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Price Movement in NH Racing Markets

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In a recent article I compared the Early Morning Odds of horses (EMO) with their Opening Show odds (OS) and their final Industry Starting Price (SP) for UK Flat racing, writes Dave Renham. In this piece I will revisit the idea but the focus now is on UK National Hunt racing. Data has been taken from 1st January 2021 to 30th September 2024. How similar will the patterns be? Let’s take a look...

Strike rates by market movement profile

To begin with let's make the process easier by using abbreviations for the different price movements. So, for horses that shorten in price I will use the abbreviation ‘S’; for horses that remain the same price I will use ‘R’; for those that drift in price (lengthen) I will use the abbreviation ‘D’.

There are nine possible combinations in terms of price movement within these two timeframes (EMO to OS, and OS to SP). Below is a graph showing the percentage of runners for each price movement combination.

 

 

As you would expect the bar chart is similar to that which we saw when analysing flat data. The D/D group made up roughly a quarter of all runners and is comfortably the most likely pattern to be seen of the nine.

Performance Metrics by market movement profile

Now that we know how likely each combination is to occur we can examine the combinations in more detail by breaking down their performance in terms of strike rate, profitability, ROI% and A/E indices:

 

 

Two of the three combinations where a drift occurred between EMO and SP, D/D and R/D, produced by far the worst figures across all the metrics (SR%, ROI% and A/E indices). In fact, both combos would have lost you significant money if betting to BSP. The D/D group would have lost you 13p in the £, the R/D group lost a whopping 22p in the £. To put this into perspective if you simply backed all NH runners in every race over this time frame you would have lost just under 6p in the £ betting to Betfair SP.

Shorten / Shorten (S/S) Runners

The best figures came from the horses that shortened in price in both time frames – the S/S group. It makes sense to explore the S/S group in more detail given they have produced the best overall performance. I want to start by breaking the S/S results down by National Hunt Race Type. I will look at A/E indices first:

 

 

As can be seen the figures for chases and hurdles are virtually identical, but there is a steep drop off down to the A/E index for NH Flat races (also called bumpers). On to the Return on Investment percentages (ROI%) now to see what they show. The ROI%s are based onto Industry Starting Price returns:

 

 

There is positive correlation between the A/E indices and the ROI% figures at SP, with losses far greater for NH Flat runners who have the S/S profile. This is reflected at Betfair SP, too, with chase and hurdle qualifiers losing 4p in the £, NH Flat qualifiers more than 11p from every pound. Why this is the case is probably because NH Flat races tend to be made up of relatively unexposed horses. Hence, some horses will be supported in the betting based on what they might have shown away from the racetrack. Others will be backed solely due the trainer or the owner rather than the form or inherent ability of the individual horse in question. Hence punters and bookmakers are not always able to base their opinion on cold hard facts in these bumper races.

Sticking with the S/S group let me share how well these runners have performed in terms of Class of Race. Here are the full splits (there were only a handful of Class 6 events, hence they have been lumped together with the Class 5 stats):

 

 

The figures suggest that the S/S group has performed less well at either end of the class spectrum. Qualifiers from both Classes 2 and 3 made blind profits to BSP which is perhaps no surprise given their high A/E indices.

If we focus on the Class 1 races and look at the subset of Grade 1 to Grade 3 races the figures for the S/S group are poor – 66 wins from 511 qualifiers (SR 12.9%) for a loss to SP of £155.56 (ROI –30.4%). The A/E index stands at a lowly 0.75 and even to BSP losses were steep at £137.59 (ROI –26.9%). Horses that are constantly backed through the day, and then again late on, do not look the safest betting propositions in these Graded contests.

My next port of call was to look at the A/E indices of the S/S group of runners in terms of what odds they were priced up first in the morning – their ‘EMO’. Here is a graphical representation of those data:

 

 

Essentially this data is telling us that the for the S/S group the shorter the price the better in terms of ‘value’. The 17.0 to 23.0 and the 26.0+ groups are slightly out of kilter, but overall, it looks like horses priced 4.5 (7/2) or shorter early doors are the ones to focus on. Indeed, backing all horses from this shorter price EMO subset (1.01–4.5) would have lost you only 1p for every £1 staked to BSP.

Price movement by trainer

I want now to examine some trainer data, starting with horses that shortened in price from EMO to OS, i.e. the S/S, S/R and S/D groups. To begin with I would like to share some trainers with percentage of runners split for each of these groups. These are the handlers with the highest percentage of runners that match the S/S profile, listed along with the S/R and S/D percentages also:

 

 

Melanie Rowley tops the list with nearly 49% of her runners that shortened between EMO and OS continuing to shorten from OS to SP. To give some context the average percentage of runners’ figure for ALL trainers for the S/S profile is 35%. However, in Rowley's case, it did not lead to a profitable outcome; in fact, quite the opposite – one would have lost 44p in the £ backing all her S/S runners to SP; and it was still a 40p in the £ loss to BSP.

Profitable S/S trainers

There were, however, six trainers in the list who did make a profit to SP with these well-backed runners. The six were Henry Daly, Ben Pauling, David Pipe, Sandy Thomson, Tim Vaughan and Mark Walford. Below is a table containing all trainers who made blind profits with their S/S group of runners, listed alphabetically:

 

 

If only we could have predicted which of their horses were going to have the S/S pattern, then we could have backed them at their Early Price and made even more impressive profits. Nevertheless, none of the trainers in the above list had winners at huge prices that skewed their bottom lines so they look a group who know when they've got a live one.

A dozen trainers made a blind profit including one of the most powerful stables in the country, that of Paul Nicholls. When the Ditcheat yard's horses have shortened from EMO to OS and again from OS to SP, they have produced an outstanding strike rate of over 35% and returned more 8p in the £ profit. What is interesting is that only 28% of the Nicholls runners that shortened in price between EMO and OS then continued to shorten to SP, whereas 48% of them drifted in that final period. It is also interesting that this subset of runners (the S/D group) also performed well with 123 going on to win from 401 runners (SR 30.7%) for an SP profit of £25.57 (ROI +6.4%). To BSP this improves to +£62.65 (ROI +15.6%).

Overall, you could have made a healthy profit to BSP by simply backing ALL Nicholls runners that had shortened in price from EMO to OS.

D/D Trainers

It is time now to briefly look at some D/D data for trainers. I want to focus on horses that had Early Morning Odds of 10.00 (9/1) or shorter to avoid skewed results due to big–priced winners. Obviously, the strike rates of trainers with horses that drift from EMO to OS and then continue to drift to SP are not going to be that impressive. Below is a table of the top 15 trainers with the D/D profile in terms of strike rate:

 

 

No surprise that only three trainers have made a profit to SP, but that figure rises to nine at BSP. Of the trainers in that table, Paul Nicholls has seen significant losses with his D/D runners. They look worth swerving.

At the other end of the scale here are the trainers with the lowest strike rates from their D/D runners with their EMO 10.00 (9/1) or shorter:

 

 

It would make sense with this group of trainers to, unless you are a layer, ignore their horses if they have drifted from EMO to OS and are starting to drift again from their OS price as we near the ‘off’.

For the record horses priced up early at 10.00 (9/1) or bigger that show the D/D profile have won just 1.6% of their races (228 wins from 14220 qualifiers) for losses to SP of £6949 (ROI –48.5%). Losses are obviously less steep when looking at BSP returns but losses are still over 21% (21p in the £).

Finally, let me share one significant stat from the most influential NH owner, JP McManus. When his runners are popular in the market and show the S/S profile they have secured a 29% strike rate and returns of 6p in the £ to SP. His runners showing the D/D profile, however, perform poorly hitting a strike rate of 8.7% with SP losses of 30p in the £.

Market Movement is an integral part of the betting picture and I hope this article has provided some useful pointers for the National Hunt season which is just about to click into top gear.

- DR

Monday Musings: Gloom?

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There’s so much gloomy navel-searching about all the things that are perceived to be wrong with racing in the UK, but it took only a couple of days in Paris to dispel them, or some of them anyway, writes Tony Stafford.

True, the statistics are invariably distorted by first place in the £2.4 million to the winner Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe – something which wouldn’t have been allowed to happen in pre-supplementing days – by Ralph Beckett’s remarkable filly Bluestocking, but in overall terms the home team took a real hiding.

Four wins for the UK, via Brian Meehan, the Gosdens and Ed Walker, as well as Beckett, matched Aidan O’Brien’s personal quartet over the two days. The French, on home soil with everything - even down to the going in their favour - limped behind with three.

Aidan also collected the £100k-plus Arqana sales conditions race on the first day and front-running Los Angeles picked up just shy of half a million for his third in the Arc. Once more, though, it was fillies to the fore, Bluestocking confirming Prix Vermeille form with Aventure, edging a half-length further away than in the trial three weeks earlier.

I’ve always found the fillies’ Group 1 on Trials Day much more significant than either the Prix Niel for 3yos or the Foy for the older colts. Those two races had five runners each last month, whereas the Vermeille had a field of 12.

The Arc 1-2 had some smart performers behind them that day: Emily Upjohn, Stay Alert and last year’s champion juvenile filly Opera Singer were the next three home. The races for the boys were remarkably similar, each run at more than four seconds above standard, a full three seconds slower than Bluestocking in the Vermeille.

Ralph Beckett has been relentless closing on the top training positions over the past few seasons and his comment, “I couldn’t see any reason not to supplement her,” epitomises his pragmatic approach to training.

Of course, as with all the big stables, and he had 183 listed in this year’s Horses In Training, there is a margin for error. When the year began, Bluestocking had won only once, on juvenile debut in September 2022. Since the summer, it has been a roller-coaster of ever greater success.

I had a look at the overall prizemoney earned by each of three major European horseracing and breeding superpowers over the weekend. Although Aidan got off to a flyer winning three Group races, including Kyprios’s second Prix du Cadran over 2m4f on day one, the momentum wasn’t quite maintained.

Yesterday, the lesser fancied of his two Jean-Luc Lagardere runners, Camille Pissarro, echoed the late-running performance on the first day of 25/1 shot Grateful. The similarity? Both were ridden by Christophe Soumillon with Ryan Moore on the first string. Ryan had the consolation of three €100k plus wins on day one, the third in the valuable conditions event put on by the Arqana sales company. And his third place on Los Angeles in the Arc earned him his jockey’s share from around half a million.

The overall Irish haul not including the Arc was around £675,000. The French on home soil amassed just over £800,000 for their non-Arc runners, while UK horses collected more than £1.22 million for 22 places. When you add in the Arc money, the GB total thanks to Bluestocking is more than £3.67 million; the French total comes to approximately £2.15 million and Ireland – almost entirely via the Coolmore runners was close to £1.3 million. So the UK stables picked up better than half the available money!

Even though the French had many more runners in the additional races than either UK or Ireland, they retained barely 30% of the money available. If we’re in trouble, how about them?

Those from the big teams cannot rest. After a day today looking at stock in the Tattersalls sales barns, Book 1 of the October Yearling Sale starts tomorrow, three days when 448 yearlings – blue-bloods all, but which cannot all turn out to be talented – go under the hammer.

The sale nowadays closely echoes the example of the Goffs Orby sale in Ireland, staged last week. That also commences with a Book 1 for the top stuff and Book 2 for the rest. A later sale offers less expensive pedigrees.

It’s amazing how the decisions of a sales company can make such a difference to the prospects of a borderline Book 1/Book 2 yearling. It’s simply the difference between whether an owner is to get a decent price for his/her sales candidates. Book 1 over there had 466 lots going under the hammer over two days. Of those, 399 (80%) found new owners at an average price of €128k.

The two days of the similarly populated Book 2 proved far less attractive to buyers with only 332 of 449 changing hands, that’s 70%. If that was significant, the average price of €20k was disturbing for many stud owners, especially pin hookers who will have struggled to match foal prices never mind a year’s costs.

One well-known trainer who was happy to pick up a horse from Book 1 at a fair price, did not look at any of the stock in Book 2. “It’s okay to buy them just because they are cheap,” he said, “but you have to find someone to pay for them and to have them trained.”

I canvassed a few trainers some weeks ago as it was proposed by friends to buy a horse in training. They were all middle-range but talented trainers and they were all somewhere around £60 a day (plus VAT of course). So, we’re already up to at least £500 a week, with extras like shoeing, vet charges and transport to the races. In Newmarket and many other training centres, there is also a gallops fee levied.

On Friday, the day after the conclusion of Book 1 and three days before Book 2 where most owners will not have to worry much about the likes of Godolphin, Coolmore, Amo Racing and rest to find a yearling, there are more than 750 lots to wade through. Smaller catalogues for Books 3 and 4 next week conclude as the runners for the Cesarewitch, Dewhurst and the rest go to post next weekend.

Newmarket’s first day stages a race which illustrates just how tough and frankly absurd UK’s horse racing economics are for all bar the super-rich – or those lucky enough to get a superstar for not much money.

The opening maiden of that Friday’s card has a prize of just more than £10k, much better admittedly than some that have been run on the Rowley Mile recently. Many were bought at this time last year, so at around a minimum £2,500 per month that’s at least £30,000 to get to this stage on top of their purchase price.

The happy winning owner on Saturday will receive approximately 70% of the £10,000 first prize, less jockeys’ fees and transport to the course. Sixteen of the 30 entries went through the ring, home-breds making up the remaining 14.

The cheapest of the sales group cost £45k – bought by our friend Sam Sangster and trained by Brian Meehan. The most expensive was £400k for a newcomer from Aidan O’Brien. The average - going for a £7k pot I emphasise - was 135k.

Talking of Sam Sangster and his link with Brian Meehan, Manton's longest-serving present incumbent had a Royal Ascot double this June with Rashabar (Coventry Stakes, Group 2) and Jayarebe (Hampton Court Stakes, Group 3). They had only one run each in the meantime, Rashabar when second in the Group 1 Prix Morny to Whistlejacket, and Jayarebe, also second at Deauville, to Economics. They came to Longchamp with high hopes.

Jayarebe did the business on Saturday in the Group 2 Prix Dollar, making all, while Rashabar was caught only in the last few strides of the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere by Camille Pissarro, the aforementioned O’Brien second string ridden by Christophe Soumillon.

