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Roving Reports: Time Away

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When the cat’s away, the mice will disappear off down South for a weekend of punting, so the saying goes in our house, writes David Massey; and, with the good lady vanishing off to a spa weekend with her sister and nieces to celebrate one of them turning 18, it meant a weekend of either fending for myself, which usually ends with the local takeaways doing well out of me, or letting someone else take the strain, and take in some racing as a sideline.

So rather than raid the ready meals aisle at the local Big Tesco, I took the decision to take myself off to the desirable location of Staines-On-Thames for the weekend and had the idea of going to Plumpton on Sunday and Windsor on Monday night before heading home to Southwell on Tuesday morning. But first, an actual day of work at Nottingham.

Yes, it’s the one day of the year that it’s Money Without Work, as I jump on board the Martyn Of Leicester bandwagon. Martyn has numerous pitches at Ascot, Leicester, Warwick and Nottingham so anyone that’s anyone can get a day’s work as Martyn spreads the lightboards all over the country. It’s a local one for me at Nottingham and as it’s their Ladies Day, a busy one to boot.

I mean, it was busy, don’t get me wrong, but not as busy as last year when I worked the rail for them; there’s a lesson for courses here, it’s okay filling the place, Nottingham having sold out every ticket beforehand, which didn’t happen last year, but when you do, and space is at a premium, people tend to find a spot and stay there, rather than roam around, knowing a sitting space is more likely to be available. More isn’t always better, when it comes to crowds and the experience they have.

Anyway, let’s not complain too much. After a slow start and results not really falling our way, the second half of the day livened up and just in time as the 8-1 Spirit Genie was followed up with 6-1 and 12-1 winners, meaning a good day for the firm. (Unlike later on at Warwick, with five jollies and two second-in jollies going in. Ouch.) The pay for the day will cover my expenses for the weekend, so let’s kick on.

I’d already made an executive decision, once I’d seen that the M25 was shut between junctions 9-10 over the weekend and was going to cause quite a few disruptions (and throw in people traveling to the South Coast on one of the hottest days of the year so far) that poor old Plumpton was going to get the heave-ho in favour of a day of pointing at Kingston Blount, near High Wycombe. I’d never been and always wanted to go, so with my friend Lawney helping out with a badge, it was time to hit the M40 and head to Aston Rowant.

I have to say, what a glorious setting. Green fields as far as the eye can see in all directions, beautiful forestry, and a pair of red kites soaring overhead for most of the afternoon, if that’s your sort of thing. Where better to be than with a pint in your hand when the sun’s beating down? (Please drink responsibly.)

As for the punting, well, I’ve had better days. Alan Hill tells me his best chance of the afternoon runs in the first, so I invest 40 notes on him at 6-4. Sadly that went west, even with the odds-on favourite all but refusing to jump off; he never looked like winning and pulled up. No bet on the 1-3 favourite in the second and I left the Ladies Open alone, but did like one in the Men’s Open, which led three out, went clear, only to get picked off in the shadow of the post. It’s a stiff old finish, is Kingston Blount, and going for home early isn’t always the best policy. So that was a kick in the teeth, although not as much as the first division of the maiden, where I backed one each-way at 6s, and with three going clear three out and my pick just taking up the running, he unseated.

I decide today is not going to go my way, pull stumps and lick my wounds back at the hotel. At least the food was decent. Some comfort at the end of the day.

Monday morning. I’ve a lot of work to do before Windsor tonight and crack on, but once again it appears I’ve got clog-wearing Morris Dancers above me in the hotel and I opt to retire to a nearby coffee house to do some writing, which is considerably quieter. The York card looks decent and I decide fairly early that I’ll be having a decent each-way bet on Makanah in the sprint handicap.

You’d think that I’d know my way around the racecourses, having done it a few years now, but somehow I manage to take a wrong turn for Windsor and end up going down the M4 for a junction too many. Good job I’ve left in plenty of time. It’s supposed to still be a warm evening but I can tell you from bitter experience Windsor can be a cold place and sure enough the wind is blowing when I get there. The t-shirt comes off, and the long sleeved version goes on.

Operation Sunday Recovery begins well when the paddock throws up the first winner He’s Got Game, who I have £40 on, and despite almost throwing it away out of the stalls, he’s got enough in hand to win. I’ve nailed the trifecta on paddock looks as well, and already Sunday’s disasters are becoming but a distant memory.

The second looks too difficult, with five of the eight runners presenting well beforehand, so I sit it out, and a three-place bet on the exchanges on Frinton in the next gets me a bit more back. I go the wrong way in the novice with Mono River, and decide, having got Sunday’s losses back in the main, to call it an evening. I give Simon Nott, one of the few people in racing that does more miles than me, a lift back to the station and head for the hotel.

I get back in time to watch my tip for the day, Inspired Knowhow, scramble home in the closer and make a good day even better. He wins literally on the bob, and the next morning I remark to Mr Delargy how lucky we’ve been with the bob lately - three winners in the last week, none of which were in front either before or after the line. Sometimes your luck is with you, sometimes it’s not.

I celebrate with the complimentary fizzy water in the fridge and a Twirl (have you seen the tiny size of those these days? Shocking)  - rock ‘n’ roll, kids - and decide on an early night, with a long drive to Southwell Tuesday morning beckoning. It’s been a fun weekend, with a bit of profit at the end of it after expenses, which you can ask for no more than. Busy week ahead - York, Doncaster and Stratford, no rest for the wicked, or indeed the journeyman worker. See you all on the Knavesmire - and bring a brolly…

- DM

A Comparison of Trifecta and Tricast Payouts in Horse Racing

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In two back-to-back articles, I will examine the ‘battle’ between two exotic bets - the tricast and the trifecta, writes David Renham. These bets are incredibly difficult to win because you must correctly predict the first, second, and third horses home in a specific race. We all know that finding the winner can sometimes be a challenge, let alone the first three!

Introduction

Some punters are lured towards these bets because of the substantial potential gains if you are successful. For example, as I’m writing this piece, the Victoria Cup at Ascot has just finished, with the tricast paying £3,127.09 and the trifecta £7,636.50. I must admit I dabbled myself in this race on the trifecta and felt slightly hard done by as I had the first and second but not the third. To make it worse, the fourth and the fifth horses homes were part of my third-place combinations. I cannot complain, though, as my biggest ever winning bet came from a huge tricast payout, albeit 20 years ago.

As far as punters are concerned, the key difference between the two bets is how winnings are calculated. The tricast is a bookmaker bet, where the returns are computed and generated, giving the bookmaker a healthy margin, whereas the trifecta is a Tote pool bet. The Tote takes 25% of the trifecta pool in the UK and 30% in Ireland. Hence, as punters, you are up against it from the outset with a big overround in favour of both bookies and the Tote.

So which bet is best? Well, for this piece, I will compare handicap races with 10 to 14 runners. The data will be taken from turf flat races in the UK and Ireland during the 2023 season. This amounts to just over 1000 races (1011, to be precise), so it's a decent enough sample. For the record, I have excluded any race where there was a dead heat in one of the first three positions as the payouts get split, and it gets a bit ‘messy’. There were only six such races. I have also excluded races where there was no trifecta payout. This happens occasionally when the pool size is small, and/or the first three to finish were unfancied/decent prices.

 

General comparisons

Average dividend

My first port of call is to examine the average payouts for both bets in these 1000+ races. Here are the splits:

 

 

Frequency of higher dividend

As we can see, the trifecta has a much higher average payout, equating to an edge of around 26%. Digging into the numbers a little more, when the trifecta outperformed the tricast, the payout averaged out at 59% bigger; when the tricast was higher, the payout averaged 52% bigger. Let me now compare race by race in terms of which came out on top with the bigger return/payout more often:

 

 

Average dividend: UK vs Ireland

Four out of every five races saw the trifecta produce a higher return than the tricast. Regarding the ‘same’ return, I included any scenario where the returns were the same when rounded to the nearest pound.

I mentioned earlier that Irish races see a 5% extra deduction in the pool, so one would expect the UK results to outperform the Irish ones as far as the trifecta is concerned. Let’s see how this plays out in real terms, firstly looking at average trifecta payouts:

 

 

UK payouts, on average, are £153 higher, which equates to just over 24%. This is a significant difference – perhaps bigger than you may have expected, given the 5% difference in pool reduction.

Dividend Distribution

It is time to look at the payouts for the tricast and trifecta in more detail. I want to start this part by splitting the number of payouts into ten equal groups from £1 to £1000. Hence, I have totalled up the number of times the tricast paid between £1 and £100, £101 and £200, £201 and 300, and so on. Likewise, I have done the same for the trifecta. Below is a line graph showing the comparison:

 

 

The graph shows that more tricasts than trifectas were paid out when the returns were smaller (£400 or less). The reverse has happened when the payouts have been bigger than £400. Of course, this is to be expected given the average figures we saw at the beginning.

On to looking at payouts of over £1000 up to £3500 – this time, they have been grouped in batches of £250:

 

 

Regarding the payouts between £1001 and £1500, the trifecta wins hands down. It becomes more even after that but overall, the trifecta edges it slightly.

Finally, let me compare the number of payouts when the dividend paid more than £3500 – this time, it will be a straight comparison in terms of the number of times it occurred for each:

 

 

As can be seen, most of the biggest payouts came from the trifecta. However, the two biggest payouts came from the tricast - £11662 and £16900 respectively.

At this juncture, the trifecta looks the better value overall, and by some margin. However, there is plenty more digging to do and research to share.

 

Field size impact on dividend

What difference has the number of runners made to the payouts? Let me compare the average payouts for both tricast and trifecta for each field size:

 

 

Both graphs are generally on an upward trajectory as you would expect. Comparing the two, the trifecta edge over the tricast strengthens as the field size increases. In races of 12 to 14 runners, the trifecta has had an edge over the tricast of 25%+. This edge remains significant in 10 and 11-runner races but drops to around 14%.

 

Course Comparison

For the last part of this first article, I will look at how the tricast and trifecta played out in different courses. I have included courses with 15 or more qualifying races in 2023 as that gives us a decent enough sample size. First, let me compare course by course,  which of the two bets came out on top more often ['Draw %' means the percentage of races where the tricast and trifecta paid the same, to the nearest pound]. Courses in red are Irish, and four courses had enough races to qualify – I have listed the courses in alphabetical order:

 

 

Of the 30 courses, 20 saw the trifecta producing the bigger payouts over 80% of the time. The top five 'trifecta performing courses’ in terms of this metric were Ayr (90.6%), Brighton (89.5%), Leicester (88.5%), Catterick (87.9%), and York (87.9%). Hence, more than nine races saw the trifecta beat the tricast at Ayr in every ten.

There were four courses where the percentage was below 70%, namely Leopardstown (69.6%), Beverley (65.8%), Ripon (65.0%), and Musselburgh (61.5%). So quite a difference between the highest, Ayr, and the lowest, Musselburgh. At this point in my research, I cannot easily find a reason for such a variance between the two; perhaps I’ll find out with more digging. The table shows the consistency of trifecta success over tricast.

The second set of course data to share are the average payouts for each. I have included a column showing the percentage difference between the averages. 28 of the 30 courses saw a higher average payout for the trifecta. The two where the tricast ‘won’ have been highlighted in bold.

 

 

The Curragh has seen the most significant differential between the two – an 82% edge for the trifecta. I thought it would be interesting to share all the results from the Curragh, including the difference between the monetary and percentage payouts. The races highlighted in red are the ones where the trifecta paid more:

 

 

This is enlightening as it does highlight the occasional randomness of the trifecta. For example, the 3:20 on 13th August saw an unusually small trifecta payout; in contrast, the payout at 4:05 on 7th October saw the reverse, with a much bigger payout than one would expect, especially given the prices of 18/1, 11/2, and 4/1. Based on my research, I estimate that this type of price configuration would pay around £550-£650.

Let me now discuss Newbury and Windsor – the two courses where the tricast ‘prevailed’. I mentioned earlier that the most significant payouts over these 1011 races were tricasts - £11662 and £16900. As you probably can guess, one of these payouts came from Newbury and the other from Windsor.

