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The Appleby “brothers” were at it at Goodwood last week, with Charlie first to the fore, winning the Sussex Stakes with the revived 2000 Guineas winner Notable Speech and the Group 2 Vintage Stakes with improving juvenile Aomori City, writes Tony Stafford.
You can always identify a Charlie Appleby runner, the Royal blue silks only ever modified by different-coloured caps when there are multiple entries. At Goodwood he ran only four horses over the five days, when hot sunshine and the avoidance of any of the promised thunderstorms [I found one on Thursday going home around the almost-flooded southern portion of the M25] were the theme of the meeting.
Charlie has one owner, Godolphin, and, according to Horses in Training 2024, 233 horses to pick from. The same publication at the time of the snapshot before the season started listed 102 for Michael Appleby, a journeyman who made his way out of the Andrew Balding stable into his own business around 20 years ago. At the end of last week, it was Mick, rather than Charlie, or indeed Aidan O’Brien, that was declared Champion Trainer at the meeting.
That 102, bolstered since by additional juveniles, is the result of hard graft, ever-improving results and continually punching above his weight. Local businesses, clubs and syndicates with shrewdies like the Dixon brothers through their Horse Watchers horses [and geegeez.co.uk! - Ed.], have hastened the upward trajectory. The weaving together of these strands has provided the cocktail of horses that benefit from the “Mick” treatment, with sprinters the foundation of it all. And, of course, he isn’t Charlie’s brother!
If ever there was a moment to evidence the culmination and flowering of the effort of those two decades, it was Big Evs’ winning the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Santa Anita last autumn in a battle of three Europeans. He and Tom Marquand held off runners from the Adrian Murray and Ralph Beckett yards.
That was a fourth win in six starts, Big Evs having collected previously the Flying Childers at Doncaster, after sinking in the Nunthorpe at York the previous month.
One obvious observation in the aftermath of his finishing 14th of 16 against the top older sprinters is just how insensitive and crass it was of the stewards at the meeting to ask Appleby for an explanation for his “poor performance”. He’s a two-year-old for pity’s sake! Do you know nothing about horses?
Back home and with the US win on his scabbard, Big Evs made a winning return in a Listed race at the York May meeting. Royal Ascot the following month was a lottery for the most part in the week’s sprints so while ‘only’ 3rd to the Australian speedster Asfoora in the Group 1 King Charles III Stakes, he ‘won’ his race on the unfavoured far side.
The ultra-valuable King George Stakes last week was his first run since Ascot, and it gave him the chance to avenge the defeat. He duly gained that revenge - though only by a short-head - as the Australian mare was hunting him down in the final yards.
Big Evs was the sixth Mick Appleby runner at Goodwood last week and the fourth winner. The only two losers at that point were Billyjoh, second in a seven-furlong handicap – the longest trip any of the team attempted all week – and Mr Lightside in the Molecomb Stakes.
Mr Lightside went into that race as the better fancied (11/1) of the stable duo, but 25/1 shot Big Mojo, having dwelt at the start and raced in rear early, had the pace to come through and win under Silvestre de Sousa. Mr Lightside was a close third and will have plenty of wins to come given that sharp speed he showed.
Going into the Molecomb as a maiden – Big Mojo had, like Big Evs prior to his Listed Windsor Castle win at Royal Ascot last year, been runner-up on debut at one of the Yorkshire tracks, Beverley in his case – he was an expensive buy for the yard, and owners Paul and Rachael Teasdale, at his 175,000gns yearling price. Bought from Derek Veitch of Ringfort Stud, he clearly holds a high place in Appleby’s estimation. “He could be as good as Big Evs,” he said. Praise indeed.
Handicappers Kitai over seven furlongs and Shagraan, at the minimum trip, completed the winners’ roll for the stable, but there was still to be one last hurrah, planned for the earlier second finisher Billyjoh.
If Appleby could have moaned about the draw for Big Evs at Ascot, he would have been entitled to have regretted the one that got away after the also very well-endowed Stewards’ Cup on Saturday. Twenty-five of the 28 declared kept the engagement and Billyjoh, drawn four, led into the final furlong on his side of the race – they did edge across - finishing best of the 16 that kept up the middle.
Meanwhile George Baker’s six-year-old Get It had grabbed the near rail from the outset, leading clearly, and held on all the way, with major sprint handicap regular Apollo One getting closest for a staying-on half-length second.
Peter Charalambous earned a not insignificant £60k for his troubles with Apollo One but he must be despairing of the big win his wonderful servant at age six deserves. He couldn’t complain of the luck of the draw though – the first six came from 28, 27, 4 (Billyjoh), 24, 26 and 20! Peter pretty much is training just the single horse under the Charalambous/ Clutterbuck ticket, and the gelding is now up to £350k in earnings, 80% of it for places.
Get It was a notable local success for genial George Baker, once a wet-behind-the-ears writer for the long-defunct Sportsman newspaper, but ever the mine host over Goodwood’s entire week. He is entering a new phase of his career with a stable to be based in Bahrain over the coming winter.
I still remember pulling up at one of my 2009 trips down to the west of France, availing myself of the late Roger Hales’ driving skills. We were there at Le Lion d’Angers to watch the second of French Fifteen’s three consecutive wins down there and who should we bump into before racing but George, who had a runner in another race. Ever the ground breaker is George!
As usual, Ryan Moore’s skills were in evidence all week. Kyprios in the Goodwood Cup proved easy enough and was a testimony to Aidan O’Brien and the team’s skills to rehabilitate him from the severe injury problems of 2022 into 2023 to be the revived master stayer of his time.
Ryan had predicted he would be too good for what he described as horses that were “much of a muchness”, but in truth were decent 110-plus rated stayers all. Moore needed to be much closer to the peak of his powers though when completing a big-race double on Thursday aboard Jan Breughel in the Gordon Stakes and last year’s champion juvenile filly Opera Singer in the Nassau Stakes.
Each time it looked as if his nearest challenger might be about to pass him but Ryan seems to mesmerise his fellow jockeys in such situations. Opera Singer was the sixth winner of the Nassau Stakes – but only the fourth for Aidan O’Brien - for the Coolmore owners, starting in 2007 with the remarkable Peeping Fawn. Minding and Winter were the other two of Aidan’s within that 17-year period.
Like City Of Troy, her male counterpart as juvenile champion last year, Opera Singer is by Triple Crown hero Justify; and it seems the plan is to go for the Arc with this highly-talented filly. City Of Troy, of course, is pencilled in for the Juddmonte International at York this month.
Later, the juvenile newcomer Dreamy, by the Coolmore team’s other Triple Crown winning stallion American Pharoah, overcame greenness to win the fillies’ maiden under the same jockey to make it a Ballydoyle/Coolmore hat-trick, though each wearing different silks such are the extending tentacles of the co-ownership edges of the operation these days.
Eight years ago, the same maiden race was won by Rhododendron, but she had the benefit of a run in Ireland beforehand. A multiple Group 1 winner, she is, of course, the dam of Auguste Rodin. If Horses In Training is correct, Dreamy is the only American Pharoah two-year-old among the one hundred-plus juveniles at Ballydoyle. Someone knows how to pick which goes where!
Finally, as if three wins on the day for the team weren’t enough, Mrs Doreen Tabor had a winner in her colours that same afternoon at Nottingham, trained by Ralph Beckett!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/BigEvs_KingGeorgeStakes_Goodwood2024.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2024-08-05 07:36:032024-08-05 08:52:15Monday Musings: Mick’s the Man
In this article, I will examine market patterns with horses that are clear favourite when the bookmaker’s early odds are set, writes Dave Renham. This is typically from 9am on the day of the race in question. For favourite backers especially, having a better appreciation of how likely an early morning favourite is to remain market leader is a key part of the betting puzzle. For the record, I have taken data from UK flat/AW racing going back to 2016.
Rate of early favourites remaining favourite at the 'off'
Firstly, let me examine how many early morning clear favourites remain as a favourite come ‘the off’:
As the graph shows, just under 64% of early morning clear favourites retain this position at the head of the market come the start of the race. That rises to nearly 70% if we include joint-favourites, while just above 30% do not retain favouritism.
These figures account for all runners, so let's drill down into various sub-categories.
Handicap vs. non-handicap final market rank
To begin with, I have divided the races into handicap races versus non-handicap races. One would expect to see a difference here, with non-handicaps more likely to see early morning favourites retaining their primacy come ‘the off’:
Over 73% of early morning jollies remained clear favourites in non-handicap races by the start of the race – roughly 15% above the average in relative terms.
Onto the handicap splits now:
For handicap races, less than 60% of early morning favourites have remained at the head of the market. As predicted, there is quite a difference between both race types.
Handicap Favourites: Early price vs. SP
Sticking with these early morning favourites in handicaps, let me examine actual price movement now. How many of morning jollies shorten in price, how many lengthen, and how many stay the same? Here are the findings:
Over half of early morning handicap favourites drift, which is perhaps to be expected given the data shared above regarding the percentage of early favourites that fail to retain SP favouritism. Of this subset of drifters, just under 34% remain clear favourites, 8% start as joint favourites, and 58% end up second choice or lower in the betting.
Therefore, if you are keen to back an early-priced favourite in a handicap, waiting until much later in the day to place your bet makes more sense. Of course, you can use the Best Odds Guaranteed option, but the downside is that if the horse drifts during the day, you’ll end up getting Industry SP, which is not as good as Betfair SP. BSP has paid around 10p in the £ more than Industry SP with these drifting early favourites throughout the study – that’s huge.
Early Favourites by Class of race
I want to look at class of race next to see if that makes a difference to the market behaviour of early morning favourites. Clearly, with literally 99.9%* of Class 1 events being non-handicaps, one would expect Class 1 races to see a higher percentage of horses retaining favouritism. In the graph below, I am comparing the percentages of early morning clear favourites that maintain their status at the head of the market by class of race:
*12153 out of 12165 on the flat in UK in the last five years
Class 1 races are by far the most likely to see the early morning favourite keep that honour. Interestingly, the 77.7% figure is well above the average figure for non-handicaps shared earlier (73.4%). It is also worth noting that the two lowest classes have the lowest figures, and most of these contests will have been handicaps.
Going back to ‘better’ races, if we split Class 1 races up for early morning favourites, we see the following in terms of their final market position:
The data tell us that the better the race class, the more likely the early morning favourite retains favouritism at the start of the race. This makes sense as we'd generally expect odds compilers and punters to have a stronger handle, as well as level of confidence, on the best races. Moreover, there tend to be ante post markets for such races which allows more time for prices to settle.
Early Favourites by Day of the week
Let's now see if the day of the week makes any difference to favourite price movement from morning to 'off' time. My theory is that Saturday may see early morning jollies retain their status the most, but let’s have a look:
In fact, Friday has seen the highest percentage of consistent favourites, with Saturday following just ahead of Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday are both noticeably lower, which may indicate the general quality of racing on the first two days of the week. Aside from the Monday/Tuesday component, there are no clear patterns or takeaways here.
Early Favourites: "The Dettori factor"
I now want to see if there might be what I've called a 'Dettori factor' when it comes to jockeys. Some punters still have jockeys they follow and probably follow over a cliff occasionally. So, I am trying to unravel whether any such rider is more likely to retain their position at the head of the market from morning to race time. I have chosen 20 jockeys with a good data set to analyse. They are ordered alphabetically:
There is quite a spread here when analysing the ‘Clear SP favourite %’ column, with James Doyle the highest at 77.9% and Shane Kelly the lowest at 55.5%. For Shane Kelly, one of the reasons it is low is because 71% of his rides have been in handicaps. That said, his figure is significantly below the average for all races/jockeys, at 59.1%. Therefore, one may expect that James Doyle’s splits for handicaps versus non-handicaps would be the opposite of Kelly's, with around 70% of rides in non-handicaps. However, the split is actually very even, with 53% of his rides being in non-handicaps and 47% in handicaps.
17 of the 20 jockeys have ‘Clear SP favourite’ percentages above the average (63.7%), with most of them well above. Maybe this is more of an indication of the stables they generally ride for. Perhaps it relates to the fact that they will ride more often in a higher class of race than your more journeymen/women jockeys. Maybe it is a combination of the two. Perhaps it is a combination of all three – jockeys, trainers, and classes.
Early Favourites by Trainer
Having looked at jockeys, I will now examine some trainers to see what their stats bring to the table. As with the pilots, I am looking at whether any trainer is more likely to retain their position at the head of the market from morning to race time. Here are my findings (I have chosen 35 individual trainer stats to share):
Generally, the higher figures in the Clear SP Fav% column come from high-profile stables that attack better races and meetings. Aidan O’Brien’s figure of 87.4% stands out. One would expect him to be at or near the top, but that number is still impressive. Most of his early morning favourites retained SP favouritism and more of them shortened in price during the day than lengthened: specifically, 53.7% shortened in price, 34.5% lengthened in price, and 11.8% stayed the same. This goes against the grain because if you look at all early morning favourites in all races, only 40.6% shorten, while a more significant 50.5% lengthen with 8.9% remaining the same price.
Sticking with O’Brien for a moment, when Ryan Moore has been riding the early morning jolly, these runners have remained favourite slightly more often than his average at 88.7%.
Charlie Appleby is the only other trainer hitting over 80% in this category. What is interesting about Appleby’s stats is that his figures are not skewed by race class. Below are the Clear SP Favourite percentages across the different class bands for Charlie Appleby's runners:
These figures are pretty level across the board with the lowest classes of race - those class 5, 6 or 7 races - seeing the highest percentage. Appleby’s figure for handicaps is 76.3%; for non-handicaps, it is 82.9%.
At the other end of the scale, Tim Easterby has a figure of 54.2% for early-morning favourites retaining final favouritism. However, with 88% of his qualifiers running in handicaps, one can see why this figure is low. Having said that, the 54.2% figure is also comparatively low – given that the average figure for all trainers is bang on 60% of handicap morning favourites retaining that status as the gates open.
Summary
This type of research has been new to me, and looking at early morning favourites offers a useful starting point in understanding how the top of the market may develop during the day. Clearly, every individual betting market will evolve differently, but even from what I have looked at so far there are definite patterns in terms of those early morning market leaders. There are also scenarios where it is more likely for the early morning favourite to still be the favourite come ‘the off’. The three strongest are:
1. Non-handicaps
2. Class 1 races, especially Group races
3. Runners from the stables of Charlie Appleby and Aidan O’Brien
I am further interested in researching how markets evolve during the day. Regarding early-morning favourites, I plan to examine early-morning prices coupled with the number of runners in the race. That may take a while, but it is on my ‘to-do’ list. And looking at price/rank movement for other market positions is also on that list.
Finally, if readers have any other topics/ideas they would like me to research for potential future articles, please post them in the comments below.
-DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/EarlyMorningFavourites.jpg320830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2024-07-31 07:39:212024-07-31 07:39:21Examining the Final Market Rank of Morning Favourites
It’s funny when you speak regularly with people in racing, especially in my case primarily those I’d known in my previous incarnation, that memories come flooding back, writes Tony Stafford.
For example, before the first at Ascot on Saturday, a two-year-old contest, representing part-owner Jonathan Barnett and his Fire Flame, I stood at the end of the paddock to view it on the big screen. While there, I ran (or rather stumbled) into David Loder and John Garnsey. Many years ago, when Loder started training at Sefton Lodge in Newmarket, he had terrific success, notably with his juveniles, which were always well-schooled and ready to run.
Ricky Bowman was an “enthusiastic” work rider at a time when whip use was less frowned upon and indeed “when whips were whips”.
So, the Loder horses went into action with the equivalent of a race behind them and it was pretty easy to find winning opportunities. Many of the best prospects found their way into my Daily Telegraph tips as I was in contact with David every day.
So much so that when I bumped into legendary punter Harry Findlay at Doncaster sales maybe 15 years later, he said that when I napped one, he had his maximum on. “No commission, Harry?”
David has stopped training for some time. When he left Newmarket for the first time to look after the Sheikh Mohammed horses in Evry, France, on the site of the former racecourse, after Jeremy Noseda declined the offer, the contact finished.
Before he left, we regularly used to suggest that John Gosden didn’t seem to be doing much of a job with the Sheikh Mohammed home-breds in his yard. The first year he returned, I bumped into him as he was about to run his juvenile City On A Hill in the July Stakes. Of course it won, as did Noverre the following year.
As we were about to pass, he stopped me and said:” You know we used to laugh at John Gosden about what a crap job he did with the Sheikh Mo home-breds?” "Of course", I laughed. “Well, I’ve got them now and I think he was a f…… genius to do what he did with them!”, he said.
Now the wheel has turned full circle, David and Anthony Stroud are back buying the sales horses for Godolphin in close concert with the boss and Charlie Appleby, who was with Loder in the yard back in those Evry days.