Rashabar will aim at the 2,000 Guineas next spring while it would be no shock if Jayarebe pitched up at the Breeders’ Cup. Meehan won the Turf race there a decade or so ago with Dangerous Midge, who raced in the same Iraj Parvizi colours. Parvizi only came back to the stable after a break of several years with his purchase of Jayarebe.

There were two other notable efforts over the weekend that caught my eye. Apollo One, so often the bridesmaid in big sprint handicaps, gained a first Group-race win at Ascot on Saturday. Peter Charalambous, his owner/trainer/breeder had been frustrated at being beaten close home in the Wokingham, Stewards’ Cup and Portland handicaps this year, but on ground Pete believed he wouldn’t handle, he did, winning almost as he liked.

Secondly, another working on the wrong surface was Hughie Morrison’s Mistral Star, third in Saturday’s Group 1 Prix Royallieu where she was in front until the last 50 yards. I’m confident she would have won on faster ground.

Finally, last week I mentioned Joe Lee and his filly May Day Ready. The pair, with the help of Frankie Dettori in the saddle, got the best of a wafer-thin three way photo (centre, see below) on Friday in the Grade 2 Jessamine Stakes at Keeneland, a Win And You're In for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Exciting times!

- TS

More on Price Movement from Opening Show

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A few weeks back I wrote an article, which you can read here, that featured an introduction to patterns of price movement from Opening Show odds (OS) to SP odds, writes Dave Renham. In this piece I want to revisit the topic and expand my research. I have taken data from 2021 to 2024 (up to and including September 21st) for UK flat and all-weather racing and I have used William Hill odds as representative of the general bookmaker community.

As I mentioned in my earlier piece, the OS for most races occurs around 10-15 minutes before the race is due to start. Each horse will have its opening price and then, as money is wagered in that period before the race starts, the odds will fluctuate. Some will shorten, some will drift, and some will either not move or end up back at the same price they started.

Price Movement: All Runners

I will begin by sharing the figures for all UK flat/all-weather runners during the study period to see what percentage of these runners shortened in price, lengthened in price, or stayed the same price when comparing their OS to their final Starting Price (SP). There is an extra chunk of data compared to the original article here, but the splits are virtually identical (within 0.2%):

 

 

We can use these figures as our baseline when comparing different angles. As can be seen, nearly half of all runners lengthen in price from OS to SP, compared with just under a third that shorten. Around one fifth of all runners end up having the same SP as their OS price.

Original Article Summary

Before moving on let me quickly recap the other main findings from the original article:

1. Horses that shorten in price win roughly 1.7 times more often than horses that lengthen in price.

2. Horses that lengthened in price when their OS was 7.0 (6/1) or less, lost only 1.5% to BSP.

3. Horses with an OS starting point of 18/1 or bigger have lengthened or drifted in price more than half of the time.

4. Horses with an OS of between 100/30 and 13/2 have similar percentages when it comes to shorteners and drifters. All other prices see a big differential as shown in the overall figures (see graph above).

5. The five trainers with the highest win strike rates of the period, namely Charlie Appleby, John & Thady Gosden, William Haggas, Saeed bin Suroor and Roger Varian combined to make a BSP Return on Investment of 5.5% when combining all of their horses that shortened in price from OS to SP.

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Clearly if we can improve our chances of predicting the price movements of horses we are planning to back in the time between OS and the start of the race, then it has the potential to improve our bottom line.

Price Movement by Trainer

My first port of call in this piece is to examine more trainers in detail.

Positive Price Movement by Trainer

To begin with here are the trainers with the highest percentage of runners that have shortened in price between OS and SP:

 

 

The top 20 are listed and Jane Chapple-Hyam heads the list. She is one of only two trainers who had more horses that have shortened in price than lengthened, John Gallagher being the other. Focusing on her runners with an opening show price of 9/1 or shorter we get the following splits:

 


 

Over 45% of her shorter priced runners hardened in price in the 10-15 minutes before the start of the race. Compare this to the average figure for all trainers with this price stipulation which stands at 37%. That is a noteworthy differential but John Gallagher’s splits see more than 50% of his runners priced at single figures on the opening show shortening in price. His stats are thus:

 

What is quite bizarre, however, is that the Gallagher runners that drifted in price won more often than those which shortened. Not only that, but the drifters made a tidy BSP return of over 30p in the £; his horses priced 9/1 or less on the opening show that shortened to SP showed a huge loss of 44p in the £ at exchange prices.

All of the other 19 trainers in the above list had the reverse with their shorteners winning more often than their drifters, which is the pattern one might expect based on the overall data. Jane Chapple-Hyam’s performance fitted this far more typical profile, and the results of her shorteners were much more impressive than for those that drifted as the table below shows:

 

 

Chapple-Hyam’s horses that shortened also made a small profit to Industry SP. It should be noted that her 159 runners whose price remained the same also made a profit to BSP.

Negative Price Movement by Trainer

Time to look now at those trainers whose horses have drifted / lengthened the most in percentage terms from OS to SP.

 

 

As you might expect, most of the trainers on the list are lesser name trainers whose horses tend to operate at the lower end of the ability spectrum. This is reflected in a tendency to saddle bigger priced runners which we know from previous research means they are more inclined to drift than mid- to shorter range priced runners.

There are a couple of additional stats I’d like to share. Firstly, Grace Harris when sending her horses at Wolverhampton has seen 66 of the 99 runners lengthen in price, exactly two-thirds. Secondly, Linda Perratt runs more horses at Ayr than at any other track, but her runners drift in price more often than her average: just under 61% of her Ayr runners drifted in price from OS to SP, and of these 133 runners just five won, showing significant losses. At Hamilton, where Perratt also runs a good proportion of her horses, she sees a similar percentage, 64.3%, drift from OS to SP.

Before moving on from this table of trainers, it is quite a surprise to see George Boughey in this group. It is also interesting to note that his shorter priced runners have similar percentages to his overall ones. Below, there is a graph that shows the percentage splits for runners that were 5/1 or shorter at OS:

 


 

Using this OS price stipulation across all trainers sees 43% of runners drift in price. Boughey’s figure is over 10% above this. So why do so many of Boughey’s shorter priced runners drift in price from OS? That is the 66 million-dollar question, I guess; most likely is that they are frequently over-bet earlier in the day, which leads to a correction 'on the show'.

Why Do Horses Drift?

In fact, now is perhaps a good time to discuss some of the reasons why a horse may lengthen in price in the period close to the ‘off’. Firstly, it is partly due to the bookmaker’s overround being slightly bigger on OS compared with the final market overround, in order to defend against a horse which might have been offered at the wrong price - a rick, in the parlance.

Secondly, how a horse behaves before its race can influence the price, normally in an outward direction. For example, horses that sweat up in the paddock or behind the stalls are noted and this tends to be a negative which often pushes the price out. Also, some horses get very agitated in the parade ring and that warning sign tends to see the price start to drift also. Other horses get to the start fine but then become a problem, usually making it difficult for the handlers to load them in the starting stalls. Another factor can be that a horse is difficult to restraint when going to post,  expending too much energy before the start. And yet another reason for horses drifting is when a different horse in the same race is well backed. In that scenario and in order to balance the market, bookmakers will ensure that at least one horse, often more, move out in price to compensate.

Why Do Horses Steam?

Horses that are being backed close to the off can be down to a mix of reasons also. One obvious reason is because the owner and/or stable are expecting a very big run from their charge. Another reason for contracting price movements is when a horse is shortened deliberately by the bookmakers because they have 'running on' liabilities from multiple bets should the horse win. A third reason could be paddock demeanour - fitness, behaviour, physical well being and the like. And there will be a few times when it is simply not easy to explain a late market move be it positive or negative.

Price Movement by Owner

I want now to look at a selection of owners and consider the percentage splits for those whose horses have run the most during the study period. I have ordered them by the highest percentage of horses that have shortened in price:

 

 

There is a huge difference between Marc Chan at the top and Antony Brittain at the bottom. Chan’s runners do very well when they shorten in price, hitting a strike rate of 29% and producing a profit to SP of £38.77 (ROI +56.2%) and to BSP of £48.65 (ROI +70.5%).

Horses from the Shadwell ownership have also made sound profits when concentrating on their runners that have shortened from OS to SP. Of the 437 such runners 116 have won (SR 26.5%) for a profit to SP of £48.29 (ROI +11.1%). To BSP this improve to profits of £89.39 (ROI +20.5%).

One of the most interesting findings from my point of view is that Godophin’s runners are not that strong in the market. Personally I would be betting a Godolphin runner as late as possible or at BSP if fancying one of them.

Price Movement by Horse Gender

I want to look next at the sex of the horse to see if that makes a difference to the how the price changes from OS to SP. You hear comments especially about younger male horses such as ‘he is acting very coltish’, etc. Hence, I thought it was worth looking at the figures for colts, geldings, fillies and mares.

 


 

There are some differences here with fillies drifting in price more than the other three – over 50% of all fillies have drifted in price. Is this partly down to their behaviour / composure in the paddock, going down to post and behind the starting stalls? I’m not an expert in animal behaviour so I cannot say, but it definitely gives food for thought.

Price Movement in Selected Horses

Finally let us look at some individual horses – I have chosen to share the data for just over 50 horses currently in training. The ones in green are horses that are often backed and hence tend to shorten more from OS to SP; those in red tend to lengthen in price most of the time. The number of qualifying runs in 2021-2024 must have been 30+ to make the list:

 

 

Given how frequently these horses run it is no surprise that there are familiar names in the list including sprinter Summerghand. It may be interesting to note that he is rarely backed late and has drifted from opening show to starting price in nearly 60% of his races. My personal plan is to dig deeper into each horse in the table to see if I can find logical reasons why their stats are as they are. What those are could be down to one key factor, or a group of factors; it might be horse behaviour pre-race, or linked to trainers or owners, or perhaps due to the price range the horse goes off at. I think there are likely to be reasons why the stats for each horse are as they are because they are all far from the ‘norm’ at either end of the % splits spectrum.

That's all for this second helping of price movement from opening show to the off. I hope it has given you some further insights into how the market may shape up in those last few minutes before the start of the race.

- DR

Monday Musings: Joe Lee

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A week short of 30 years ago I was in New York, staying at the late Virginia Kraft Payson’s rather large house (since sadly demolished) at Sands Point, Long Island, writes Tony Stafford. I’d arranged to meet Bjorn Neilsen – bet he doesn’t think it was that long ago! – at his offices in Wall Street.

He had a very friendly receptionist whose name I cannot recall, who whenever I did try to contact him, always reminded me that she thought my accent was identical to that of Robin Leach who fronted a television show for almost ten years called ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’.

Leach, a Londoner, worked on the Daily Mail’s Front-Page team at age 18, before emigrating to the US. He died in Las Vegas four years ago after a very successful TV career.

When I arrived at Bjorn’s offices, having never met the receptionist before, I started: “I’m….” but before I could get another word out, she said, “Hello Mr Stafford, Mr Neilsen is waiting for you.”

After some chitchat, we retired to a nearby deli where the sandwiches were around five inches high. I had intended going on to Belmont Park for the races that afternoon and Bjorn suggested if I went to Grand Central station, I could get the race special.

When I got there, I discovered the specials had finished and I was recommended to go to Jamaica station and take a taxi from there. I remember crossing the busy road to a drab cab rank and was welcomed into the first one by a genial Asian gentleman who waited for me to state my destination.

“Belmont Park, please,” I asked. “Balma?” he replied, but I thought what the hell and as I was short of time, persevered as we moved along. “Balma?” he said once more. I knew the reputation of many New York taxi drivers not having more than a rudimentary understanding of any form of English, let alone the Cockney version, but he was my best bet.

Suddenly on the left-hand side, a green space loomed. He turned in his seat and said, triumphantly; “Park!” Now I was in dread of what might become of me but was soon reassured to see a line of local women on our side of the road standing at a bus stop.

I managed to get my, I must say, very friendly driver to stop alongside it and opening the door, called out to nobody in particular, “Does anyone know Belmont Park?” Eventually a nice lady possibly in her 40’s said. “I do. If you like, I’ll get in and direct the driver most of the way. Then, I must get out close to where I live, but I’ll tell you where he needs to go from there.”

The lady, called Mrs Lee, explained she was among the 75,000 crowd for the visit of Pope John Paul II to Aqueduct racecourse – the one closer to the city – that October 6, 1995.

She started by saying she probably shouldn’t have got into a cab with a stranger. She had lived nearby as a girl, but the area had become much more dangerous, and a woman had been raped right on the spot where the bus stop was, only a few days before.

She excused her rash reaction by saying someone in racing ought to be safe and that her son was in the sport and worked for Godolphin, asking if I had heard of them.

She said that his name is Joe Lee, and he was in Dubai all the previous winter and would be going out there once more that year.

On the day the National Lottery first began, Saturday 19th November 1994, my son had also made his way from the UK for a six-month stint working in Sheikh Mohammed’s sports club mainly to teach his sons the elements of football, cricket, tennis and the like. He’d just left school and was embarking on what turned out to be a gap year.

He was housed in the same apartment block as many of the work riders, including that year Johnny Murtagh, Vince (now Victoria) Smith and, as I was to find out when I called my son later, Joe Lee.

Joe was a good friend, according to his mother, of Jeremy Noseda. This was the year before the famous Frankie Dettori seven out of seven wins at Ascot on its championship Saturday late September card. I had worked with him that year, helping him with his “A Year in the Life of Frankie Dettori” book, which needed an extra chapter when the copy was already all in type. My entire family was at the launch.

Frankie finished his stellar UK riding career last year but has since enjoyed a second blooming (and some hefty prizemoney percentages) across the pond. These have been temporarily curtailed with an injured shoulder sustained in the stalls at perhaps coincidentally, Aqueduct racecourse two weeks ago.

Time is money these days. One of his most lucrative wins of late was in a Listed fillies’ 2yo race at Kentucky Downs. The winner, May Day Ready, is a daughter of Tapit and Nemoralia, which Dettori rode to the first three of her four career wins when trained by Noseda. Her owners were Peter Brant and Joseph Allen. Brant bred May Day Ready, who has been sold twice, first for only $60k and then as a two-year-old at the Ocala, Florida 2yo sale for $325k to the syndicate which races her now.