There is quite a difference between some courses in terms of the averages. This will be influenced by the market position/prices of the first three homes. To give an illustration of this, I will compare Salisbury and Ascot in terms of the average price of the horses that finished in the first three:

 

 

The prices of the first three horses will strongly influence tricast/trifecta payouts, but having some actual numbers to back it up is good. It should be noted that there is more to it than just the average prices of the first three – the market rank of the horses can be significant, too; and, in the second piece, I will delve into that in some detail.

Summary

As far as the trifecta is concerned, the size of the pool is likely to play a role. Also, the 'make-up' of the punters who have put money into the pool probably influences things. What I mean by that is, ‘What proportion of the money placed in specific trifecta bets comes from savvy/regular trifecta punters compared with those that essentially are just trying their luck?’ I am guessing that at some big meetings, especially World Pool days, you will probably get a considerable proportion of racegoers who are not regular bettors compared to bog-standard meetings. Hence, some of these will probably have a dabble on the odd trifecta due to that lure of a big win for a small outlay. This is my hypothesis, and although it is impossible to pin down actual numbers/percentages of money placed by types of racegoers, I am wondering whether further research for article two may at least offer some clues.

Anyway, it is time for me to crunch more tricast/trifecta numbers. Until the follow-up...

- DR

Monday Musings: Gredley’s Derby Prospect

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Thirty-three years ago this week, James Fanshawe, age 30 and only a year into his career as a trainer having previously been assistant to (Sir) Michael Stoute, was preparing for the Dante Stakes at York, writes Tony Stafford. His charge, a late-developing colt running in the colours of Bill Gredley, was 20/1 shot Environment Friend. The distinctive grey stormed home in the Classic trial under George Duffield by an eye-opening five lengths.

He was unable to carry that form into the Derby, finishing 11th of 13 behind Generous, but then solidified his reputation by beating his elders in the Eclipse Stakes as a 28/1 shot next time out. Strangely, kept in training for the next four years he failed to win again, mostly with Fanshawe and then in at least two more yards in between – N C Wright and G Rimmer – before ending his active time with Clive Brittain.

In those 25 unsuccessful races – although with some nice placed efforts which brought his prize tally close to £400k – he contested 17 Group 1 races. No mistaking Bill’s ambition.

But then when you started out in the middle of the depression in 1933 in Poplar, East London, you either sank or swam. Bill Gredley swam to the extent that his family-owned Unex Group can point to major developments often close to his two homes: Stratford, adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Park, and in Cambridge, a few miles from his adopted base of Newmarket.

For a 91-year-old, he is admirably sprightly both in mind and body and an amusing episode is usually played out when Bill comes into the dining room at the Tattersalls Newmarket sales. My pal John Hancock, still keen to get his insurance hat on after the sudden disappearance of his most recent alliance – taken over by a bigger, less sensitive outfit – is ready for their customary exchange.

“How old are you, Bill?”

When he answers, John has to concede he was born a little later the same year and the master of Stetchworth Park Stud, breeder of Environment Friend and most notably dual Oaks winner User Friendly, almost skips out of the room, his competitive spirit to the fore as usual.

Now much of the contact to trainers with the Gredley Family’s horses as they presently are billed falls on son Tim, who has a varied experience in the saddle. He was a top show jumper, in a winning GB Nations Cup team having previously retired from the sport; rode a winner of the Newmarket Town Plate (almost four miles) for Nicky Henderson, and lots of point-to-point winners too.

User Friendly came along the year after Environment Friend. She was trained by Clive Brittain and not only won the Oaks and Irish Oaks, but also went on to collect the Yorkshire version that August and then saw off the colts in the St Leger, all with Duffield on board.

She just failed to complete the set in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, a neck behind Subotica, but that could hardly be adjudged a failure. Behind in fourth was St Jovite, the 12-length Irish Derby and six-length King George hero for Virginia Kraft Payson/Jim Bolger; Peter Chapple-Hyam’s Dr Devious, winner of that year’s Derby over St Jovite whom he also beat narrowly in the Irish Champion Stakes; and Arcangues, stable companion of the Andre Fabre-trained winner and later the 133/1 victor of the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Phew!

Amid the cluster of Group-designated spring trials, especially for the Derby, one downgraded race stands out as possibly deserving of being restored to its former Group 3 status at least. It was five years ago that Anthony Van Dyck collected the Lingfield Derby Trial en route to success at Epsom for Aidan O’Brien, and the Irish supremo usually sends a couple to establish their suitability for the similar twists and cambers of Epsom three weeks later.

Saturday’s line-up contained the requisite Ballydoyle pair, and they finished second and fourth behind the Gredley-owned and Fanshawe-trained Ambiente Friendly. Ryan Moore was in the leading trio from the start and wrestled the awkward-looking Illinois into the straight at the head of the field.

Meanwhile Callum Shepherd had buried Ambiente Friendly in the middle of the pack, but as Illinois and Ryan edged wide, he came even wider. It took just a nominal shake of the reins for Ambiente Friendly to take control and, several strides before the line, Shepherd was pulling him up.

Still the margin was four-and-a-half lengths with more than three after Illinois back to third in the 11-horse field. If Callum had wished, it could have been nearer six and it’s slightly a shame that he didn’t.

On the day, raced on good, good to firm in places ground on the Round Course, it was the only time below Racing Post standard. Additionally, it was just 0.14sec slower than Night-Shirt on midsummer firm ground back in 1990, earlier even than the exploits of Environment Friend and User Friendly, achieved in setting the course record.

Former jockey and now Sky Sports Racing pundit Freddy Tylicki has the distinction of having made the successful bid for the son of Gleneagles at 80k when he went through the ring at the 2023 Craven Breeze-up sale – so not a home-bred then.

Of the trials we’ve seen so far for the Derby, none has been as impressive as this one. A winner on debut as a juvenile, Ambiente Friendly reappeared for the season when fourth to Jayarebe in the Feilden Stakes at Newmarket last month.

Jayarebe disappointed at Chester last week, but his run was another of those where a horse sits outside a leader half a length back on a turning track and seems to get fed up with the idea. It certainly looked that way to me as Ryan controlled the pace on Capulet, going on to win with Jayarebe only third. I don’t think we should condemn him on that.

The twelve horses entered for the Dante Stakes will need to run to a good level to impress in the way Ambiente Friendly has from first run to second. His time was comfortably the best in the race for the past decade, and if the weather stays fair until Epsom, you’d have no fears of ground, trip or hills and cambers about this horse.

Fanshawe has had a wealth of high-class horses through his care, not least two Champion Hurdle winners in Royal Gait and Hors La Loi. He was also closely involved in the training of Stoute’s 1988 winner of that race, Kribensis, when assistant to the master trainer. There is no doubt that Ambiente Friendly represents both the owners’ and trainer’s best chance of winning the Derby, for which he is now an 8/1 chance, third only behind restored favourite City Of Troy (3/1) and Arabian Crown (7/2).

While there was all the excitement going on at Lingfield, I preferred to go to watch one of my favourite handicaps over at Ascot, the Victoria Cup, and with all 21 runners coming in a single group towards the stands side, it had an element of fairness not always associated with the straight track there.

I’d been in contact with Charlie Fellowes earlier and he reckoned his new recruit The Wizard Of Eye had shown so much speed at home he worried it would stay the seven furlongs. Held up at the back by Tom Marquand, who must have had a magic wand rather a whip, so adept was he in finding the gaps, he wended his way to get up on the line. Don’t be shocked if we see him in graded sprints, probably stopping off at the Wokingham on the way at the Royal meeting.

If Jayarebe hadn’t come up to expectations last week, another of Sam Sangster’s spectacularly successful yearling buys certainly did. The Showcasing filly Kathmandu went to Longchamp for the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches (French 1000 Guineas), set a fast pace and was only caught on the line, losing out by a head.

The 45/1 chance, trained by Brian Meehan, had been third last time in the Nell Gwyn Stakes at Newmarket when a 40/1 shot. She picked up more than £100k for second place, double her purchase price. Sam owns the filly in conjunction with Ed Babington and they can expect to make a huge profit at the sales even if she doesn’t win anything more. No doubt the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot is on the agenda.

In the colts’ Classic half an hour later Roger Teal’s Dancing Gemini came fast but half a length too late to catch Metropolitan. The St James’s Palace Stakes is his obvious target.

 

Horse Performance: Course, Distance, and C&D Winners Compared

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I looked at course, distance, and course and distance National Hunt data a few months back, writes Dave Renham. I will revisit this area now but switch my attention to the flat. I will ignore all-weather racing to write about that in the future. Hence, these findings apply only to UK turf flat racing, and I have looked at the last eight full seasons from 2016 to 2023.

I mentioned last time that there is a perception that course form is necessary; likewise, some see it as a positive if the horse is proven over the distance. In the National Hunt article, previous course winners/distance winners/C&D winners won more often than horses that had not won at the course/distance/C&D. They offered slightly better value despite the market adjusting quite well. Let us see if we see a similar pattern ‘on the level’.

Course winners

I will start with course winners. As we know, courses in the UK are not uniform – the topography for each course varies. Hence, one would assume some horses act better on specific courses than others. I would like to begin by comparing the strike rates of course winners versus horses that have not won at the course (non-course winners). Both win and each way figures are shown:

 

 

Course winners clearly perform better from a win and a win-and-placed perspective.

Regarding returns to SP, course winners fare slightly better, although the difference between the two is barely 2p in the £. To Betfair SP, the roles are reversed, with non-course winners doing a little better. As we have seen in various previous scenarios, the betting market seems good at making the necessary adjustments.

Looking at the non-course winner group first, if we split them into two as follows:

1 -  those who have previously run at the course

and

2 -  those who have not run at the course previously,

then we see that those who have not run at the course have been slightly more successful in terms of win percentage, with an 11.3% strike rate compared to 9.9%. In terms of returns, however, they are virtually identical.

One statistic worth sharing is that horses with no course wins which have raced 15 or more times at the track in question have won just one race from 81 attempts. Such horses are rare but it looks like any future qualifier can be discounted.

Concentrating now on course winners, I would like to start by looking at horses with just one previous course win to their name.

Course Wins = 1

I will split the performances by number of runs they have had at the track. The reason behind this is simple: you could get some horses that have raced once at the course and hence are one from one, whereas you could get horses that are one from 10 or even one from 20. A horse that has just won once in 20 attempts at the same venue will not scream out as a horse that is particularly suited to the track.

Let me share the win strike rates for different numbers of course run groupings:

 

 

The graph clearly shows that one-time course winners with fewer previous course runs win more often. Horses that have won once at the track but raced there ten or more times have scored less than once in every 14 attempts.

Let's see if the A/E indices correlate with these strike rates:

 

 

The graph shows a strong relationship between the A/E indices and the strike rates. Any potential value in one-time course winners tails off once we hit seven or more previous course runs.

Course Wins = 2

I will look at the same idea for horses that have won twice previously at the course. Once again, I’ll start with the win strike rates for different numbers of course run groupings:

 

 

We see the same pattern as before. It should also be noted that horses with two course wins and that had previously raced at the course either twice or thrice broke even to BSP (ROI was –0.4%).

Onto the A/E indices now:

 

 

The two to three previous course run group has a very solid A/E index at 0.92. The 10+ group spoils the correlation, but if we look at the complete stats, we can clearly see that the returns to BSP indicate that the fewer previous course runs, the better.

 

 

Losses become significant once we get to seven or more previous course runs.

Course Wins = 3+

I will now lump together horses with three or more course wins to give a decent sample size. This time though, as we have different numbers of previous course wins, it makes sense to share the data using past course win percentages. Hence, a horse with three wins from 5 visits would sit at 60%, a horse with four wins from 25 would sit at 16%, and so on. This time I will go straight to a table showing all key stats in one area:

 

 

Horses with three-plus course wins and who have previously won at least two-thirds of their starts at the course - the 67-100% group - have by far the best overall figures. They have a much higher strike rate and the best A/E index and have made a small profit to BSP.