I was chatting to Charlie a bit later along with Jono Mills, who was the young manager for the Rabbah (Godolphin-lite as I used to call them) horses at the time. Quite a few were in the revised Loder team after the Sheikh ended the Evry project and David took out a licence to train publicly from Egerton stud, next to the National Stud in the town, and the base for David Elsworth until his retirement a couple of seasons ago. Johnny Murtagh, before his Classic-winning time at Coolmore and post-John Oxx, rode the horses and unlike in David’s first go at the job, they tended to finish 2nd. Murtagh couldn’t ride a winner and Dave soon ended the experiment - Jono still remembers the frustration of it all.
Now, tall and lean and looking like some distinguished film producer, Loder can lay claim to Thursday’s wide-margin Sandown debut winner Ruling Court, a €2.3 million buy from Arqana. “Maybe he beat trees, but he looked good,” he said. A son of Justify so maybe another City Of Troy would be the hope
John Garnsey was and is an almost exact (but slightly younger) contemporary of mine, him at the Daily Express. Quiet and amusingly laconic whenever we meet, he usually says something like: “Well at least we’re still here!”
We had all agreed as the horses milled around behind the stalls that one of the runners, Letsbeatsepsis, had a most unfortunate name. Trained by Gary and Josh Moore, obviously there was a story behind it. Loder was there to watch another of his discoveries, the 1.5million gns Al Misbah, the 11/10 favourite.
A slow start didn’t help the favourite and he could only keep on for fourth, just ahead of a tubby-looking Fire Flame, with both beaten for third by Letsbeatsepsis, an 80/1 shot.
I thought I’d better investigate and indeed there is a story. I called Jayne Moore, wife of Gary, mum to joint-trainer Josh, recently-retired jump jockey Jamie and TV star Hayley. Oh, there’s also Ryan, who won that race on Richard Hannon’s Our Terms and went on to take the next, the Princess Margaret Stakes (Group 3) for Ollie Sangster.
Jayne explained that Letsbeatsepsis’ owner-breeder Patrick Moorhead had fallen ill with sepsis a few years back and hadn’t heard of it until he caught the disease. He was in ITU for months, but when he recovered, thought it would be an appropriate name to make people aware of it.
Saturday’s runner, a first foal, shows enough talent to do just that. I did some research and discovered that sepsis in the UK claims 48,000 deaths annually. The much more publicised breast cancer (11,500) and prostate cancer (12,000) claim together less than a half as many victims. To illustrate the full horror of sepsis, it is estimated that 11 million, one-fifth the world’s annual death toll, succumb to it.
Gary had only half a dozen two-two-year old wins in the past five years but now with Josh on the licence you can expect the younger end of the team to press for more flat horses and if possible of a precocious nature.
One young man on the fast track to success is Ollie Sangster, and not the least of his skill in only his second season as a trainer has been to judge the time when allowing big-name owners to buy out the existing owners.
Judging by the smiles of parents Ben and Lucy before the Princess Margaret, the price paid for the twice-raced maiden Simmering by Al Shaqab Racing was substantial enough for original partner Lucy to enjoy the day whatever happened.
Just as at Royal Ascot where Simmering flew home in the shadow of highly rated Fairy Godmother, showing similar finishing speed in the Albany Stakes to the winner, Simmering again got a fair way behind. Then Ryan, switched from her Royal meeting nemesis, found himself a fair way back but came through the middle of the field and was well on top at the finish. A 70,000gns daughter of Too Darn Hot, Simmering will have enhanced her value still further, but that sure touch Ollie showed when lining up a Group 3 to break a maiden will have impressed the international set.
Later, Ben Sangster, still with a full-on smile, was anxious not to put too much expectation on the young man’s shoulders. Ollie, obviously grandson to Robert Sangster, should according to Ben, “take small steps. The dream is still there though that one day he can move into the main yard at Manton House.”
One final point about King George day and the main event. Before the race Aidan O’Brien, having walked the course earlier, and Ryan Moore told Michael Tabor of their misgivings after 3mm of water were added overnight. Also, near the inside they had put down a fair amount of sand. Michael, realistic as ever, said: “It’s what it is!” almost resigned to another down to the 2023 Derby winner’s in-out career.
One thing I’m pretty sure of: the winner, the Francis-Henri Graffard-trained gelding Goliath will have been the first winner of the race with such a pronounced case of stringhalt. As he went past us in the pre-parade, I was dying to ask him: “Can you do it as well with your right hind leg?" Bet he can’t! Decent performance though.
**
Yesterday featured the last day’s UK jump racing for around three weeks. While the top jockeys will be able to afford to go on exotic trips, their lesser-earning counterparts will be ruing the fact of reduced earning possibilities. Nicky Richards told me that he thought the stop was an opportunity missed. In Ireland they have races for jockeys that have won fewer than 20 races in the previous season and he reckons that should have been copied here.
Meanwhile, on another contentious issue, Dylan Cunha, who won a Racing League contest at Yarmouth last Thursday, goes further, believing that the top 20 trainers could be excluded to no harm for themselves, leaving the better prize money in these races to the remainder. Hughie Morrison, one of the Team Scotland trainers in the Racing League, believes that the bigger than usual for the grade money available has merely been “stolen” from the rest of the UK’s races in their respective grade. Three men with plenty to say and all with feasible opinions.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/royalascot2017_gates.jpg320830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2024-07-29 06:44:402024-07-29 06:44:40Monday Musings: Beaten by Sepsis
This is the second article in a two-part series where I am looking at the Tote Placepot, writes Dave Renham. The data have been collated from the first six months of 2024 to give readers a good overview of this popular type of pool bet. I have included both UK and Irish racing. Part one can be found here.
The maths
The first point worth making is that the final pool size is less important than one might think in terms of your potential to win big. Let me explain mathematically why by comparing two hypothetical Placepot pools that, in terms of race-by-race outcomes, effectively mirror each other. I will assume that in each race, the placed horses account for 30% of the remaining units. Here’s how the maths work:
Placepot 1 – Final Pool Size £50,000
As you can see, the final winning units figure is £36.45. To calculate the Placepot payout, we need to divide £50,000 by £36.50, which gives a final dividend of £1,371.74 for a £1 unit stake.
Placepot 2 – Final Pool Size £400,000
In this example, we have £291.60 units left, but if we divide this figure by £400,000 to get our payout, lo and behold, we get the same final dividend of £1,371.74 for a £1 unit stake.
This happens because Placepot payouts/dividends are based on the percentage of the pot that is left. 10% of £1,000 and 10% of £2,000,000 is still 10%! Indeed, with a low starting pool of £79,000, the largest payout in the six months leading up to June's end came at Chelmsford. The payout to a £1 stake was just shy of £40k for a £1 unit stake. In addition to this payout, the third highest dividend in this time frame came at Tramore (£11,230.30 for a £1 stake), and the pool that day was just £13,667.
Average Placepot Dividend by Month
Having clarified some of the maths, let me start to look at some dividend data. In my previous article, I mentioned that in most years, the average dividend across all courses is around £400 to £500 to a £1 stake. Regarding the first six months of 2024, the average dividend has been £438. However, when we compare the average dividend month by month, we see how it can fluctuate:
As you can see, the January and February averages were much lower than the other four months, with January surprisingly modest at just £123.30. March and June have the most significant averages, just above the £600 mark. One cannot say whether these monthly figures indicate the ‘norm’, but with the Cheltenham Festival in March and Royal Ascot in June, I guess these two months will be at the higher end of the scale most years. Both have been the scene of monster dividends in the recent past.
Average Placepot Dividend by Country
It's time to break the data by country – UK versus Ireland.
Both nations are over the £400 mark, with the UK edging it. This is partly because Irish meetings take 30% out of the pool rather than the UK figure of 27%. It is, however, another example of how the payouts over time tend to average around these marks.
Distribution of Placepot Dividends
Now, I want to look at how the dividends have been spread across in terms of actual payouts. The table below illustrates this:
As can be seen, most payouts have been £100 or under – roughly 40% of pots have returned £50 or less, while 57% of all Placepots have been £100 or less. At the other end of the scale, payouts of over £1000 have occurred at 7.4% of meetings. As a regular Placepot punter, it pays to have patience – big payouts will occur, but they won’t happen day in and day out.
Placepot Dividends by Course
Regarding Placepot data for individual courses, data is limited for some tracks due to only six months of data. However, any course that has seen 12 or more Placepots in 2024 is shown below with their average dividend. I have ordered them by the number of meetings:
There is considerable variance between some courses, but that is to be expected, given the nature of this specific bet. These fluctuations are also more likely to be seen given the number of meetings we are dealing with. For example, in the courses with only 12 meetings, it just takes one significant dividend to increase the overall average markedly. This happened with Fairyhouse, as it turns out, thanks to a £7424 dividend, changing the average from £471 to £1051.
Course Dividend Example: Newcastle
The five all-weather courses at the top of the table have had a decent number of meetings. Let me share all the dividends for the top three courses in the table to help build a picture for each. Looking at Newcastle, here are all 45 dividends:
27 of the 45 (60%) were under £100, so just above the average for all courses (see earlier). Also, there were no payouts over £1000. This helps explain why the average dividend is down at £152.85. Newcastle hosts mainly all-weather racing (37 of the 45 meetings in the sample), and the average dividend on the sand was £172.64. Eight National Hunt meetings had a very low average dividend of £61.31.
Course Dividend Example: Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton had 44 meetings with the following dividends:
28 of the 44 dividends (63.6%) were under £100. There was one significant payout of £1349.80. Again, these numbers explain the modest average figure of £135.96.
Course Dividend Example: Southwell
Southwell, like Newcastle, hosts both NH racing and all-weather racing. The average figure for the NH meetings was £1088.03; for the all-weather, it was just £133.80. Let me split the individual dividends up this time – first, the NH:
There is quite a variety within this small subset, with seven dividends under £112 and five over £500 – three of those over £2K.
Onto the Southwell All-weather dividends:
There was nothing big here on the dividend front, with just one payout of more than £500. This means the four highest payouts came from the 12 NH meetings rather than from the 27 AW ones.
Breakdown of a Monster Placepot Dividend
To finish, I would like to go back and look in detail at the biggest Placepot payout in the last six months, which I mentioned earlier, was at Chelmsford. It occurred on 29th March, so let me take you through race by race.
Race 1 – The money wagered on this meeting was £78,973.19. After the 27% deduction, the starting pot was £57,650.41. The result for the first race was as follows:
With only two getting placed and the favourite missing out in third, around 81% of the pot disappeared, with £11,075.02 remaining going into race 2. Just over 50% of that 81% were units on the favourite.
Race 2 – A 12-runner event next, meaning three ‘placers’:
Although both the favourite and second favourite placed, the first three runners accounted for less than 40% of the remaining units, leaving £4273.85 in the pot with four races still to go.
Race 3 – Another 12-runner race for the third one:
The favourite placed again, as did the third favourite. This time, a smaller chunk was lost (around 37% of the units), leaving £2702.75 in the pot.
Race 4 – A 16-runner handicap was next on the card, meaning four horses would ‘place’:
I am sure all readers will be looking at the prices of the first four and appreciating that this result decimated the pot. Three huge prices were 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, while the winner, Merrijig, was 6th best in the betting at 14/1. Only 1.4% of the pot survived this race, leaving a paltry £37.28 for the last two races.
Race 5 – A 15-runner race was next, and at this point, a huge payout was on the cards. The last two races would ‘decide’ how big:
The favourite and third favourite placed, but even so, 75% of the remaining units were lost, leaving under £10 left - £9.75 to be precise.
Race 6 – The final race saw the following result:
Two joint third favs made the frame, but 85% of the remaining money was lost, leaving just £1.46 to be split between the winning punter(s). The final dividend was £39,486.50 for a £1 stake.
This dividend was so significant due mainly to the result of race 4, with the four placers at 14/1, 40/1, 80/1, and 40/1. However, race 6 played a more significant part than you might think. If that final race had seen the top three in the betting come 1,2,3, then the dividend would have been cut to £11,960.67. That nearly 12K is not too shabby, but it is a long way off, almost 39.5K!
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Summary
The Tote Placepot is an excellent bet with enormous potential – it can only take one or two shock results to enhance the final dividend significantly. In theory, you could have five favourites placing and have a decent payout. Imagine a scenario where five favs have already placed, and the last race was a 7-runner affair where the first and second were priced 50/1 and 100/1. In this case, the pot would probably flip from an expected £10 dividend to potentially £2,000 or more.
Having the scope to build in more permutations is key for long-term success IMO. This is where the Tix software comes into its own. Using Tix, you can have several favs in the perm, a few mid-priced runners, and a few outsiders. This gives you cover for minimal stakes. If you haven’t used it – try it today!
-DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/placepotpointers-e1462366254647.jpg317803Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2024-07-23 20:09:002024-07-23 20:09:00A day in the life of the Tote Placepot: Part 2
The joys of shared ownership were never better exemplified than on Saturday, with big wins on both the flat and in the most valuable race of the summer jumping season, writes Tony Stafford.
Suppose you owned a highly respected stud farm and stood three stallions, one of which, Nathaniel, is long-standing and good enough to have produced a mare of the calibre of world champion Enable, you would always be on the lookout for anything you thought capable of coming some way towards that sort of racecourse brilliance.
Step forward Graham Smith-Bernal, boss since May 2021 of former German-owned Newsells Park Stud. Nathaniel, a son of Galileo, has over the past couple of years been joined by smart mile performer Without Parole and top sprinter (five times Group winner) A’Ali.
Trained by John Gosden, Nathaniel began life in that famed juvenile maiden at an evening meeting at Newmarket, finishing a gallant runner-up to Sir Henry Cecil’s career-saving Frankel, also making his debut. Frankel’s famed 14-race unbeaten record entitles him to be regarding as maybe the best-ever flat racer.
Nathaniel was no slouch either, winning the King George at Ascot as a three-year-old, the Coral-Eclipse the following year, and edged out by a nose by Danedream in his follow-up King George attempt. He bowed out with a third to old adversary Frankel in the 2012 Champion Stakes, finishing their careers in the same race, too.
Four lengths was the margin this time, the brilliant French gelding Cirrus Des Aigles intervening. Frankel has lived up to his racecourse form at stud and stands for the Juddmonte operation for £350k. You might say that Nathaniel, if he can produce another Enable, is outstanding value at one-twentieth the Frankel figure at £17,500.
So here goes. There was a first-time Nathaniel filly in a Kempton 2yo maiden at the tail end of last year, running for the emerging Valmont operation and trained by Ralph Beckett. A £200k Tattersalls Book 1 yearling, You Got To Me started her debut race slowly, but soon made smooth headway to track the leaders on the outside. That effortless speed was what most impressed the Newsells team.
Then, having got to the lead inside the last furlong and a half, she showed resolution to win quite nicely at the finish, coming out best of four in a line 100 yards out, staying on well as you would expect a Nathaniel to do. Graham made contact as to whether she might be for sale. “Luckily, Valmont are traders. I offered £200,000, for a half-share. They replied “£300k.” We settled on £250k.” Some deal I think.”, he said.
The partnership began with a win in the Lingfield Oaks Trial (or rather the Ralph Beckett benefit), followed by fourth in the Oaks and again fourth in the Ribblesdale, where she was very free, going into a near ten-length lead at Swinley Bottom. Once headed, she battled on more resolutely than could have been expected in the circumstances, for a close fourth.
Beckett decided to fit a first-time tongue-tie on Saturday in the Irish Oaks, to curb that enthusiasm, and it worked perfectly. The result? A measured performance where Hector Crouch managed to keep in Ryan Moore on the Coolmore favourite Concede just behind him in the home straight, and You Got To Me went on to win by a comfortable one and a half lengths, again showing that strong finish.
It probably helped the team that Moore didn’t get as smooth a passage as the winner and it will be interesting to see whether the result will be replicated on a further meeting.
Another Enable? Who knows, but You Got To Me is going the right way, stays well as do all the Nathaniels, but with that extra instant speed ingredient that most horses don’t possess. Instead of the boss being there to enjoy the win first-hand, it was deputed that racing and nominations manager Gary Coffey should represent the Newsells half of the team at the Curragh, a proud moment for the Irishman. “It was a great day for us, almost up there with when another partnership horse, Waldgeist, won the Arc the year after Enable’s second win in the race.”
Smith-Bernal, kept on home soil worrying about the health of the family dog, instead hosted 16 members and friends of a (sadly unplaced) Charlie Johnston-trained runner at Newmarket’s oddly-timed fixture. They had no luck, but a beaming Smith-Bernal made sure the champagne kept flowing. It was almost better to be celebrating in the owners’ dining room at Newmarket, able to whoop with delight as she passed the post. We happened to leave the course at the same time, he and wife Marcella holding hands, he with that massive grin still on his face.
The Newsells model is different from many others. They have around fifty mares of their own and another fifty or so for clients as well as a similar number of boarders. Their own colts and fillies are all available for sale. Newsells fixes a value and if they are unsold at the sale, often partnerships are negotiated with the stud retaining an interest for racing.