May Day Ready won her maiden (and $43k) at Saratoga with Dettori on board, as he was when she cleaned up the $463k when winning a Listed race at Kentucky Downs this month. Jacqui Doyle, freshly back from her four-year stint in the US, told me at Newmarket on Saturday that winning jockeys can expect a ten per cent share. So May Day Ready has already earned the itinerant Italian 50 grand. Quite right too, with a fortnight’s not earning to make up for!

And the point of all this? May Day Ready is one of a small team trained by the same Joe Lee. If someone who knows his very nice mum ever reads this, maybe they could pass on my thanks for that moment of Divine, or at least Papal, Intervention, and congratulate her on her son’s great success all these years later.

Frankie was due to end his absence by riding her on Sunday evening at Santa Anita in the Grade 2 Miss Grillo Stakes which is a “Win And You’re In” qualification for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf race at Del Mar in early November. However, the weather intervened and the Miss Grillo is now scheduled for next Sunday, October 6th; what a day of international racing that promises to be.

Jacqui says that daughter Sophie is back riding winners in her adopted country while son James isn’t doing too shabbily as first rider for Wathnan Racing back here. She also stated that the maidens at River Downs carry $43,000 for the winner, and just couldn’t comprehend the prizes of barely £4k for 2yo maidens at Newmarket on Saturdays. But then who can?

Despite our relatively poor money levels, Aidan O’Brien is already past £7.5 million in UK earnings and he had another memorable afternoon when Lake Victoria ran home an exceptional winner of the Cheveley Park Stakes.

All three of her previous wins had been over seven furlongs, so reverting to a furlong shorter for this Group 1 might have seemed over-ambitious, but Ryan Moore never had a moment’s doubt about the daughter of Frankel’s speed.

Taking her to the front after a few yards, she made all the running, at around 40/41 mph in the first half of the race, then drew away at the finish. She did slow a little but not as much as all her rivals. She was faster than the winner of the earlier Middle Park Stakes too.

That winner, Wimbledon Hawkeye, was a clear example of the emerging talent of his youthful trainer James Owen. James Doyle, riding for 92-year-old Bill Gredley, could have a potential Classic candidate here assuming he’s not required to ride for Wathnan. Then again, maybe Wathnan might enquire to Gredley about the colt’s availability.

- TS

 

Roving Reports: And so it begins…

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I suppose of all the places a new venture could begin there are worse ones than Doncaster, particularly as it doesn't mean a near four-hour commute from my house (that will come next week) and I'm on familiar territory, writes David Massey. St Leger Day almost didn't happen, with the morning drive to the track narrowly averting disaster as I fail to spot a flotilla of police motorbikes and Range Rovers tracking up the outside line of the M18, and I just barely avoid absent-mindedly pulling out in front of them as I try and change the station on the radio. As it turns out, this won't be the last time I find myself just in front of the Prime Minister (for it was he) on the day.

I'm with new work partner Vicki today, who has parents that live nearby and, God bless her mum, she's made me a cheese sandwich with a bag of cheese and onion crisps as an accompaniment. I am delighted to report the sandwich was delicious. Mums, eh? I miss mine, but I think I've found a spirit one with Vicki's as that's exactly the sort of thing mine would have done. "You don't need to, Mum, there will be food there." "Well, I've done you a pack-up now anyway. You never know." And even though you do know, you take the sandwich, and it's brilliant.

So anyway, Doncaster is packed with racegoers, which is good, but it does mean our route down to the parade ring from the press room (which is up top) is hard to navigate. We decide a better option is to go the back way, down the stairs, and come out by the weighing room. This works well for much of the afternoon, until the Leger comes around. We want to head to the pre-parade ring but for some reason we can't turn left, the route totally fenced off, and we have to head between the cordon to the parade ring. Everyone is crowding around the barriers as if they're waiting for someone. Imagine their disappointment as Vicki and myself loom into view. It's at this point I realise the PM is probably about thirty seconds behind me, as there are security men surrounding us. "Keep walking, and don't look back!" I shout to Vicki, just behind me. Sure enough, it's not long after we enter the parade ring that Sir Keir makes his appearance. I'm only glad that we didn't get booed as well.

Vicki is on her own on the Sunday at Doncaster. I warn her early there may be a few drops of rain, but not much. I lose count of the number of photos she sends me throughout the day of her in her transparent waterproof poncho, looking more miserable in each one as the day passes, as my weather forecasting skills prove about as accurate as my race-reading ones. I don't think sending her a photo of the roast dinner I'd made for me and the good lady helped matters, either. Still, I was at Leicester on the Monday before and it threw it down all day there when it wasn't supposed to, so let's call it a soggy score-draw on the week and move on.

And so to Yarmouth and the Eastern Festival. All sounds very exotic, doesn't it: an Eastern Festival? Those of a certain age will be reminded of Turkish Delight at this point. I'm reminded exactly how exotic things will be when I swing onto the Road To Kings Lynn (one of Bing and Bob's lesser-known adventures) and a whopping great potato lorry pulls out in front of me. Game over. Just sit tight and enjoy the finest flat scenery Lincolnshire has to offer for the next forty miles. Sadly, the African Violet Centre is still closed. There will be no streptococcus for me this year.

There will, however, be the more common Mcdonaldsus Drivethru'us on the way. As I arrive, the queue in front of me is one car. In the three minutes it takes to get my food, a dozen cars pile in behind me. I take this as a good sign and one that says luck will be on my side this week. I get back on the main road just as another potato wagon pulls in front of me, the good fortune lasting all of thirty seconds.

I'm in my usual B&B at Yarmouth and so are all the others that stayed there last year. It's like time hasn't moved on at all. Which seems appropriate, as there are parts of the town that don't feel like they have evolved much either, probably for about fifty years. Yarmouth is what it is, but it's badly in need of some modernisation. Even Skeggy has upgraded, for crying out loud.

I'll be at the dogs Monday night (I always go early) and Wednesday night and, on Tuesday, I have a meal with Arthur Cooper and Vicki to discuss further business. Many of you will recognise Arthur's Aussie tones - he commentates on the French racing for Sky on occasions - and he has tales to tell, and racing politics to discuss. We put the racing world to rights over a sticky toffee pudding, which is how it should be. It's a pleasure chatting to him, and I look forward to our next meet.

Tuesday's card is probably the least interesting of the three days. The weather is kind, more so than the results, which are a disaster for bookmakers. Yarmouth is a strong ring too - shop around and you'll be betting to less than one percent a runner. The stretchers are out for the books as the fourth favourite on the bounce goes in mid-afternoon. Trade at Fallen Angels could well see a downturn this year. (Google it, this is a family column.)

Vicki is with me on the Wednesday and I introduce her to the bookmaker who goes by the name of Billy Bongo. Vicki has already asked if that's his real name, which caused much mirth. She's disappointed to find out he's actually called Simon, but when I tell her his surname is "Pieman", it takes her a minute to decide that that's also bull. I give her a little quiz on bookies' names and whether they are real or fake, which she fails badly. She has a lot to learn about the layers, although I notice she has her favourites she likes to deal with. They tend to be the younger, better-looking ones. I shall leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide whether this is purely coincidental or not.

It's the East Anglian Derby at the dogs on the Wednesday night and the place is heaving. Luckily I'm on a table upstairs and have Viv Stingray (also not her real name) with us. Viv works at Southwell and has never been to the dogs before. This means I can easily impress her with my limited dog knowledge but by the end of the night she's a convert, even watching old vids of Scurlogue Champ on YouTube, and of course, loving them. How could you not? He's still the most amazing dog I'll ever clap eyes on. (If you've not watched the recordings or heard of him before, go and have a look. And be amazed.) Viv has already decided she's coming again next year.

Thursday, and the 3lb I lost weight-wise last week is all put back on with the final cooked breakfast of the trip. I tell myself I'll be back on the Ryvita tomorrow as I tuck into a third rasher. My luck this week hasn't been so great and I'm down so far, but a decent bet on Redorange at 3-1 helps the bank balance bounce back a bit. At least it's stayed dry this year, if windy. The drive back is a better one than the one coming down; no 'tater wagons on the route at 7pm, see? One last McDonald's for the road, and I'm home for half nine. I've an email when I get back asking me for a ten-to-follow for the jumps season. I've enjoyed the Flat this year but, I have to say, I can't wait to get stuck into the timber-toppers this time around. Especially now I'll actually be able to see them in the flesh rather than just viewing them going to post from the rails. An exciting winter lies ahead...

- DM

A Study of Owners in UK Flat Racing, Part 2

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This is the second of a two part series looking at some owner data for UK flat horse racing, writes Dave Renham. The period of study covers 1st January 2019 to 8th September 2024. Profit and loss figures have been calculated to Industry Starting Price (ISP), but I will quote Betfair SP (BSP) when appropriate.

In the first piece I shared data for the major owners who had the top 25 strike rates during this time frame and drilled into three - the Godolphin operation, Shadwell Estate and Cheveley Park Stud. To begin with in this piece, I will review the man with the second-best strike rate overall.

Mark Chan

Backing Marc Chan-owned horses in Britain during the study period has returned a tidy profit to SP of £34.12 (ROI +20.1%) with a strike rate close to one win in every four. Chan, a Hong Kong businessman, has a small but select group of horses that race in the UK. Initially, he owned and raced horses solely in Hong Kong, however in more recent years he has spread his wings. Saturday August 26th 2023 is a date that will be etched in his memory forever, as he landed an impressive treble that day with Angel Bleu winning the Group 2 Celebration Mile at Goodwood, Kinross the City of York Group 2 contest at York just 20 minutes later and then, 55 minutes after that, Lezoo prevailed in the Listed Hopeful Stakes at Newmarket. Three Class 1 wins at three different courses in just 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Most of Chan's horses are trained by Ralph Beckett and their record together reads: 38 wins from 144 starts (SR 26.4%) for a profit of £27.37 (ROI +19%). To BSP this improves to £44.34 (ROI +30.8%). Chan also has a couple of horses in training with John and Thady Gosden. Currently the Chan/Gosden combination has seen 4 wins from 11 starts.

Mark Chan Runners by Gender

One stat that stands out with Chan’s horses is the difference in success between his male runners and his females. Let’s look at the strike rates first:

 

 

Male horses have been 1.8 times more successful in terms of winning races than female horses. There have been more male runners, but still a fairly even split (94 male; 76 female). In terms of returns to SP there is a considerable difference:

 

 

That disparity equates to around 63p in the £ between the SP returns for male horses compared to female ones.

Other Mark Chan Runner Stats

There are three further subsets of stats I’d like to share:

1. Chan’s runners performed well when priced 6/1 or shorter. This group of runners secured 36 wins from 96 (SR 37.5%) for a profit of £35.62 (ROI +37.1%); A/E index 1.31.

2. Focusing on the Grade 1 tracks (Ascot, Doncaster, Epsom, Goodwood, Newbury, Newmarket, Sandown, York), Chan secured a 21.5% strike rate (20 from 93) for an SP profit of £13.60 (ROI +14.6%); A/E index 1.29.

3. Chan-owned two-year-olds have performed extremely well with the benefit of at least one previous run. These juveniles have won 16 of their 43 starts hitting a huge strike rate of over 37%. Returns have been 34p in the £ to SP, 44p to BSP. Compare this to his 2yo debutants who have scored only three times from 21 (SR 14.3%).

As I’m writing this, Kinross has just won for a tenth time (eighth for Chan) winning the Park Stakes (Group 2) at Doncaster.

 

Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum

I want to concentrate on the past three years for this Dubai-based owner as his team has excelled during that timeframe. Sheikh Obaid's prizemoney earnings have exceeded £1.5 million in each of the three years, and each year has seen his strike rate north of 20% (21.4% in 2022, 20.9% in 2023 and an impressive 24.7% so far in 2024). Backing all runners ‘blind’ in the past three years would have seen a £85.28 profit to SP; to BSP it stands at a very healthy +£164.41 (ROI +26.6%). It should also be noted that his figures are not skewed by several big-priced winners.

At the front end of the market, Sheikh Obaid has proved profitable to follow, with his favourites and second favourites having combined to win 92 races from 256 (SR 35.9%) for an SP profit of £18.20 (ROI +7.1%). To BSP this improves to £36.03 (ROI +14.1%).

Sheikh Obaid Runners by Age

Moving onto age of horse now and here are the splits:

 

 

Two-year-olds have an excellent record as have those aged four. What is interesting about the 2yo results is what happens when we compare win strike rates based on number of career starts. Normally 2yo debutants score much less frequently than those that have run before. However...

 

 

...as can be seen here, Sheikh Obaid-owned juveniles on debut have won more often than any other subset and, at a ridiculously high 29.9% strike rate for 2yo debutants. The average strike rate for all 2yo debutants in the past three years stands at just 8.4%. Here are the full figures for these 2yos on debut:

 

 

To BSP these figures improve further to  profit of £99.37 (ROI +129.1%). Backing Sheikh Obaid-owned debutants has been a license to print money in the past three seasons.

Sheikh Obaid Runners by Trainer

It’s trainer time next and here are the stats for all runners from any stable that has saddled more than 40 runners for Sheikh Obaid:

 

 

Karl Burke looks the stand-out performer and, if ignoring his bigger-priced runners (14/1 or more), the overall profit improves by £26 to £87.08. His 2yos have been exceptional winning over 36% of the time (16/44) and returning 42p in the £ to SP, 60p to BSP.

Kevin Ryan has a good record in novice events for the Sheikh, scoring ten wins from 36 (SR 27.8%) for a tidy profit of £19.40 (ROI +53.9%). To BSP the profit stands at £30.46 (ROI +84.6%). Sticking with Ryan, when his runners have been in the top three in the betting they have won over 30% of the time (17 wins from 56) returning 39p in the £ to SP, 56p to BSP.

Roger Varian also has a couple of positive stats to feedback to you. Firstly, when Jack Mitchell has ridden their record reads 12 wins from 40 (SR 30%) for a profit of £10.83 (ROI +27.1%). To BSP that improves by a further 9p in the £. In Class 5 events Varian has a 35.7% strike rate thanks to ten wins from 28. Returns to SP stand at 18p in the £, 31p in the £ to BSP.