 

We have seen the same pattern across all data sets to date: horses with the best course win rates (based on all previous course runs) perform the best.

 

Before moving on to distance winners, I want to examine the results for individual courses. To do this, I will look at the A/E indices for horses that have won at least once at the relevant course. Here are the courses with the ten highest A/E indices.

 

*I am using A/E indices regularly in this piece and if you would like to read more about A/E use this link

 

 

Haydock and Epsom have particularly strong indices. Epsom is a unique track, and it will come as no surprise to many that it appears so high on the list. Two courses that have not made the cut, and which I expected to, are Brighton and Chester. They were joint 14th on the list with an A/E index of 0.87.

Three courses have recorded an A/E index of below 0.80: Yarmouth (0.77), Thirsk (0.75), and Carlisle (0.75). Wetherby also has a figure below 0.80, at just 0.71, but the data set is too small to be confident in at this stage.

Distance winners

It is time to switch our attention to distance winners. As with course winners, I will start by comparing the strike rates of distance winners versus horses that have not won at a distance (non-distance winners). Both win and each way figures are shown once more:

 

 

There is a slight edge to distance winners, but they have virtually identical A/E indices at 0.87 and 0.86, respectively. When looking ‘generally,’ winning previously at a distance does not offer much of an edge in turf flat racing. However, it is always worth digging a little bit deeper.

Let me compare past distance win percentages by grouping all past distance winners. Here are the findings:

 

 

Horses who have previously won at least two-thirds of their starts at a particular distance did best, and showed a very solid-looking A/E index of 0.92 with losses of just 2p in the £. This presents a similar pattern to when I combined the 3+ course win data earlier, especially when considering that top group.

Next, I decided to examine whether it makes a difference how recent the last distance win was. This is what the stats told me:

 

 

Unfortunately, this data offers little, with the only discernible general pattern being that the more recent the win, the more likely a horse is to repeat that win. That may very well be conflated with the fact that recent winners overall are more likely to win again the recent non-winners.

After further digging, I discovered the most interesting findings concerning distance winners.

1. Looking at horses aged 5+, if you restrict this cohort to having won once at a distance on their only start at that distance, they have proved profitable to follow. Hence, if backing ALL 5yos and older with one distance win from one distance start when having their second start at the relevant distance, you would have won 133 races from 862 qualifiers (SR 15.4%) for a BSP profit of £220.34 (ROI +25.6%). These runners have an A/E index of 1.01 and have been profitable for the past five years.

2. Horses with three wins from three starts at the same distance have proved profitable to follow when they have attempted to make it four distance wins out of four. They have won over 28% of the time (53 wins from 188) for a BSP profit of £62.52 (ROI +33.3%). The A/E index stands at an impressive 1.13.

3. Horses aged nine or older that have achieved two distance wins in their careers have proved to be poor investments, regardless of how many distance runs they have had. This group has provided 921 runners of which only 56 won, hitting a win percentage of just 6.1%. Backing all qualifiers to £1 level stakes would have lost you £216.64, which equates to over 23 pence in the £.

4. Two-year-olds with two or more distance wins have made a profit when attempting the distance again. They have 144 wins from 891 (SR 16.2%) for a BSP profit of £38.23 (ROI +4.3%).

Course and distance (C&D) winners

It is now time to combine the two elements. I will start by comparing the strike rates of C&D winners versus horses that have not won over C&D (non-C&D winners). Both win and each way figures are shown once more:

 

 

These are the highest win percentages we have seen for the ‘winning’ group to date, but only just. The returns to SP have been virtually identical, with a wafer-thin edge to C&D winners; but, to BSP, non-C&D winners have proved better value by nearly 6p in the £ (4% loss compared with 10% loss).

On to the win strike rates in terms of the number of C&D wins. Here are the splits:

 

 

The results for 4+ C&D winners are the reverse of the National Hunt findings. In NH races, horses that had won four or more times over course and distance scored 15.5% of the time, procuring a healthy return of over 41p in the £. On the flat, this group scored less than 10% of the time, losing over 34p in the £.

It is past C&D win percentages I want to look at next. I am using the same percentage bands/groupings as before:

 

 

We see the usual trend of the strike rates dropping as the C&D win percentages drop. Once again, the best overall stats are the group with the highest C&D Win% of 67% or more. It is possible that some value bets could be found within this group.

Individual course C&D data is the next port of call. Courses are listed alphabetically with ‘positive’ A/E indices (0.93 and above) shown in green and ‘negative’ indices (0.80 or lower) shown in blue. Profit/losses have been calculated to BSP less 5% commission:

 

 

Just two of the six ‘green’ courses (Chester and Newbury) managed a blind profit to BSP. Generally, though, the takeaway should be to avoid C&D winners from the courses in blue, especially Carlisle, Thirsk, Windsor, and York.

Finally, I want to share the trainers who have performed best with past C&D winners when comparing their performance to their non-C&D winners. Seven trainers are listed in the table below, comparing their win percentages for the two respective groups:

 

 

These seven all perform above the norm when it comes to past C&D winners. Five of the seven have produced blind profits to BSP with their C&D winners, with six hitting A/E indices of 1.00 or bigger. Here are the individual figures for these past C&D winners:

 

 

There are some solid statistics there. It will be interesting to see how these trainers fare in the next few years with their past C&D winners.

 

**

Summary

To conclude, previous course winners, distance winners and C&D winners clearly win more often than horses that have not won at the course/distance/C&D. However, evaluating the better value is more complicated. Generally, course, and course and distance, winners give better results than do distance winners.

I will leave you with what I feel are the most interesting findings:

1. For horses which have won once or twice previously at the course, stick to those horses that have raced six or fewer times at the venue.

2. With horses that have won three times or more at the course, focus on horses that have won at least two-thirds of their races (67%+).

3. Past winners returning to Haydock, Epsom or Ripon can be seen as a positive.

4. Horses that have won at least two-thirds of their races (67%+) at today's race distance are the best distance group to concentrate on (losses of only 2p in the £).

5. Avoid horses that have won four or more times over C&D. They tend to be over-bet.

6. Chester and Newbury are courses where C&D winners generally perform above the norm.

7. Be wary of past C&D winners at Carlisle, Thirsk, Windsor or York.

8. The stables of Mick and David Easterby, Charles Hills, Brian Ellison, Mick Appleby, Iain Jardine, Bryan Smart and Ed Walker have all done well with previous C&D winners.

Until next time...

- DR

Monday Musings: Of Bubbles Burst

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When they get beat, the Coolmore Classic hotpots, especially in the 2000 Guineas, they make a proper job of it, writes Tony Stafford. Auguste Rodin’s capitulation a year ago, preceding as it did two Derby victories, had a variety of explanations to soften the apparent finality of it. City Of Troy’s tame drift away from the action from a long way out, may be less easy to explain.

I wasn’t the only one with egg on my face, having championed his two runs on the same piece of Suffolk real estate, albeit a few furlongs apart, last year. The Superlative Stakes win from Haatem was, well, superlative. His Dewhurst romp was a tour de force, leading all the way then sprinting up the last furlong with Haatem again well behind.

So how could Haatem turn that around so emphatically, third behind only previously unbeaten Godolphin horse Notable Speech and his own stable-companion, second favourite Rosallion? Just over three lengths behind Charlie Appleby’s second and William Buick’s first 2000 winner, he was now 13 lengths in front of the odds-on favourite, who trailed in ninth of eleven.

Aidan O’Brien professed himself shocked and so would most of the massive crowd, one which gridlocked the always slow-motion Newmarket High Street for hours before the 1.10 p.m. meeting start. Talk might have been of records but there were a few there when Nijinsky started his Triple Crown journey more than 50 years ago, too, and not quite as many cars either!

The filming media behaved as if they were there to attend a Royal family meltdown or a PM taking his leave in front of Number Ten. Apparently unflappable as he was being saddled, there was a paparazzi feel as the lenses pointed his way right in his eyeline as the final touches were being completed. Agitated Newmarket staff shooed away many of the regular Coolmore supporters across to the other side of the horse path, but the cameras were allowed to stand their ground.

Considering this was a race with several previously unbeaten opponents, including the winner – three for three at Kempton, so making his turf debut – his price was either dangerously short (as it proved) or even a little generous, given the expectations.

If anyone can bring a horse back from such an unexpected reverse, Aidan O’Brien is the man and he has before, but talk of another Frankel now looks fanciful.

It’s four weeks to the Derby and we were all talking in the paddock beforehand that his pedigree is more that of a Derby horse than a Guineas type. We’ll have to see. He’s 8/1 now. Last year after a similar reverse, Auguste Rodin was only 3/1 and we know what happened at Epsom with him!

The Coolmore boys stayed up late on Saturday night to watch the Kentucky Derby in which they had two interests, a 100% involvement in second-favourite Sierra Leone and 75% of the Todd Pletcher-trained Fierceness. Todd’s runner faded away after a prominent start but the Chad Brown trainee Sierra Leone must be rated a very unlucky loser.

Held up on the rail around a dozen lengths behind the pace set by Track Phantom until making a move at the end of the back straight, jockey Tyler Gaffalione found himself in a tight position around the turn and was forced to go very wide.

Meanwhile Mystik Dan under Brian Hernandez made a run for home on the rail while Sierra Leone began his wide, late and rather erratic surge in company with the Japanese-trained Forever Young on his inside.

By the time they reached the post, the camera showed there were pixels between the trio and a verdict of nose, nose in favour of Mystik Dan, trained in Lexington by Kenny McPeek, gained the verdict. That nose makes a massive difference: initially £1.7 million between the two top prizes but also his potential as a stallion when he departs racing, presumably to Coolmore’s US branch, Ashford Stud in Lexington. Ashford is home of the only two Triple Crown winners of the last half century, American Pharoah and City of Troy’s sire Justify. They expected two more – one here and one over there.

It truly was the Maktoum family’s weekend, for after the success of Sheikh Mohammed’s Notable Speech on Saturday, Ahmed Al Maktoum, his younger brother won the 1000 Guineas with 28/1 outsider Elmalka, trained by Roger Varian and ridden by Silvestre De Sousa.

In a wide open market, in contrast to the one-eyed appearance of Saturday’s Classic, the fillies’ equivalent offered the prospect of a quintet of potential winners as they came to the last furlong. Until just before the line, two young overseas trainers were entitled to believe their fillies would win.

Ramatuelle (Christopher Head, France) looked sure to hold on but she was challenged late, initially by Porta Fortuna, Donnacha O’Brien/Tom Marquand, but only too briefly as Elmalka finished fastest of all having trailed the field early in the 16-runner contest.

Two others merit a mention. Fourth under a typical, but in this case just too late, Jamie Spencer ride was the David Menuisier filly Tamfana, while Ylang Ylang kept on well for fifth under Ryan Moore, the Aidan O’Brien inmate not getting the clearest of runs. She’ll be set for running over further, maybe in the Musidora next time at York – just guessing on that one.

Elmalka, a daughter of Kingman, was third previously in the Fred Darling Stakes (or whatever appellation it now goes by) at Newbury, where she had rallied to finish close up behind Folgario and Regal Jubilee. The Fred Darling runner-up also started at 28/1 yesterday but finished well down the field for the Gosdens. No doubt Marco Botti, trainer of Folgario, must have wondered why she wasn’t in the line-up.

Unbeaten in five starts as a juvenile initially in Italy (four wins) and then one in France, trained by Marco’s relative Stefano, she has the Coronation Stakes as her sole entry at this stage. Six races unbeaten will make her an interesting wildcard into that always-significant Royal Ascot midsummer Group 1.

I must thank the Editor for drawing my attention to, and therefore helping me follow, this tortuous link. Back in 2007 the most impressive winner of the Coronation Stakes, and a filly that never raced again, was Indian Ink. Trained by Richard Hannon senior, ridden by Richard Hughes, and in the colours of Raymond Tooth – she won by six lengths slaughtering such as Finsceal Beo, and the rest.