It wasn’t all gloom for Coolmore and especially Ryan Moore. He rode the most audaciously patient ride on the much-improved four-year-old Tower Of London in the one mile, six furlong Group 1 Curragh Cup.
The three-year-old and fellow Galileo horse Grosvenor Square set the pace in a race where top-class dual-purpose performer Vauban and Tower Of London dominated the market. Also, in the O’Brien stable, he set up a 20-length lead and was still at least eight ahead coming to the final furlong. Meanwhile, a long way behind Grosvenor Square, Tower Of London was easing past Valmont and swiftly made up the ground. He won with his head in his chest. Wow, such mastery of his trade!
There was a future potential opponent for You Got To Me and Concede in the Hughie Morrison-trained four-year-old Mistral Star, on show later on the Newmarket card. Mistral Star took on a sizeable field in a ten-furlong Listed race and smoothly raced away from them. The homebred will be pushed quite close to a 110 rating after this and Morrison knows just how to bring the Helena Springfield fillies to their optimum potential. She looks sure to stay further on this evidence.
Now to, for me, the happiest Saturday result of all. On Thursday I sat in a Gaucho restaurant in London’s West End, while this publication’s editor showed us three a recent video of the Geegeez.co.uk chaser Sure Touch in a schooling session before taking up his Saturday target in the centenary Summer Plate Chase at Market Rasen.
I had to agree with Matt that it was “sensational”, especially for a horse with only five previous chases on his card for Olly Murphy. As he was winning the big race, attended by my York races landlord Jim Cannon and a couple of my fellow guests, all of whom are in this syndicate, I’d forgotten all about it.
Contacting Matt later in the afternoon, the drinks had already been flowing. I don’t suppose any of the numerous errors that no doubt will be sprinkled within this offering will be picked up, so I better check again. [They have been 😉 - Ed.]
Then yesterday, the team were on the mark at Newton Abbot with the 4/1 favourite Konigin Isabella, trained by Anthony Honeyball. Rumours that Jim paid for the helicopter to take the team from Lincolnshire to Devon are apparently untrue.
The moral of this epistle is clear. If you have a couple of hundred grand or so, scour the autumn maiden juvenile races for potential. If you want to join a syndicate, have a look at Geegeez.co.uk. Other syndicates and agents – some of whom we often mention here – are available.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SureTouch_SummerPlate2024.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2024-07-22 05:50:022024-07-21 19:20:41Monday Musings: Of Cups and Plates
In this article, I will look at how the Tote Placepot panned out on a randomly chosen day this year and what led me to research it, writes Dave Renham. I have chosen May 1st, not for any other reason than it was the first of the month and was not too long ago. I wanted to select the day randomly rather than trawling through some results and focusing on a day when there was a considerable placepot dividend or two. Punters who regularly attempt the Placepot know there are plenty of meetings with low dividends, but the fact that some huge payouts do occur makes it a bet worth considering. In fact, the average payout for the Placepot is usually between £400 to £500 in any given year.
As most readers will know, the Placepot is a bet you can place at any race meeting, and it works by choosing a selection or selections in the first six races on the card of the relevant meeting. The aim is to have a selected horse or horses to finish in the placings in each of the six races. It is important to appreciate that the number of placings per race depends on the number of race runners and, in some cases, whether it is a handicap or a non-handicap. The finishing positions that constitute a place in any race in the Placepot are as follows:
2 to 4 runners – 1st
5 to 7 runners – 1st and 2nd
8 to 15 runners – 1st, 2nd and 3rd
Non-handicap 16 or more runners – 1st, 2nd and 3rd
Handicap 16 or more runners – 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th
If a selection becomes a non-runner, your choice in that race moves to the favourite. You can choose ‘favourite’ in your selection process rather than a specific horse if you’d like – that is an option. It is also worth sharing that if you are on the favourite and there are joint- or co-favourites, the one with the lowest racecard number becomes your selection.
Selecting just one horse in each of the six races will create one betting line. You can, of course, choose more than one horse in a race if you wish to spread the risk, which will increase the number of betting lines. Most seasoned Placepot punters mix up the number of selections for each race to widen the net, as it were.
For those using permutations, calculating the outlay (cost) of your Placepot bet is relatively straightforward. Ultimately, you need to know how many selections you have in each race to determine your betting lines. To do this, multiply those six figures together. Hence, if you chose two horses in three races and one horse for the other three races, you will create 8 betting lines (see below).
2 x 2 x 2 x 1 x 1 x 1 = 8 lines
The cost of the bet will depend on your unit stake – if your unit stake is £1, then the cost will be £8:
8 lines x £1.00 unit stake = £8.00 total stake
You can adjust the unit stake to suit. For example, you may want to use a unit stake of 25p instead, which means the overall cost of the bet would be £2.00 (8 x 25p).
Placepot dividends are paid to a £1 stake. Hence, if the Placepot dividend is, say, £100, and you have one winning line with a unit stake of 25p, your dividend would be a quarter of £100 because you are using a quarter of a £1 stake. Your payout in this scenario would be £25 (£100 divided by 4).
For any Placepot player, though, you need to be aware of the excellent Tix software, a staking optimisation tool built by Matt and Nigel Dove. The Tix software gives far more scope for perming your selections using different stakes, should you wish. Find out more about Tix here.
The upside of the Tote Placepot is that it is a ‘pool’ bet, which means you are essentially pitting your wits against other people rather than the bookmakers. Also, a fair number of Placepot bets per day are struck at the racecourse by racegoers who are simply having a fun bet whilst on a day out. Therefore, I feel I should have a significant edge regarding my betting ‘opponents’.
However, before getting too carried away, the bet has a downside: the Tote takes out 27% of the money put into the Placepot betting pot. Hence, if £100,000 is bet on a specific Placepot, only £73,000 of this is available to win. It is essentially like a Bookmaker’s overround where they build in their profit margin.
OK, with that explainer done, let me share the Tote Placepot data for the five UK meetings that raced on May 1st:
Overall, the day was not the most productive one for Placepot players with three meagre payouts. The payouts are calculated by dividing the Adjusted Final Pool Size by the remaining winning units. Hence, the Ascot dividend of £139.90 comes from £85,632.55 divided by 612.02.
I want to analyse one of these Placepot meetings in detail—the biggest one on the day at Ascot.
Race 1 – 1.10
This was a six-runner Class 2 conditions race for 2yos. Hence, two Placepot places were up for grabs (1st and 2nd). Below shows how many units went on each horse, what percentage of the pool that was, the Starting Price of each runner, and their Finishing Position.
The horses in red were the two Placepot ‘placers’. Interestingly, the most ‘pooled’ money was not on the favourite, Diligently; it was on the second favourite, Rock Hunter. Because of this, slightly more of the pot remained than one might have expected. Hence, £45,939.17 was left in the Placepot pool as we entered race 2. This equated to around 39% of the Adjusted Final Pool.
Looking at the % splits for each horse, we can also see that Sex on Fire had more than double the amount of money placed on him than Atherstone Warrior (11.1% of the pool versus 5.33%) despite their prices being virtually the same at 17/2 and 9/1. I do not have a bulletproof reason why this might have been the case, as you would expect the amounts on each horse to be closer to each other. However, data on any 2yo race is limited at this time of the year. In this particular contest, you had two debutants, three horses having their second career start, and one having their third. Hence, even the most seasoned punter finds getting a confident handle on this race more difficult. That is probably part of why there was such a discrepancy between the two horses. I am guessing there was a jockey factor in play, too, as Hoyle Doyle was riding Sex on Fire. She is a famous jockey, and I suspect some occasional Placepot punters would have seen her name and simply based their judgment on that. Another could be how their prices fluctuated during the day, but more of that discussion later.
Race 2 – 1.40
This was a Listed race with only five runners, so again, there would be two ‘placers’ counting. Here are the splits:
Again, the SPs do not quite match up with the % of pool figures. The second favourite, Docklands, had the most pool units, 3% more than the actual favourite. Likewise, there were two horses at 4/1, and there was a 6% difference between the two, equating to around 2700 units.
This was the second race in which the favourite had failed to place. Generally, better dividends occur when favourites have a poor day in terms of placing. Hopefully, this makes perfect sense, as favourites will be popular with Placepot pickers.
Race 3 – 2.15
This was another five-runner affair; this time, a Group 3 contest. Let me share the data for this one:
This time, the favourite comfortably had the most units staked on him, but again, the market leader failed to place. With the 11/1 outsider coming second and having a meagre 1.55% of the pooled money (354.82 units), this result increased the chances of a big payout. 78% of the staked units before this race were lost, leaving a pot of £5255.03.
Race 4 – 2.50
A 10-runner Group 3 sprint over 6f was the next action on the day, and a more extensive field of 10 runners went to post. Three to count this time, and here are the figures:
This race was not helpful in terms of a chance of being a very big Placepot payday. The two horses with comfortably the most units staked finished second and third. The 28/1 outsider Jakaiaro finished a neck away in 4th. If that had reversed placings with the third, it would have caused a serious dent in the remaining ‘pot’ and increased the chances significantly of a big payout. So, there was just under £3100 left in the pot with two races to go.
Race 5 – 3.25
An eight-runner sprint handicap was the penultimate Placepot race at Ascot that day. Here is how the remaining units were split between the runners:
The favourite placed for the second race running and, despite being 7/2, had over 37% of the remaining betting units. This could have been nearer 20-25% of the remaining units based on the actual SP, which again would have increased the final dividend considerably. Based on the upcoming Race 6 results, if the favourite Woolhampton had secured 25% of the remaining Race 5 units rather than 37.48%, the final dividend would have increased by around 22%. That’s significant. However, it highlights that we are dealing with unit sizes for individual runners that can fluctuate perhaps more than one would expect, given the so-called ‘true’ chance of the horse placing based on the SP.
Race 6 – 4.00
The second division of the handicap sprint was the final race as far as the Placepot was concerned. Again, we saw eight runners go to post. There were 2078.18 units remaining before the race:
The favourite failed, and the two horses with the most units (top two in the market) could not place. 29.45% of the units of the remaining units survived, leaving £612.02 left in the pot from the initial £85,632.55. The Placepot payout was a reasonable, if not huge, £139.90 to a £1 stake.
Being basically a ‘numbers man’, it is interesting for me to scrutinise each of these six races in some depth. What struck me was the correlation between the individual horses’ SPs and the units staked on these horses. It certainly was not always a positive correlation in line with expectations.
I decided to graph some Ascot data by looking at the individual horses’ SPs and the % of Placepot pool units staked on these horses. It shows all horses with SPs of 6.0 decimal odds (5/1) or shorter:
The graph does slope from the top left to the bottom right, but it is far from smooth and has plenty of outliers/anomalies.
Here is a tabular format with the exact %s (to 1 dp) for the number crunchers out there. I have highlighted in red what I perceive to be the main outliers:
As you can see at the top of the table, we have three different horses priced up at 3.0 (2/1), but one has 38.8% of the money in the pool, and the other two are much lower at 28% and 26.2%. Arguably, there is an even more significant differential when we look at the three 6.0 (5/1) runners with pool %s ranging from 5.4% to 18%.
You will get fluctuations when analysing price versus pool %, but I must admit, I was initially surprised when I looked at these Ascot results. Of course, the data is limited to just six races, but even so, I did expand my digging to the other four meetings that day and found that of all the horses priced 2/1, the lowest pool % for one horse (Cajetan) stood at 22.3%, and the highest was 38.8% (Sweet William) at Ascot. Then, I looked at some bigger price brackets than I did for Ascot and found that two horses priced 6/1 (7.0) were poles apart when it came to their pool %s – one had 20% of the units in the pool, the other just 7.4%.
Now, it should be stated that prices of horses often change from the early odds to their final SPs, so I surmised that this must be a significant contributory factor in this wide pool % of variances we have seen from such limited data. Hence, I continued to do some more digging. I looked at the two 2/1 SP shots I mentioned in the above paragraph (Cajetan and Sweet William) to see their Early Odds (e.g., their odds in the morning). Lo and behold, the 38.8% pool horse Sweet William was 15/8, a notch under the 2/1 SP, and the 22.3% pool horse Cajetan was a much bigger price ‘early doors’ at 9/2. In this comparison, therefore, it seems likely the early odds were the main reason behind the Placepot pool % variance. So, it got me thinking... obviously!
I thought it might be worthwhile to check out some horses whose prices remained the same during the day. I decided to check out some horses with early odds of 2/1 and, also a final Starting Price of 2/1. I expect these runners should be with a few percent of each other in terms of pool percentages. This type of research must be done slowly, race by race, so I have only looked at the last 30 qualifiers (at the time of writing). That should give us a fairly good overview. Here is what I found:
As you can see, we still have some significant variances. The highest figure was 47.3%, more than double the lowest figure of 22.1%. OK, they were the ‘extremes’, but even if you ignore, let’s say, the highest and lowest three figures, there is still a difference of over 10% from highest to lowest (39.4% versus 29.1%). The average figure for all 30 horses is 33.8%, which is what I would have expected.
So, what does that tell us? Clearly, fluctuations in ‘expected’ pool %s will occur regularly. Is it possible to pinpoint patterns and predict likely pool %s for some horses? That is the 64-million-dollar question. My guess is that the make-up of all the prices within each race plays a key role, not just the individual prices themselves. I am sure there are other factors, and I have some ideas, but that is for another time (and a huge chunk of research).
Of course, some punters may argue that the important thing from their perspective is that they get at least one horse placed in each race and have a slice of the Placepot dividend. That is a fair point, but I’m guessing you would rather win one pot in ten if the dividend is, say, £5000, compared with winning five pots in ten, all paying under £20. We could all win more ‘pots’ if we stacked our selections with all horses from the top end of the betting. However, any such ‘wins’ will produce low dividends and give you no chance of securing a long-term profit. In fact, you will be haemorrhaging money! You need a better strategy than that to win big at the Placepot!
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Summary
It's time to wind up this first foray into the Tote Placepot. I appreciate that I have inadvertently created more questions than answers. Still, I hope you might now have an increased appreciation of the Placepot and how much there is to the whole conundrum. For me, it’s time to do some more research into this Tote pool bet, and I will share that with you next time.
-DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/placepotpointers-e1462366254647.jpg317803Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2024-07-15 14:37:492024-07-15 14:37:49A day in the life of the Tote Placepot
On Tuesday evening I left Brighton racecourse at around 7 p.m. after a frustrating day brought on by the closure of the A23, diversions from which cost me at least one and a half hours’ irritation, worrying that I’d get there in time, writes Tony Stafford.
At about the same time, John Hunt was arriving home in Hertfordshire having commentated at Lingfield Park’s afternoon meeting. He found a horrific scene which in one ruinous moment wiped out 75 per cent of the life he and wife Carol had built together for their three daughters.
The fact that three female members of one family, Carol and younger daughters Hannah and Louise, had become a target of a single malevolent individual is bad enough: the ordeal he subjected them to before administering the final sanction simply multiplied the horror.
My own view while waiting for news of the outcome of the search for the suspect – do we still today have to go through that charade when it’s all too certain who the triple killer was? - is anger. That’s right, anger that while being so gifted in sending the three blameless women to their deaths, this Army-trained killer didn’t have sufficient skill or guts to end his own life.
So now he has precipitated a farcical process that will mean an entirely futile murder trial sometime in the months to come that will make even harder the mourning process for John and eldest daughter Amy.
Everyone commenting on John Hunt, an exemplary commentator on numerous sports, is unified in describing him as a wonderful individual.
My recollection of him every time we’ve spoken over the last couple of decades is that infectious smile and a love for West Ham United. No doubt he was coming home ready to sit down with the family to watch the Spain-France Euros semi-final.
There must have been a moment, when the BBC’s coverage of racing was already confined to radio, that brought him to a crossroads as to whether to stay with them. At the time Cornelius Lysaght was the correspondent and John just did the commentaries.
These were often restricted to the last few furlongs of a major flat race or the final obstacles over jumps as the Saturday afternoon programme producers deigned to leave a Premier League game for one precious minute. John never cribbed about it even though it must have been utterly frustrating.
After Lysaght was moved on, Huntie’s status increased and then came the swimming commentaries at the Olympics and other major events. His eagle eye, developed from watching high-speed horse racing finishes, made him outstandingly better than the Olympic gold medallists that were previously the Beeb’s imprecise eyes on the pool.
Even soccer and other equestrian activities at the Olympics have since come within his range, at the same time never interfering with his initial job as a race commentator or increasingly in the Sky Sports racing studios as a genial and impressively fluent, knowledgeable presenter.
I hope John will feel able to resume that Olympic Games role this month. It might be a little easier than having to bump into all the regulars he would see if his first resumption was to be at the races.
