Key Characteristics
Salisbury is a rather nondescript racecourse, despite the fact that it is set in the middle of beautiful Wiltshire countryside, with view a of the stunning Salisbury Cathedral.
The course is laid out in a hook shape where the runners in races over 1 mile run away from the stands and round a loop before rejoining the straight at about the 6 furlong marker. This loop has a camber and you go downhill into it and then uphill around a quite tight left hand bend. Positioning going into the loop is quite important as horses can sometimes get pushed very wide. It can be a bit slippy in soft/heavy conditions.
In longer distance races it can pay to be handy as some of the more canny jockeys slow things right down going around the left hander and then kick on trying to steal first run. This can work out but the 6 furlong run in more often than not sees a horse coming over the top. It’s a bit cat and mouse!!
Draw Bias & Pace Analysis
There aren’t many 5 furlong races here and the data is a bit patchy but I would prefer to be on an inside drawn horse (low) as nearly 1/3 of winners come from stalls 1&2.
As with 5 furlongs, 6 furlong races don’t seem to have a draw bias however nearly 1/2 of all winners come from stalls 1,2&3; so I would prefer a low drawn horse if everything else is equal.
For 7 furlongs and 1 mile there is no detectable draw bias (although over 1 mile a disproportionate amount of winners come from the widest draw (~20%).
Salisbury appears to be a very fair course, with no running style particularly favoured. In terms of the individual distances, how Salisbury ranks is shown below:
5 Furlongs – 12th out of 31 courses
6 Furlongs 12th out of 27 courses
7 Furlongs – 14th out of 22 courses
8 Furlongs – 20th out of 26 courses
In terms of in-running betting, Salisbury had 8 In-Play losers at 1.01 from 495 cases (ranked 14th of 39 UK Flat)and 42 In-Play losers at 1.10 or less from 550 cases (ranked 8th of 39 UK Flat).
Trainers & Jockeys
Trainers
| Sir Michael Stoute | 20.9 |
| Andrew Balding | 20.7 |
| Roger Charlton | 20.5 |
| Roger Varian | 18.4 |
| Charlie Hills | 16.4 |
| Clive Cox | 14.5 |
| Ralf Beckett | 12.9 |
Jockeys
| Andrea Atzeni | 29.0 |
| Ryan Moore | 19.5 |
| Oisin Murphy | 17.8 |
| Charles Bishop | 17.2 |
| Jim Crowley | 15.7 |
| Kieran Shoemark | 15.1 |
| David Probert | 13.7 |
| Tom Marquand | 13.5 |
| Rob Hornby | 13.5 |