Yesterday, in the colours of Clipper Logistics in the 40k newcomers’ race for 2yo fillies, her daughter River Seine (by Soldier’s Call) ran a highly promising second for Karl Burke to Godolphin’s Mountain Breeze, Buick’s pick of three for Charlie even if she sported the nominally third-choice red cap. River Seine could well make a visit to the scene of her mother’s finest hour, but she will have to find a fair bit to turn yesterday’s form around. Karl Burke will give it a go, no doubt.

Of all the performances over the two days at Newmarket, I have to point to Hughie Morrison’s Ben and Sir Martyn Arbib homebred Stay Alert, who ran away with the 1m1f Dahlia Stakes, tracking the Gosdens’ 6/4 favourite Running Lion into the dip and then drawing away with the rest trailing behind.

Hughie Morrison kept her to high-class opposition last year when her best performance had been a two-length second to Via Sistina in the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh. Most observers thought she was an unlucky loser that day and the subsequent exploits of the winner which precipitated a sale for 2.7 million guineas at last year’s December sale made her the one to beat yesterday.

Via Sistina was bought by Australian interests and has already won and been second, the latter in the Queen Elizabeth Cup at Randwick in Sydney last month. Her debut win at £310k was worth more than either Guineas race and her second place of £454,000 in the QE Cup was only 130 grand short of the combined total of our first two Classics.

If she had won, the prize would have been £1,577,000. No wonder my good friend and one of the most experienced observers of the racing scene here and overseas for many years says, “We’re a laughing stock! Just get rid of off-course bookmakers – they won’t let anyone have a proper bet anyway – and our racing, which is the best in the world, will take off.” 

* Just a note. While talking of bookmakers who won’t take a proper bet, I’ve just received a copy of well-known former Rails bookmaker Stephen Little’s entertaining autobiography. He was someone who did take a bet as “From Bicycle to Bentley” reveals.

The foreword is by his long-time friend Sir Mark Prescott and it’s published by Pen and Sword Books in Barnsley S70 2AS. My pal Sir Rupert Mackeson has been instrumental in getting Pen and Sword to fill what had become an alarming gap in the production of books with a horse racing theme. Well done, Rupert. As much of it overlaps my time in racing, for me it’s a great reminder of those wonderful days.

  - TS

NH 2023/24 End of Term Report

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It's a crazy time of year with the weather as to and fro as the racing. Today, for example, sees the continuation of the Punchestown Festival in Ireland, the hunter chase season finale at Cheltenham, and the start of the Guineas Festival at Newmarket. Truly something for everyone!

In that spirit, and sneaking in before the weekend Classics are run, I'd like to share a quick look back at the National Hunt season just finished through the lens of this site and its racing interests.

 

SR Ratings

Let's start with our SR ratings, provided by Peter May, and available for every UK hurdle and chase race during the season proper - September to April inclusive.

During that period last year, SR rated 2604 races from which the winner was top rated on 584 occasions - a strike rate of 22.43% or two winners for every nine top rated horses. Pretty good. But, of course, here at geegeez.co.uk we're much more interested in profit than winners, or both together when we can get them! So how did SR fare in the Bottom Line Stakes? Overall, a £1 stake on all SR top rated runners would have returned £208, an 8% ROI. That's at Betfair SP.

Here's the breakdown by race type:

 

As you can see, handicaps were where it was at, and specifically handicap hurdles. These were buoyed by a small number of big-priced winners, but plenty of SR top rated are big-priced runners.

However... I wouldn't advocate anybody used these numbers blind; rather, I'm simply highlighting that they're a robust aid to value hunting. This being a little hindsight unhelpful, I got to thinking about applications for the flat turf season.

Top rated flat turf runners at industry SP lost 9% over the past year. Not terrible given how BOG or BSP will bring that close to level pegging; but a simple tweak to only look at prominent or front-runner horses brings this to break even at industry SP.

Furthermore, focusing on the top three SR, which can be found using Bet Finder - see bottom right box in image below - gives a positive ROI of 1% at industry SP when they're prominent or front-run.

 

 

A couple of important things to say here:

  1. There are a lot of horses to check out. In the image above, I'd not filtered by race type to get flat turf only. So there are 'only' 56 possible qualifiers - and potential bets - today. Obviously, that's a lot
  2. Crucially, we don't know a horse's run style before the race. But... by focusing on leaders or habitually prominent runners we improve our odds of being on the right ones.

Sadly, there's no silver bullet - I know, it was a crushing blow to me, too 😉 - but there are lots of ways to ensure we're generally on the right ones.

Geegeez Syndicate Horses

You may or may not be aware that I syndicate a few racehorses through geegeez.co.uk, mainly over jumps. And the current crop have done really rather well... these are them:

Konigin Isabella

Let's talk about this mare first, in training with Anthony Honeyball. To be honest, she's been disappointing and it's mainly because she might not have the requisite stamina for two miles. I loved her pedigree before agreeing to syndicate and, on this occasion, I was wrong. Isfahan is her sire and he was a crack German middle distance performer from a great family. But he's barely had a runner in Britain (though one of his did make top lot at a Yorton Farm sale), and Konigin Isabella's dam wasn't as stoutly bred. Of course, there are lots of examples of one half of the pedigree bestowing sufficient stamina but this doesn't look like being one of them.

If it ever stops raining, we'll try on a sharp two mile track on good ground and hope remains that she can find the reserves to see it out.

Coquelicot

Another mare, also trained by Anthony, 'Cookie' was bought as a yearling in 2017 and has been the most wonderful horse I've ever been involved with. She's a half-sister to the very, very good dual purpose horse Heartbreak City - he won the Ebor, a handicap hurdle at the Galway Festival, and was agonisingly close in second in the Melbourne Cup.

Cookie had an inauspicious start, getting a slight injury as a two-year-old which meant we had to back off her. The original plan of running on the flat before going hurdling was scuppered before it started. Well, sort of.

She ended up running in National Hunt Flat races, and winning three of them including a Listed affair. As a hurdler since, she's won another Listed race this year, beating Aintree winner Kateira in the process, and was second in a further Listed contest over an inadequate trip, beating You Wear It Well in the process. Here's her full race record. As you can see, she's won eight races (including on the flat)! And she's placed on another nine occasions from 27 starts.

Next season will probably be her last and she'll make a fantastic broodmare after that.

 

Sure Touch

This lad is trained by Olly Murphy and was bred and formerly owned by Robert Waley-Cohen. Again, he has an incredible pedigree being by Yeats out of Liberthine, but you wouldn't have necessarily known that at the time we got involved. At that time, he'd just finished second in a Class 5 handicap hurdle at Hereford off a mark of 105. Two years later, he's won seven races for us and has a full form string of 11141223111. His rating has risen to 137 and he was a dominant winner of a Class 2 handicap chase at Perth last time.

We hope to aim him at the Summer Plate next and have an even more ambitious plan in mind thereafter, should he still be in good nick. He's been unbelievable to own and I owe Olly a huge debt of thanks for offering him to me/us. (Obviously I was taking a punt at the time, but oh boy, has it panned out).

 

 

Dartmoor Pirate

A new kid on the block, Dartmoor Pirate is another with a great page (Black Sam Bellamy ex Behra). His dam, although fairly old it should be said, had thrown two very high class hurdlers including a Grade 1 winner. This chap was cheaply bought - £16,000 - at the Goffs Store Sale by Anthony, and the plan was always to run in the valuable Newbury bumper specifically for graduates of this sale.

That he got there was a minor miracle in itself, and that he ran seventh of 19 - having gone the long way around the outside throughout - was a much better effort than it looked. With an inside trip, he'd have been in the first three. First time out this season, he disappointed us in another bumper, at Chepstow, as we thought he'd just about win. That race worked out well, however, and progressing to hurdles next time he showed what we thought we had by waltzing away with an 18-runner maiden hurdle by 11 lengths.

It is fair to say it wasn't the strongest race in the world but the manner of victory was exciting, all right! He then ran second to two smart novices, all three of those hurdle races at a sub-optimal two miles.

We stepped him up to what we think is his correct trip for the EBF Final, a Grade 3 handicap hurdle run at Sandown, and he finished an excellent fourth. The three in front of him were all ridden handily whereas we were mid-division, and the first three - indeed the first eight, bar us - were all aged six or seven. As a five-year-old we'd conceded maturity to those around us.

Dropping back to two miles wasn't the plan - we'd had a race at Sedgefield pencilled in but it was abandoned - and we bumped into a smart horse on his day in Panjari. But a great season from the Pirate with the promise of a good bit more next term when he'll go novice chasing. We hope that will be the making of him.

 

 

Luna Lux

And finally, Luna Lux. She is the most expensive horse I've bought - €50,000 (about £43,000) - and she, as you might have guessed by now, has a terrific pedigree. She's be Masked Marvel, sire of yesterday's Grade 1 winner and Stayers' Hurdle champ Teahupoo, out of a Listed-winning hurdler. She looks fantastic and we were super excited for her future...

...until she tried to kill herself out in the field. She's spent most of the early part of 2024 at the equine hospital in Newbury and has recently returned to Potwell Farm to complete her convalescence and begin her education. With a following wind, there will be no ill effects from that 'black swan' incident and she'll be able to fulfil her pedigree promise, whatever that might be. I'm massively excited about this filly!

*

I think across these five horses you can see almost the full spectrum of possibility for those of us not paying £300,000 for a once-raced point to point winner. It's fair to say we've been unbelievably lucky with a couple of them, Sure Touch in particular; but you also make your own luck to some degree by making smart decisions in terms of being in the right cohorts (prominent racers, good pedigrees... these things matter).

This summer I'll be adding one, perhaps two, store horses (unraced three-year-olds) to our jumps team, and if you'd like to know more please add your name to the geegeez syndicate interest list by filling in the form here.


 

Season Summary

So that was the jumps season at geegeez.co.uk. As the final performances play out at Punchestown, sights now set firmly on Newmarket and the Guineas Festival this weekend; then it's flat race action pretty much all the way. Stay tuned, and good luck!

Matt

Switching from All Weather to the Turf

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As we move out of April and into May, the number of turf flat race meetings is increasing while the volume of all-weather meetings is diminishing, writes Dave Renham. Therefore, this is the time of year where we see the highest proportion of runners switching from an artificial surface on their last run to the turf next time out.

In this article, then, I am going to see if there are betting angles we can potentially take advantage of; either positive or negative. The study period covers flat turf races run in the UK between 2016 and 2023 where the previous run was on the all-weather. All profits/losses calculated to Betfair SP less 5% commission.

All runners switching from all-weather to turf

To start with let me share the results for ALL runners:

 

 

These runners have secured a win rate equating to close to one in ten and have an average A/E index standing at 0.85. Losses to BSP have been just over 3p in the £ which is better than the ‘norm’.

Let me now break the overall data down - firstly by market rank.

Surface switchers by Market Rank

As I am using BSP for the profit/loss column I will be analysing Betfair Market rank data. To start with let me share the A/E indices for different positions within the betting market:

 

 

As can be seen, favourites have the highest figure and the better value has come from the top four market positions. If we combine the top four in the betting the A/E index averages out to 0.89. Runners positioned 6th or lower in the market have offered relatively poor value in comparison.

Let me now share strike rates, profit/loss and returns:

 

 

The returns (ROI) have been very even with only second favourites out of line. The bigger priced runners (6th+ in the betting) have been ‘saved’ by the occasional three-figure priced winner. For the record there have been eight winners priced above 200/1 on Betfair with 880.09 being the biggest.

 

Surface Switchers by Finishing Position Last Time Out

I  would now like to examine last time out (LTO) performance. I am using LTO finishing position and here are the stats:

 

 

Winners last time out have secured a small BSP profit, while runners-up LTO are not too far from a break-even scenario. It looks best to focus on these two groups. Horses that finished 7th or worse have edged into profit too, but again mainly due to those 200/1+ winners mentioned above.

Before moving on, let me split the LTO winner results by the all-weather course where they won:

 

 

Horses coming from four courses have seen a profit, namely Chelmsford, Dundalk, Newcastle and Wolverhampton. In contrast, last time out winners at Southwell have performed extremely poorly with a very low win rate and heavy losses of over 23 pence in the £. This has been the case over the whole-time frame so one cannot use the old fibresand surface as the reason.