We all, of course, wish him well, and wonder how such wickedness has come into our world: bodies in suitcases killed by someone from Colombia allowed to be living here, left on a bridge in Bristol, and an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate.
*
The world and racing go on and on Saturday we were back to the bizarre fixture clash of Newmarket’s July Cup, York’s John Smith’s Cup, both Premier Racing fixtures, and Ascot’s non-Premier card which carried the Group 2 Summer Mile. It must have seemed a bit of a joke at Ascot that they could put on a programme with £200k in winners’ prize money and be the least important of three meetings on the day.
There was additionally in previous years Chester, but they were forced by the authorities to revert to a teatime start and apparently didn’t like that too much. Salisbury and Hamilton made up the numbers at more conventional evening start times.
Then yesterday, when Chester, Hamilton or Salisbury might have been able to stage a nice Sunday afternoon card, instead it was jumps only at Perth in Scotland where the weather was rubbish and Stratford, at least under sunshine in front of a decent attendance.
Newmarket on Saturday featured the latest example of Jane Chapple-Hyam’s expertise (as if it were needed), the Australian-born step-daughter of the late Robert Sangster, landing the £340k first prize for the Group 1 July Cup with the progressive Mill Stream.
The four-year-old son of Gleneagles is still a colt and, boasting also a Group 2 win at York earlier this year in his locker, he could be a potential stud prospect when his racing career is deemed to have finished. It was a major triumph for Peter Harris, once famed for top-class jumpers and a former trainer, but now happy to have Jane do the work while he supplies the raw material (and the cash that is needed to acquire it).
Earlier, the Chapple-Hyam stable was also on the mark in a £25k to the winner fillies’ handicap at HQ. Asian Daze had been bought out of Johnny Murtagh’s stable at the Goff’s London Sale on the eve of Royal Ascot for £200k on behalf of Australian Gai Waterhouse and co-trainer Adrian Bott.
She ran well in the Sandringham Stakes, when her 9th of 30 would have been improved considerably with a clear run. Transferred after Ascot to Jane, this was her first run since, and her fellow Aussies will be looking forward to Asian Daze clocking up some serious money when she gets Down Under.
Talking of money, I made only one visit to the July HIT sale at Newmarket, the Brighton escapade draining my physical resources, and I thought three days at Newmarket races would be enough to cover Thursday onwards.
That just left me with Thursday evening. As I arrived half an hour before the action started, in time to find my old sparring partner John Hancock in his customary seat in the buffet, I bumped into Dylan Cunha. The South African trainer has made a great impact over the past two years, and he has been particularly sharp at spotting bargains at the yearling and HIT sales.
I asked him, “Have you anything in mind? I’ll keep an eye on whether you get something.” He turned to his left at the same time pointing out three bench seats backing onto the pre-parade walking area. He said, “Do you see those gentlemen? They are all from various parts of the Middle East” – so nine in all. “They’ve been there for ages and when one stands up, someone else comes across and takes his place.”
Buyers from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Qatar and increasingly Bahrain all want to buy horses from the UK, Dylan said. “It works both ways. I sold a horse yesterday <Wednesday> that I valued at 4k and he went for 18 grand. Unbelievable!”
The common view was that if a horse was worth ten thousand it would fetch 25k, if 20, treble it. So it proved.
Some of it is down to the system where three horses are needed to fill a crate for export – one, two or three on the crate costs the same. Buyers may have bought two to bring home and will be desperate to secure a third. It seems that they will always be able to find someone back home to believe it’s worth the money.
Tonight, I’ll be off to Windsor hoping for a repeat Monday night win there for the Jonathan Barnett/ Newsells Park stud-owned and Michael Bell-trained Wootton’s Jewel.
To give you an idea of horse prices these days, especially for those aged three as he is: at Windsor last time on his first start of the year, Wootton’s Jewel was a short-head winner over the Andrew Balding-trained Star Runner and Oisin Murphy didn’t look too chuffed that Hector Crouch had got the better of him. Last week, Star Runner, rated identically on 77 with his Windsor conqueror, was sold to William Durkan for 105,000gns, presumably to go jumping, rather than for export to the Middle East. When Wootton’s Jewel wins again tonight, what will he be worth, 150 grand?!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/black.png320830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2024-07-15 07:35:522024-07-15 07:35:52Monday Musings: A Desperate Week
This is the second article examining nursery handicaps – handicaps for 2-year-olds, writes Dave Renham. In the first piece, I looked at various factors, including the betting market, position last time out (LTO), the sex of the horse, weight carried, career starts, and run style. You can read that one here.
In this second article, I will look at fitness in terms of when their most recent run was, LTO price, and trainers, amongst other things. The data are sourced from the last nine seasons of UK flat and all-weather racing (2015 to 2023), and profits and losses are quoted to Industry SP. I will quote Betfair SP where appropriate.
Days since last run
This is a metric most punters take notice of. The general pattern for all flat races is that the shorter the time since racing, the higher the strike rate. However, the market is well-adjusted to this and prices are usually balanced accordingly. Let’s see, though, whether an edge can be found, either positive or negative, from the 2yo nursery stats:
The strike rate pattern can be seen here, as mentioned above. Horses returning to the track within five days are comfortably hitting the best strike rate but are the third worst in SP returns. They also provided the worst returns to BSP of all the groupings. The one group to avoid, though, is the group that has had the longest time off the track (61+ days). These have offered the worst returns, the lowest strike rate, and the lowest A/E index.
Surface switch (or not)
I want to share some data on what surface the nursery was run on (e.g. turf or all weather) compared with the horses' previous start. Hence, there are four possible combos to look at:
So, what do the stats say? The A/E indices suggest that one of the four combinations offers far better value than the other three. The graph below shows the figures:
Horses switching from a run on the all-weather LTO to the turf this time have offered punters by far the best value. This is also reflected in the returns for both SP and BSP.
The Flat / LTO AW figures for SP returns are better by over 7p in the £ than the other three. In addition, the BSP returns are positive at around 5.5 pence in the £. This is probably due to the market slightly downgrading the chances of young horses switching from the sand to the turf. With limited race experience on both surfaces, it can be challenging for bookmakers to price up these surface switchers accurately.
LTO Race Type
Next, look at the LTO Race Type, splitting by handicap vs. non-handicap.
It has been a slight advantage for nursery runners to have run in a nursery handicap on their most recent start. Regarding non-handicaps LTO, you might want to avoid any horse coming from a claimer, as they would have lost you 77p in the £. Also, horses coming from sellers have done poorly, losing over 32p in the £.
LTO Price
I often look at this metric: the price of the horse on its last run. To begin with, I will look at some LTO Starting Price Bands, focusing on the value metric, which is the A/E index:
When examining last day starting price, we see a scenario similar to the one in the first article – the maxim is the shorter, the better. Horses priced up 6/4 or shorter on their most recent start are ones to watch closely. Backing these runners blind to SP would have yielded a slight loss, but to BSP a return of nearly 6p in the £ would have been achieved. Also, if you had been a bit more selective with these 6/4 or less LTO runners, sticking to those that started in single figures next time, then you would have been rewarded with 177 wins from 689 runners (SR 25.7%) for a BSP profit of £85.84 (ROI +12.5%). You would have also made a profit to SP with these runners to the tune of £27.27 (ROI +4.0%).
Class Change
Does a change in class of race make any difference? Here are the splits:
There is not much to choose between the three here, although the ROI% is better for class droppers. Class droppers have been profitable at Betfair SP but these results have been skewed by several high prices hitting the mark.
Trainers
My final port of call is to look at trainers. Firstly, let me examine the trainers who had at least 70 nursery runners during the study period and obtained a strike rate of 14% or higher. I have ordered them by win strike rate:
Ten trainers have managed a profit of which eight have an A/E index above 1.00. All eight of these trainers should be classed as positive in these races. I will revisit some of these in a minute, but before then, onto those trainers who have recorded a strike rate of below 8%:
All eleven in this table have seen losses of over 40 pence in the £ to £1 level stakes, and I would be avoiding these trainers in nurseries unless some other impressive stats could convince me otherwise.
As often with trainer data, to avoid high prices potentially skewing profits let me focus on trainer performance with runners that started in single figures (e.g. 9/1 or less). For this group I have relaxed the qualifier restriction to 50, including 48 trainers that had at least 50 qualifiers by using this price restriction:
Ralph Beckett has the stand-out single price stats, producing returns just shy of 26p in the £. He also has an excellent A/E index of 1.21. Breaking down his results for these 9/1 or shorter nursery contenders, I notice that his male runners have completely outgunned the female ones. The first article noted that male horses comfortably outperformed their female counterparts in mixed-sex nurseries. Here, the contrast is even more stark. His male horses (when 9/1 or shorter) have won over 31% of their starts returning 47p in the £; his female runners within the same price bracket have won just 18% and would have lost you over 6p in the £.
The stats are also very interesting for Beckett when looking at ALL his runners across ALL SP prices – we see the following based on A/E indices:
There are no winners in the 10/1+ bracket – he is 0 from 48 with only two placed. The message is clear – any Beckett runners priced 9/1 or shorter should offer excellent value; any priced 10/1 or bigger offers little or no value.
Returning to the latest table, other trainers to keep on the right side would be Sir Mark Prescott, Rod Millman, Ed Walker, Archie Watson, and runners from the Crisford stable. I would also keep an eye out for all the others highlighted in blue near the top of the table.
I think any trainer in the bottom quarter of the table whose A/E index is under 0.75 should be treated with caution.
Five Key Trainer Angles
Before finishing, I would like to share five of the most vital trainer stats I could find:
1. Charlie Appleby at Newmarket has secured 14 wins from 37 (SR 37.8%) for an SP profit of £13.29 (ROI +35.9%).
2. At Grade 1 tracks (Ascot, Doncaster, Epsom, Goodwood, Newbury, Newmarket, Sandown, and York), the Crisford stable has won 10 of 30 starts (SR 33.3%) for a profit of £17.91 (ROI +57.9%). This is an excellent effort considering these nurseries are some of the most competitive.
3. George Boughey has a strike rate of 41.8% with nursery favourites (28 wins from 67) for a profit of £12.65 (ROI +18.9%).
4. Ralph Beckett has an excellent record with LTO winners thanks to 14 wins from 37 runners (SR 37.8%) for a profit of £19.63 (ROI +53.1%).
5. Tom Dascombe, like Beckett, has done well with winners LTO, scoring 33.3% of the time (18 from 54) for a profit of £43.67 (ROI +80.9%).
**
That concludes my analysis of nursery handicaps, which are a betting medium that can certainly form a part of one’s betting portfolio. I hope some of these angles can give you that vital edge over the crowd.
-DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ralphbeckett.jpg319830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2024-07-09 09:40:082024-07-09 09:40:082-Year-Old Handicaps: Nurseries Part 2
You say it quickly and it does seem a little unusual, writes Tony Stafford. But it’s only when you put it in perspective - that it was Mrs Susan Magnier’s first visit to a UK racecourse for twelve years on Saturday at Sandown - you appreciate how remarkable it was.
Then you begin to understand how City Of Troy is regarded among the Ballydoyle owners, his trainer and jockey Ryan Moore He’s not merely another star racehorse. He’s something apart, everyone involved in his development believing from very early days on the home gallops that he is unique.
I can’t remember whether Vincent O’Brien’s daughter attended any of the 2012 Classic races. That was a memorable year with victories in the first four. Indeed, the clean sweep was only denied them when Enke – he of the failed dope test the following year which found steroids in his system when under the shamed Mahmood Al Zarooni’s care – denied Camelot the Triple Crown.
No doubt the very young Susan O’Brien/Magnier would have lived every minute of the last Triple Crown, her father’s horse Nijinsky coming over in 1970 to achieve the extraordinary feat - the first for 35 years since Bahram in 1935.
A named co-owner (rather than husband John) in almost all the earlier and subsequent triumphs for the non-related Aidan O’Brien team of Coolmore partners, it’s amazing to appreciate just how many major wins she had absented herself from before Saturday.
If we start with the Classic wins. From 2013 onwards, she, with Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith mostly, has won the 2000 Guineas three times, the 1000 Guineas five times, the Derby seven times, the Oaks six times and the St Leger four times; that’s 25 in all, never mind that 2012 quartet.
If we descend into all races, Aidan has sent over since 2013 around 1500 runners for a little more than 200 wins and prize money of £60 million The poverty of UK prizemoney in relation to that of other leading racing authorities is best shown by the last figure.
There’s no question that City Of Troy is the one horse racing today that would command the sort of money that football clubs pay for the best players. His value, like them, potentially soars above £120 million to my mind. Unlike footballers, though, stallion owners can get their money’s worth.
Some racehorses of recent times, especially Galileo, the principal equine power base behind the consistently astonishing Coolmore/O’Brien success of the past 20 years, have commanded stud fees reputedly close to £500k. When Coolmore list one of their stallions as “private”, just being able to inveigle a mare into his breeding shed has needed something of that dimension and the promise not to reveal how much has been paid for the privilege.
Multiply that by a conservative 125 or so mares covered each year; factor in a two or three-year span to retrieve all the money and you get the Coolmore formula – one pursued, usually in vain, by their imitators.
City Of Troy, while not a son of Galileo, does have Galileo on the dam side, through his mother Together Forever, a Group 1 winner at age two, and one of the many mares by their champion looking for worthy mates to keep the pot boiling at the highest level.
Step up (and he already has) Justify, one of two recent Triple Crown winners, both now operating from Coolmore’s Ashford stud in Kentucky.
City Of Troy has done enough to deserve to stand where Galileo did for so many illustrious years. Unbeaten and the European champion at two, he won the Derby impressively after that Guineas aberration, then on Saturday he beat his elders in the Coral-Eclipse, the first meaningful Group 1 battle between the generations of the 2024 season.
As in the UK, to illustrate how difficult that achievement has been, Justify, and American Pharoah a few years earlier, were also pathfinders after a 37-year gap since Affirmed won the 1978 Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes in the tough five-week schedule that series entails.
For a UK horse to win our Triple Crown, I suggest an even more difficult trifecta: he has to be quick and ready enough to land the 2000 Guineas at a mile in early May; stay 14 and a bit furlongs on the daunting Doncaster circuit in September; and in between have the adaptability to come home first around the difficult Epsom 12 furlongs with its gradients and cambers in the first week of June.
I think time will tell us that Sheikh Mohammed’s remarkable mare Oh So Sharp, the last filly to complete the female Triple Crown in 1985, with 1000 Guineas, Oaks and St Leger, deserves much more attention than is generally afforded her.
The first element inexplicably eluded the team, Ryan Moore coming back visibly shocked at the unexpected reverse on Newmarket’s Rowley Mile. Yet so quickly does the racing year evolve that within two months we’ve already seen his rehabilitation – back almost to the sublime domination of his generation as a two-year-old – in the Derby and then the victory in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown on Saturday.
Justify’s win over 12 furlongs on the US’s biggest oval, Belmont Park, where he completed the set in the Belmont Stakes, offered promise that his progeny would stay at least middle distances, without compromising the speed which won the two shorter distance Triple Crown races.
Had City Of Troy won the 2000 Guineas, he may well have missed Sandown, and gone instead to the Irish Derby and would now be gearing up for the St Leger. The combative John Magnier and friends, though, are always out to stretch the boundaries. After Sandown, presumably it’s the Juddmonte at York and if the Irish Champion Stakes is not then on his agenda, it seems that even the Breeders’ Cup Classic on dirt could be. Then again, maybe both.
There was no sign of weakening – quite the reverse – from City Of Troy in the Derby, and then when all looked potentially to be going wrong in the Eclipse, the will to win from horse and rider Ryan Moore, kept the opposition at bay.
A couple of incidents stayed in my mind from before the race. One of the closest inside the group said that after all the rain that had fallen on Sandown, had it been his decision to make, he would have pulled City Of Troy from the race. Two trainers, Brian Meehan and Hughie Morrison, did withdraw their runners on concerns about the going.
Next, standing quite close in the pre-parade paddock,while Aidan was, as he prefers, saddling his horse in the open in the middle of the paddock rather than in a saddling box, I remarked to a friend, “see how calm and placid he is,” at which exact moment his left hind leg flashed back and only Aidan’s nimbleness enabled him to evade it. Three or four further attempts to clean out his trainer were also unsuccessful and then it was on to the main paddock and a host of people anxious to see the superstar.
In the race, Wayne Lordan made the running on stable pacemaker Hans Andersen and, while Ryan was happy enough to follow him, Ghostwriter eased up on his inside as they reached the end of the back straight. Then around the home bend, any idea of serenity for the rider was eroding as City Of Troy seemed momentarily to lose his footing and he had a length quickly to retrieve on his opponent.
Up the straight, though, he gradually mastered Jeff Smith/ Clive Cox’s smart performer, but then had a more serious rival to deal with. The Joseph O’Brien four-year-old Al Riffa had sat last of all but came with the final challenge and one that from the stands looked likely to prove decisive.
