Dawn Approach is the horse on everyone's betting slip ahead of tomorrow's Investec Epsom Derby.
However, as a keen follower of trends in big races, Jim Bolger's three-year-old misses out on one big statistic - it's debut was not made at a Group One track.
On the face of it this stat seems rather innocuous, but experience has taught me you can never write off the trends and every winner over the past twenty years has begun their career on a Group One track.
Why this has an effect is open to debate - one theory goes that the owners and trainers know what they have in their hands and so prepare them from the beginning.
Dawn Approach flies in the face of this theory, given he was sired by Bolger's only other Derby success -2008 winner New Approach - so one would assume that Godolphin were fully aware of the horse's ability.
Indeed, Dawn Approach didn't even get to a group one track the second time out, again running on a Yielding Naas track.
While the wins there under the conditions will give reassurances about the stamina, I'm nevertheless going to plump for a horse that ticks all the boxes - Battle of Marengo.
Placing third first time out at Leopardstown, BoM has since been unbeaten and at the time of writing is the only other horse shorter than 6/1 with the bookies - both of these factors matching up with the trends.
The 5/1 price generally available on BoM could move out over the next 24 hours as more money goes on DA but this will again only help meet the criteria, as only two clear favourites have won the renewal in the past 10 years.
It would be foolhardy to completely eliminate Dawn Approach and so the decision is whether to back Battle of Marengo without Dawn Approach (3/1 at Stan James) or take advantage of BetVictor's offer of returning all net losses should Dawn Approach win and Back BoM at fives - an insurance policy if you will.
Whatever you decide, good luck!