Digging into this LTO course data I have found a few additional angles for LTO winners to share:

  1. LTO winners at Newcastle that started in the top three of the betting in their next run performed well thanks to 120 wins from 437 (SR 27.5%) for a profit of £82.26 (ROI +18.8%).
  2. LTO winners at Chelmsford that started favourite next time scored 39.7% of the time (71 wins from 179) for a profit of £29.23 (ROI +16.3%).
  3. LTO winners at Kempton who raced next time in a handicap have gone on to win 140 races out of 772 (SR 18.1%) for a BSP profit of £92.22 (ROI +12%).

Surface Switchers by days since last run

It is time to examine days off the track to see whether that has made a difference or not:

 

 

Horses returning to the racecourse within a week have by far the best strike rate and have returned over 9p in the £. There have been big profits for the 8-to-14-day group, too, but the 880.09 winner mentioned earlier is the main reason for those. Hence, from this data I would only take a return to the track within seven days as a positive.

 

Surface Switchers by Sex of Horse

The sex of the horse is an area I usually examine as sometimes useful angles are uncovered. Let's see if that is the case here. Below is a graph comparing the A/E indices of male horses moving from all-weather to flat turf versus female horses doing likewise:

 

 

As the numbers indicate, female runners have provided the best value when switching from the sand to turf. This might be because females tend to underperform on artificial surfaces compared to the turf and hence, when switching back there is a better chance of showing improved form.

The best time to catch female runners seems to be during the warmer months. From June to September their A/E index rises to 0.94 and backing all runners blind (nearly 9000 of them) would have yielded a profit of £454.31 (ROI +5.1%).

 

Surface Switchers by Class of Race

Does the class of race make a difference? The graph below suggests for one class, it does, when we compare return on investment.

 

 

Horses switching from all-weather surfaces to the turf have produced poor returns in the highest class of contests (Class 1). However, there is even more to ‘unpack’ when we dig a bit deeper into these Class 1 results. Look at the difference the Class of race they raced in last time out made:

 

 

Horses that raced in the same class LTO (i.e. Class 1) have actually made significant profits with a strong A/E index of 0.96. Those who raced in a lower class LTO have performed extremely poorly with a below par A/E index of 0.79 and losses of more than 30p in the £. There is also quite a difference when comparing the win percentages of nearly 3%.

 

Surface Switchers by Trainer

The final piece of the jigsaw is to look at the performance of trainers when their horse switches to turf from a run on the all-weather LTO. Here are the trainers with the highest strike rates:

 

 

We have the usual suspects as one might expect. The record of the Charlton stable stands out with sound profits and an excellent A/E index of 1.09. If we narrow down Charlton runners to those that started in the top four of the betting when returning to turf, they have excelled. They have combined to score 56 times from 197 qualifiers (SR 28.4%) for a profit of £87.89 (ROI +44.6%). Roger Varian’s runners in contrast seemed to have struggled with losses of around 25p in the £ and a very modest looking 0.74 A/E index.

Before sharing my final thoughts, it would be useful to compare these AW to turf trainer figures with their record when their horses race on turf having raced on turf LTO. In the table below I will compare their win strike rates and A/E indices:

 

 

Individual trainer strike rates do not vary too much but the table gives us some useful pointers. Firstly, William Haggas and Roger Varian’s runners both perform much better when their horses have run on turf last time (both strike rate and A/E index). Ralph Beckett’s runners also do but the difference is less stark. Charlton’s runners perform better having switched surfaces, but their turf-to-turf runners still perform reasonably well.

 

Main Surface Switcher Takeaways

Before I wind this piece up, I have picked out what I think have been the strongest positives and negatives uncovered in my research.

 

 

This week there are more positives and less negatives than I was anticipating. Obviously one cannot guarantee the same patterns will be seen this year with runners switching from the all-weather to turf, but hopefully more will than won’t!

- DR

Roving Reports: Aintree Mayhem

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As we come to the end of another jumps season, one in which my 6-1 Sean Bowen to win the jockeys' title was arguably the best-value loser I’ll ever bet (yes, get those tiny violins out for me), I’d better be telling you about what April has been like on the road for us, writes David Massey. And that means all roads leading to Aintree, to begin with. 

I decided to drive there myself this year as, with the weather threatening all four seasons over the three days, I’ve so much clothing and rainwear that I can at least leave the majority of it in the car each day, rather than go through the laborious process of transferring it all to my lift, and then having to sit on a postage-stamp sized space in the back as there’s no room left for me. It’s a good decision, plus it means the music there and back is a sight better. (Aintree playlist: Orange Juice, The Fall (obviously), The Wedding Present, A Certain Ratio, amongst others. It’s basically the best Indie Disco you’ll attend.) 

Thursday morning, 8am, and we leave the hotel for the track. And here’s the first result of the day, and what a result: the bookies car park, which for the last two years has resembled something that they might have held Junior Kickstart on back in the day, has been paved over! Okay, not paved, but they’ve put down a lot of stones to try and remedy the situation. It works, to a point - some water is still seeping through, but let’s not moan, at least we aren’t dragging the kit through muck and mud. They make sure we pay for the privilege, mind, with prices increasing 40% year on year. Up go the expenses…

For the bookmakers, Aintree is about a lot of standing around in the mornings. You have to be there early because the pick time for your pitch is around 10am each day, but of course there’s no point in starting to bet until midday at the earliest. So there’s not much to do. Thankfully, I can go and get some work done and, more importantly, grab a tea and bacon roll in the media centre, to which I have access. Enjoy the cold, lads, I’m off to find a nice warm chair!

Thursday is always the quietest day of the three, but equally you’re far more likely to bump into a lumpy bet, which is exactly what happens when we go 11-10 Sir Gino in the Juvenile Hurdle. Despite some sketchy leaps late on, our intrepid punter never really has that much worry and he duly lands him his £1100 quid profit. Four of the first five favourites going in is a disaster for many of the books, and they hardly get any respite in the Red Rum with second-favourite Sans Bruit beating the favourite. Only Diva Luna in the last offers any respite. 

I’m Southport-bound Thursday night to discuss some racing business with friends. I can’t reveal too much at this stage but all I can say is stay tuned, some exciting developments are in the pipeline that we hope can shake up the status quo a bit! Exciting times ahead, but I will say if we pull it off, it’ll probably be the end of my days working with the bookmakers, as my time will be taken up elsewhere. So enjoy the tales this summer, they may be the last…

Anyway, back to Aintree and Friday, Ladies Day. Let’s give the ladies of Liverpool their due; they know £2.50 each-way is a fiver, and that if there’s seven runners, you’ll only get first two each-way. Been brought up right, in my opinion. It seems packed out and almost inevitably, the push-and-shove means two lads start scrapping right in front of the joint. I should point out this is before the first race, too, so they aren’t even tanked up yet. There’s no security around to stop it, and we try and alert a nearby copper, but sadly he’s out on the track and can’t actually do a lot other than report it in. It’s fizzling out but one of the lads is covered in blood. Remarkably, he’s still around come Race 5, hawking a docket around, not knowing which bookie he’s had the bet with, so it’s not as if the course got active and kicked them out either. A very scary episode, particularly for a lot of young ladies who almost got caught up in it all, who hid around the back of the joint. 

Back to the on-track action. Friday is FOMO day. For those of you not down with the kids, like what I am, FOMO means Fear Of Missing Out. In betting terms, what this means is that every group of lads you come across that bet with you will all back the same horse, generally the favourite. Win together, lose together. Nobody in that group wants to be the one to say they backed something else as the rest celebrate a winner. Nothing worse. So for the first, they all want to be on Inothewayurthinkin and although at various times he looks in trouble thanks to some shoddy jumping, by the time we reach the last it’s game over for the books as the jolly romps clear. A big payout, and all they want to do is play it up on Kateira.

When that wins the second (from the unlucky Jango Baie) I’m already into the reserve float for more twenties, but they’re piling in now, and Mystical Power is their latest target. Bang, in it goes, and the punters are up 3-0. This is chaos now. More reserves are called for. Bet, bet, bet, pay, pay, pay. It’s just relentless and for all we’re trying to keep up, the queues look endless. It’s just one big party and it’s at the bookmakers' expense. Jonbon next, and they can’t shovel it on quick enough. £200 win bets come at you like confetti. There are reports coming in of books running out of money, many having to have back bets with each other in an effort to put on a tourniquet to stop the bleeding away of money. We pray to the racing Gods to help us out and get this one beat, but they’re JP fans too, and as the jolly Jonbon hits the front two out and goes on to win, it is PANDEMONIUM. 

I cannot, in words, give you a real sense of how bad things are at this point for some of the books but I kid you not when I say one more bad result and it might be the end for a few. Thankfully our tank is big enough to cope with another monster payout but we are eating through it. The crowd know they can’t lose on the day and they’re all-in on Shakem Up’Arry for the Topham. 

You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief as ‘Arry is in no ‘urry to win, dropping right away on the home turn, and the 20-1 winner Arizona Cardinal is an excellent result for most of the books. It somewhat kills business off, with many punters pulling stumps well in front, which is a shame as the last two results are decent. Especially for me - I’ve backed El Jefe at 66-1 the day before, and it gets a right old roar as it comes from nowhere to win the lucky last. Oi oiiiii! First round is on me tonight, lads….

Grand National Day. I’m on a diet, which I might have mentioned before (just over a stone, thanks for asking) but stuff it,  I’m having a full English, as it might be the only time I get to eat before it goes dark tonight. Extra bacon, extra hash brown. It’s on the expenses, after all. 

We’re on track for 9am, and have a think about where’s best to bet. Last year we bet at the bottom of the “ramp” and it worked well, so that’s where we’ll go again today. Once in, I disappear off to the media centre for the final time. The champagne is out, and as it would be rude not to, I have a small glass. Unbeknownst to me, young Sam Boswell is live on Sky Sports Racing doing a piece and I manage to stand behind him in my salmon-pink shirt quaffing champagne, which causes a bit of merriment in the studio! Sam, I can only apologize…

Anyway, back to the joint at lunchtime and away we go. The earlier start time for the Saturday means it’s a little slow to get going but not too bad. Some of the books need a very good day to get in front after two days of being bashed from pillar-to-post. “If I just get the expenses for the week after today, I’d almost say that’s a result”, complains one Midlands bookie. 

If we were hoping to get off to a good start, then Gwennie May Boy gives that a good kicking. Almost to the exclusion of everything else, it was money for either him or West Balboa. Into the float we go again. 

“Please tell me we can get Brighterdaysahead beat, Davey Boy…”. Pinno has the prayer mat out already. I shake my head, as I think she’s a good thing. So she proves, and Bugise Seagull rolling in third (that’s surely spelt incorrectly, isn’t it?) at 50s smashes the each-way up as well. 

Cruz Control is better in the Freebooter and Strong Leader is even better in the Liverpool Hurdle (it’s at the bottom of the board numerically, remember what I told you? Punters work from the top down when they don’t know what to back) but then it’s National time. Business for the big one is strong, with plenty of money around. Sadly, the majority of it is for I Am Maximus and Limerick Lace, and whilst the latter fades out of things in one of the most open Nationals I can remember for a long time, the former powers clear in the style of a good horse and the payout queues are long ones. 

I say pay out - many of the lads, fuelled by some of Kimberley Ales’ finest, throw the lot back on Found A Fifty in the Maghull. With an hour’s gap between races, once they’ve had their bets they disappear off, which is just as well as the weather takes a terrible turn. The wind whips up, causing a tsunami of plastic pint pots to come tumbling down the ramp towards us, and the rain starts lashing in. This is reminiscent of a couple of years ago when similar happened, and it cleared the place in ten minutes then. None of this matters as Found A Fifty, who looks beat at the last as Master Chewy takes it up, rallies to the cause and gets back up. The roar is deafening and that’s basically game over. 