I wondered afterwards whether Sue Magnier might have been looking on momentarily in horror, reliving the day when brother David with Secreto beat her father’s hot favourite El Gran Senor in the Derby of 1984. Here, though, City Of Troy’s battling qualities eliminated such horrors, kicking in and he had the race won by a full length.
When asked what had he expected beforehand, Ryan Moore answered, “I thought he’d win by ten lengths.” I’m sure Sue Magnier did too, but now everyone knows that for all the brilliance, there’s also a dogged will not to be beaten in that remarkable DNA. Roll on York!
In case you wondered, yes, I did get another chance to press the flesh. His lad kindly waited a few seconds as I got into position and this time, unlike at Epsom, his coat was a little wet to the touch. Maybe the Eclipse got to him rather more than the Derby did - and no wonder!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CityofTroy_SueMagnier_CoralEclipse2024.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2024-07-08 07:14:032024-07-08 07:14:03Monday Musings: Sue And The City
“You off to Royal Ascot, are ya? Like having a week’s racing holiday, isn’t it? Swanning around, drinking champagne, take a few bets from the top hats. Easy week. ” Yes, friend, that’s what happens, writes David Massey.
My week begins on Monday night at Windsor, where the firm I’m working for is standing but my services are not required, so I can have an evening off and some pre-Ascot chat. A few of the Northern lads are having the night at the races too, sucking wind through their teeth at the prices they’re having to pay now they’re down South. However, we all back John’s Dragon in the second, which pays for the overpriced burger and chips I’m having for tea.
I pick the keys up for our digs, which this week is in Datchet, about eight miles from the track. We’ve an Airbnb house, which means we all get our own rooms, and there’s a lovely garden area out the back to enjoy a beer each night. In fact, it’s a really lovely house, although not a quiet one - it’s directly on the flight path to Heathrow, and when you can’t hear the planes, you can hear the noisy parakeets instead. “They’re classed as vermin, you know,” says Liam, one of our party for the week. “If I’d got my gun, they’d be a lot quieter.” Liam does a lot of field sports and I don’t think he’s joking.
As well as the bookmaking - and this will be my last year at Ascot in that regard - I’ve a whole heap of writing to do daily, and I find myself working in the media marquee in the centre of the track each morning. It’s a huge, greenhouse-like fixture, basic but functional. “Like working in a cannabis farm”, as one of the bookmakers PR’s describes it, and he’s probably not far off (not that I'd know, you understand). Last year, this place started off well and fell to bits as the week went on. Let’s see what 2024 brings.
In terms of a loo, we’ve a gents and a ladies Portakabin behind the greenhouse. After three cups of tea I need to go. It’s disconcerting to hear a noise that resembles water hitting a wooden Portakabin floor as I do, and lo and behold, the plumbing is broken. Worse, because the Kabin is on a tilt, the stream appears to be heading back my way. I bet Charles doesn’t have to put up with this.
I report the broken urinal, and warn others in the Press tent that might think about using it not to.
The lunch food is decent - picnic boxes - and there’s plenty of cold drinks, which I snaffle into my bag as I make my way over to the ring. I’m on the rail all week, which means dealing with the Royal Enclosure mob. I’m hoping the Arab punter I had last year is there, and remembers me (he had about 6k on with me, all told); sadly, he's nowhere to be seen.
Next to me on the rail is the Aussie bookmaker Rob Waterhouse, and my neighbour for the whole week will be the lovely Erin, from Melbourne. Erin is young, enthusiastic and fun, all the things I’m not, but we get on well, and we help each other out when needed. Erin tells me she’s just got her bookmaking license in Oz, and relays the way she works, which is very much at odds with how many British bookmakers would work. She’s more than happy to stand one, even if her price is bigger than Betfair, it seems. At one point I saw she was 13-2 a horse that was a 5-1 chance on the machine - come racing, get the Aussie value, it appears!
It doesn’t take me long to bump into a bet, a 7000-2000 Charyn. I’ve backed Charyn myself, which now puts me in the difficult position of not being able to cheer it home. “Never cheer the favourite home”, was one of the first pieces of advice I was ever given by a bookmaker, “or you’ll not be in a job long.” I don’t say a dicky bird as Charyn bursts through to win. Jason comes over with seven grand for me to pay the punter out. “Try not to lay any more winners”, he jokes. “You’ve already made a dent in the float, and this is a long week!”
Our Charyn punter comes back for another go and has a grand each-way Camille Pisarro in the Coventry. The good news is it’s well beaten with a furlong to go; the bad news is that one lucky punter, guessing, has had £50 win on Rashabar at 66-1 with me. The float takes another whack.
It's a very quiet start to the week, and for the last three races trade dies a sorry death. Since going to seven races a day at Royal Ascot, it is noticeable how business often drops off late in the play, with many preferring to go home early and avoid the worst of the traffic. Very few stay for the 6:15, and despite it being a competitive handicap, it’s my worst take of the afternoon. We pack up and go for food, which tonight is the Turkish restaurant in Windsor. (If you’re looking to lose weight, don’t work Ascot week.)
Wednesday. The plumbing in the Portakabin has been fixed! By fixed I mean the offending urinal has now got a bin liner with police tape all over it, and a bucket placed under the corresponding piece of piping. Tremendous. The coffee machine also appears to be giving up the ghost; I ask it for a latte, and am returned an empty paper cup. “Please enjoy your drink!” it chirrups. I would if you’d given me one.
Every day Bet Victor’s Sam Boswell is relieving me of a tenner for some placepots. We can’t decide what should go in for the Queen Mary, other than the favouite. “Stick Leovanni in,” I say, “ it won well enough at Nottingham”. I’m not overly hopeful of getting past Leg 1 today.
The coffee machine is fixed - turned off, turned on again, has that ever worked before? - and I crack on with the rest of my writing. I really fancy a couple on Thursday and get them over to Rory (Delargy) for tomorrow’s column nice and early.
If I thought Tuesday was quiet in the ring, welcome to Wednesday. It never gets busy until the Royal Parade has gone past, whatever day it is, but it seems to take an eternity today. However Leovanni is a good result, ignored by most punters, and it isn't until I get a text from Sam reminding me I picked it for the placepot that the result even clicks with me. Two 50-1 chances fill the frame; 95% of the placepots have bit the dust. Five more good results and I can take the rest of the week off. Illinois keeps the dream alive in the second but that’s as far as we go; I had managed to talk Sam out of Laurel in the Duke Of Cambridge and that’s the end of that. Of course we got the last three results up. Of course we did.
No big bets to speak of all day, lots of twenties and fifties (one bloke peeling them off from a roll as big as any Andrex) but at least a winning day, although again, trade dies a sorry death for the last three. That’s becoming a habit.
Back at the digs and the boss has finally made an appearance after three weeks in Las Vegas playing poker. He arrived at Heathrow around 2pm, got a cab straight to Datchet, and now wants to go to sleep. It’s only 7.30 but he can’t keep his eyes open. We start to watch the Euro match but it’s no good, Rob’s totally jetlagged, and at half eight he’s snoring his head off. We give him a kick and tell him to go to bed. Wednesday night food is a BBQ, with the lovely Heather, the fourth member of the team this week, doing the honours.
Thursday 6.50am. The alarm goes for Day 3 and I go for a shower. Sadly, the water pressure is now very low and I can’t fix it, so it’s like a shower in tepid rain. It’ll have to do. I’m hoping this isn’t a bad omen for the day, as I do like a few, and have invested quite heavily in Assailant, Skukuza and Carrytheone.
My car park at Ascot for the week is 7B. This has both its advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that I’m not in Car Park 2 and as such, don’t have to climb the North Face of the Eiger every morning to get to the track. Last year, I was knackered and in need of another shower before I’d even sat down at my desk. 7B is on the inside of the track, next to the pull-up area for the horses; I can actually see my car from the Queen Anne Enclosure on the other side of the track. So there’s no long trek to my workspace, which is great, but getting out, it means I’m right at the back of the queue. Good job I’m not in a hurry.
Thursday is Ladies Day and so we’re hoping business will be a bit better. Thankfully it is, small stuff but workable, and helped in no small part by IT issues from those around me. Erin is struggling to get her lightboard working properly, and then the wifi appears to go off completely just after the Royal Parade has gone to post. (There is a theory that this happens every day of Royal Ascot - namely if something dreadful happens, the police and emergency services need all the bandwidth going, which I can sort of see.) It gives me around 15 minutes of betting time on my own for the first, which I make the most of. I take an even 2000 Whistlejacket, which stays in the hod and repairs a bit more of the float damage. The new problem with the float is fivers and pound coins - we’ve not brought enough of either - which means a call to a friend on course who helped in a similar situation last year. I won’t name her for fear her employers will read this and she’ll get in trouble, but she once again comes to the rescue with £200’s worth of golden nuggets and five pound notes and the promise of more tomorrow.
Assailant runs a cracker in the King George V Handicap and looks a likely winner at one point before just fading late. I’ve had a good run for my money, at least, and got half back in-running, so no disasters. I’m against Diamond Rain in the Ribblesdale and my place lay cops; Skukuza runs a mighty race to be second to the Aussie-bound Mickley in the Britannia, and Carrytheone rattles home for a place at a big price in the Buckingham Palace Stakes. (Wins the Bunbury Cup. You’ve been told.) As good a day at Ascot betting-wise as I’ve had in a while. Sharing the wealth, as I always try to do, I buy Heather a thankyou for all the work she’s done at the digs this week (she put a wash on for us all Thursday night, and even hung it all out. What a star!) and get her a couple of pouches of tobacco, as she loves a roll-up. I nearly die when I’m told the price of Ready Rubbed in the shop; I genuinely thought it was about a tenner a go. Best part of a bullseye for the pair! Don’t moan Massey, you’ve had a winning day. Pizza for evening food; I fear the scales will not be kind when I get back home.
Friday. Liam has fixed the shower. The joys of a proper hot power shower cannot be underestimated. I swear the parakeets are noisier than they were on Tuesday, though. I have at least taken the precaution of bringing my own breakfast food, namely five packs of Shredded Wheat, probably the most healthy thing that’s gone down my neck all week. Sadly I forgot to buy milk at the shop when I got Heather’s baccy last night; as such I can inform you that almost-dry Shredded Wheat are not my idea of fun.
The weather has started to take a bit of a turn, too. The sun we’ve had for most of the week is starting to disappear as the clouds roll in. There’s even chat of a bit of rain tonight. Given I don’t work well in hot weather this is a bonus for me, although Erin thinks otherwise. “It’s bladdy FREEZING!” she complains. To an Aussie I suppose fifteen degrees is a touch on the cold side, but to this Midlands bumpkin it’s ideal, thankyouverymuch.
The money is usually better on the Friday, and so it proves, although the first two results are shocking. Fairy Godmother attracts plenty of £100 and £200 bets and one lad has £800 quid on at 2-1 with me. Two out the money is staying with me; by the winning post, I’m in need of another float topup. Second home Simmering was a skinner. They play it up on Inisherin and his backers barely have a moment’s worry. I’m concerned that if I ring Rob for more dosh again I’ll get a mouthful. However, on his joint in the ring they only wanted Givemethebeatboys and so it’s not the disaster I think it is. And the rest of the afternoon’s results are corking, with no sign of the jollies; only a £100 each-way on Soprano at 14s in the Sandringham stops it being a near clean-sweep for the firm. Food is leftovers from the last two nights, which we need to start mopping up (you don’t want to be packing up a lot of on the wane tuck Saturday morning, do you?)
And finally, to Saturday. We’re all knackered and ready for home, but there’s one last day to get through. But we have encountered a major problem.
Liam and Heather have, somehow, managed to leave the keys to their vehicle (which hasn’t moved off the drive all week) with Jason, who is now in Newmarket. Frantic calls have been made to and fro, as the car has to be moved by 2pm latest for the incomers to the Airbnb; it is arranged the car keys will arrive at Ascot (via a jockey) around 11am. That means I’ll have to drive one of them back to the digs to collect their vehicle when the keys get to Ascot, and if the keys are late, it’s going to make getting back into the track a nightmare; we could even miss the first. And as it turns out, the keys are indeed late, not arriving until after midday, so it’s decided Heather has to get an Uber back, or it’ll mean half the team going missing, which we can’t afford to do. Heather makes it back easily, as it turns out, with an hour to spare, and disaster is averted. The stewards’ enquiry as to whose fault it was the keys ended up in Newmarket in the first place are still ongoing, I understand.
Bedtime Story gets punters off to a winning start, but Isle Of Jura, Khaadem and Haatem make sure we get it back with interest. And then, one of the highlights of the five days as Valerie, my Punter Of The Week Royal Ascot 2023, makes a welcome reappearance.
Those of you with long memories might remember Val turned up on the Wednesday last year when she started with a couple of fiver each-way bets in the first, backing the winner Crimson Advocate, and from that point onwards, never looked back as she went on the rampage, following up with Villanova Queen, Rogue Millennium, Mosthadaf and finishing the day off with £25 each-way Sonny Liston and Jimi Hendrix in the Hunt Cup. She took well over a grand from the firm and was almost apologetic as she picked her final winnings up on the day. “Do you remember me?” she asks. How can I possibly forget the luckiest punter I’ve ever come across? It’s an absolute delight to catch up with her and her son, but sadly she can’t replicate her luck of last year, and her two in the Wokingham were well beaten. All the same, it is lovely to see a familiar face.
As the day progresses, the Ascot wifi starts to drop out a lot, to the point where we reach the Golden Gates Stakes, and three bookmakers near me are struggling to get prices up on the board. In fact, they give up completely for the last, the Queen Alexandra, and I’ve got it to myself. I’m taking absolute chunks - it’s my best take of the week by a country mile. All we need to do now is get a result.
Uxmal, the 2-1 favourite, romps home. You can’t have it all, can you?
On the way home, I call in at the services on the M40 for food. I see a bookmaker I know quite well struggling to use the touchscreen as he tries to order his KFC. It appears bookmaker IT issues aren’t just confined to the track.
I’m back at 10pm, and am asleep by eleven. That’s a wrap, as they say. My week’s “racing holiday” is over for another year. See you all at Goodwood, yes?
July sees the recommencement of nursery races, handicap races for 2-year-olds, with the first of them scheduled for Haydock and Carlisle this Saturday, writes Dave Renham. This article is the first in a two-part series that will look at these niche races. I have collated data from the last nine UK flat and all-weather racing seasons (2015 to 2023) with profits and losses quoted to Industry SP. I will quote Betfair SP where appropriate.
The market
My first port of call is the betting market and a look at some Starting Price bands. Let me focus first on a value metric, the A/E index:
As the graph neatly indicates, the shorter the price, the better the value. The only slight outlier is the 18/1 to 33/1 but, essentially, as the price gets bigger the value decreases.
If we now examine the Return on Investment (ROI%), we can see how well the two metrics correlate with each other:
Odds on shots have made a small profit, although there were only 131 such runners, so you certainly would not have raked it in! While I am not usually a fan of short prices, any horse priced 6/4 or shorter in a nursery is worth a second look. Conversely, performance dips when we hit 13/2 or greater, so nurseries look generally top-of-the-market orientated.
With shorter prices doing relatively well, let me dig into the results for favourites; one would surmise, given the data so far, that they are likely to be the best option in terms of market position. Here are the overall stats:
We have a strike rate of around three wins in every ten races, a good A/E index of 0.98 and minimal losses to SP. To Betfair SP, this loss would have become a £37.52 profit, giving a small +1.6% ROI. In addition, nursery favourites have performed better on the all-weather than they have on turf, as the stats below show:
Nursery favourites on the all-weather have edged into SP profit. To BSP, these figures improve to £61.43 (ROI +5.8%).
Another favourite angle I looked at was the going conditions on the turf. It seems the firmer, the better:
The good to soft or softer results may be because the market assumes that a young horse with limited experience can act on a softer surface when it has not raced on one before. This is just a theory. The good/firm+ and good ground results for favourites saw a small positive return to BSP.
The final favourite stat to share focuses on horses that had previously won twice as a 2yo. Of these 303 horses, 109 won (SR 36.0%) for an SP profit of £15.79 (ROI +5.2%). To BSP, this improved to a profit of £32.78 (ROI +10.8%).
Position Last Time Out (LTO)
I want to examine a recent performance metric, so let's investigate the position LTO stats.
The slight anomaly is the results for the 5th – they are out of kilter with the remaining ones. Overall, it seems the better value - or least worst, perhaps - lies with those runners who finished first or second LTO. If we look at the BSP returns for those finishing in the first two LTO, losses become very small at less than 1.5 pence in the £.
Sticking with those runners that were first or second LTO, if we restrict that LTO race to a nursery, we edge into BSP profit by £43.15 to £1 level stakes (ROI +1.7%). Essentially, I would view a run in the top two places LTO as a slight positive.