Unfortunately for Varian, and to a lesser degree for us punters, Sheikh Obaid removed all of his horses from Varian's Carlburg Stables last month.

Sheikh Obaid Runners by Race Class

There has been excellent consistency over the last three years from the runners of Sheikh Obaid which is highlighted nicely by an analysis of race class. His runners have produced profit to SP in every single class of race as the graph below shows:

 

 

Obviously, to BSP these figures improve still further. Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum is by all accounts a demanding owner, but he does seem to be one to keep a close eye on at present.

 

Amo Racing Limited

Amo Racing Limited was founded by football agent Kia Joorabchian and they have had over 200 winners in the past six seasons. However, this year has not gone so well hitting a strike rate of below 10% compared with over 16% when combining the years 2019 to 2023. There have been plenty of ups and downs already with horses being taken away from trainers and jockey Kevin Stott being sacked after eight months of an initial one-year contract; Joorabchian certainly seems to do things his way.

To date he has one Group 1 success courtesy of King of Steel in the 2023 Qipco Champion Stakes. However, it was his 150-1 winner, Valiant Force, at Royal Ascot in the same year that perhaps he is best known for.

Amo Racing by Trainer

In terms of trainers both George Boughey and Alice Haynes boast a 20%+ win strike rate, although this year, as with all his trainers, this figure has dropped.

Perhaps the most potent stat is for favourites: jollies wearing the distinctive purple and white livery have won 103 of their 249 starts (SR 41.4%) for a profit to SP of £28.59 (ROI +11.5%). To BSP this stands at +£44.60 (ROI +17.9%). For the record Amo-owned favourites have edged into profit to BSP even during this poor year of 2024.

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Trainer Performance by Price Movement

In some other recent articles I have written about price movement, so I thought I would check for any owners who have fared particularly well with horses that have shortened in price from Early Morning Odds (around 9am in the morning) to final Starting Price. The idea was to try and establish which owners may be worth 'following in' if you see a horse of theirs being backed.

Positive Price Movement

There are six owners who have achieved an A/E index of over 1.00 with at least 75 horses that have shortened in price during this time frame. They are shown in the graph below:

 

 

Two owners that I have discussed earlier, Marc Chan and Sheikh Mohammed Obaid, both appear in this list of six. All six from the chart above - the others being David Armstrong, Valmont Racing, Qatar Racing and Paul & Clare Rooney - have been profitable to SP as well as BSP, impressive considering all the horses shortened in price during the day. Hence, a positive market move for any of these owners should be seen as material.

Negative Price Movement

It is interesting when looking at the A/E index of Paul & Clare Rooney with horses that do the reverse and drift from Early Odds to SP. When this has happened their A/E index was way down at 0.59. Such runners showed hefty losses to SP standing at over 55p in the £. But when their horses have been backed, they have produced a return to SP over nearly 7p in the £, with an A/E index of 1.01 (as can be seen in the graph). The strike rates between the two groups vary massively, too, going from 18.9% for horses that shorten to 6.7% for horses that drifted in price.

There is a similar pattern when comparing ‘shorteners’ and ‘drifters’ for Qatar Racing Limited. Here are their splits:

 

 

There is a noteworthy difference here again, much bigger than the norm. Are certain owners really in the know? It’s obviously difficult to tell, but if I was thinking about backing a horse owned by Qatar Racing, I’d prefer to see it strong in the market than weak.

 

Additional Owner stats

For the final part of this article I'm going to share some individual owner stats that I believe are worth knowing:

1. Opulence Thoroughbreds have an excellent record with their 2yos when racing on the all-weather, scoring over 37% of the time and producing returns to SP of 22p in the £.

2. Kirsten Rausing has a good record with her 2yo runners trained by Andrew Balding. Eight of the 24 runners in the study period have won securing an SP profit in every year from 2020 to 2024.

3. Middleham Park send out on average over 600 runners every year hitting a win strike rate of 12%. They spread their horses across numerous trainers and the stand-out handler for them has been Robert Cowell. Of his 67 runners 17 have won (SR 25.4%) for an SP profit of £48.23 (ROI +72%). No other trainer for Middleham has exceeded an 18% win rate with most of them between 10% and 14%.

4. The Cool Silk Partnership has an overall strike rate of 14% but with runners from the Archie Watson yard this jumps to 20.1% (19 wins from 93). Also keep an eye out for the jockey booking because when Hollie Doyle has taken the ride the stats read nine wins from 27 (SR 33.3%) for an SP profit of £16.26 (ROI +60.2%). To BSP it jumps up to +£22.78 (ROI +84.4%).

5. Sticking with Archie Watson and The Cool Silk Partnership, runners sent off first or second favourite have produced outstanding results: 15 wins from 31 (SR 48.4%) for a profit to SP of £24.15 (ROI +77.9%).

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And that concludes the second of two owner articles. I hope you enjoyed both pieces and have gained some useful insights to help inform your betting where certain owners are concerned.

- DR

Monday Musings: Of Real Racing Heroes

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Less than a year after areas of Southwell racecourse, including the main grandstand and offices, were flooded to a depth of up to three feet, it played host last Friday to a unique presentation, writes Tony Stafford. No racing there, nor even the Big Trucks event that was lined up for the following couple of days, just one group of five horses galloping for a mile around its Tapeta oval.

Yet the mesmeric draw of City Of Troy and four of his lesser stablemates, accompanied by trainer Aidan O’Brien, was sufficient to entice 1,500 people – that was the pre-event estimate but on the ground the feeling was that the figure had been exceeded – to come to see it.

Here were Ryan Moore, Wayne Lordan, Brett Doyle, Rachel Richardson and Dean Gallagher to ride the quintet in advance of City Of Troy’s Breeders’ Cup Classic challenge at Del Mar, California, in November. (Gallagher amazingly so as it was more than 30 years ago that his dad Tommy asked me if I could find him a job in England. I did and he came to Rod Simpson, yet he is still regarded as sufficiently talented and fit to be asked to take his part in a trial of this importance.)

https://twitter.com/RacingTV/status/1837185812837855338

A few years after Dean had been signed as first jockey for the one-time Midlands greengrocer Paul Green, by then a substantial owner, he rode the Francois Doumen-trained Hors La Loi III into second place in the third of Istabraq’s triple Champion Hurdle sequence, Istabraq trained of course by Aidan O’Brien.

There was no Champion Hurdle the following year because of foot and mouth, but when Istabraq went for the four-timer in 2002, he pulled up as Charlie Swan felt he was wrong, a view confirmed by the vet’s post-race inspection. The winner, Hors La Loi III, by now trained by James Fanshawe but ridden still by Gallagher, beat Hughie Morrison’s Marble Arch, a 25/1 shot into second place.

I can throw in another small personal part to this story. I was asked to try to buy Istabraq from the July sale in 1996 and went to the John Gosden yard at Newmarket a couple of days earlier. I was shown the horse by the late John Durkan, Gosden’s assistant at the time, who said: “He’s a lovely horse. I couldn’t recommend him more highly.”

I had a budget from a Saudi prince who wanted the staying 3yo for the King’s Cup in his home country. I stayed in until 36k but Timmy Hyde, bidding for J P McManus, held sway at 38,000 gns.

I was coming back from Keeneland Sales a few years later when I heard a voice from behind me as we walked to change planes in Cincinnati. It was Timmy Hyde. He said: “Tony, you were the under-bidder for Istabraq. I know because I was standing right behind you! It’s just that that f…ing Danny Murphy is telling everyone he was!” He wasn’t.

The obvious next question was: “How high would I have needed to go?” Timmy smiled and said: “We had 100 grand if necessary!” Hardly an underbidder in truth!

The saddest part of the story was that Aidan wasn’t meant to be training the horse, it was John Durkan who would be leaving Gosden to set up his own operation in Ireland. He even came up to the Daily Telegraph’s office in South Quay Plaza, the one between Fleet Street and Canary Wharf, with our photographer Ed Byrne and Conor O’Dwyer.

But then he contracted inoperable cancer and was unable to proceed with his plans. JP McManus gave the horse to Aidan and four consecutive Festival wins, starting with the 2m5f novice and then three Champion Hurdles, earned him a place in jumping folklore, along of course with his owner and trainer. I’ve never forgotten how honest he was about the horse even though if JP had bought him, he would be training him. Istabraq died this summer at the age of 32, much lamented by his owner and family.

JP has stayed mainly in that environment, dominating owners’ championships on either side of the Irish Sea, while O’Brien has been unchallenged on the flat in his homeland and more than a match for Gosden, Hannon and the rest for most years over here.

When interviewed after a big win, Aidan invariably remembers all the people he considers have played a part in the particular horse’s preparation. It’s not about him, everyone else almost.

On Friday, as Pat Keating awaited his boss’s delayed arrival – there was a crash on the way from the airport - replying to his question: “How long <have they been walking around the paddock>? answered “Forty-seven minutes”. Aidan said: “They are set to go then.” Thirty is the usual requirement. The jockeys mounted, setting off around to the far side of the track for the American-style stalls especially brought for the event.

The imperative, apart from City Of Troy working well and acting on the surface, was a fast pace and the short-running duo that broke best, ensured that would happen. Up the straight, the markedly elongated stretch of the Derby winner’s stride not for the first time struck connections Paul Smith, son of Derrick, his son Harry and Mike Dillon, former Ladbrokes man and a close friend.

The workout was the day job. But then we saw the true Aidan. He had a quick post-work de-brief with the jockeys, giving each the chance to comment, but obviously then having the crucial talk with Ryan on how it went.

But then the crowd saw something I doubt even those that travelled from far beyond the East Midlands would have expected. Aidan smiled throughout whenever cornered by a gallop-goer to sign the nice little racecard designed by Nick Craven, one of Weatherbys’ bosses. Each signature, because we are in 2024 and not 2004, had to require a selfie. None of which the personable O’Brien refused.

There was a lengthy television interview for Sky Sports Racing with Jason Weaver, while Brough Scott added his wisdom of many years to the proceedings. Then Aidan spent ages talking to mainly young aspiring journalists, none of whom could believe this giant of racing would give them so much time.

I guess almost an hour and a half after the workout – the pre-event blurb said he would stay for 45 minutes - he went off smiling for the car to the airport, long after Keating, his travelling head lad, had caught his eye and pointed to his watch.

Aidan O’Brien may be no Frankie Dettori but where the Italian has showmanship in the extreme, Aidan has a modesty and innate kindness that you would need to go a long way to see replicated by any public figure.

It could have been a fiasco, but Aidan’s plan to give his horse an awayday must be termed a great success, not least in PR terms. I’m certainly glad I was there to see it. And I know that the final line of people waiting patiently for his signature, selfie and smile, all got their precious reward for their trip. Well done, Southwell, well done Aidan, Ryan and the rest.

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Mentioning Marble Arch in relation to Hors La Loi III and Dean Gallagher reminded me that Hughie Morrison has been around for a good while, too. Not So Sleepy hasn’t been with us for quite as long but he did win first time out as a two-year-old at Nottingham ten years ago and in the following May, won the Dee Stakes, the pre-Derby warm-up for winners Oath and Kris Kin, the latter for Sir Michael Stoute who will retire from training at the end of the season.

Not So Sleepy has raced at least four times in each of the next nine seasons, never once having his flat handicap mark drop below 94 and now, after a wonderful repeat win in a valuable Newbury handicap on Saturday, will surely end his career rated over 100 – he was 99 on Saturday. I’ll be shocked if that has ever happened before.

Hughie trains with a rare sympathetic view of his charges – “Each one that gets injured I feel it so much”, he says. But consequently, few trainers have a comparable facility for extending their horses’ working lives. He won a Group 1 with the stayer Alcazar when that horse was ten years of age, but his achievements with the difficult to manage Not So Sleepy dwarf even that.

He finished in the first four in three Cesarewitch Handicaps and was seventh last year. He also ran in four consecutive Champion Hurdles. Despite not taking up hurdling until the age of seven, his three Grade 1 wins include a dead-heat with previous Champion Hurdle winner Epatante in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle, a feat he followed with a second win in the Newcastle race.

Last December, he won a Grade 1 hurdle at Sandown in a procession, a few days short of his official twelfth birthday. Few horses have achieved half as much as Sleepy. His owner, Lady Blyth, seemed very keen as with Quickthorn recently to ascribe lots of credit to rider Tom Marquand, a sentiment reciprocated in their interviews with Matt Chapman for Sky Sports Racing.

Never a mention of the trainer and the usually forensic Chapman didn’t seem to think of bringing in his name either. Maybe Hughie was being courted and given his rightful credit for the horse’s achievements by ITV, but I have only one television set.

Also Saturday was the final day’s riding for Franny Norton, and he chose Chester, where he has been the “King” for so long, for the farewell. He did it in style, notching a treble, and it would be fitting if the course made him an ambassador for the future, especially at the May meeting.

It was a lovely weekend at any rate for some real racing heroes.

- TS

A Study of Owners in UK Flat Racing, Part 1

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As the title indicates, this article looks at some owner data for UK Flat and AW racing, writes Dave Renham. The period of study is from 1st January 2019 to 8th September 2024. Profit and loss has been calculated to Industry Starting Price, but I will quote Betfair SP when appropriate. This is the first of a two-part series.

Flat Owners' Strike Rate League Table

Let's kick off by looking at the top 25 owners in terms of their strike rate (150 runs minimum to qualify):

 

 

Godolphin top the chart perhaps as one would expect, but hot on their heels is Marc Chan. The top six in the list all have decent A/E indices with four of that six hitting 1.00 or above. I will look at some of the owners in more detail later in the piece.

One owner to not quite make the cut is King Charles and Queen Camilla. Since taking over from the Queen at the end of 2022 the Royals have slimmed the operation down a little. They have had 21 winners from 164 runners (SR 13.8%), but losses have been steep, at £70.42 (ROI -42.9%). The A/E index stands on just 0.71. There has been performance drop off since the death of Her Majesty. From 2019 to 2022 Queen Elizabeth II had 270 runners of which 56 won (SR 20.1%) for a loss of £42.37 (ROI -15.2%); A/E index 0.92. It will be interesting to see if there is an improvement in performance with Royal runners over the next couple of seasons.