Most don’t stick around for the last, preferring to take their hard-earned winnings and get going, which is a shame as the weather gets better but, alas, all too late. On the plus side, I find the winner of the bumper merely by watching them go to post, which was nice and will pay for the petrol home. It’s been three days to forget for many of the bookmakers - one of the major Festivals that they would expect to win at, for many a disaster, and that coming off the back of a mediocre Cheltenham for them will mean a major Spring rethink. 

For me, this will be my last Aintree on the books. Next year, something completely different, as Monty Python might have said. Can’t say what yet, but whatever it is, I’ll not be getting any 6-1 about Sean Bowen winning the jockeys' title again. Not that I’m bitter about that, or anything…

- DM

Monday Musings: A Cakewalk for Willie

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We knew when he won the Grand National it would be tight, writes Tony Stafford. The differential between Willie Mullins, devouring his first (of many, no doubt) UK trainers’ titles and runner-up Dan Skelton, was in the end just the £344,717, more than enough to see off Kerry Lee, whose 18 winners at a fine strike-rate of 24% earned in total £309k. She was 43rd in the table with some very big names finishing considerably south of her.

I read somewhere that it was remarkable that Mullins could achieve his feat with so few runners in the UK. If you talk of total numbers fair enough, but apart from the money – expertly plucked out of the vagaries of the programme book where he has such an advantage – his numbers weren’t as great as you could imagine.

Let’s start with strike-rate, just 18%, lower than Paul Nicholls – third overall, and £95k behind Sketon, but Paul’s 169 wins came at a rate of 23%. Nicky Henderson, who belatedly enjoyed his own time in the spotlight thanks to Jonbon’s destruction of Willie’s El Fabiolo in the Celebration Chase, with Edwardstone just behind, perhaps surprisingly bettered last season’s tally of 90, by one, achieved at 21%.

Mullins sent over 115 individual horses to the UK – I kid you not! They were mostly targeted at the best of the best, running until the last week’s blitz, for the best money on offer. His 28 winners in all were provided by 26 individual horses.

Only nine trainers raced as many individual animals through the season. Top with 210 was Skelton, winning 120 races. Fergal O’Brien ran 171, winning 107 but still at a better strike-rate of 20% compared with Willie’s 18%. Then it was Nicholls, 169, Donald McCain 167 and Henderson who, for all his peak-season travails, still had 144 to run.

The only others to run more were Olly Murphy, 135; Lucinda Russell, 130; Jonjo O’Neill 126, and Ben Pauling 123. Murphy ought to be eternally grateful to Sure Touch, the geegeez.co.uk-owned horse, who with three successive wins, culminating in defeat of a Mullins raider at Perth signalled his own growing status among the training community as well as helping to clinch the ton.

I’ve gone on over the past two weeks about the relative risk/reward situation with the Grand National under the latest mollified fences but also the mechanism that means hardly anything other than the top Irish stables can get a horse into the contest. Not much risk, but plenty of reward!

I’ve just identified the nine UK-based trainers with the strongest and most effective teams in the land. Between them in the now-denuded 34-runner Grand National, they had two of the seven UK runners, the Irish having the remainder.

Half of their interest went at the first fence when last year’s Lucinda Russell-trained winner Corach Rambler unseated Derek Fox. Dan Skelton’s Galia Des Liteaux ran a creditable eighth.

Contrastingly, the top four Irish NH trainers supplied 20 of the 32 (two were taken out in the morning). Mullins had eight including the eight-year-old winner I Am Maximus; Gordon Elliott, also with more than a century of UK runners in the season just concluded, had seven; Henry De Bromhead three and Gavin Cromwell two. That’s 63% of the field.

Further scrutiny showed that two each of the Mullins and Elliott runners started at 100/1 or more and none finished the course. The effect, if not intentionally, was to minimise the potential danger to the pair’s leading contenders by excluding others (maybe even trained here!). Of course, it’s nice to get hold of owners’ tickets on a day like that.

The simple fact is that without the 500 grand collected by I Am Maximus, not only would Mullins not have beaten Dan Skelton, he might well not have bothered to bring a proportion of the runners that came principally to Aintree and Sandown, leaving it more a traditional last-day Skelton/Nicholls tussle.

Now he’s won it though, the appetite will be there to win it again. All the middle to major prizes will now be on his agenda, and I’ve even heard in the last few days that a satellite yard in the UK might be in the planning.

He did comment that when he asks his owners to fund the travel of his horses across the water, he invariably gets their blessing. How much easier to be based in the middle of the country somewhere like Ian Williams, close to the Midlands motorway hub. Trainers here, say in Newmarket, metaphorically have to get down on their knees and beg to send a horse further than York!

It will be interesting when he does expand his operations from Ireland or if indeed he does take another yard here. The one time that I can remember such an inferiority complex – I was still very young when Vincent O’Brien used to take home Grand Nationals and Gold Cups to order – was in the days of Arkle and Flyingbolt.

Actually, it was more the home trainers afeared of the Tom Dreaper pair. For all Arkle’s greatness, he was still only rated 1lb superior to Flyingbolt, who was the more versatile of the pair, and the Irish handicapper even used to make separate handicaps for some of the biggest races with and without the pair.

The implications for jump racing over here if Mullins was to target mundane day-to-day cards is frightening. Three odds-on shots per meeting would be unappetising, the rest having to trail around like half the fields in Irish novice events to ensure competitive starting marks. But then he has the owners, most of whom are active here anyway.

I’ve no doubt he could easily assemble a team almost as numerically strong as is the case back home. Prospective owners would flock to him, but he could afford to put stringent requirements on them.  Maybe with Nicky Henderson as his assistant? Sorry, that’s silly. Without the Grand National, Nicky would have been close to Mullins this time around and with 142 according to Horses In Training in his care, the future after Saturday’s revival, is bright enough with such as Constitution Hill, Jonbon, Sir Gino and the rest to keep him cool through the summer.

What must Nick Skelton, father of Dan and new parent Harry Skelton, be thinking? His project in Warwickshire has developed to the extent that his son has mastered his former boss Paul Nicholls as well as Henderson and yet he must accept only second place. Harry is a former champion jockey: Dan sorely needs to join him as a champion.

It’s a reminder of the days when Adrian Maguire expected to step up after his tussles with Richard Dunwoody for a first UK title only to be confronted by the comet that was Tony McCoy. Last time I saw him he was riding out at Ballydoyle for Aidan O’Brien, but I gather he has moved on since.

McCoy, Aidan and Willie Mullins all started their careers around the same time three decades ago with Jim Bolger. Many since have made a similar journey, some with great success, but none will match the achievements of this Holy Trinity.

Bolger has made an impact on the flat of course, with his homebreds. Two, Poetic Flare and Dawn Approach, won the 2000 Guineas and I expect to see another Irish-trained colt win next Saturday’s race. City of Troy made a marked impression on me (and everyone else I’m sure) when coming over twice last year to Newmarket, for the Superlative Stakes on the July Course and the Dewhurst Stakes over seven-eighths of the 2000 Guineas mile in October.

His two flawless performances had many thinking back to Frankel and I hope he will deserve to be regarded in the same breath as that great unbeaten champion after Saturday.

The biggest boost to his chance, apart from the Coolmore, Aidan O’Brien, Ryan Moore connection, is that his sire Justify is proving as potentially good in the breeding shed with his first crops around the world as he was as an unbeaten colt in the USA. Only the second Triple Crown winner there since the 1970’s, he should build stamina as well as lightning speed into his horses having won the 12-furlong Belmont Stakes.

The form of City Of Troy’s two wins over here is solidified by Haatem, winner in between them of Goodwood’s Group 2 Richmond Stakes and, this April, the Craven Stakes over the full 2000 Guineas distance, but slaughtered each time by the Guineas favourite. He is regarded as inferior to his Richard Hannon stable-mate Rosallion, who won the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at the Arc meeting last year. It could be tough, but that’s how the greatest reputations are made.

- TS

Handicap Losers and Official Rating Change: A Study

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In my previous piece, I wrote about last time out handicap winners and reviewed what differences changes in their rating made when they next run, writes Dave Renham. This time, I am going to look at other handicap finishing positions (e.g. 2nd or worse).

Introduction / Overview

As with the first article I will be sticking to horses which raced in a turf handicap last time out (LTO) and which are running in a turf handicap on their next outing. Qualifying races will be flat turf races run in the UK covering 2016 to 2023 with all profits/losses calculated to Betfair SP less 5% commission.

As I mentioned previously, when any horse runs in a handicap, the official handicapper assesses their performance and will adjust their Official Rating as they see fit. So the first thing I wanted to understand this time was the percentage of ‘non-winners’ that saw their rating go up, stay the same, or go down. Here are the splits:

 

 

As can be seen, over half of the runners were dropped in the ratings, around a third stayed the same, while less than one in seven horses saw their OR raised. How did each group fared in terms of results next time? Here is what I found:

 

 

Horses that performed better LTO have won more often but the ROI% figures are within just 0.4% of each other.

I now want to focus on horses that finished 2nd LTO.

 

LTO finishing position 2nd

Firstly, let me look at the general stats based on whether their rating went up, went down, or stayed the same:

 

 

In terms of returns there has been a slight edge to those LTO runners up whose rating was elevated. This group has also provided the biggest number of qualifiers, whereas it is relatively rare for such runners to be dropped in the ratings.

Below is a more detailed look at runners-up that were raised in the ratings. The table shows a next time out performance breakdown by specific rating change:

 

 

Caution is advised with the profit figures for horses that have been upped by 6lb or more as these stats have been skewed by two winners priced more than 40 BSP at 40.59 and 55.51.

During the study period, over 3000 horses that were 2nd LTO were raised in the ratings by just 1lb. These runners are close to breaking even to BSP, so it is worth digging further to see if there are any interesting stats from within this group.

Class change is one area that I looked at and I would like to share the follow-up results for all LTO turf handicap runners up that were raised exactly 1lb in the ratings, in terms of the class of race change:

 

 

These stats show that LTO 2nds when upped in class have proved good value. These runners have also been profitable in five of the last six seasons. In contrast, those dropped in class have provided very poor value losing over 22p in the £ for every £1 staked.

Sticking with these LTO runners up who have been raised by exactly 1lb, let me share their results when looking at the class of race contested:

 

 

In terms of the profit and loss column we can see that the two lowest Classes (5 & 6) have both incurred losses, with Class 5 losses especially steep. In contrast, Classes 2, 3 and 4 have all proved profitable with Class 3 results very solid including an excellent A/E index of 1.02.

Finally for this group of runners (2nd LTO / up 1lb) it is worth sharing that if restricting qualifiers to sprint handicaps (5f and 6f only) they have produced a decent profit. This subset of runners won 161 times from 930 attempts (SR 17.3%) for a BSP profit of £127.02 (ROI +13.7%). The A/E index was an impressive 1.01. The even better news is that these results are not skewed by bigger priced successes. Indeed, if restricting qualifiers to the top four in the betting we get the following:

 

 

An excellent A/E of 1.04 and returns equating to over 15p for every £1 bet.

 

LTO finishing position 3rd

Onto horses that finished 3rd on their last start. As I did with runners-up let me start by sharing some general stats based on whether their rating went up, down, or stayed the same. Unsurprisingly, far fewer horses were raised in the ratings compared to those who finished 2nd LTO:

 

 

Again, they are a remarkably similar set of figures with no edge to any of the three groups, and the win strike rates indicate a very solid performance by the official handicapper. Let me examine the horses that went up in the ratings and look at the effect of different changes in Official Ratings:

 

 

More than half of the runners upped in the ratings went up just 1lb, but they produced losses of nearly 11 pence in the £. Those raised 3lbs made a profit but take out a BSP 70.0 winner and that becomes a loss. Likewise, the 4+ group had two big-priced winners which again made the bottom line look better than it really is. It should also be noted that all 30 runners upped 7lb or more all lost.

 

LTO finishing position 4th or worse

As we move into horses that did not make the first three LTO, an even greater proportion of these will end up dropping in the ratings as the pie chart below shows.