Weight carried
When I first came into racing, there was an old adage about backing the top weight in a nursery. I’m not sure how successful that may have been ‘back in the day’ before we had a wealth of weight stats to pore over. However, that is not the case now. Although top weights win more often than any other weight position, they would still have lost you nigh on 20p in the £ for every £1 staked. Below, I have looked at actual weight carried rather than position in the weights. When I talk about the actual weight carried, I take any jockey claim into account. Below are the ROI%'s for different weight groupings.
Across the board, we have losses to SP and, in some cases, significant losses. As a rule, the lower weights have returned more significant losses, and hence, I would be wary of backing a horse carrying 8st 9lb or less and ignore totally if they are under 8st. In fact, the 7st 13lb or less group won just 3.7% of the time, with an extremely poor A/E index standing at 0.55.
While discussing weight carried, let's compare the performance of jockeys in terms of claiming jockeys. Trainers use apprentices in handicaps to take weight off their horse's back which, in theory, should slow them down less during the course of a race. The quid pro quo is that these jockeys are less experienced than the ‘pros’. Here are the stats:
The more experienced the jockey, the better the win rate and the higher the A/E index. In terms of ROI%, the correlation with those two metrics is good, although 5lb claimers have lost 1p more in the £ than 7lb ones. The ‘top’ jocks (no claim) are close to breaking even when betting on BSP. Ultimately, I would be less inclined to back a horse in a nursery with a claiming jockey on board, especially one carrying 5 or 7lb.
Career Wins
Earlier, I touched on the fact that two or more career wins when sent off favourite was a positive. So what about all runners in terms of career wins? Let’s look at the win and each way strike rates first:
In terms of win SR%, horses with two or more wins in their debut year have been the most successful. Those who are still maidens have struggled in comparison. When we look at the returns to SP, these correlate well with the win strike rates – the 2+ group would have lost you 13p in the £, the 1-win group lost 18p, and the 0 wins group lost 20p.
Sex of horse
This is an area I like to look at because occasionally gender biases are unearthed. The vast majority of nurseries are for both sexes, and I have concentrated on those mixed-sex nurseries (roughly 1900 races over the study period). Here are the figures:
Male horses clearly come out on top across all metrics. When I learned this, I thought analysing nurseries with a similar split of male to female runners was worthwhile. I have looked at races where the split is no worse than 40% females versus 60% males and vice versa.
The bias toward male runners strengthens a little, especially considering the ROI%s. All things being considered, a male runner is a better nursery proposition than a female one.
Run Style
The final area to examine in this first piece is run style. I’ll begin by reviewing the win strike rate for the four categories geegeez.co.uk stores in its database: led, prominent, mid-division, and held up.
Based on all previous evidence I have shared regarding run style, these figures should come as no surprise. Let’s see if the A/E indices correlate:
The bias to early leaders/front runners in these contests is significant. As I have mentioned numerous times, the early leader will only be known a few seconds after the race has started. Hence, taking advantage of this run style bias is not easy. What the early leader conundrum does do, as far as I am concerned, is to continue my pursuit to find more accurate ways of predicting the early leader in run style-biased races. If your crystal ball had managed to predict all nursery early leaders since 2015, you would have made a profit of £701.95 (ROI +24.6%) to £1 level stakes. That equates to £7019.50 to £10 win bets.
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Part 1 Summary
In conclusion, here are the key points:
1. The best value lies with shorter-priced runners - 6/4 or better / favourites.
2. Favourites have been profitable to SP & BSP on the all-weather and to BSP on good or firmer going. Favourites have also proved profitable to SP and BSP, with at least two previous wins.
3. Horses that finished 1st or 2nd last time out in a nursery have edged into BSP profit.
4. Horses carrying 8st 9lb or less have a relatively poor record; those carrying under 8st have an abysmal record.
5. Male horses outperform female horses.
6. Horses that lead early have a considerable edge.
And that wraps up part 1. In part 2 next week I will continue my digging into these nursery handicaps. Until then...
-DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/BillesdonBrook_Goodwood.jpg316830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2024-07-01 14:14:032024-07-01 14:14:032-Year-Old Handicaps: Nurseries Part 1
When is a suspension not a suspension?, writes Tony Stafford. When it is handed down to an Irish trainer, even when at the second attempt the authorities do try to add a little sting to what was originally deemed insufficient punishment. It seems effectively it’s little more than a rap on the knuckles.
We had the Gordon Elliott episode a few years back when Ireland’s second most successful jumps trainer had to give up his licence. With her stable conveniently close by, Mrs Denise Foster, the chosen one to carry on business at Cullentra Stables, had her transfer rubber-stamped and approved by the authorities. She recorded 17 and 32 wins in the seasons 2020/21 and 2021/22 which spanned Elliott’s 12-month ban.
A licence-holder since 1997/98, Denise must have shown something to Gordon that the stats did not reveal. Her seasonal tallies since that opening date had been 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, 1, 3, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 2, 3, 4, 2, 0, 1 and 1. Since the Elliott days it’s been back to normal with 2, 2, and 0 so far in the early phase of the 2024/25 campaign.
Therefore, Mrs Foster recorded a total 38 wins in 26 seasons in her own right, against 49 in the segments of seasons that Gordon left her.
I remember thinking at the time, maybe there should be a “cooling-off” period when – say another season – when while the returning trainer can seek out new owners - and horses to train for them - those animals left with a substitute, and clearly not a “serious” trainer in terms of an Elliott or Willie Mullins, would need to find elsewhere for their horses to be trained for that period. Maybe even to stay with the “convenient other” that had them before that period.
Elliott, at least, was fully remorseful for his actions and vowed never to repeat anything like that again and has certainly come back keeping to that promise. He is now firing again and if not managing, as had seemed possible in the past, to wrest the champion title accolade away from Willie Mullins, he continues to make a decent show of it. That was something that had seemed most unlikely at the height of his “dead horse on the gallops” picture infamy.
If the Elliott ban had its irritating elements through the Foster months, even more so was the brief suspension of Charles Byrnes, king of the unsighted gambles. He lost his mandate but was still able to lead horses around the paddock while one of his sons held the licence and another rode it to victory. What part of that was “not training” the horse.
But now, Tony Martin has eclipsed all of that with Saturday’s victory of Alphonse Le Grande in the Northumberland Vase, consolation race for the Northumberland Plate at Newcastle.
Initially given only a suspended six-month ban for a third drug-related breach of regulations within four years, the Irish racing powers relented in face of criticism of the leniency of the judgment and imposed three of the six-month ban to start on May 15.
Martin had time therefore to bring Alphonse Le Grande over to Chester a week or so earlier to mop up the valuable consolation race to the Chester Cup and after his performance there, few at Newcastle on Saturday expected anything other than another success and almost £40k more of UK prizemoney for the Hollie Doyle-partnered stayer.
It was almost laughable how easy it was, and additionally it was notable for the fact that trainer Cathy O’Leary was having her first flat-race winner for 15 years and only the fourth in 20 seasons with a licence. And who is Mrs O’Leary? Tony Martin’s sister of course!
By contrast with Ms O’Leary, Denise Foster’s career had been almost prolific.
The sight of Martin standing alongside a couple of the winning owners and Hollie Doyle on the rostrum, evoked a “Sod you lot” attitude. I’m not sure whether it was before or after the presentation that one of the owners, asked what the plan was, said: “We’ll give it a couple of weeks and then sit down with Tony”. Martin’s ban still would have a month to go at that stage – no mention of the official trainer.
Martin, no doubt, would love to target next month’s Ebor at York, with its massive prizemoney. He won it eight years ago with Heartbreak City, half-brother to the Geegeez.co.uk money-spinner Coquelicot, but having won here off 81, he would need at least a stone’s hike to get into the York race and even then, it would be a stretch.
Maybe Goodwood’s valuable 1m6f Coral Handicap could be an obvious target with another potential £51k on offer to the winner. That would entail a 4lb penalty for York, but unless the first hike is more extravagant than is likely, even with a win at Goodwood he would still likely be left on the sidelines. Never mind Tone, the richly-endowed Irish Cesarewitch, worth £324,000 to the winner last year and a race he would probably squeeze into off a mark in the low 90’s, might be the way to go.
After his ban, in an interview recalling how his career had developed, Gordon Elliott said: “When I first sat on a horse at Tony Martin’s 30 years ago, I could never have dreamt what was in store”. Maybe neither could his then youthful first employer.
Sanity resumed in Ireland’s premier Classic yesterday when Los Angeles battled to turn around Epsom form with Ambiente Friendly to give Aidan O’Brien and part-owner Michael Tabor each their 16th triumph in the race.
There was a battle between the pair up the home straight and it was not until the last half-furlong that Los Angeles and Ryan Moore got the better of his brave rival, ridden by Rab Havlin, to clinch the €712k first prize. Late on, fast-finishing Sunway, partnered by Oisin Murphy for David Menuisier, edged out Ambiente Friendly. Fourth home Matsuri, for Roger Varian/James Doyle, was also staying on well. That late run increased Sunway’s prize from €112k to €237k.
Initially, the result gives a major boost to the Derby form when City of Troy had the placed pair well covered, and that will have added confidence to his chance of beating his elders in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown on Saturday.
But Sunway’s performance, following his 7th last time in the Prix du Jockey Club, is also an advertisement for the unbeaten winner of that race, Look De Vega. In traditional Gallic fashion, this potential champion can do the favoured French thing over the summer – waiting for the Arc while the other main contenders beat their brains out at Sandown, Ascot and York. Intriguing.
A few months back, I looked at the performance of horses on their next start having had their last race at the Cheltenham Festival, writes Dave Renham. I will revisit that idea in this post but the focus now is on horses that raced last time out at Royal Ascot. Royal Ascot finished on Saturday so now is a great time to examine the numbers.
The data was taken from 2009 to 2024 (prior to this year's Ascot meeting), and profits and losses were calculated to Betfair Starting Price less a 5% commission.
All runners
Looking at all runners coming from Royal Ascot on their next start – they have scored 14% of the time with losses to BSP of 10 pence in the £.
Finishing position at Royal Ascot
My first detailed port of call is where the horse finished in their race at the Royal meeting. Let’s see the splits:
Last time out (LTO) winners and runners-up score better than one win in five on their follow-up run. LTO winners from two stables should be noted – firstly, Royal Ascot winners from the Aidan O’Brien stable have gone on to score next time 22 times from 55 runs (SR 36.4%) for a profit of £5.26 (ROI +9.6%; A/E 1.00). The Gosden stable has produced similar figures with 12 wins from 38 (SR 31.6%) for a profit of £3.95 (ROI +10.4%; ROI 0.98).
LTO runners-up have edged into profit, but this is down to one huge-priced winner (BSP 75.0), which completely skews the figures. Ultimately, finding an edge from where they finished in their Ascot race seems complicated.
One interesting comparison to make is between the performance of horses that beat more than half of their Royal Ascot rivals (excluding winners) and those who beat fewer than half of them. Below is a graph comparing win and each way (win & placed) strike rates for both groups:
As you can see, horses that finished in the top 50% of runners in their Ascot race have completely outperformed those that did not in strike rate (both win and each way). They would also have lost you 6p less for every £1 bet compared to the 0 to 49% group.
Digging a bit deeper, if we restrict this 50% to 99% group to those that ran in Royal Ascot handicaps, these 1360 qualifiers would have turned a profit of £84.50 (ROI +6.2%). These handicap stats are not hugely skewed by the winning prices either.
Course (next time)
Course data next. Which courses fare better than others when Royal meeting runners visit on their follow-up run? Here are the courses that have had at least 100+ qualifying runners:
Five courses have turned a profit: Chester, the Curragh, Haydock, Newbury, and York. The Newbury results include three winners priced between 40.0 and 60.0 BSP, so this profit figure can be ignored. Meanwhile, York had a massive 200.0 BSP winner, so this is the second course to have unreliable BSP profit figures. Sticking with York, horses that raced next time at the York Ebor meeting in August have an abysmal record with just 17 winners from 210 (SR 8.1%) for a BSP loss of £90.07 (ROI -42.9%). The A/E index stands at an extremely low 0.60. The other three ‘positive’ courses (Chester, the Curragh, and Haydock) have not had their results badly skewed, and visits to these courses after Royal Ascot can be viewed as a positive. Haydock figures, I would say, are the most reliable as they managed a profit to Industry SP.
The Goodwood next time stats are poor. Most of these qualifiers appeared at Glorious Goodwood – 724 of the 768 runners. Of these, just 78 won at the Goodwood Festival for losses of £190.40 (ROI -26.3%). Personally, I would ignore the vast majority of LTO Royal Ascot runners reappearing at Glorious Goodwood.
Before moving on, it looks best to disregard horses that switched from the turf of Ascot to the all-weather on their next start, as their combined figures read a disappointing 52 wins from 369 runs (SR 14.1%) for hefty losses of £133.56 (ROI -36.2%).
Days since the Ascot run
Let me now examine the performance of these Royal Ascot runners based on how quickly they return to the track. Below is a graph mapping their A/E indices:
Horses returning to the track between 8 and 14 days later have provided the best value. So, keep an eye on them in the next few days. On average, per year, 40 to 45 horses return to the track within that time frame. They have won just over 18% of their follow-up starts. They have not been profitable if backing ‘blind’, but they are horses that undoubtedly require a second glance. Horses off the track for more than four months (121 days +) have offered the poorest value and have the lowest strike rate amongst all groups.
Class Change
A look at Change in Class of race next – here are the splits:
Clearly, horses dropped in class have by far the best record, with comfortably the best strike rate and losses at just 4.1% compared with 17.7% and 19.9%, respectively.
Trainers
It's time to look at the performance of trainers. A tiny proportion of horses switch trainers after Royal Ascot, so the data I am sharing is based on trainer results, with horses running for the same stable as they did at the Royal meeting. Here are all trainers with at least 70 LTO Royal Ascot qualifiers. They are in order by win-strike rate:
Two trainers have impressive A/E indices, with horses having their first start after Royal Ascot: Bin Suroor (1.19) and Fahey (1.06). Runners from both stables are worth keeping a close eye out for. Five trainers have made a profit, but to try and avoid big-priced winners skewing the figures, let me show the performance of the trainers above if we restrict their runners to those who started in the top four of the betting on their next start:
This table is a better one to concentrate on from a trainer's perspective. The top six have some excellent stats regarding strike rate – all have proved profitable, and four (Bin Suroor, Cox, Fahey, and Beckett) have A/E indices above 1.00. It is interesting to see Charlie Appleby's very modest figures, as he is usually a trainer who has excellent stats.
Additional Stats
1. Horses whose SP was 7/2 or shorter at Royal Ascot have gone on next time to win 83 times from 302 runners (SR 27.5%) for a minimal loss of £4.58 (ROI -1.5%).
2. In contrast to the first additional stat, horses whose SP was 40/1 or bigger at Royal Ascot have won next time 166 times from 1679 runners (SR 9.9%) for significant BSP losses of £323.47 (ROI +19.3%).
3. 2yos beaten more than five lengths at Royal Ascot have struggled next time out, scoring 15.9% of the time and losing over 23p in the £ to BSP. Compare this to the 2yo winners from the Royal meeting who have gone on to win over 30% next time out, losing just 3p in the £.
4. 3yo Royal Ascot winners have gone on to win next time in 35 races from 148 starts (SR 23.7%) for a break-even situation.
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Conclusion
It is challenging to make blind profits using a specific angle from LTO Royal Ascot competitors. However, based on all the findings, I feel LTO handicappers are worth keeping a close eye on as long as they didn't win and beat at least 50% of their Royal Ascot rivals. Several will pop up and win next time, many going under the radar.
Regarding trainers, Saeed Bin Suroor and Richard Fahey head my list, with Ralph Beckett and Clive Cox close behind. This is especially true if their Royal Ascot runners start in the top four of the betting next time.
Horses heading to Haydock after Ascot and those making their trips to Chester and the Curragh have done well. I would be wary of any Royal Ascot runner reappearing for the first time subsequently at Glorious Goodwood or the York Ebor meeting.
Horses dropping in class are far more likely to win than those which do not. Finally, horses returning to the track 8 to 14 days after their Royal Ascot spin are the best-performing group regarding time off since their Ascot run.
-DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/BedtimeStory_Chesham2024.jpg319830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2024-06-24 18:19:122024-06-24 18:19:12What Happens After Royal Ascot?
It’s so difficult if you aren’t sure where to look, writes Tony Stafford. I’ve got a 2002 Directory Of the Turf and a few Horses In Training to help me and also the BHA web pages, but can I find a copy of the latest Weight For Age scale? No, I can’t. At which point, dozens of people – if that many read this, of course - will be jumping up and down and saying, here it is you idiot. [Here it is, you absolute gent - Ed.]
The nearest I got was to project forward two months to a race I know allows two-year-olds to compete with their elders. Of course, it’s the Coolmore Wootton Bassett Nunthorpe Stakes over five furlongs at York’s Ebor meeting.