 

Godolphin

Godolphin had their first winner in December 1992 in Dubai and from 1994 the operation went global. At the time of researching this piece Sheikh Mohamed's racing entity winner-count worldwide stood at 8787, of which 430 came in Group 1 races.

Godolphin UK Annual Strike Rates

In this country they are based in Newmarket and have two trainers, Charlie Appleby and Saeed bin Suroor. Below are their overall yearly win strike rates.

 

 

There seems to have been a slight uptick in performance in the past three seasons (2022 to 2024). This has been reflected in the profit/loss column with 2019 to 2021 seeing losses of £368.61 (ROI -18.0%), while from 2022 to 2024 these have been much reduced to just -£38.48 (ROI -2.4%).

Godolphin Top Jockeys

Onto jockeys now and a look at all jockeys have had at least 60 rides for Godolphin and have ridden for them in 2024. I have ordered them by number of rides:

 

 

William Buick is the main stable jockey now James Doyle has moved on to Wathnan Racing. Doyle has still ridden for Godolphin this year but only 13 times and with just one win. Buick has an excellent record considering how many rides he has had. Betting all his rides would have yielded just a penny in the pound loss, while to BSP this moves into profit by £73.00 (ROI +6.8%). Oisin Murphy has an excellent record and primarily has ridden for bin Suroor. He’s only been called upon seven times so far in 2024 but has three wins from those rides. Going back to 2019 Murphy has an excellent record when riding in novice events. He has managed 18 wins from 41 rides (SR 43.9%) for a profit of £19.85 (ROI +48.4%). To BSP this improves to +£27.73 (ROI +67.6%).

Godolphin at Grade 1 Tracks

The next area to share is the stats at Grade 1 courses. This is where the biggest races tend to occur and a big operation like Godolphin do target quality.

 

 

The performances at Newmarket stand out. As you can see, I have split them into the Rowley and July courses, partly to show the consistency shown at Godolphin's local track. The two highest strike rates come from the Rowley and July course stats, both have shown profits to SP, and both A/E indices are comfortably above 1.00.

Now, the Godolphin stables are based in Newmarket, so the horses do not have to travel and are used to the surroundings. Even so, these stats are impressive especially given the quality of opposition they face at Headquarters. If you had backed all of their runners at Newmarket to BSP, profits would stand at an impressive +£172.44 (ROI +22.2%). If we look at the yearly BSP returns (ROI%) we see the following:

 

 

Profits in every single year showing excellent consistency. The last three years have been particularly strong.

William Buick has an outstanding record for Godolphin at the Suffolk track thanks to 133 winners from 368 (SR 36.1%) for a profit of £84.61 (ROI +23%). To BSP this climbs to +£121.46 (ROI +33%). Oisin Murphy is 10 from 22 and his mounts have returned a huge return to SP of 159 pence in the £. That has been achieved with the biggest priced winner being 9/1.

All in all, the Godolphin operation keeps firing year on year, and there are no signs of this abating.

 

Shadwell Estate Co (formerly Hamdan al Maktoum)

The Shadwell Estate is a world-renowned racing and breeding operation located in Britain, Ireland and the USA. Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum became one of the leading figures in international horseracing from the 1980s until his passing in 2021. He was champion Flat owner in Britain nine times, the last of which was in 2020. The operation is now run by his daughter, Sheikha Hissa. It is noticeable that the operation seems to have been streamlined since the death of Sheikh Hamdan with the number of runners per year roughly halving. This seems mainly due to the number of 2yo runners which have decreased dramatically.

In 2022 Shadwell had their best season in the 2019-2024 period hitting over 32% winners and returns to SP of 25p in the £. This year to date has been a little ‘sticky’ relatively with a strike rate of half that on 16.8% and losses edging close to 40p in the £. I am assuming 2024 has just been a small blip, based on going back further in time when they had similar strike rates in 2012, 2013 and 2016.

 

Shadwell Estate Trainer Performance

Below is a table showing trainers who have saddked at least 100 runners for Shadwell and at least one runner in 2024:

 

 

The Gosden, Varian and Burrows yards have all provided excellent long-term results, blind profits to SP and A/E indices above 1.00. This year two trainers in particular have struggled, with Charles Hills on just one win from 19 and Richard Hannon having drawn a blank from all of his 14 runners.

A trainer they may start to use more is Kevin Phillipart de Foy. He has had only four horses to date but three of them have won and overall, he has five wins from 12 from those horses.

In terms of jockeys, Jim Crowley gets the lion’s share of the rides and from 2019 to 2023 he made a blind profit to BSP in every single year, and to SP in four of the five years. This has not been the case this year which is no surprise given the 2024 figures shown above.

From a racecourse perspective, there are 11 courses where Shadwell has sent at least 100 runners since 2019. These favoured tracks have combined to produce a BSP profit of £199.67 (ROI 12.7%). I have graphed their A/E indices below:

 

 

Doncaster and Lingfield have extremely strong A/E indices of 1.29 and 1.26 respectively when Shadwell runners visit. At both courses they have provided good profits to both Industry SP and BSP and the strike rate at Lingfield has been better than one win in every three (34.3%). Kempton is another track where their runners have performed extremely well.

Shadwell Market Performance

Looking at the betting market, Shadwell runners have turned a profit on both favourites and second favourites:

 

 

To BSP profits stand at £45.85 (ROI +6.7%) for favs, and +£65.42 (ROI +14.4%) for second favs.

It will be interesting to see how Shadwell move forward in the next two or three years.

Cheveley Park Stud

The Cheveley Park Stud is Newmarket’s oldest stud farm and has been one of the major forces in European bloodstock and racing for over 35 years. With a strike rate of around one in six they have not been as successful as the likes of Godolphin, but there are still a few positive angles to share, as well as some negative ones.

Below is their annual breakdown:

 

 

As can be seen, it has been a little up and down. This year to date has been good, as was 2021. Last year saw quite a dip so it is difficult to get a handle on how things may go each year.

Cheveley Park Stud by Race Class

Onto to Class of Race next and here are the splits:

 

 

The headline here are those 38 wins at Class 1, with a profit to boot. To BSP this profit stands at £75.71 (ROI +29.3%) and sticking with BSP Class 1 races have yielded a profit in four of the six years. If we breakdown the Class 1 races we see that Listed races have offered the best returns:

 

 

All 17 wins from the Listed races have come with female runners. Females have provided 86 of the runners; the 11 male runners have drawn a blank. It should be noted at this point that around 75% of ALL the horses from Cheveley Park have been female with the vast majority of these being fillies, most of the colts from the stud being sent to auction.

Cheveley Park Performance by Surface

With most of Cheveley Park's runners being fillies, I suspect that the turf versus all-weather stats are worth looking at. Generally, female runners find it harder on the all-weather than on grass, so I am predicting that the red, white and blue-silked runners have a slightly better record on turf. Let’s see:

 

 

No surprises here. The turf figures are far superior to the all-weather ones across the board.

Cheveley Park Performance by Trainer

A look at trainers next. Firstly, a comparison of strike rates across the main trainers (60 runs minimum):

 

 

Quite a variance here, ranging from William Haggas at over 22% to Roger Varian at under 10%. Let’s see which trainers have produced the best A/E indices over the period of study:

 

 

David O’Meara is the standout with an A/E index of 1.11. He had a decent strike rate of close to 19% and has been profitable with Cheveley Park runners to both SP (12p in the £) and BSP (24p in the £). Also take notice if Danny Tudhope is booked to ride for O’Meara and Cheveley Park. They have combined to secure a 54% profit to SP, 71% to BSP.

The Gosden stats look a bit weird as they have been profitable to SP (18p in £) and BSP (26p in the £), but their A/E index is down at 0.84. However, this is because of a below average performance with shorter-priced runners. For the record the stable has made an SP profit in five of the six years.

Cheveley Park Market Performance

Finally for Cheveley Park, let me share some market data because it caught my eye. When the SP has been short (9/4 or shorter) the results have been quite poor. The ownership entity has managed 100 wins from 294 qualifiers (SR 34%), but losses have been significant at £69.53 (ROI –23.7%).

But when their runners have drifted in price from Early Odds (around 9am in the morning) to their final SP they have made a profit if backing to BSP. There have been 749 horses which have lengthened in price from Early Odds to SP of which 108 have won (SR 14.4%) for a BSP profit to £81.08 (ROI +10.8%). So don’t be put off by a Cheveley Park drifter. Drifters at single figure BSP prices have made a profit so these figures are not skewed by several big priced winners.

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That concludes my first piece. I hope there have been some useful nuggets for you to take advantage of in the future. I will continue from where I left off next time. Until then...

- DR

Monday Musings: The Jugglers

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The second Saturday in September illustrated how trainers and jockeys’ agents need to be expert jugglers at this time of year, writes Tony Stafford. We had the Irish Champion Stakes, worth a total €£1.15 million (€712k to the winner) and the Betfred St Leger, £830k and £421k to the winner, yet three UK champion jockeys were riding more than 3,000 miles away from either venue.

The trio - Oisin Murphy, William Buick and Frankie Dettori - all lined up in the Grade 1 Natalma Stakes for 2yo fillies over a mile and worth £177k at the Woodbine racetrack in Toronto, Canada. Buick was on the 4/5 favourite for Godolphin and Charlie Appleby, the dual early-season winner Mountain Breeze, but she could only manage eighth place.

Ahead of her were Murphy, fifth on 65/1 shot Ready To Battle, for dominant local trainer Mark Casse despite being the outsider of his trio; and Dettori was one place behind on the Christophe Clement filly Annascaul, the race second favourite.

He was the only one of our itinerant trio to have a ride in the next Graded race, the Ontario Matron (G3) on the Tapeta track. He finished fourth for Casse who again had three runners without securing the win.

Only five turned up for the E P Taylor Stakes for fillies and mares, run on the turf track. In the past the E P Taylor was a frequent target for UK and especially French runners. It honours the Canadian breeder Eddie Taylor. He stood Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Northern Dancer, the stallion who first tickled the fancy of Vincent O’Brien and led, with Robert Sangster and John Magnier’s help, to the legacy of Sadler’s Wells and, through him, to his even more influential son Galileo.

This year, the E P Taylor was a tame affair considering there was £266k for the winner. Oisin got a ride here but could do no better than fourth of five on Blush for French-based trainer Carlos Laffon-Parias. All three of the visiting riders had been previous winners of the race.

Charlie Appleby and Andrew Balding staged a rematch from a Listed race on King George Day at Ascot in July, with Al Qudra, the winner of that race for Charlie and Will, going into the bet365 <they get in everywhere!> Summer Plate over a mile on the turf as favourite, having beaten New Century by just over two lengths then.

Here Oisin turned the form around on identical terms, winning by one and a quarter lengths from Al Qudra in another Grade 1 again worth £177k, as with the juvenile fillies earlier. The share of the spoils made Oisin’s awayday worthwhile and even in defeat Buick got his mitts on a portion of the 60 grand for second.

The principal reason for the Appleby/Godolphin attack was presumably the featured Rogers Woodbine Mile, with a hefty £355,000 to the winner. The Buick mount, Naval Power, was the 11/20 favourite but finished only fourth to a couple of Mark Casse runners, siphoning up between them a good deal more than half a million Canadian bucks. Naval Power had been a very close second on his previous start when Dettori had the mount in a valuable supporting race on Kentucky Derby Day at Churchill Downs in early May.

If you feel sorry for Frankie, the pensioner (in jockey terms) started out the previous weekend looking forward to a hatful of Aidan O’Brien mounts at Kentucky Downs, but only Greenfinch, who finished fourth, ran, the others being withdrawn. But then, a week yesterday at the same track, May Day Ready won a £483k first prize and that was supplemented by a double at the same track on Wednesday. Dettori won the £238k Gold Cup with Limited Liability and then the Dueling Grounds Oaks Invitational with Kathymarissa and another £720k.

His win prizes amounted to £1,323,000 over the week. No wonder he loves being in the US!

What did they miss while waiting for Saturday in Canada? At Doncaster there was an eighth St Leger win for Aidan O’Brien as the inexperienced and in some ways still green Jan Bruegel edged out Illinois in a thrilling tussle up the Doncaster straight. Both colts are by Galileo and at the final opportunity, his sons dominated yet another English Classic.

Impossible to separate in the market, it looked like a potential dead-heat in the race until Sean Levey, who started out life as an O’Brien apprentice before relocating to the UK, forced his mount’s head in front close to the line.

Behind in third and fourth, also locked together, were Deira Mile and Sunway who crossed the line only a nose apart. I thought it a mealy-mouthed decision by the stewards to turn the form around, denying Deira Mile’s ever-adventurous Ahmed Al Sheikh of Green Team Racing another placed run in the English Classics of which he is so enamoured.

Bay City Roller was a good winner of the Champagne Stakes that opened the card, but it might have been a different story had not Chancellor prematurely burst out of the gate. The Gosden colt, a smart scorer at the track last time, was third at Ascot in the race where Al Qudra beat New Century.

The raft of unlikely horse/trainer/jockey partnerships on this unusual day continued in the Portland Handicap, one of my favourite races with its intermediate sprint distance of around five and a half furlongs.

Here, the unluckiest horse in training, Peter Charalambous’s Apollo One, got the services of no less a partner than Christophe Soumillon. The Belgian, a multiple champion jockey in France, had just got his mount’s brave head in front of a gaggle of horses on the far side when the favourite American Affair flew down under the stands rail under Paul Mulrennan to beat him by a nose.

It was a notable win for Jim Goldie and, given the way he finished on Saturday, the Ayr Gold Cup in five days’ time must have its appeal. Peter Charalambous is adamant he would never ask Apollo One to run in the likely soft ground at Ayr, but it would be nice to think he would win a big sprint handicap before too long.

Over the past two seasons he has finished second in four big sprints, the Wokingham and Stewards’ Cup last year and the Stewards’ Cup and Portland in 2024. His total losing distance is barely two and a half lengths in those races.

