3 minute read

The Racing and Sports Priceline for the 2019 Duke Of York Stakes at York's Dante Festival.

Three great days of racing at York kick off on Wednesday with the Group 2 Duke Of York Stakes the feature of the day one card. It's a good race to run the Racing and Sports pricing model over, having plenty of information to work with, and the resulting assessment appeals as a good one for betting purposes. 

Assessed prices: Invincible Army $3.25; Yafta $4.25; Brando $8.50; Limato $11.00. 

The model, judged on results to date, is at it's sharpest when playing at the top end of town and in the Duke Of York it is squeezing the favourites with $4.00 and $5.00 being bet about the top two picks respectively - both a few rolls bigger than the model's assessment.  

Invincible Army has had a perfect prep run at Doncaster, winning without needing to be at his top, and his peak ratings from this time last year look great for this. 

Yafta did a good job finishing a place better than Brando in a strongly run race at Newmarket first up. Brando has better ratings but Yafta has more blue sky being three years younger than the better performed Brando and having had 19 fewer chances to expose himself. Off such similar first up performances it makes Yafta a bit more likely (in the models eyes) to improve to the sort of level that will win the Duke Of York now. The Market agrees, but not by so much. 

Limato is, like Brando, a seven-year-old that is unlikely to be as good as he has been, let alone better. But his very best is awesome and he could well win this with a performance well short of those peaks. We're siding with the fresher legs and the upside of the top two in the betting though.