 

 

From this cohort nearly seven in ten run next time with a lower rating, with just 4% getting raised. This should not come as a surprise considering how they ran previously. The splits for each group look thus:

 

 

Horses that went up in the ratings have provided the worst returns by a few pence in the £ and, based on next time out win strike rates, it could be argued they’ve been harshly treated as a whole.

With the group going down in the ratings being such a big one I am going to look in more detail at them.

 

LTO finishing position 4th or worse + went down in ratings

With over 50,000 horses in this sample one would hope to find some worthwhile angles be they positive or negative. So let’s break their records down by looking at the effect of different drops in OR. Firstly, a look at next time win strike rate based OR difference from prior run:

 

 

The smaller the drop in the ratings the higher the strike rate. Let’s examine how that correlates with return on investment (ROI%):

 

 

There is sound correlation between strike rates and returns: the better value has been with horses dropped either one or two pounds and I would generally avoid horses dropped more than 4lbs.

The most interesting finding concerning horses that were dropped in the ratings having finished 4th or worse was when I looked at their market rank on the betting exchanges. Here is what I found:

 

 

Both favourites and second favourites have produced profits, each with strong A/E indices of 0.98. While returns were modest in ROI terms, considering that would have been achieved from backing all such runners ‘blind’ it can certainly be viewed as a positive. Also, this top two in the market group combined to produce six winning years out of eight, thus showing good consistency.

Those fourth in the betting have provided a decent profit, too, and although 3rd favourites did not, the top four in the betting have proved far better value than those fifth or worse in the betting.

Going back to favourites/2nd favourites here are the BSP profits and losses when splitting their results by Class of Race:

 

 

There has been promising profit from Class 3, 4 and 5 events, especially when considering market position. Class 2 qualifiers lost a tiny amount, but Class 6 favs/2nd favs have under-performed in comparison. Class 6 races are often contested by more inconsistent types, and considering we are looking at horses that finished 4th or worse LTO, albeit first or second in the betting, I am not too surprised at these poorer figures.

 

Main Takeaways

Before closing, I have picked out what I think are the strongest positives and negatives uncovered in this research into the impact of ratings changes on beaten horses in turf handicaps.

 

 

There are a few areas of interest arising for me so it has been a worthwhile continuation from the last article. In the future I hope to revisit Official Rating Change with one potential idea being comparing their current OR rating with their highest winning rating.

Until next time…

  • DR

Monday Musings: Willie’s Big Nose(s)

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I was going to try to demean a little Willie Mullins’ amazing Saturday at Ayr, his four-timer surely guaranteeing him a first and unique UK NH trainers title for an overseas stable, writes Tony Stafford.

My line was: where were the Gordon Elliott hordes, seven in the previous week’s Grand National and, who can forget, 14 in the Troytown Chase at Navan in November?

I thought maybe the two dominant forces (one rather more than the other it’s true) might have had a chat, but on further research, I see Gordon didn’t run anything in the Ayr race last year either!

So it was left to Willie to run six, mostly horses that had been slogging through heavy ground all winter and now faced with a much faster surface. The shortest-priced, Mr Incredible, refused to jump the first fence from miles behind, and another unseated there, but that was it.

The remaining quartet finished first, for £110k, then fourth, fifth and sixth in the 26-runner race – if they can run 26 around Ayr, why not 40 at Aintree? Only one horse fell.

Here, it’s about time we started to marvel at the skills of Paul Townend, for so long dismissed in some circles as merely an inferior replacement for Ruby Walsh. Like the big-race win on Macdermott, ridden by Danny Mullins, the following three-mile handicap hurdle success on Chosen Witness was also by a nose, clinched in the last stride.

Earlier, multiple Grade 1 hurdle winner Sharjah was coaxed to stay a previously never attempted three miles under 12st in a novice handicap chase in the patient hands of Townend. Might we see the winner in next year’s Grand National as a 12-year-old?

There was a marmite-like divided reaction to the no-fall Grand National debate last weekend. The BHA and no doubt the top Irish trainers, for; others, like Chris Cook of the Racing Post and Geoff Greetham, former boss of Timeform, sharing my view that it’s not really a Grand National anymore. Probably, if anything, the once-feared fences will remain at best as they were last weekend, or even become easier to placate the ever-closer attention of the Animal Welfare adherents.

Gordon Elliott does have entries for Sandown’s end-of-season party on Saturday but unlike in the earlier days of the Pipe/Henderson and Pipe/Nicholls last-day cliff-hangers, his will only add to the potential Irish domination on the day.

The four Mullins horses that took chunks of the money on offer in Saturday’s big race would generally have been hard to assess, mostly stepping up in class. The trainer has an abundance of horses already at the top but many more coming through the grades. How can you (or maybe even he) put a figure on such potential for improvement?

After Sandown, there’s Punchestown of course. I wondered how many of our top trainers will be involved in a competitive way? Nicky Henderson has ten entered at the opening stage, including Aintree winners Jonbon and Sir Gino, slipped in surreptitiously almost into a Mullins-dominated meeting often with up to ten potential contenders in each race.

Mostly, none of the stars was needed to collect the two biggest prizes at Aintree and Ayr.

Dan Skelton seems to be giving it a miss while Paul Nicholls’ trio includes the so far unraced for him but eagerly anticipated €740k buy Coldwell Potter. Jonjo has a quartet in one bumper and we might see Aintree bumper runner-up Tripoli Flyer for Fergal O’Brien. Less likely, there’s an entry for Corach Rambler.

As I said last week, Willie Mullins takes his success with great dignity, but it does tend to get on one’s nerves after the continuing monopoly!

*

The 2024 flat-race season finally got going with Newmarket and Newbury last week and now it’s less than a fortnight to the first two Classic races. If anyone was expecting the Craven Stakes to indicate a potential threat to City Of Troy, they would probably be thinking again.

Richard Hannon had his Haatem ready to make a winning return and last year’s Group 2 Richmond Stakes scorer added another good prize to his tally with an authoritative three-and-a-half length verdict over the Gosdens’ Eben Shaddad. Sighters from the Charlie Appleby and Aidan O’Brien teams were well behind.

When Haatem won the Richmond, it followed an earlier six-and-a-half length demolition by the O’Brien colt in the Superlative Sakes on Newmarket’s July Course. Haatem’s final run coincided with City Of Troy on his next appearance, an all-the-way victory in the Dewhurst Stakes by almost four lengths from Alyanaabi – Haatem was eight-and-a- half lengths back in fifth.

You can still get 4/6 about the brilliant Coolmore horse, his price only buttressed by second favourite Rosallion, trained by Haatem’s handler Richard Hannon. His horses have made a great start to the season, not least winning nice races for long-standing stable owner Julie Wood.

I love her strategy. Rather than keep her good horses, she enjoys racing them and then, even the fillies, sells them on. Last week she had two first time out winners on the same Newbury card, Voyage in the ten-furlong maiden, and Star Style, a Zoustar filly in the seven-furlong newcomers’ race.

Stretching more than five lengths clear of some well-related if less talented fillies, Star Style filled the usual Julie Wood sourcing pattern.

Preferring to buy on her own judgment as foals rather than wait for agents to tell her what’s nice a year later, she happened to take a liking to this filly, who is out of a mare she raced, Sweet Cicely. Star Style will, I’m sure, more than live up to her name.

One agent who is becoming ever more prominent is Sam Sangster, with his horses with Brian Meehan. Last year they had Isaac Shelby as an example of his skills at the sales and, at Newmarket last week, Jayarebe romped home in the Feilden Stakes in the manner of a guaranteed high-class performer.

Up with the pace throughout, he strode clear of some smart types to win by almost four lengths in the fastest time of the day on the drying ground.

Half an hour later Godolphin’s five-year-old Ottoman Fleet gained a repeat victory in the Group 3 Earl of Sefton Stakes, fully extended to hold fast-finishing Astro King, winner of last year’s Cambridgeshire under a record weight, and Hi Royal, last year’s 2000 Guineas runner-up. The two winners carried the same weight of 9st2lb which makes the three-year-old’s performance 10lb superior, allowing for weight-for-age.

He carries the lucky (for Meehan) colours of Iraj Parvizi, whose Dangerous Midge won the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Turf for Meehan at Churchill Downs. Jayarebe has no Classic entries, but the likelihood is that he could be supplemented for the Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) at Chantilly.

Later on the card, there was a suggestion of yet another great buy by Sam Sangster when the three-year-old filly Kathmandu outran her 40/1 odds to finish third in the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes behind Pretty Crystal, trained by Richard Fahey, and 1000 Guineas hopeful Dance Sequence, trained by Charlie Appleby.

It was a messy race and many thought Dance Sequence ought to have won. She’s still only 7/1 for the Classic on May 5.

Before the race, Kathmandu’s connections – they go by Sangster and (Ed) Babington and she runs in Robert Sangster’s colours - were already on a winner with their 50 grand purchase. The previous evening, Kathmandu’s two-year-old half-sister by New Bay was bought for 525,000gns to join Godolphin on the first stage of the Craven Breeze-Up sale. That and black type, too.

“We’ve always thought she was good, so we entered her three weeks ago for the French 1000 Guineas. The decision on whether she runs, as ever, will be left to Brian.” Quite right too!

- TS

Monday Musings: Fences

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We wait all year for the Grand National, anticipating the sternest examination in jump racing anywhere in the world, writes Tony Stafford. Such is the conditioned attitude that the great race has engendered over so many years, owners who have been around for a while, when lucky enough to own a top steeplechaser, are more often than not terrified of taking up the challenge.

We, or rather they, consider the fearsome fences, like the Chair, Becher’s Brook and the rest, and shrink away. Are they wise? Well let me give you a definitive if an admittedly after-timing answer. No, they are not!

The three races over said fences, Thursday’s Fox Hunters, Friday’s Topham and Saturday’s Randox-sponsored £1 million feature, carried big fields by day to day standards, even if the latest modification (or rather mutilation) of the big race has reduced the maximum field to  34 – denuded further with two on-the-day defections on Saturday - more about that later.

The Chair did prove too much of a jumping test for two of the 24 runners among Thursday’s hunter chasers – we were used to seeing 30 - two of them falling at that point. Then again, one was a 50/1 shot, the other was 66’s.

So the biggest of the 16 obstacles and which, along with the water in front of the stands, is one of only two to be jumped once, would surely take more fallers over the next two days. It didn’t, and nor did any of the other 15 obstacles over all three.

Thus, I’m sure we had the first ever Grand National where there had not been a single faller. True, four horses unseated their riders, ironically one of them was last year’s winner Corach Rambler, who continued only briefly having left Derek Fox on the deck at the opening obstacle days after the jockey had recovered from injury just in time to aim for the repeat. Corach Rambler actually did fall, unencumbered by a jockey, at the very next fence and then was seen veering to the right having refused at the third. Three-in-one, unseated, fell and refused at the first three obstacles!

Seven were pulled up, so that left 21 of the 32 starters to complete the course. In the Fox Hunters, in addition to those two fallers at the Chair (fence three), three unseated and seven pulled up, leaving ten finishers. The Topham also had 24 starters, one of which unseated and six more pulled up leaving an almost unfathomable 17 (71%) to get round. These are unprecedented figures, especially on soft or heavy going.

In my usual way of securing a comprehensive analysis, I thought a quick look back two decades to one of my most memorable races, 2004, the year that Graham Lee rode that wonderful race on Ginger McCain’s Amberleigh House, would provide a useful yardstick.

Graham’s ride that day was the Grand National performance I always considered the best I’d seen. He coolly took a pull when most jockeys would have gone hell for leather at the third-last, saving enough in the testing ground to come out on top. Graham rode quite a few winners for me in his Wilf Storey days and it’s a poignant thought that he suffered his horrific injuries after switching to the flat.

The ground was testing that week twenty years ago, but times for the three respective races, the Fox Hunters, Topham and Grand National were all significantly faster than the 2024 versions. This year’s Fox Hunters took around 18 seconds longer to complete; the Topham 12 seconds more and the Grand National seven seconds more even though the course had dried significantly over the previous 24 hours.