Irish Champions Weekend featured a fine return to form by the slightly unpredictable but undeniably ultra-talented Auguste Rodin. He ran a great race in the Irish Champion Stakes but just failed to cope with the tenacious favourite Economics.

It had been a brave decision by William Haggas to resist running his colt in the Derby after his sensational <I use the word advisedly> Dante Stakes romp at York and, nicely rested, Haggas had given him an ideal warm-up run at Deauville last month for his main target here.

Economics came from some way back, as did Auguste Rodin. Tom Marquand sent his mount into the lead halfway up the short Leopardstown straight, when it appeared that Ryan Moore on the dual Derby winner was going marginally the easier, even getting his head in front in the last hundred yards. Economics, to his credit, pulled out extra and, despite battling all the way to the line, Auguste Rodin had to be content with an honourable second place.

The path for both horses is set in stone. Economics will now go to the Qipco Champion Stakes for what will be only his sixth career start. Auguste Rodin has the Breeders’ Cup Turf, which he won last year, as his autumn objective.

Just behind in third and fourth were the Japanese horse Shin Emperor, who should make a bold attempt at being the first from Japan to win the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe, and fast-finishing Los Angeles, who probably would have fully extended his two stablemates at Doncaster.

His range of entries, from the Champion Stakes (ten furlongs) at Ascot to the British Champion Long Distance Cup (two miles) the same day and, a fortnight earlier, the Arc over one mile and a half reflect his untapped potential and versatility. I’d go the stayers’ route if he were mine – wishful thinking in the extreme!

Yesterday, Messrs Buick and Murphy made it back to the Curragh for the second day of the Irish Champions Weekend. They might not have won as they rode respectively Vauban and Giavellotto into second and third in the Irish St Leger, but at least they got a close-up view of the remarkable Kyprios.

Aidan O'Brien's six-year-old entire was taking his earnings past £2 million with an authoritative performance under Ryan Moore. It was Kyprios' 13th win in 17 career starts. After last year's injury problems and a curtailed season of only two second places, he has now repeated the same first five victories of his unbeaten four-year-old campaign and in the same  races.

That year (2022) he ended the season with victory in the Prix Du Cadran over two and a half miles - by twenty lengths! If he goes there and wins in three weeks it would be a double unbeaten six-timer, four of them at Group 1 level, surely a record, and one that will be exceptionally difficult to match in the future. He deserves to be regarded as at least the equal of Yeats as a stayer. Many will think him superior.

- TS

Seeking Value with Female Flat Jockeys

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The 3.30 race at Goodwood on September 3rd 2024 will be one that Hollie Doyle will cherish for the rest of her life, writes Dave Renham. It was the race where she rode her 1000th career winner on the David Simcock-trained Leyhaimur. In doing so, Hollie became only the second woman to achieve this monumental feat following in the footsteps of Hayley Turner who rode her 1000th winner in November last year (2023).

Horse racing is one of the few sports where men and women compete against each other on a level playing field. One would sincerely hope that by now Doyle and Turner have proven to trainers, punters, bookmakers and fellow jockeys alike that women riders can be as successful as their male counterparts.

Back in January 2021 Matt wrote a piece on the site where he set about trying to answer two questions:

1. Has the sport begun to level the chasmic disparity between male and female rider opportunities? and

2. To what degree is it appropriate to do that based on performance data?

 

His study covered a five-year period from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2020 and the link to read it is www.geegeez.co.uk/male-and-female-jockeys-a-comparison/.

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What I plan to do with this article is twofold. In the first part I am aiming to build upon the start of Matt’s research into his question of gender disparity, bringing us up to date over the subsequent four years. In the second part I would like to focus solely on the performance of female jockeys.

Male vs female: Overall Numbers

Firstly, let me share Matt’s findings for all riders in UK flat races between 2016 and 2020, broken down by gender focusing solely on the percentage of rides for each group.

 

 

As the pie chart shows, a whopping 91% of all rides were taken by male jockeys during this time frame. That's an enormous disparity. The question is, have matters improved at all in more recent times? Below is the same male/female percentage comparison but looking at data from 1st January 2021 to 5th September 2024:

 

 

Things have improved but just barely. I wonder if we have seen a year-on-year increase or not? Let’s see:

 

 

From 2021 to 2023 we were heading downwards not upwards. At least 2024 has seen the percentage move in the direction it should be. As can be seen, parity is a long way away and even an 80/20 male to female split seems years, possibly decades, away.

For these figures to change we need to see more Hollie Doyles. What I mean by that is that Hollie has ridden 17% of all the rides given to female jockeys in 2024. That equates to 796 rides out of the 4741 total rides for all female jockeys. Only two other female jockeys have had more than 300 rides this year to date, those being Saffie Osborne on 493 and Joanna Mason on 470. If, say, just another three female jockeys had been given the opportunities this year that Hollie has had (e.g. ridden in nearly 800 races), then the male riders to female riders’ splits would have moved from 88.7% male rides vs 11.3% female rides, to a better, if still badly unbalanced, split of 82.9% vs 17.1%. However, that would still be a solid improvement on the situation in a scenario where just three female jockeys get those better opportunities - and two of them used the lever of family connections to get started. Riders need races to gain experience, and the simple truth is that female jockeys are still not getting enough opportunities.

 

Male vs female: Favourites

Matt’s article also looked at data for favourites in terms of the male rides / female rides percentage splits. From 2016 to 2020 only 6.7% of all favourites were ridden by female jockeys. In the more recent past (2021 onwards) this has improved a little, but only to 8.3%. However, when we look at the overall results (2021-2024) for both groups of favourites we see some interesting findings:

 

 

Strike rates for both are within 0.33% of each other, but female jockeys have offered punters by far the better value. Losses to SP have been 7p in the £ better for female riders compared with the male jocks. Meanwhile the female A/E index is an excellent 0.96 compared with 0.91 for male riders. To Betfair SP backing all favourites ridden by female jockeys would have made a blind profit of £46.97 (ROI +2.6%).

If we examine like for like we get a better idea why the female jockeys have had the best of it on favourites. Most races in this favourite sample have been handicap races (because 71% of flat races in 2024 have been handicaps - and similar percentages apply to the other recent years). 80% of the races where females rode the favourite and 68% of races where males did have been handicap races. And in these handicap races female riders have outperformed their male counterparts. Here are the handicap favourite results for ’21 to ‘24 split by gender of the rider:

 

 

In these like for like races female jockeys have a better strike rate by roughly 1.5%, and they have almost broken even to SP, as compared with losses of 10% for males. The A/E index values (0.97 vs 0.91) also show a value edge for female riders. This represents a still present blind spot in the markets.

Before moving to part 2 of my piece, all the other stat comparisons Matt made in his write-up have similar percentage splits now to what they were then. As an example of this, from 2016 to 2020 25.2% of all apprentice jockey rides came from female riders, from 2021 onwards it stands marginally higher at 26.4%.

We can only hope the next four or five years sees a vast improvement and many more opportunities for female jockeys.

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Top Female Jockeys: An Overview

At this juncture, it's time to move away from the male vs female rider comparison and focus solely on the ladies. Let me look at the records of the female jockeys who have had the most rides between January 2021 and early September 2024 (ordered by number of rides):

 

 

Hollie Doyle

Hollie Doyle has the highest win percentage but over the years, as her stock has risen, it has become difficult to find profitable angles when backing her. Hollie still performs exceptionally well and is obviously one of the top jockeys in the country; it is just that she has become very popular with punters which makes her expensive to follow generally speaking.

If we go back to the previous two years (2019 and 2020), her ROI was -8% to SP, and you could have secured a healthy £177.24 (ROI +9.9%) if backing all her mounts to BSP. These 2019-2020 figures were achieved with a virtually identical strike rate to what transpired in 2021-2024. Clearly, then, it is this rising popularity in the last four years especially that have driven down the prices on her runners and thus any value has been stifled.

Saffie Osborne

That has yet to happen  - though of course it will do - with Saffie Osborne, as backing all her rides “blind” in the past four seasons would have secured a profit to BSP of £65.98 (ROI +3.6%). In fact, Osborne has produced a blind profit to BSP in each of the last three years.

I am a firm believer that Saffie Osborne, if given the right opportunities, can be as successful as Hollie Doyle in the years to come. She is only 22 and she seems to be going from strength to strength, especially when we consider her yearly performances in terms of the A/E index stat. This stat is one that attempts to establish value where, generally speaking, a figure above 1.00 represents a good value proposition. Here are Osborne’s A/E figures by year:

 

 

As the graph shows her figures have been getting better and better year on year. No wonder she has proved profitable to back to BSP more recently.

Saffie has had an excellent record with horses near the front end of the betting since the start of 2021. Those runners with an SP of 6/1 or shorter have provided her with 162 winners from 653 runners (SR 24.8%) for an SP profit of £40.04 (ROI + 6.1%). To BSP this improves to +£97.50 (ROI +15%). If we extend this to horses priced 14/1 or shorter, she is still in profit to SP to the tune of £31.54 (ROI +2.5%) thanks to 220 wins from 1277 rides (SR 17.3%). To BSP her profits stand at a healthy £207.88 (ROI +16.3%).

I am sure the value on Saffie Osborne’s mounts will soon diminish, especially if continuing this upwards spiral. However, for the moment I think she will continue to offer punters good value.

Joanna Mason

Another female jockey to impress me recently has been Joanna Mason. She primarily rides for the Mick & David Easterby - granddad and uncle respectively - yard and, when we compare her record for this yard with all other jockeys combined, we see the following:

 

 

Her stats are far better than when combining all the other Easterby jockeys in one group. This has also been the case when we compare the results of the more fancied runners from the stable. With Easterby horses priced 9/1 or shorter we get these splits:

 

 

It should be noted that to BSP a blind profit could have been had backing all of Joanna's runners, as well as the subset of those priced 9/1 or shorter.

It is a shame that she has not been given many opportunities from the bigger yards: she has ridden five times for William Haggas including three rides since May this year. She has ridden one winner and had three placed horses so hopefully more rides will come her way from that stable soon.

Hayley Turner

Hayley Turner averages around 400 rides a year these days, down somewhat on the peak of her career when between 2006 and 2012 she averaged 725 rides per year. However, she is still performing well 24 years after her first ride and especially when her horse is prominent in the betting. In the past four seasons on horses with an SP of 4/1 or shorter she has won 81 of her 264 rides (SR 30.7%) for a small £10.76 profit to SP. This equates to a return of just over 4p in the £. To BSP the figures improve to +£28.65 (ROI +10.9%).

David Simcock and Andrew Balding continue to use Hayley on a fairly regular basis and these two trainers have provided her with the most rides in the past four seasons. Both trainers have been rewarded with excellent results:

 

 

Turner has been very close to breaking even for both trainers across all their combination runners, and to BSP she has made a profit of £15.77 (ROI +9.3%) for Balding, and £21.83 (ROI +10.8%) for Simcock.

Josephine Gordon

Josephine Gordon has an overall win strike rate of only 7% across the past four seasons but 58% of her rides have been on horses priced 14/1 or bigger. Hence, she tends to ride lesser fancied runners which explains that low strike rate. However, when we focus on her rides on horses whose prices were 12/1 or shorter at SP her record reads 57 wins from 458 rides (SR 14.6%). These runners have edged into profit at SP to the tune of £2.42. To BSP profits stand at +£64.66 (ROI +14.1%).

While writing this article there has been quite a coincidence because Josephine Gordon has just won at Kempton in the Class 2 London Mile Series Final Handicap on Whitcombe Rocker at 11/1, giving him a brilliant ride from a tough outside stall. Funny how things happen like that!

One to note: Olivia Tubb

To finish up I want to talk about an apprentice who, despite having only 122 rides to date, could be the real deal. Her name is Olivia Tubb, and she is currently apprentice jockey to Jonathan Portman. Her overall record is impressive:

 

Clearly it is early days, but when we examine her record for Portman, she has a 17.7% strike rate producing returns to SP of 26p in the £ (44p to BSP). All other jockeys combined when riding for Portman have won just 7.4% of races losing a whopping 45p in the £.

It is also impressive to note that with horses priced 4/1 or shorter she is 11 from 29 (SR 37.9%) for a profit to SP of £15.24 (ROI +52.6%). Her A/E index stands at a huge 1.55. She should have an exciting future – let’s hope she gets enough chances to prove it.

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To conclude, there is sadly still a wide opportunity chasm between the chances afforded to male riders as compared to female riders. That needs to change because there is plenty of female talent in the jockey ranks - and the stats I've shared I hope has proved that beyond doubt.

- DR

Monday Musings: Play it again, Sam

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Visitors to Ascot racecourse on Saturday, at least the older ones, might have been excused for having their memories jolted back to a 1970 Woody Allen film, Play It Again Sam, writes Tony Stafford. Woody plays a man obsessed with Casablanca, the 1942 film in which Ingrid Bergman asks Dooley Wilson to "Play It Sam, play it."

The song she was asking for was As Time Goes By, and she was about to leave Humphrey Bogart. Everyone, however, remembers her words incorrectly as “Play it again, Sam” - and Sam Sangster was certainly playing it again with another of his fiendishly cheap yearling buys.

On the same course where in his late father Robert’s treasured colours Rashabar was the 80/1 winner of the Coventry Stakes at the Royal meeting from the wrong (far) side of the track, now it was Law Of Design. On only his second start, Law Of Design showed he was already worth many times that yearling price of 25 grand from whence he was recruited into another of Sam's Manton Thoroughbreds syndicates.

The common theme of course is the revived Brian Meehan training them both on the Manton estate which the late Robert Sangster bought in 1984.

I’ve often referred to Sam Sangster’s inherent understanding of what makes a racehorse when perusing the animals at the sales, almost always in Brian‘s company. Law Of Design is from the first crop of the Prix du Jockey Club and then, at four, Prix de l’Arc to Triomphe winner Sottsass, a son of the great sire Siyouni.

Siyouni stands in France for €200k. His top-class son, who also has a further Group 1 win on his record of six victories from 12 starts, is standing for one-eighth that amount at Coolmore stud.

There’s an uncanny similarity between Sottsass so far and the early stage of Galileo’s stud career when his first crop was slow to get going – until they were able to run over seven furlongs and then bam! The rest as they should say, rather than history, was transformative of the entire breed.

