Some ground rules for punters when it comes to draw biases in the autumn

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.

There is a fair chance I over-index the draw in my mental model. It put me off Eye Of Dubai 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.

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 run-out is a good way to wrap up the project.