Two-year-olds carry 8st 3lb and three-year-old have 9st 11lb. You’d think that would be more than enough for a juvenile to take advantage and beat his/her elders. The last two to do so were Lyric Fantasy (7st 8lb for Michael Roberts) in 1992 for the Richard Hannon senior stable, Lord Carnarvon’s filly beating stable-companion Mr Brooks and Lester Piggott by half a length.
The last male winner of the race was the John Best-trained and John Mayne-owned Kingsgate Native 19 years ago and I remember thinking him a good thing. He and Jimmy Quinn did the business that day and these are the only two since Ennis in 1956!
The WFA allusion is significant. If the scale requires a concession of 22lb by older horses to their juniors over five furlongs in August, then extending that to seven furlongs and going back even earlier into the season, to mid-June, surely must take the number past 30lb [it's 38lb from the start of July - Ed.].
On Saturday at Royal Ascot, the very high-class Haatem was shrewdly directed from the Group 1 company he had been keeping down to Group 3 for the Jersey Stakes for three-year-olds. The 2000 Guineas third, behind Notable Speech and Rosallion, his stable-mate and the only horse to beat him in the Irish 2000, left the St James’s Palace to that horse and dropped back a furlong.
He won, but was all out in a race where there were three in a line as they passed the post and the first ten were all at it hammer and tongs in the last 100 yards. Haatem recorded a time of 1 minute 26.85 seconds.
Two hours earlier, the opening race on day five, the Chesham Stakes, a seven-furlong Listed race for juveniles, threw up the most spectacular performance of the week. Here, Bedtime Story, a daughter of Frankel out of dual Nunthorpe winner (at age four and five) Mecca’s Angel, making her second start, was simply sensational.
Ryan Moore waited until just before the two-furlong pole before sending her into the lead and she sauntered further and further clear right to the line. The winning margin was nine and a half lengths, despite Ryan’s having no need to do more than keep time with her action.
Neither did he bother to correct the slight coming off a straight line in the last furlong, moving maybe three or four horse widths to the left. Her winning time? 1 minute 27.01 seconds, just one-sixth of a second slower than Haatem, carrying 6lb less. The fillies in the Jersey Stakes carried 5lb less than Haatem.
In form terms, Bedtime Story’s run was far in excess of Haatem’s once the scale is considered and was a reminder of the day last summer when the same Hannon horse saw the backside of City Of Troy in the Superlative Stakes.
He did get his revenge at Newmarket on City Of Troy’s baffling - even to Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore - run in the 2000 Guineas but it was back to normal as City Of Troy romped home in the Derby and also for much of last week for the Ballydoyle team.
Before the week started, Ryan had confided to a friend that Auguste Rodin, Opera Singer and Kyprios were his top three. Opera Singer hardly let the side down with second place in the Ribblesdale, but Auguste Rodin and Kyprios were both right back at their best. Judging how the former’s stylish success was celebrated by some of the visiting Australian contingent, his future, either on the track or in the breeding shed, might well be interesting.
My meeting began with one of those omissions that could easily have spoilt the whole five days. I stood in the paddock chatting to Sam Sangster and Brian Meehan as the juveniles for race two, the Coventry Stakes, waited to go into the stalls.
Brian had told me in the morning how he expected a big run from Rashabar, who was drawn on the far side, running in Sam’s Manton Thoroughbreds colours. Before the race it would have been guesswork as to which side would be favoured. As Rashabar detached himself from his group coming to the last furlong, you could see there were challengers aplenty on the near side.
They flashed over the line together but wide apart and it was by a nose that Rashabar prevailed with the next nine home all on the other flank. Eleventh home but second on his side was the Coolmore favourite Camille Pissarro, four lengths behind.
Brian Meehan has begun to specialise in 80/1 winners; he also had one, Monkey Island, at Newbury during York’s Dante meeting. The 80/1 here stretched to 129/1 on the Tote, of which I foolishly forgot to accommodate myself on the way down from the stands. Billy Loughnane, only 18, deserved all his glowing comments for an excellent ride.
Meehan also was successful later in the meeting in a Group 3 with the lightly-raced three-year-old Jayarebe, owned by Iraj Parvizi, back with the trainer after a longish gap. Brian won the Breeders’ Cup Turf for the owner with Dangerous Midge in 2010 at Churchill Downs.
It’s always nice to record successes by friends, but in the case of Wilf Storey it’s almost becoming an embarrassment. Probably last week or maybe the one before, I recounted the tale of Edgewater Drive and his win at Carlisle.
Last Monday, now faced by older horses and from a 7lb higher mark, the Dandy Man three-year-old gelding bolted up again under the much-underrated Paula Muir. I had mentioned the absurd disqualification of a recent winner of Paula’s at Wolverhampton, one which carried the added injustice of a two-day ban.
Paula learnt before Edgewater Drive’s race that the Wolverhampton disqualification had been overturned as had her ban. A double bubble for her.
On Saturday evening at Ayr, nicely sandwiching the entire Royal meeting, she and Wilf Storey were reunited with the seven-year-old Going Underground. Winner of just one of his 32 previous races and off through injury for a year until a recent comeback run, he came from miles back to win on the line. You rarely see that type of finishing speed in 0-50 Classifieds. If his old wheels can handle it – Going Underground not Wilf - he should win again.
Earlier this year, Paula was considering giving up and had been training for a future career as a dog groomer, but five wins in short time for Storey have no doubt helped change her mind. Much of the credit for the team withstanding owners wishing to replace her at several stages in the past have been met firmly by Wilf and granddaughter Siobhan Doolan, the assistant trainer.
As to the Storey story. My friend of almost exactly 40 years has run four individual horses on the flat this year – all picked up for a total of less than 20k at various Newmarket sales. Between them they have had ten runs in 2024 and won five of them. There can’t be many trainers, let alone this veteran, well into his 80’s, with a 50% strike-rate!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/BedtimeStory_Chesham2024.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2024-06-24 07:31:212024-06-24 07:31:21Moday Musings: For Age
And so to the fourth and final quarter of the geegeez.co.uk daily race previews, Friday, Day 4. Two Group 1's, led out by the relatively new Commonwealth Cup and followed up with a cracking Coronation Stakes, are the features but there's plenty to go at from start to end, beginning with the...
2.30 Albany Stakes (6f, Group 3, 2yo fillies)
Presented by John Burke's "Victor Value" service
It's hard to believe we've already reached the fourth day of Royal Ascot — time certainly flies when you're having fun. This is my final day of previewing a daily race for Geegeez, and I've genuinely enjoyed it. I hope you've found my musings on the various contests both insightful and enjoyable.
On Wednesday, I tipped a 20/1 winner for Victor Value subscribers. Interestingly, if I hadn’t been previewing the juvenile races for this site, I probably wouldn’t have even looked at that race. So I owe a big thanks to Matt Bisogno for pushing me in the two-year-old direction. [You're welcome, John - just wish I'd given you the Windsor Castle for Wednesday! - Ed.]
Today, let's talk about the Albany Stakes, a prestigious Group 3. Here are some key details about the race: Run over six furlongs the Albany Stakes was inaugurated in 2002, making it one of the newer races at the Royal Ascot meeting. Initially classified at Listed level, it was promoted to Group 3 status in 2005, reflecting its growing importance and quality of participants.
Over the years, several winners of the Albany Stakes have gone on to achieve greater success in their racing careers, enhancing the race's reputation as a launchpad for future champions. For instance, the last two winners, Porta Fortuna (2023) and Meditate (2022), both went on to achieve Group 1 success. Winning or performing well in the Albany Stakes can significantly enhance the reputation and value of a filly, both in terms of racing and breeding potential.
The Albany Stakes continues to maintain its status as a key early-season race for two-year-old fillies.
Key Trends (Last 5 Years):
Last Time Out Track: Naas – 2 winners from 5 runners +40, 3 places
Last Time Out Placing: 1st - 5 winners from 86 runners, 15 places (non-winners last time are 0 from 33 runners, 4 places)
Key Contenders:
Fairy Godmother
Trainer: Aidan O’Brien. Fairy Godmother built on her debut promise by defeating five rivals in the Group 3 Fillies' Sprint Stakes at Naas last time. The daughter of Night Of Thunder is bred to be speedy and sets a high standard.
Heavens Gate
Trainer: Aidan O’Brien. Heavens Gate won a Curragh maiden over the distance 26 days ago. Like Fairy Godmother, she is open to further improvement. She has the rail draw in stall 17.
Mountain Breeze
Trainer: Charlie Appleby. Mountain Breeze looked impressive when winning at Newmarket last month. The daughter of Lope De Vega is now two from two and is poised for a big run, posing the main threat to the favourite in my view.
California Dreamer
Trainer: Adrian Murray. California Dreamer finished a length third to Fairy Godmother at Naas. This was a significant improvement from her Dundalk debut, indicating she has more to offer, although beating Fairy Godmother will be tough.
Twafeeg
Trainer: Archie Watson. Twafeeg showcased her speed by winning on debut at Doncaster 20 days ago. There is more to come from her, and an Archie Watson juvenile should never be underestimated at Royal Ascot.
Simmering
Trainer: Ollie Sangster. Simmering showed plenty of promise on her debut at York, finishing third behind Arabie, who has since won a Group 3 at Chantilly. Sent off the 3/1 favourite at York she must have been showing plenty at home. While beating top contenders like Fairy Godmother and Mountain Breeze will be tough, Simmering has room for plenty of improvement. With Jamie Spencer on board, she could get into the places.
Albany Stakes Verdict:
Fairy Godmother sets a high bar and will be tough to beat, but Mountain Breeze is also a strong contender and should provide a stern challenge. Twafeeg, coming off a recent win at Doncaster, has solid each-way claims. The most intriguing runner in the line-up is Simmering, who arguably has the most potential for improvement among the 17 fillies.
Betting Advice:
My idea of the winner is Fairy Godmother and 13/8 looks a fair price about her chance but if you’re looking for an each-way play at big odds I would consider Simmering if you can get 25/1 and four places.
Simmering: £2 each way – 25/1 @ bet365 (paying four places)
3.05 Commonwealth Cup (6f, Group 1, 3yo)
Preview by Matt Bisogno
Introduced in 2015, this six furlong Group 1 for three-year-olds only is a terrific addition to the Royal Ascot menu. It's been a slot where failed Classic aspirants have rediscovered their top class mojo over a more suitable trip; and where genuinely fast horses can show their (go faster) stripes. In its nine years to date, no trainer has taken the prize more than once, and no horse has returned greater than 12/1 in spite of big fields being commonplace.
Sheikh Obaid has a strong hand with, at time of writing, the first two in the betting. Inisherin was supplemented at some expense, even by a Sheikh's standard, after an easy score in the Group 2 Sandy Lane Stakes at Haydock. He'd previously led the 2000 Guineas field to the quarter pole before the lactic acid kicked in and he checked out. Remarkably, and atypically, he'd never run shorter than a mile prior to the Haydock race. That's a bit of a question mark given it was soft ground there, and so more of an emphasis on stamina, whereas it will be fast turf here. Moreover, leading against milers who are saving something for the final two furlongs is different from trying to best the fastest and classiest speedsters of his generation. He has an obvious chance to win but looks opposable at the prices.
Arrow number two in Sheikh Obaid's quiver is Elite Status, who lived up to his name when hacking up in a Listed race over this trip at Newbury last time. Trained by Karl Burke, who has trained a Commonwealth Cup winner, he's had plenty of experience, with four wins from seven starts thus far. They include a second Listed score as well as a Group 3 but he was thumped in both the Prix Morny and Middle Park (both G1) at the end of last season. You could argue that he was over the top for them, but it is also not unreasonable to take a less charitable view of those no shows. Perhaps he's not quite at this level.
Jasour was beaten in that same brace of top level two-year-old sprints, and also bookended those heavy defeats with Pattern class wins: in his case he preceded them with a G2 victory and debuted this campaign with a G3, over course and distance in the trial race to boot. That was a notable career best and it's perfectly plausible that he's improved plenty from two to three. This, of course, will be the acid test. His trainer, Clive Cox, has, like Burke, won this race before so knows the formula.
Third to Big Evs and Valiant Force, both 2023 Royal Ascot winners, in the G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, Starlust showed there that he could handle very fast ground. He was staying on over that turning five furlongs but has beaten plenty of times (eight, to be exact, from a dozen starts). Moreover, his best form is mostly at the minimum and he looks exposed in comparison with some of his rivals. That said, he does bring the highest official rating into the race, his 114 being earned with a nine pounds hike for an easy handicap verdict last time.
Givemethebeatboys was due to run in that Breeders' Cup race but was scratched by the Santa Anita vets the day before the race, a deeply frustrating experience for all involved, no doubt. Before then, he'd run creditably in the Phoenix and Middle Park Stakes, and holds Elite Status and Jasour on literal analyses of that form. He began 2024 with a Listed win at Navan before just failing to pass the intended but now absent Bucanero Fuerte in a Naas Group 3 last time. This stiff six looks ideal though he'll need to improve a good bit.
Archie Watson has an excellent record at Royal Ascot - three wins last year, just failed in the Coventry over course and distance on Tuesday - and saddles Evade, winner of the 7f Surrey Stakes last time. Trained prior to that Epsom race by Andre Fabre, he'd finished 2023 with a distant view of Rosallion's rump in the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. But it was a big step forward on Oaks day, where he was tardy from the gate but showed plenty of speed to move to the front of the field; he then battled gamely while seeming unbalanced on the camber and can arguably be marked up a touch.
Classic Flower runs for Patrice Cottier, who saddled Horizon Dore to run third in the Group 1 Prince Of Wales's Stakes on Wednesday. In the same ownership, this daughter of Calyx has been second on all three starts in '24, all on very wet turf. Her trainer must fancy her to show more on terra firmer, and she did win a Group 2 on good to soft last October. Her form is hard to peg - likely a beat below the pick of her rivals - but she is consistent, could conceivably step forward for fast turf, and her trainer is respected.
The rest of them probably have too much to find but I want to mention two highly progressive runners who wouldn't be total shock winners. Firstly, Stuart Williams trains Pandora's Gift, a filly that has raced exclusively on all-weather surfaces heretofore. Second on her debut as a 20/1 shot, she's won her other four starts, most recently when waltzing away with a Listed prize at Chelmsford. Prior to that she won in a manner rarely seen in a valuable all-weather handicap. She went up 12lb for that win and another 11lb for her Listed victory. If she can translate that level to turf, a further similar bound forward would put her bang there. If.
The twice-raced Kind Of Blue is the other worth noting. James Fanshawe has had some very good sprinters - remember The Tin Man? - and while it's very early to include this colt's name in the same sentence, he looked very good in the second of two novice stakes wins last time. That was good to firm ground on Doncaster's straight track, so no conditions fears, but this is a chasmic class rise. One to keep on side going forwards and it will be interesting, though not wager worthy, to see how he goes in this G1.
This is quite difficult. I want to be against Inisherin, whose ability to lead may be compromised against genuine top class sprinters. Obviously, I expect him to win now. Elite Status made a big jump on figures on his sole three-year-old start and may have matured into a far better model, with similar comments applying to the slightly more lightly-raced Jasour; the latter is a bigger price and appeals as a bit of value at around 6/1. And at Hail Mary prices, I want to take penny flyers on the two fillies, Classic Flower and Pandora's Gift. There are reasons to believe both could step forward a chunk on what they've achieved under these markedly different conditions and, while they might fail badly, the price justifies small interest. Two fillies have won this in its short history so there are no reservations on that score: it's 'simply' whether they'll be remotely good enough!
If I'm wrong about the Sheikh Obaid pair, so be it, but it looks a more open contest than the top two to me...
Suggestion: 80% of a unit win Jasour at 6/1, 5% e/w Classic Flower 33/1 and 5% e/w 25/1 Pandora's Gift
3.45 Coronation Stakes (1m, Group 1, 3yo fillies)
Preview by Rory Delargy
Donnacha O’Brien’s Porta Fortuna is arguably more exposed than a few around her in the market for the Coronation Stakes, but she is proven at the highest level and her form stacks up well given she has previous at the track and the likely fast ground suits her ideally.
Porta Fortuna was a decisive winner of the Albany Stakes here twelve months ago, where she impressed with the way she moved through the race before taking it up at the furlong pole and repelling the challenge of Matrika. She was below form on softer ground in both the Phoenix Stakes and the Moyglare Stud Stakes (5¾ lengths joint-third to subsequent Irish 1000 Guineas winner Fallen Angel) but belatedly built on her Royal Ascot win when clocking a smart time in the Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket at the end of September, beating Rubies And Pearls by a length and a half on ground Timeform called good to firm.