I’m not suggesting that Sottsass will be another Galileo, but with the gelded Law Of Design’s smooth win at Ascot, he now has three winners, two of them fillies, so this was his first male victor. The shortest winning distance is seven furlongs, with a runaway Christopher Head filly at half a furlong more in France and the Dr Richard Newland/Jamie Insole inmate Veraison winning at the third time of asking at Wolverhampton.

With two wins each on all-weather and turf this year, the Insole half of the partnership has been concentrating greatly on juveniles in their revamped operation. Insole is the main force in that direction and Veraison wasn’t cheap. She cost €120k at the sales.

Jamie Insole is from an Irish family, his grandfather Victor Kennedy, first a jockey who rode Bigaroon – I backed him! - to win the Irish Cesarewitch, then became a successful trainer. Jamie grew up in Billericay in Essex but learnt to ride on frequent trips to the family home in Ireland.

He had spells with Alan King and then as assistant to Charlie Hills before coming to the notice of the Grand National-winning trainer, Dr Newland. The new partners, like another jump specialist Warren Greatrex and his stable owners Jim and Claire Bryce, have made a great start to training on the flat.

The 2023 haul of twenty or so yearlings included 19 who went through a sales ring. The Sottsass filly was the most expensive, but they have certainly given themselves a chance with the average price at around the 50k mark. Greatrex’s story differs as their juveniles were acquired at breeze-up sales this year.

Sottsass stands at €25k at Coolmore, a similar figure to what Galileo was standing for after his first season’s runners had been on the track.

I’ve mentioned many times the Royal Ascot card when eight of his first-crop three-year-olds competed in five different races on the same day. Just because Galileo had been a Derby, Irish Derby and King George winner, it still wasn’t guaranteed that the Coolmore partners who owned him would immediately dominate ownership of the mares sent to him. Each of the eight horses that ran on that Friday at Ascot had a different trainer and all bar one had been through the sales.

Red Rocks and Sixties Icon were second and third in the King Edward VII Stakes, trained respectively by Brian Meehan and Jeremy Noseda. Sixties Icon went on to win that year’s St Leger, Red Rocks the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

The Queen’s Vase, then a two-mile race for three-year-olds, featured Galient in second for Michael Jarvis and fourth-placed Road To Mandalay, running in the Michael Tabor colours after being bought for 420 grand at the sales from Timmy Hyde’s Camas Park stud. He was the lone O’Brien runner from the octet. Kassiopeia, bought in by his vendor for 195,000 gns, was unplaced for Mick Channon.

While the Dermot Weld home-bred filly Nightime ran poorly in the Coronation Stakes, she thrived later in her career. At stud, she is notable as being the dam of world champion Gaiyyath, coincidentally a stallion also making a halting start to his new career for the boys in blue.

Two further competitors on the day were Lake Poet, trained by Clive Brittain (57k) and fourth in the King George V Handicap, and the unplaced The Last Drop (75k) for Barry Hills. All top trainers and it wasn’t until the exploits of the unbeaten champion two-year-old Teofilo for Jim Bolger that the die was effectively cast and the bulk of the Galileos stayed at home.

Sottsass raced for one of the semi-inner circle at Coolmore. Peter Brant bought the colt for €340k at the Arqana Deauville August yearling sale in 2017 and sent him to be trained by Jean-Claude Rouget. After his spectacular exploits on the track, Brant chose to send him to stand at Coolmore with his good friends Messrs Magnier, Tabor and Smith. He is in several of the Coolmore racing partnerships too – often those that run in his green colours.

You would think that the Sottsass progeny would appear in the list of Aidan O’Brien juveniles. They do, but only once, a colt out of a Hat Trick (Japanese) mare. He was bought in partnership by Brant and M V Magnier at the same Deauville August Arqana sale last year for €380k.

Just because a horse has great form it doesn’t follow automatically that he will be a top stallion, or indeed be given preferential treatment before he shows himself deserving of it. No Nay Never and Wootton Bassett, two of the rising, indeed arrived already, stars at Coolmore both needed to show that they had what it takes. Then the boys go full bore, even buying Wootton Bassett when it was evident there was promise aplenty to come.

I’m not sure how Sam Sangster managed to get the half-brother to three useful winners trained by Richard Hannon (two) and William Haggas for just the stallion’s covering price, but it says for the umpteenth time he knows what’s he’s doing. Why not? It’s bred in him, and Brian, a dual Breeders’ Cup-winning trainer, fits into the profile so well.

The second of Brian’s Breeders’ Cup Turf wins came with Dangerous Midge and, after more than a ten-year gap, those colours of Iraj Parvizi have returned with a vengeance with Jayarebe. The Royal Ascot winner might not have been able to handle Economics in France last time, but not many horses will.

As to fellow Royal Ascot winner Rashabar, he showed his class and potential for the future when only narrowly edged out by an inspired Ryan Moore on Whistlejacket in the Prix Morny at Deauville last month.

Rashabar had the worst of the draw that time too, coming very wide up the middle of the track, probably not near enough to respond to the O’Brien-trained winner as he might have done if they had been racing closer together. Brian said on Saturday after Law Of Design’s win that Rashabar will probably go next to the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at the Arc meeting next month.

As to Law Of Design, the future is looking bright. With both horses – for now – still in the Manton Thoroughbreds ownership, they will need to avoid each other, although their stamina profiles are very different.

There’s no chance of a UK Classic campaign for him as he is a gelding, but the way in which he drew away in the last furlong at Ascot – two and a half lengths, the official margin, looked nearer four! - he could be a major player at a mile next time, and over a mile and a half next year! Play it again, Sam – and Brian, of course.

- TS

What is Tix?

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Tix is software designed to help you make better multi-race (placepot, jackpot, etc) tote bets. A sister product to geegeez.co.uk, conceived and built by the same brains behind this website and its racing software, Tix is essentially a staking and placement tool. It optimizes your stakes and automatically places bets on your say so.

Get your account set up

In order to use Tix, you'll need a tote account. If you don't already have one, you can register here (and receive some bonuses when you make your first plays).

How Tix Works

The video below shows you how Tix works, and here's a list of contents in case you're after a specific thing:

00:00 Intro / get a tote account
00:56 The Tix App / logging in
02:15 Making selections in Tix
04:20 Refining your tickets in Tix
09:40 Placing your bets in Tix
10:52 Reviewing your bet history in Tix and via spreadsheet
13:10 ***Get a 5% BONUS on all winning tickets through TIX***
13:45 Do this if it all sounds a bit complicated!

 

 

 

Tracking your bets from Tix

Tracking bets across multiple tickets can be a bit of a faff. I use a 'macro' in Excel which, once set up, merely requires me to use a keyboard shortcut to execute it.

Here's what I mean:

 

Download the macro

You can download the macro I created and used in the video above here.

NOTE: Some browsers/operating systems/anti-virus software don't like macros, because they are used by unscrupulous souls to transport malicious code and the like.

To install in Excel, go to File > Options > Add-ins > Excel Add-ins > Browse and select the tix.xlam file. It will be called Tix and it may initially be in the 'Inactive' list.

 

Deploying the macro

To use the macro, download a csv file from your Tix BETS tab and then simply click 'ctrl' and 'T' at the same time while in Excel. That will convert the raw format to the 'pretty' and trackable version:

You may then overwrite the 'Leg 1' to 'Leg 6' data with the number placed/winning selections on each ticket and, once completed for all legs, the total winning value of each ticket will be displayed in 'Leg 7'.

Any questions, leave a comment and I'll update the post with the answer!

Matt

Early Odds to Opening Odds to Starting Price

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In this article I will compare the early morning odds (EMO) of horses with their opening show odds (OS) to their final Industry Starting Price (SP), writes Dave Renham. Data has been taken from 1st January 2021 to 31st August 2024 focusing on UK flat racing. This includes both turf and all-weather racing.

To begin with let me look at all horses whose prices have shortened throughout the day. In other words, their OS were shorter than their EMO, and their SP odds were shorter than their OS. For future reference these runners will be known as the ‘shorten/shorten’ group. Here are the figures:

 

 

As we can see there is a healthy strike rate close to one win in every five and a sound A/E index of 0.91, with losses to SP equating to around 12p in the £. When we look at the Betfair SP returns losses reduce to just over 4p in the £.

Let's compare those figures with the same view where the prices drifted all day. Therefore, horses whose OS were greater than their EMO, and their SP's were longer than their OS. I will call this group ‘drift/drift’. Here are their splits:

 

 

As you might expect we see a much lower win rate (roughly one success in every 16 starts), a much lower A/E index of 0.81, and significant losses of 34p in the £. These figures do improve markedly when looking at the BSP returns but losses still are over 12p in the £.

Clearly there are more combinations of price movements than just ‘drift/drift’ and ‘shorten/shorten’. Below is a graph showing the percentage of runners for each ‘price movement combination’.

 

 

As the graph shows, around a quarter of all runners drift from EMO to OS and then drift again when it comes their final SP. This ‘drift/drift’ group contains almost twice the number of runners of the ‘shorten/shorten’ group. That should not come as any great surprise based on what we have seen in previous articles where far more horses drift in price than shorten in price.

Time to go back and dig a bit deeper into the ‘shorten/shorten’ group. Let me share their results based on their EM price range. Prices shown are in decimal form:

 

 

The stats shared in the table show that the shorter the price in the morning the better for these horses that shorten and then shorten again. Horses priced 6/4 or lower in the morning that have shown the ‘shorten/shorten’ profile have got close to breaking even to SP. To BSP they edged into marginal profit to the tune of £13.75 (about 1%). That is impressive, and surprising given the tight nature of the betting market at these very short prices.

It is time now to examine the ‘drift/drift’ group by EMO. Here are their splits:

 

 

We have a similar ‘feel’ here with shorter priced runners in the morning doing the best by far. This can be seen by the correlation between the ROI column and the A/E index column. Once the Early price hits 3.5 or bigger we see a real dip in both columns. Focusing on the horses that had Early Morning Odds of 3.25 (9/4) or shorter, when you look at the BSP returns we see that backing all of these runners would have procured a profit of £46.20 (ROI +1.2%).

Sticking with this subset of ‘drift/drift’ runners that were priced 3.25 (9/4) or shorter early, if we focus on those that had a Starting Price of 5.50 (9/2) or bigger we get these very impressive results:

 

 

These runners have produced a one in six strike rate, an excellent A/E index of 1.08 and returns of over 8.5 pence for every £1 staked. Using BSP the results are naturally better, showing a very healthy +£156.07 profit (ROI +25.1%).

Staying with the ‘drift/drift’ group, let me share the returns on investment for both Industry SP and Betfair SP when we split the results by handicaps versus non-handicaps:

 

 

The graph shows that horses that have the ‘drift/drift’ profile in non-handicap races lose punters far more money than those with that profile which contest handicap races. This graph is a good illustration of the value that can be found on the exchanges these days, and this article hopefully outlines an approach for exchange SP players.

I want to now focus on trainer data to see if any patterns emerge. Let's first look at the trainers with the highest win strike rates when their horses fit the ‘shorten/shorten’ pattern. (A minimum of 100 runners to qualify):

 

 

Seven of the 15 trainers in the table have secured a profit to Industry SP, while a couple of others (Varian and bin Suroor) have made a profit to BSP.

This trainer data includes all price points. But there is going to be a world of difference in terms of long-term performance between horses that have Early Odds of 33/1, Opening Odds of 28/1 and an SP of 25/1, compared with those whose odds went 7/1, 6/1, 5/1. Therefore, as I often do with trainer data, I am narrowing down my focus to horses whose Early Morning Price was a single figure one (e.g. 9/1 or shorter).

Here are the trainer splits for these more fancied runners who fit the ‘shorten/shorten’ profile. (A minimum of 75 runners to qualify this time – ordered by win strike rate):

 

 

Considering we are talking about horses whose prices have shortened during the day these overall results are excellent – much better than I would have anticipated. The profit/loss figures are impressive especially as they are based on Industry SP returns. 14 of the 22 trainers in the table have secured a blind profit to ISP. This moves up to 16 when using BSP. It is also good to see other trainers perform well under these circumstances such as Hughie Morrison, Jim Goldie, Brian Ellison, Richard Fahey and Mick Appleby. Just imagine if as punters we could have predicted this ‘shorten/shorten’ pattern before it happened and backed them all at their early prices! Ah well, at least there's still value in following the money later on with these handlers.

Of course, just because the price of a horse shortens from EMO to OS, does not mean it will continue in that downward direction. In fact, only about 35% of horses that shortened from Early to Opening (with Early Odds of 9/1 or shorter) will continue to shorten from Opening Show to SP. That is, two-thirds of positive early movers will drift back out again before the off.

To finish this piece, I want to look at the ‘drift/drift’ data as far as trainers are concerned. It makes sense to focus again on those horses whose EMO were 9/1 or shorter. The trainers with the top 15 strike rates are shown (min 100 runners):

 

 

As you can see, strike rates are much lower (to be expected), and the P/L figures are generally much poorer, although six of the 15 still made a profit to SP.

As a mathematician, I find market movement analysis fascinating. In the teaching of mathematics, pattern recognition is so important for contextual understanding. In horse racing, finding any patterns within price movements can help in determining the optimum time to place your bet.

Although this article has merely scratched the surface of EMO to OS to SP price movements, there have been some very interesting findings. From my research I feel inspired to do some more digging. And when I do, I will be sure to share it with Geegeez readers.

- DR

 

Autumn Update

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It's been a crazy, crazy summer. Looking at the photos on my phone screams good fortune: wins for Konigin Isabella (two) and especially Sure Touch in the £100,000 Summer Plate (all for geegeez racehorse syndicates), Centre Court for Ladies' Final day, Brighton with mates, Goodwood with mates, Norfolk with family, Dorset with family (including Leon's first Bournemouth match! But especially, visiting dad/'nonno'), Germany with family, Philadelphia on business, and West Ham to watch the Cherry Reds... Yes, I've been super lucky and I don't take it for granted.

But now Leon has gone back to school - secondary, gasp! - it's time to get back to work. So here's what is in store in the coming weeks.

