NTF Badly Drawn Horse Notes: 2026 York Ebor Meeting Edition

The 2026 York Ebor Festival is now securely tucked away in the form book…

And things were very much clicking over the 4-days on the full NTF Members Service…

10 winners nailed over the 4-days (from 16-races covered) + a BDH winner over at Newmarket on Saturday…

Some big-priced placed runners thrown in for good measure (the agonizing photo-finish 2nd of FAR ABOVE DREAM at 16/1 being one of them!).

Angles landing…. trends holding firm… stats hitting the mark… shortlists doing just what they should…

It was the kind of week that shows what structured thinking can do when the draw, pace, trends, stats and long-term behavioral patterns all line up…

And the highlight probably came in the big race itself – The Ebor Handicap…

Only two horses passed all my Race Trends… and those two horses – DAIQUIRI BAY & HOPEWELL ROCK – were the two that fought out the finish at the end of the testing 1m6f slog round the Knavesmire!!

York Ebor week definitely delivered in style for NTF Members!

You can see highlights of exactly what went on last week over on this page>>>

Right… onto today’s BDH horse… plucked from the full BDH Notes copy that NTF Members received earlier… and this one has a very interesting profile for the remainder of the season…

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BADLY DRAWN HORSE

(York Ebor Meeting Edition)

 22nd August – York

4:10 – Class 2 Sky Bet Constantine Handicap over 6f (20 runners)

COUL ANGEL (M Appleby)

Finished 3rd | Drawn in stall 20 (Q4 of draw)

Straight track races with fields of 16+ at the Ebor meeting regularly play in favour of those drawn in the bottom-half… there have been 50 such races at the meeting since 2016 and 40 of them (80% of the races) were won by a horse drawn in the bottom half (this race was won by a horse drawn in the bottom-half)… horses drawn in Q4 of the draw are most disadvantaged, returning stats of… 4/212 | 2% S/R – 62% below market expectation…

This is now the second race in a row that Mick Appleby’s 4yo has posted a huge run from an extremely difficult draw over the York 6f trip… here he was drawn highest of all in stall 20 and only beaten 1L at the line, whilst last time out he was drawn in the second highest stall and only beaten 0.5L at the line… and he’s very much running like a horse who’s ready to land a big pot when he gets a much better (or even a little better) draw to attack from…

On both this run and his last run he’s posted a career best figure and he’s very much showing that he’s still got progression to come as a 4yo…

He’s not a horse I’d be pinning down to hard and fast Prime Conditions… but he does hold a strong form line under the following…

DSLR <31 | July-Nov = 3261131 (3/7, 3p)

…and he could well pick off a big sprint prize before this season is out…

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The BDH horses posted here on the NTF blog are taken from the full Badly Drawn Horse Guides that NTF Members receive every week as part of their full NTF subscription… when any of the noted BDH Horses runs next I highlight them to members, with my full thoughts on their chances, so they don’t miss out…

I source, fine-tune and highlight all the vital Badly Drawn Horses to follow each and every week… so NTF Members don’t have to!

If you are looking for somewhere to store the BDH horses I highlight here on the free blog then I highly recommend giving one of the following two sites a spin…

👉 >>GeeGeez Gold (Tracker part of free membership)

👉 >>HorseRaceBase (Free 10-day trial for NTF readers)

I use both these sites on a daily basis and have done for many years…

Cheers – Ben (NTF)

>>>Check out the ‘End of Season’ member service offer HERE