, so there's rust to shake off, and the jockey-trainer combination hasn't managed a win together in four attempts. Low weight and a proven course win could see her run better than her odds of 15.0 suggest if the rust clears quickly.