Infra Upgrades

Let's get the boring one out of the way first. Since we started doing the racecards (Gold) project ten years ago, technology has continued to move forward apace. Some of our code has needed a freshen up to reflect that and, crucially, we have two infrastructure upgrades we need to make. The first will update the software we use to process the data which powers the racecards, reports and tools into our database; the second will upgrade the underlying PHP version of the front end website.

Obviously, you don't need to know what that means... except that it will likely involve at least one (hopefully) short period of downtime while we make the second upgrade and check it all out.

These upgrades will happen in the next couple of weeks, naturally avoiding the period around St Leger/Irish Champions Weekend. I'll be sure to let you know when it's taking place.

New Feature

From the outset, I've been conscious that a significant gap in the Geegeez Gold offering is the ability to watch race replays. Unfortunately, for a small business like ours the cost of licensing the replays from two media companies is prohibitive; but I think I've found a way to do this by linking back to the ATR/RTV websites from our racecards.

It's not ideal - you'll be taken away from our pages each time you watch a recording - but in testing I'm really enjoying the ability to click straight through to the videos. This will be a Gold only feature, and will appear on the Card, Full Form and Result tabs after we've made the infrastructure updates.

 

 

RI > TP

Racing Insights has been a worthy successor to Stat of the Day, showcasing the daily free components of the site for registered users and helping to 'on board' new subscribers. But RI is about to undergo a bit of a facelift, transforming from a single race article to a multi-race format based around our sister product, Tix. Tix is a software tool to place smart quadpot, placepot, jackpot, placepot 7, Scoop 6 and Irish jackpot bets - and I want to help you understand why it's a better way to play.

So, starting this week, we'll pivot from RI to Tix Pix. The challenge is in not being too prescriptive in terms of the 'pix' (or picks, or selections, if you prefer) because, being pool-based bets, it's not helpful for all of us to be on the same horses. And, as importantly, the point is to show you how to use the apparatus rather than spoon feed you: we know you prefer to find your own bets, that's why you are here rather than somewhere else!

I'll be leading the charge, from Thursday I think, and it will take me a few goes to get my feet under the table in terms of an optimal shape for the articles. Once I'm happy it's where I want it to be, Chris will take over. Very excited to do more around bets I personally play on a very regular basis.

 

The Return of NH SR

Lots of acronyms in the post today. This one relates to our SR rating column, provided to us privately by Peter May, and, specifically, to the return of the National Hunt ratings. Every summer (May to August), NH SR goes into estivation; and every September 1st, those numbers re-emerge into the light, rubbing their eyes and scratching their... erm, anyway. They're back! You'll see them at Bangor on Friday, Stratford on Saturday, and Fontwell on Sunday. And a million times after that and before May 1st 2025. Great news.

 

Syndicates Update

We've been having a charmed run with our racehorse syndicates, and I shared a report from last season here. Well, since then, we've had three winners from seven runs. As alluded to at the top of the piece, Konigin Isabella rewarded our patience with a tenacious victory at Newton Abbot in a valuable race for the grade... and then followed up four weeks later. She's on a break now until the Spring when we hope she can pick up where she left off. Anthony Honeyball has done a phenomenal job with her.

Sure Touch has just been a dream to own. Since we acquired him from his previous owner via Olly Murphy (who retains two shares), he's won eight races from twelve starts! And he's progressed from an official rating of 108 to his current perch on 143. He's won his last four chases and, last time out, gave his owners a day of days when winning the £100,000 Summer Plate at Market Rasen. We were quite happy:

Plans for his next run are fluid but the Grand Sefton, over the National fences, may be on the agenda. Super exciting!

*

Today it's the turn of Razzam, on something of a recovery mission at Chepstow for Mick Appleby and his syndicate owners. He won first time for us early last summer and then ran very well in two Racing League handicaps, picking up good prize money; but, since then, he's been a little disappointing. We gave him a break and, after a below par return where he boiled over pre-race and a much better try last time, we hope he can go close this afternoon (3.48). He'll have a couple more runs between now and the Autumn HIT sale at Newmarket at the very end of October, after which he'll make a nice all-weather prospect for new owners.

*

And of course now we have the winter jumps team back in training. Anthony trains Coquelicot ('Cookie'), who will be having her final season, or more likely half season, before heading off to broodmare duties. She's been an incredible mare for us, winning eight races - two of them Listed class - and she's got the size and genetics to be a fantastic mum, too. Now an eight-year-old, we'll be very sad to see her move on, having had her since she was a yearling.

Also with Anthony is Dartmoor Pirate, whose season over hurdles last term was a revelation. He was relatively cheaply bought and, after a bit of a flop in a bumper at the end of October, we went straight to timber with him. He won his maiden hurdle by eleven lengths in a field of 18 (!) before running second three times to smart novices over an inadequate trip. Sandwiched in between those silver medals was his best performance: fourth of 17 in the valuable and ultra-competitive Grade 3 Novices' Final at Sandown.

He raced off the pace that day while the first three home were all ridden handily. Crucially, that race was over two and a half miles and that trip, along with the sterner jumping test provided by fences, is where we envisage his future lies. We are very excited about his prospects for this season.

*

The next generation is coming through. Luna Lux, our most expensive purchase yet, was bought as a yearling at the same Arqana sale from which we acquired Cookie and, though she had a major setback in the field early on, she's made a full recovery and has waltzed through her pre-training. She's on a break now ahead of coming in for some more serious work in the Spring and, after her summer holiday next year, she'll join the Anthony Honeyball bootcamp as she gears up to racing. She has the looks and pedigree to be very, very good... but we all know it doesn't always pan out that way.

Most recently I sourced a second horse to be trained by Olly, and we've just named him Gee Force Flyer. He's actually had a year's pre-training already and shows both plenty of ability and a great attitude. Olly is delighted with him, and here he is going through his strides in early season:

 

Most of the lucky Sure Touch lads are involved with this fella, too, and at time of writing I have one share left (well, two, but the second has a firm claim which I'm expecting will be taken up today/tomorrow).

This is the only share in any geegeez syndicate horse available at this time and it's unlikely I'll be syndicating any more this year. If you're interested, you can find out much more about Gee Force Flyer here.

As an aside, all of the geegeez syndicates are run at 'cost'; that is, I don't take any payment for running them, communicating, doing the VAT returns, paying the bills, and so on. And I take at least one share in every horse. So I'm always [except with Sure Touch] the most heavily invested syndicate member!

Anyway, if you fancy joining us in GFF, there's that one share left. Click here to read about the horse and the plan.

 

Summary

So, yes, a huge amount upcoming, both on and off the website, and I'm very grateful that you'll be there to share it with us.

Matt

p.s. if you have any questions on anything I've mentioned above, or anything generally, leave a comment and I'll be sure to get back to you.

 

 

Monday Musings: Chasing Records

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I chased after the young man at York, definitely arousing his interest, but with no definitive response, writes Tony Stafford. Yesterday morning, on a 22-minute call to his agent in Cambodia, I think I’d got a fair way along the road, but again, no reply from Gavin Horne.

It’s all so different now. Could you imagine 25 years ago being able to live 6,221 miles away and six time zones ahead of the UK and still sort the rides with such certainty for the now guaranteed four times champion Oisin Murphy? “He’s been with me for ten years and is the only jockey on my books, but it’s still a tough existence,” he says.

“I owe a lot to WhatsApp”, says Gavin, “I have everything ready for the trainers when they get to their offices at 6 a.m.” So far, the formula has brought a career-best 22% wins of his mounts, with 168 victories, 52 short of his best of 220 in 2019.

Four championships will be something to be proud of, but a shade insignificant in numerical terms compared with the 11 each by Lester Piggott and Pat Eddery. But one name – in flat racing terms anyway – stands above all others: Sir Gordon Richards, 26 titles and a peak of 269 in 1947.

It took the force of nature that was Tony McCoy to exceed the single-season tally with 289 jumps wins in 2002/3, one of 20 consecutive titles the dominant jumps rider amassed.

Returning to my first point. My initial question to Oisin was to ask whether he was likely to be away for large parts of the winter. He said not, so the prospect of lucrative stints in either Hong Kong or Japan was unlikely. Gavin Horne confirmed that supposition.

So we sit, with barely seven weeks of the Flat Race Jockeys’ Championship remaining to divvy up the honours and, after Champions Day at Ascot, that’s it.

What I was trying to emphasise to young Mr Murphy was that at the present rate of progress he would comfortably exceed the necessary 102 wins to beat Sir Gordon’s 77-year record and have a fighting chance to topple the McCoy tally.

This was the idea I floated, seemingly getting a positive response. The idea first came to mind based on the recent example of the 2023/4 jockeys’ championship in South Africa when Richard Fourie beat the existing record by more than 40 victories.

Turf Talk, my weekday daily read of all things South African racing, latched on to the Fourie phenomenon early, and issued a daily Barometer, as they called it, of his likely finishing figure.

It brought tremendous interest over there, unsurprisingly as he ended on 378 wins, despite putting the handbrake on with some more leisurely weeks as the conclusion came nearer.

My contention to Murphy and Horne was that the last weeks of the UK season on the flat, solely all-weather for seven weeks after the conclusion of the final meeting at Doncaster, needs a little enlivening.

Jump racing is of course the main diet of those times, but if we got a severely cold or excessively wet period, all-weather steps forward into the role for which it was first intended more than three decades ago (October 1985, when Conrad Allen won the first race and is still going strong!)

Other major jockeys will be elsewhere, but with their massive strings, Andrew Balding, Murphy’s boss, and many others have to keep going with their later developing juveniles and horses that need to get a win on the board, something that can be easier as the season draws on.

Gavin described Oisin’s last few days as “like a snowball going downhill and getting bigger and accelerating all the time.”

On one of our brief encounters at York, I asked if he’d given it any thought. “I need a winner here first,” he said. Naturally, he won the next race and four in all, one a day at the meeting.

Since then, though, it has indeed been the accelerating snowball. He rode two winners each day at Goodwood on Sunday, Epsom on Monday, Lingfield on Tuesday, Kempton on Wednesday and Sandown on Friday, topping it up with three at the Esher track on Saturday. Eleven different trainers contributed to the tally.

I’m pretty sure that if he did declare that he would be going all out, the rides would come in exponentially, requiring Mr Horne’s knowledge of the form book to sort the multiple chances in various races.

That 17-winner spell from York to Sandown came in 11 days. To beat Richards, he needs 25 wins a month and a couple more. To beat McCoy it’s another five a month, so virtually a winner a day in all. But I’m sure trainers would be falling over themselves to get his services, knowing that it would guarantee a committed ride by one of the best three jockeys in the weighing room.

Referring to this year’s action, Gavin said that Oisin had hardly over-exerted himself in collecting 46 wins up to early May when the championship took over; “He was pretty much messing around in the US,” he says. “If he’d have been at full throttle from January 1, he could have had a lot more winners by now,” he added.

Naturally, there would need to be an incentive and I’m pretty sure that one of the big bookmaking firms might like to get involved. The Oisin Betfred Barometer has a ring to it and I know from a quiet word with Ed Chamberlin that ITV would certainly like the extra excitement. With AP a regular on ITV for the jumping season, it would be interesting to see if his score was exceeded, whether he would be as gracious as Alastair Cook was when Joe Root beat his record number of Test match centuries at Lord’s on Saturday.

In the final analysis though, Murphy might not fancy the cold, winter days, up early to drive (or be driven) across to the all-weather tracks that are within comfortable reach of his base in Lambourn. You wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t fancy it, but how I’d love to see someone beat a great racing historical record that Piggott, Eddery, Dettori, not to forget Jason Weaver, never managed. And, of course, for Oisin to make his own little piece of history.

**

Talking of champion jockeys and agents, I was at a party yesterday hosted by Graham Smith-Bernal at his Newsells Park Stud in Hertfordshire. I sat at the same table as Tony Hind, agent to Ryan Moore, William Buick and many others. Tony is the flat-race equivalent of Dave Roberts, who looked after McCoy for all his career, but so many other top-notchers.

‘Bony Tony’, as he loves to be called, and his wife, along with friend Charlie Pigram and his better half, were all fully in step with the Tottenham Hotspur vibe, (as an Arsenal fan I wasn’t too upset when yesterday’s result came through), with former player Davd Howells also on our table.

Across the way were Ossie Ardiles, Steve Perryman (Bony’s idol whom he had never met before) and John Pratt, who played cricket with me at Lord’s I think in 1964. Hard to believe it was so long ago.

Buick was on family duty, often happily carrying his younger child outside the tent on a rare free day in the summer. To think I knew William, introduced by dad Walter in the press box at Newbury racecourse, when he was ten years old.

The party was arranged to thank members of various syndicates. The one involving Charlie and Bony includes Smith-Bernal, who retains 25%, and the Stud name includes club legends Ardiles, Brazil (Alan) and Hoddle (Glenn). The boys all made a £30k investment in several horses in which they have a share and Miss Fascinator, a daughter of Mehmas trained by Roger Varian, is likely to bring a big return.

Already a winner at Ascot and Newmarket, the two-year-old, bought for Newsells by Jamie Piggott for 72,000 Guineas, is rated an official 95 and, if she went to the sales, would probably be worth at least four times the purchase price.

Incidentally, Jamie Piggott was at the table alongside older sister Maureen Haggas and husband William who reported the “promising” Economics <as he called him> will be taking on the cream (minus City of Troy) of Aidan O’Brien in the Irish Champion Stakes next weekend.

His last run, when he got to and drew away from Brian Meehan’s smart colt Jayarebe at Deauville recently, got a big boost from the other side of the Atlantic this weekend. Jayarebe had won the Group 3 Hampton Court Stakes at Ascot before taking on Economics in France.

The third home at Ascot was Andrew Balding’s Bellum Justum, ridden by Murphy, and he went on to be a closing second to Jan Breughel in the Gordon Stakes at Goodwood.

Balding might have a massive string nowadays, but he is certainly aware of opportunities around the globe. On Saturday at Kentucky Downs, Bellum Justum went for the DK Horse Nashville Derby Invitational and won easily under Frankie Dettori. The prize? £830k to the winner! Nice to see Frankie’s still earning a crust!

- TS

 

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