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Decent night of action under the lights at Dunstall Park yesterday (Monday 19th), but if you were backing hold-up horses, you probably ended up tearing your hair out.

The stopwatch confirms what the eyes saw: the track was riding dead. Like, really dead.

The Racing Post data backs it up, showing a going correction of around 0.26s per furlong slow. In plain English? It was like running through treacle. If your horse wasn’t in the first three or four turning for home, it was pretty much game over. The leaders just weren’t coming back to the field.

Here’s what you need to know from a tricky night for the punters.

The Star of the Show: Hardstyle

The performance of the night, by a country mile, was Hardstyle in the 8:00 race.

Billy Loughnane gave him a peach of a ride, sitting handy (smart lad, he clearly read the track bias early on), but the clock is the real story here. Hardstyle posted a Racing Post Topspeed of 65.

To put that in perspective, the other 7f winner on the card, Vince Lombardi, only clocked a 41. Even carrying more weight, Hardstyle was in a different league. He won comfortably without being fully extended, and the figures suggest he’s way better than this Class 5/6 level. Stick him in your tracker immediately; he’s going in again.

The “Hidden” Performance: Addarella

At 7:00, we saw Addarella spring a 12/1 surprise. Visually, it looked like a classic “pace steal”—she pinged the lids, made all, and nobody could catch her.

Usually, I’d be wary of that form, assuming she just got lucky with an easy lead on a biased track. However, the times tell a different story. She clocked a Topspeed of 52, which is significantly faster than Alasrae (TS 45) in the other sprint. She didn’t just plod in front; she set a proper tempo and kept going. Don’t write her off as a one-hit wonder; she has a genuine engine.

A Word of Warning

Be very careful with the form from the first two races (the 1m4f won by Tenadaay and the 1m1f won by Al Baahy).

The clock shows these were run at a total crawl. The Topspeed figures (37 and 33 respectively) are poor. Horses that finished “fast” from the back in these races—like Late Claim or Al Shabab—might look like eyecatchers, but they were likely just passing beaten horses in a slow-motion finish. I wouldn’t be rushing to back them next time out unless the price is massive.

Summary:

• The Bias: Massive advantage to front runners.
• The Banker: Hardstyle (Looks a class above).
• The Dark Horse: Addarella (Better than she looked).
• The Avoid: The form from the first two races.