She then ran a screamer in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf on her first try at a mile, and again shaped really well after an absence when second in the 1000 Guineas on good ground. She was forced to go earlier than ideal there in pursuit of Ramatuelle, and that pair gave Guineas winner Elmalka a target to aim at, with the margin between the trio at the line very small. The closing sectional suggesting that the winner was favoured by making her move latest of all.
The pair she split are both respected but I’m more than happy to continue to support Porta Fortuna, who has more than once shown herself to be very game under pressure. The fact that she is proven on track and ground is a big positive and the turning mile should suit better than the straight one at Newmarket given her tactical speed.
Ramatuelle could be considered an unlucky loser at Newmarket with plenty blaming Aurelien Lemaitre for kicking too soon but, while Lemaitre has made a couple of high-profile errors, I thought he gave the Justify filly an excellent ride, maximising her superior speed at a crucial part of the race and almost stealing it as a result. My view is that she barely stays 7f and that she will be vulnerable here where she has a draw in stall one which means she must either be ridden aggressively to get track position, or hope that others give her room which is far from certain.
Elmalka is unexposed and will be fancied by many to progress again, but we saw Notable Speech fail to match his 2000 Guineas effort in the St James’s Palace earlier in the week, and Ascot does present challenges of its own. As mentioned, I thought that while the ground she made up late looked remarkable she happened to be in the right part of the track the way that race unfolded, and I’m not sold on her superiority on the day.
Recommended: 1pt e/w Porta Fortuna @ 7/1 (general)
**
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**
4.25 Duke Of Edinburgh Stakes (1m4f, Class 2 handicap, 3yo+)
Presented by Sam Darby's "Winning Post Profits" service
This is probably my favourite race of the week and one of the best course and distances to have a bet on in big fields. That’s because there is a strong draw bias that is largely overlooked in the betting.
The line graph above shows the PRB3 performance by draw. It’s quite clear that the bottom eight or so stalls perform far worse than any higher stall and this trend is repeated with the win and place data too. The lowest seven stalls have won four handicaps on good or better ground whilst the next eleven stalls have won twenty times in the same time period.
The heat map shows draw and pace in combination and this is even more enlightening. There seems to be a fairly significant advantage in racing prominently or in mid-division from middle to high draws. Those run styles/draw combinations have accounted for 14 of the last 20 handicap winners in these conditions.
The only other ‘positive’ draw and run style combination is leaders from middle draws. The worst performing combinations are high drawn front runners and low drawn hold up performers.
It’s relatively easy to explain this draw bias. Big field mile and a half handicaps here can be really rough races where those on the rail often don’t get anything resembling a clear run. They don’t get long to sort themselves out in the straight so the horses that are a bit handier, and on the outside, are well positioned in relation to the lead and are pretty much guaranteed a clear run.
Fortunately, the one I’ve liked for this since the declarations first came out is a prominent racer and drawn high, which should see him to maximum effect. For quick reference, you can use the Geegeez Gold pace map below to see which horses fall into the likely advantaged category here.
On Tuesday I was strongly against Belloccio in the Copper Horse Stakes because Willie Mullins needed to suddenly improve the horse by 10lbs+ on turf for him to figure. Mullins worked his magic and the horse won well. My gripe with the Mullins horses is we know from previous experience that they are very likely to win or run well. At the same time, they often come here unproven over the trips at which they are running, unproven on the ground and their handicap marks are usually complete guesswork. That’s not the case with Ethical Diamond who ticks all those boxes and also even boasts some of my beloved ‘hot form’.
As a 3yo, before moving to Mullins’ yard he improved for the step up in trip from 10f to 12f, when beating a subsequently 94-rated runner up by 2 lengths giving her 5lbs. That run alone makes him look well treated as he is also rated 94 now himself.
He didn’t really fire over hurdles for Mullins but the ground was testing on all three occasions and he was very highly tried. The return to the flat in May did the trick, though, as he was beaten just a short head over 10f at Leopardstown. The winner has since won a handicap off an 8lb higher mark (admittedly over further) whilst the 3rd has since won a 19-runner handicap (admittedly over shorter).
Ethical Diamond has unfortunately gone up 5lbs for that effort but the form looks strong and he’s almost certain to improve for the step back up to 12f here. He likes to race prominently and is drawn in stall 18 (will probably be 16 by the time the reserves come out) so the only thing not to get excited about is the price. He’s around 5/2 at the time of writing and although that might seem short in a big field handicap, it looks pretty fair given how lightly raced he is and the scope there is for more to come stepping back up in trip.
If the race doesn’t go to Willie Mullins, it still looks more than likely it will go back to Ireland as they have a strong grip on this. Crystal Black is a very progressive rival, winning four of his last five starts. He’s been winning over a mile and also 10f and having that mile pace suggests he might not see out this trip. He’s also drawn in stall 4 which is another reason I'm happy to take him on.
Deakin represents last year’s winning trainer, Joseph O'Brien, and he was a neck behind Crystal Black over 10f last time out. Unlike Crystal Black, he’s very much proven over this trip and should have a good chance of reversing that form here considering the extra trip and also the fact he’s drawn in stall 21 (will be 18 after the reserves come out). He’s unproven on fast ground but has coped fine with good and looks a likely player.
Behind Crystal Black and Deakin last time out was Safecracker and he looks overpriced at 16/1 or so. He’s proven over this longer trip and, crucially, is also proven on fast ground. His run style isn’t ideal for the round course but I wouldn’t be surprised if he too reverses form with Crystal Black.
The home challenge is headed by Shadow Dance, a Roger Varian-trained 4yo who hasn’t run since finishing runner up in the Old Rowley Cup in October, traditionally one of the stronger 3yo races of the season (last year’s renewal has produced future winners yet again). Varian’s horses have generally been running to form first time out this season and Perotto had the same prep before finishing 3rd in Wednesday’s Royal Hunt Cup. He’s likely to be seen to best effect over further in future and I think he might end up poorly positioned so I’d be slightly again him here, but I fancy his chances of winning a decent 14f handicap before long.
La Yakel also reappears here after a break and, given he’s generally looked better over shorter and on softer turf, he is opposable from stall 1. Fairbanks and Sea King are both progressive and in form but stalls 2 and 6 could be a disadvantage for that pair. In any case, Fairbanks probably showed the handicapper too much when winning comfortably on his penultimate start, and Sea King might be better in smaller fields and when fresh.
Bague D’Or was one I liked for the Copper Horse earlier in the week but the main angle with him is his record over 14f on fast ground. Back in trip, I’m far less keen on him.
In summary, I think there is a good chance we see an Irish one-two in this year's Duke Of Edinburgh Stakes. I’m pretty keen on Ethical Diamond and I’m not put off by his price. Deakinis my clear next best and I might even have a little go on the forecast/exacta. I can see Shadow Dance and Safecracker finishing well from off the pace but they might be at a tactical disadvantage.
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5.05 Sandringham Stakes (1m, Class 2 handicap, 3yo fillies)
Presented by Josh Wright from "Racing To Profit"
These Royal Ascot handicaps do not get any easier and unfortunately for me it is not the strongest of trends races, not against the sort of pointers I use anyway.
However, it should be noted that the market has been some sort of guide with 13 of the 16 winners sent off 11/1 or shorter ISP, those sent off bigger, 3/251, 25p. Having said that, between 2017-2020, three of the four races were won by 20/1+ shots, two trained by Charlie Fellowes, who isn’t represented this year. Over the last three renewals, those sent off 12/1+ are now 0/65, 6p. It would make all our jobs a little easier if the market continued to be some sort of guide, even though I do like the odd big priced-poke in such races.
Ignoring the market for the moment, there are a couple of pointers which can help. Horses that had two or three runs in the previous 90 days, who’d won or placed at least once on their last two starts and who’d run at Class 3+ at least once in their career, would have found 13/15 of the UK/Irish trained winners (Wesley Ward winning this in 2017, not included in these stats).
If that profile was to hold we'd be left with a long list of 12, but without any pointers to narrow it further other than hoping the market is once again a guide. Those twelve are:
Everlasting, Zaynab, Flight of Fancy, Fair Angellica, Battle Queen, Cat Ninja, Asian Daze, Arisaig, Soprano, Marcella, My Margie, Raknah
Looking at horses representing trainers who have won this race previously can also be useful.
- John & Thady Gosden: Cat Ninja, Mrs Morrell, D Fawless, Strutting
- Charlie (and Mark) Johnston: Arisaig
- Johnny Murtagh: Asian Daze
Cat Ninja, Asian Daze, and Arisaig are the three horses to hit my trends profile and which represent yards who know how to win this race.
I'm going for two each-way bets from the trends list, with as many places as you can find, and hope that once again it's the turn of an outsider to take this race.
Arisaig - 25/1 - EW - Charlie Johnston's filly has been in decent form, and his dad knew what was required to win the Sandringham so hopefully that's rubbed off. Arisaig appeared to appreciate more patient tactics when last seen, having been ridden very aggressively at Newmarket the time before, but still running with credit. She showed an impressive change of gear at Lingfield and won like a horse on the upgrade. It was a performance to think that a fast run mile on this straight course with plenty of cover up the middle could be just what she wants. I always like the booking of Jamie Spencer on this track, where you can almost back him blind each way at the Royal Meeting for interest stakes; and he got the job done again yesterday with a 16/1 > 5/1 SP winner. He booted home 90/1 and 140/1 BFSP winners last year. Spencer will switch Arisaig off, get her in a rhythm and allow her to finish her race - I'd like to think that may be good enough to run into the places here, and who knows after that? Evidently she needs to step up again, but she's going the right way and her relative experience could be worth plenty here.
Soprano- 25/1 - EW - George Boughey's filly has been highly tried in her career to date - straight into Group 3s and Listed contests after her Newmarket maiden win - and this is her handicap debut having finished her juvenile season 'winning' her side in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes. She's been running with credit, but often running on in small fields with the leaders having set sail for home. It's her first attempt at a mile, and trying such a trip here is never ideal, but that's built into the price and is arguably a reason for a jolt of improvement. Like Arisaig, she may relish this strong pace, being covered up and running through tiring horses. She's related to a few milers on her dam side, so fingers crossed she appreciates the extra distance. Billy Loughnane was on the scoresheet on Day 1 and I'm hoping he'll be patient and try and thread his way through. The yard is in fine form also. Soprano has a touch of class and if seeing out the trip can hopefully grab a place at worst. As always, if you can grab a place, you can win, so fingers crossed.
Predicting any draw bias on this straight track appears impossible and so far this week it appears to have been riding fairly, more a case of where the sustained pace comes from. These two will have the option of staying up the middle, though Jamie could go low if he wishes and Billy could go high if wanted, so all bases covered there.
It could be the market has this right again, Indelible stepping out of maiden/novice company, but she does look very short to my eyes. Ralph Beckett is 0/10, 0p in the race also, which wouldn't fill me with confidence if wading in, but maybe she's just a cut above these - the market suggests so and given how good Ralph is generally, and especially with fillies, he will surely win this at some point.
I could name ten more horses and get nowhere near the winner, it's that sort of contest! However, Arisaig and Soprano are two lively outsiders who look overpriced to my eyes. Some bookies are paying as far down as eight places, which could help! Good luck with any bets.
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5.40 King Edward VII Stakes (1m4f, Group 2, 3yo colts & geldings)
Presented by Gavin Priestley's "Festival Trends" service
For the purposes of the trends we'll overlook the result from 2020 because, due to Covid, the Derby was actually run after Royal Ascot that year.
Traditionally sandwiched in the middle of the Epsom and Irish Derby's the 'Ascot Derby' is a pale shadow of either of those Group 1's, and the Epsom winner hasn't shown up here in a very long time although the Derby second did run, and win, last year. In fact, five of the last seven winners had their last start at Epsom where they had finished 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 10th (twice).
This year we have just two Derby runners taking part: Voyage, who was actually first past the post at Epsom but did so without a jockey having stumbled and unseated Pat Dobbs shortly after leaving the starting stalls, and Macduff who was quietly fancied for the race but pulled too hard and never got himself into a challenging position.
So, as is usual for the King Edward VII we have a field made up of a couple of also rans from Epsom, a few that missed it for one reason or another, a number of lesser lights from the O'Brien stable, a couple of winners stepping up from novice company and a few trainers tilting at windmills hoping to pick up some black type and place money. We do also have a couple of French raiders to spice things up this year, however, including the 5th from the Prix du Jockey Club.
The trends say we need a run as a 2yo, 1-3 seasonal runs, 2-7 career starts and the most recent within the last 12-56 days in a class 1-3 race where they finished in the first four (unless it was the Derby). All of the last nine winners were rated 103+ and, interestingly, 13 of the last 17 winners had yet to win a Group race. It also hasn't paid to get too fancy odds wise recently with four of the last five favourites winning and eight of the last nine winners returning 7/1 or shorter.
We can knock a few out on the trends for one reason or another but there are still plenty of the field that seem to tick all the boxes so I'm simply going to go with that recent trend regarding the Epsom runners and side with the horse that was down the field in the Derby.
MACDUFF did well as a 2yo and rounded off his season with a 4th in the Royal Lodge before shaping with promise in the Classic Trial at Sandown on his seasonal debut. He was a staying on second there behind Arabian Crown and, on the back of that run, he was nibbled at ante post at big prices for the Derby and was eventually sent off at 14/1. Taking a keen hold he never really got going and raced in rear throughout to come home a disappointing 13th of the 16 runners. Ralph Beckett now reaches for the first time cheekpieces in the hope they'll help settle him (Macduff not Beckett!) and I'm willing to give him another chance based on his earlier form. He wouldn't be the first horse to fail to handle Epsom before winning here, and he does seem a big price on what he had achieved before Derby day.
SELECTION: MACDUFF 1/2pt EW 25/1
6.15 Palace Of Holyroodhouse Stakes (5f, Class 2 handicap, 3yo)
Preview by David Massey
Pace. It’s important. We’re always told “pace yourself”, whether that’s life in general, or you’re on a three-day bender over a bank holiday weekend. (Please drink responsibly.) Without a certain amount of pace, we’d never get to where we want to go. And if it’s over five furlongs at Royal Ascot, you arguably need a bucketful of it, and that’s what this field has. And in spades, too. Buckets and spades...
Wherever you look here, there’s pace: seven of the nine runners drawn in single figures have led at some point in their last three runs, four from the middle and five from those drawn 20 and above. That’s pretty much half the field that like a view of the front, and unless one of them is an Art Power in disguise - remember him back in 2020, they came here instead of the Commonwealth Cup and he absolutely took them apart with a devastating display of front-running - I cannot help but think this will suit something that can travel in midfield and come through late to win it.
Step forward Blue Storm, who has already taken one big handicap this season after winning the 3yo Dash at Epsom last time out, reversing form with three of those that had finished in front of him at Chester on his seasonal reappearance the time before. He was nicely on top at Epsom late, and this stiffer track should suit even better. A 6lb rise for that is fair, he’s now proven himself in a full field, he’ll travel well in centre pack and has the strength late to play a part. He ticks a lot of boxes for a 14-1 chance, for me, and heads up my list.
Fantasy Master hit the frame in this back in 2021 for Mick Appleby and his Shagraan has a similar sort of profile. You’d be hard pressed to say he was unlucky against Equity Law at Sandown two starts back but I was impressed with the way he travelled there and, once he did find the gaps, he stayed on well for second. I thought at the time this might be the race for him after that effort. He did nothing to dissuade me when third to James’s Delight at Newmarket last time, form that’s already working out, and I think he can reverse placings with second home Two Tribes if given a more patient ride today. Mick seems to have rejuvenated the horse after he left Clive Cox, and I suspect he’s had this race in mind for some time. Stall 19 gives him options, too.
Speaking of Clive Cox, his Symbology is worth a mention at a huge price as well. The negatives aren’t hard to find - she’s not shown much in two starts this year, although in her defence, she’d probably have needed her first start of the year in the Carnarvon Stakes at Newbury after nine months away from the track, and then she got no cover at the weekend when well held in the Scurry Stakes. So, yes, you have to be forgiving, but here’s the figures bit - Clive Cox, when running his handicappers within seven days of their last run, is 9-46, which is pretty good on its own, but even better when the expected winners was just over six.
There’s a lot to take on trust and ideally I’d have preferred another furlong, but at 66-1 we don’t have to pay a lot to find out whether she can bounce back to form on a track for which she’s already shown a liking. (In fact, she’s the only horse in the whole field to have finished in the frame at Ascot previously. Another little plus…)
*
And that, dear reader, is that. 28 races covered by seven writers, six of them guests, across four days; and a great smattering of winners already in their midst. Thank you for making geegeez.co.uk a part of your Royal Ascot 2024 experience and, if you like what we do and are not yet a member of our multi-award winning Gold racecards and form tools service, you can take it for a spin for as little as £1 at this link.
Thanks again, and be lucky.
Matt
p.s. What did you think of the previews this week? Did you enjoy them? And what was your personal highlight of the week so far? Please leave a comment below and let us know
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