IT makes sense that low-drawn horses are advantaged over seven and eight and nine furlongs at York. Instinct dictates. The first turn comes up quite quickly after you leave the stalls over those distances, and the wider you are, the more ground you have to cover around the bend.

They start in a chute over seven furlongs, so the seven-furlong bend is only half the bend that the eight and nine-furlong bend is, and the advantage of a low draw over seven furlongs is not as significant as the advantage of a low draw over eight and nine.

Also, the fact that they generally come middle-to-wide into the home straight means that there is not a clamber for the inside rail. Even so, you are still advantaged if you are drawn low over these distances.

On the straight track, however, over five and six furlongs, the distance from the stalls to the winning line is the same regardless of where you are drawn, as long as you go in a straight line, so instinct determines that there is no draw bias. Right? Wrong. We see it at racetracks all over Britain and Ireland: some of the greatest draw biases are on straight tracks.

On the straight track at York, the vagaries of the position of the pace notwithstanding, you generally want to be drawn low, and this factor appeared to be accentuated early in the week, possibly because of the deluge that they had on Wednesday before racing.

CONCLUSIONS

In the opening five-furlong handicap on Wednesday, the first four home were drawn, respectively, eight, five, two and nine, of 16. In the big 19-runner Goffs Premier Yearling Stakes on Thursday, three of the first four home and six of the first eight home were drawn 10 or lower.

In the 17-runner nursery that concluded proceedings on Wednesday, the winner made just about all the running from stall five.

It is a small sample size, just three races with 10 runners or more run on the straight course at York so far this week at the time of writing, but the evidence is consistent with what has gone before.

First conclusion? The horses who ran well from high draws should be marked up and could be worth following. The Denis Hogan-trained Tithonus ran another cracker under Gary Halpin to finish fifth in the opening race on Wednesday from stall 16, doing best of the high-drawn horses.

His progress in the last 12 months has been remarkable, Hogan has done a fantastic job with him, from the mark of 76 off which he won a handicap at Dundalk last September to the mark of 96 off which he raced on Wednesday. And, on this evidence, he is not finished yet.

Hey Jonesy ran a big race to finish a close-up third in the Goffs race on Thursday from stall 18 and racing with no cover on the near side for much of the journey. Kevin Ryan’s horse was only beaten a neck and a half a length in the end, and he finished four and a half lengths clear of the next home on the near side, Darkanna, who can be marked up herself. Hey Jonesy will be of interest wherever he goes next.

The second, third and fourth in the concluding nursery on Wednesday all raced from high draws, which brings the advantage that the low-drawn horses had in the race into question, but the evidence suggests that all three – Queen’s Sargent, Areen Faisal and John Kirkup – can all be marked up at least a little and could all be worth following.

Second conclusion? Have a second look at the low-drawn horses in the Julia Graves Roses Stakes and the Betfred Apprentice Handicap today.