Weights, draw data and where the value lies - Robbie Wilders answers six key questions on the Super Sprint

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The Weatherbys Super Sprint headlines the ITV4 action on Saturday and Racing Post tipster Robbie Wilders answers six key questions surrounding the Newbury feature.

Why are sales races like the Super Sprint so popular?

Everyone wants a quick return on their investment in the modern world and two-year-old sales races like the Weatherbys Super Sprint are understandably attractive to smaller or medium-sized owners. 

Call Me Tomorrow is the most expensive purchase at £63,000 and the first prize of £135,000 is over double that. At the other end of the spectrum we have Etienne, who cost £7,350. That is a meagre fee in racehorse terms. 

The Super Sprint is the first in a valuable series which rolls into York’s £500,000 Harry’s Half Million By Goffs at next month’s Ebor meeting and the Weatherbys Scientific £300,000 2-Y-O Stakes at Doncaster’s St Leger meeting. 

How do the weights work?

Weights are set at 9st 5lb for colts and geldings and 9st for fillies before adjustments are made based on each horse’s auction purchase price as a yearling and penalties for winning a Class 2, Listed or Pattern race.

Runners have 1lb deducted for every £5,000 their purchase price falls below the maximum value assigned to the top bracket. 

That nuance means Super Sprint topweight From Me To You, who has a BHA rating of 67, must concede 5lb to the 88-rated Bill The Bull. If they met in a handicap Bill The Bull would be 26lb worse off. 

Is there a draw bias?

All of the past ten winners have been drawn in double figures. That should not necessarily deter you from backing one in the low numbers.

Margins are tight in sales races and horses drawn in stalls nine, six, four, one, five and eight were second and third in the past three runnings. 

Class and preparation are the most pertinent factors before in-running luck comes into play.

Which trainers tend to target the race?

The Richard Hannon yard is synonymous with success in the Super Sprint. Hannon snr won seven iterations before handing the reins to his son, who has landed this four times, three of those coming between 2018 and 2021.

Hannon jnr runs five this time and Sean Levey has decided to get down to 8st 10lb to partner the Soldier’s Call filly Rollthedicebaby. That is significant as it equals his lowest racing weight in the past 12 months. 

Who wins? 

The early market is arguably underestimating the claims of Sky Secret. The Super Sprint may have so far eluded Sky Secret’s local trainer Clive Cox, but that is an anomaly considering the trainer’s aptitude with juvenile sprinters.

Cox saddled Song Of The Clyde to win a similar event at York last season and went close to following up in Doncaster’s big sales race the following month.

Sky Secret showed bags of speed when fourth on his debut at Leicester in a maiden Cox won with his top-class sprinter Coppull a year earlier.

He made no mistake next time when returned to that course and distance, justifying prohibitive odds. Cox has given Sky Secret 70 days off to mature since breaking his duck and this colt gives the impression there is plenty of improvement in the locker. 

While Sky Secret’s sire was precocious, slow-developing sprinters are littered on the dam’s side of his pedigree. 

Is any other runner worth mentioning?

Filter your Racing Post racecard by Racing Post Ratings and Topspeed figures and the same horse tops the pile.

That is Vollering, who is trained by Archie Watson. This stable excels with fast juveniles and Watson gave us 2022 winner Eddie’s Boy and Vollering represents the same owners as Vingegaard, who was beaten a neck two years later. 

Vollering paid the price for setting fierce fractions in a Listed race at Deauville two weeks ago and did well to hang in there for as long as she did. She is proven at a level most of these are unlikely to reach. 

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