The 2004 Fox Hunters had six fallers, two brought down and two pulled up. The Topham that year had eight fallers, two brought down and one refusal while four horses pulled up. In Amberleigh House’s Grand National, nine fell, two were brought down, two refused, seven unseated rider and eight pulled up.

All the modifications have done is to make it little more than a park race. High-class chasers, especially those so redolent of the Irish steeplechasing scene, can continue year to year, mopping up the many Graded and Listed races around their country and maintaining a status that guarantees a place in next year’s field.

Here, the good horses have to run in the few well-endowed but ultra-competitive high-class handicap chases in the calendar like the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury in early December or the Welsh Grand National, also sponsored by Coral at Chepstow on the day after Boxing Day.

Nassalam has been the unwitting vehicle for the grossest example of a handicapping error from his win in the Welsh National, and for once I’m not blaming the official it concerns, but our system. Nassalam had already won a handicap chase at Chepstow a month earlier when he went back to the track for the 3m5f feature. Gary Moore’s gelding was always in contention but in heavy ground, as they moved out of the back straight, his mastery was already evident.

In an eerie foreshadowing of Saturday’s big race, there were no fallers that day at Chepstow, largely because by the time most of them had got to the end of the back straight, they had already given up. Of the 19 horses that set off, five completed, with Iron Bridge off levels with the winner, nearest but beaten 34 lengths.

Iron Bridge, trained by Jonjo O’Neill in the Hemmings Racing colours, and at eight two years senior to Nassalam, hadn’t won a race for some time and his best chase form, far from in top races, had been in novice handicap chases. If the handicapper had been able to wait until the four other horses that completed ran again, he might have acted a little less extravagantly. None of the quartet has done a thing since. All of them were probably bottomed by their run behind Nassalam, so to rate that as a 16lb improvement was simply horrific.

I think Gary Moore, brave enough to let him take his chance in the Grand National even after pulling up in between at Cheltenham in the Gold Cup, has a very strong case to appeal. By going to 161 he was giving weight to a former Gold Cup winner in Minella Indo on Saturday. That one finished third, behind and just ahead of the Gordon Elliott pair Delta Work and Galvin, both habitual competitors at the top level, as well as winner I Am Maximus. Last time out, he had given Vanillier, the 2023 runner-up 12lb and a 14-length beating in a four-runner Grade 3 chase at Fairyhouse.

I Am Maximus received 2lb from Nassalam on Saturday, but had the Grand National weight assessor had available evidence of Fairyhouse to hand, he would have been conceding 3lb to Nassalam. I think having seen him start at 50/1 and after making a couple of mistakes, yet still valiantly completed, the UK handicappers might start adjusting their reaction to what have been hitherto perceived as key races.

If in a 19-runner handicap like the Welsh National it is obvious that only a few horses handled conditions, a more measured approach might be in order. Horses like I Am Maximus, Delta Work (close to dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll more than once), Minella Indo and Galvin should not be receiving weight from a horse with a single performance that sticks out like a sore thumb.

Elsewhere, great credit must go to David Maxwell. Most 45-year-old estate agents would have been in the hospitality area if inclined to visit the Grand National. Instead, he bought Ain’t That A Shame, 105 lengths behind Corach Rambler in last year’s National under Rachael Blackmore and pulled up more recently in the Munster National and guided him into sixth place – and a £30k instalment on the purchase price - only 15.75 lengths adrift of I Am Maximus. Rachael, on the third Minella Indo, still had the edge in the Henry de Bromhead team, so a good piece of business all round.

Most interesting for me, having put forward one of J P McManus’s other runners, Limerick Lace, as my selection last week, it was a shock to see her price contract to 7/1 joint-favourite with the winner.

She finished tenth after making some mistakes, beginning when interfered with, as far as I could see on a single viewing, at the Canal Turn first time round. She was going on very well at the finish, and if she does come back next year, whatever happens in the meantime (almost) I’ll be with her.

Changing tack, something though has to be done about a situation where two trainers can know from months out they can share half the Grand National field between them without fear of serious challenge. This also prevents other potential candidates lower down the handicap scale – usually the best chance for one of ours – to get in. I do think a cap on the maximum number of runners for a trainer or owner, or both, might well need to be an interim measure before trainers here totally pull up the white flag.

Dan Skelton, Ben Pauling and a few others have stepped forward to bolster the long-established leaders Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls. Irishman Fergal O’Brien is well entrenched in Gloucestershire and all five of those talented men had winners over the three days last week.

In a way the £500,000 first prize, along with £200,000, £100,000 and £65,000 for the next three places does nothing for the race, except in enabling people to say it’s the biggest prize in UK jump racing. So what?! It’s our race and we need our top and highly skilled trainers and their owners to have a shot of winning it.

A first step would be to let owners know that the old antipathy against running in the race for fear of an early end to a jumper’s career is no longer valid. If it always gives an imbalance to the trainers' championship too, that’s a side effect. When Aidan O’Brien habitually contests the flat trainers' title with the Gosdens and others, he needs to win Classics and numerous Group 1 races to make up for the numerical advantage of his British counterparts. There’s no such balancing act in jumping – it’s Willie first, the rest nowhere!

On the point of non-runners, Gordon Elliott reduced his big team by one via a vet’s certificate, but Chambard, trained by Venetia William, was withdrawn on a self-certificate. For a normal race I would say the self-cert rule is fine, but for a race like the Grand National, surely not. For contests of a certain value and status, specific reasons should be required. Two horses were denied the chance to run for the big pot and I bet their connections are fuming!

- TS

Handicap Winners and Official Rating Change: A Study

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As the title suggests, in this article I examine last time out (LTO) handicap winners and look to see what impact, if any, different changes to their rating makes when they race again, writes Dave Renham. I will also be grouping together all LTO winners upped in the ratings to explore general trends and stats.

Introduction

When any horse runs in a handicap, the Official Handicapper assesses the performance and decides whether the Official Rating – a number that determines in which class a horse should run and how much weight it should carry – should go up, down or stay the same.

These ratings are adjusted and published every Tuesday so there will be times when a handicap winner runs again before it gets reassessed. When this occurs, the horse in question must carry a fixed penalty of extra weight in order to meet its rivals on somewhat fairer terms. This is 6lb for a 2yo or 3yo, 5lb for a 4-6yo, and 4lb for a 7yo+.

Hence a seven-year-old horse that won off a handicap mark of 76 LTO will carry a 4lb fixed penalty if running prior to reassessment and will race off a handicap mark of 80 in that race (76+4).

When a horse wins a handicap, the Official Handicapper needs to decide by how much to raise its rating. If it wins narrowly, it is likely the rise will be small; but if the horse wins comfortably by several lengths, then the rise is likely to be more significant. This is why some jockeys ease their mounts up near the finish in an attempt to narrow the winning margin in hope of a smaller rating rise. Ratings points equate to 1lb in terms of weight carried.

Now, when horses switch from turf flat to all-weather or vice versa there are potential issues such as when a horse is far better on one surface than the other. In these circumstances the handicapper has the option of allotting a ‘split’ handicap rating, different for each surface. In this article I am avoiding that scenario by sticking to horses which won a turf handicap LTO and who are running in a turf handicap on their next start. I have concentrated on turf flat races run in the UK covering a time span from 2016 to 2023. All profits/losses have been calculated to Betfair SP less 5% commission.

Official Rating (OR) Change – All turf winners

To begin with let me share data for all LTO turf winners and the effect of different changes in Official Ratings:

 

 

As the table indicates from the number of runners in each row, the rise tends to be between 3 and 6 pounds. Generally, the more a horse has been raised the more it increases its chances of winning. However, this does not equate to profit! Looking at ROI% figures one could argue the better value in terms of horses going up in the ratings are with those raised between one and two pounds.

A handful of horses saw their Official Rating decrease. There are a few reasons why this might happen. It could be due to a big race having early declarations and they win just before that race takes place. It could also be due to a horse being off the track for a long time. For example, Soldier in Action won a handicap at Goodwood in September 2018 off a mark of 94 but was not seen again on the track for four years. He raced off 90 on his return as the handicapper has the discretion to drop a rating in these circumstances, when in possession of a lot more information about the value of the previous race-winning form. These runners have made a profit from a very small sample.

For the remainder of the article, I am going ignore the two small groups of LTO winners that either stayed the same rating or indeed raced from a lower rating, meaning that I will be focusing only on runners whose Official Rating increased.

Rise in Official Ratings by Race Class

I would like to split the results of handicap winners raised at least 1lb or more by Race Class. Does this make any difference? Firstly, I looked at win strike rates:

 

 

It is interesting to see the increase in win percentage as the level of race gets easier. However, we know strike rates are not instructive from a ledger perspective so we need to examine returns. Also, Class 2 handicaps do tend to have bigger fields so one would expect the win SR% for that group to be lower.

Unsurprisingly, all race classes made a loss, and the splits are shown in the graph below:

 

There is not much in it when comparing the returns of Classes 2 through to 5. However, Class 6 LTO handicap winners have got close to breaking even (loss of just over 2p in the £) and they seem to have offered the best value during the period of study. If you had concentrated on Class 6 qualifiers that won a Class 6 handicap LTO then these runners would have lost less than 1p in the £.

Sticking with LTO handicap winners racing at Class 6 level, it is very interesting when we split the results by how much the horse was raised. I have grouped them together in batches to give bigger sample sizes:

 

 

The table suggests that the less a horse has gone up in the weights the better from a value perspective. It should be noted that the results for Class 6 runners upped between 1 and 3 pounds have+ not been skewed by huge-priced winners. Indeed, when these runners started favourite, they returned over 14p in the £ thanks to 72 winners from 228 qualifiers (SR 31.6%) for a BSP profit of £32.37. Second favourites were also profitable though only just.

So we see that, in Class 6 handicaps, horses upped by eight pounds or more have proved very poor value albeit from a small sample. But what about horses upped by eight pounds-plus in other Class grades? Here are the stats:

 

 

As you can see Class 3 runners have snuck into profit. However, Class 5 runners have struggled losing nearly 25p in the £. Hence horses raised 8lb or more have struggled in the two lowest classes (5 and 6) – they look worth swerving.

Rise in Official Ratings by Age

A look now at whether the age of a horse makes a difference when trying to repeat a handicap win having been upped in the weights/ratings. I want to look at win strike rate first as there is a pattern:

 

 

As the graph indicates, in terms of win percentage horses aged two to five outperform those six and older. Once we get to 9yos and older the win rate drops below 10%. Let me share now the Betfair return on investment figures to see if they correlate with the strike rates:

 

 

There is good correlation between the ROI% and the win strike rates. 7yos buck the trend slightly but the graph otherwise trends in the right direction. 9yos+ have been very poor value losing nearly 28p in the £. 2yos have proved the best value although would still have lost a shade under 4p in the £ for every £1 staked.

As 3yos provide the biggest group of LTO turf handicap winners by some margin, let me drill into their record in more detail. If we narrow our 3yos down to those who were raised just one or two pounds we get the following results – 72 winners from 410 (SR 17.6%) for a BSP profit of £102.08 (ROI +24.9%). Each of the last four years has produced a profit to BSP.

Remarkably the biggest hike in the weights/ratings for a LTO winning 3yo has been a massive 23lbs! It should be noted that when the rise gets beyond 10lbs, 3yos have been less successful. Under these circumstances they have managed to win just 17 of 117 races (SR 14.5%) for a loss of £31.44 (ROI -26.9%)

I have one last age-related stat to share: horses aged nine or older when raised just 1-2lbs have won only twice from 50 attempts (SR 4%). Betting all qualifiers would have lost a massive 76p in the £. 43 of these 50 runners had won LTO by less than a length so my guess is that they had nothing ‘in hand’ when winning and hence going into their next race it made a repeat win very difficult.

Rise in Official Ratings by Sex

Do male horses or female horses perform better when raised in the weights after a turf handicap win? Here are the splits:

 

 

Female runners have outperformed their male counterparts across the board, delivering a higher strike rate, better returns, and a higher A/E index. This is interesting because when we look at all flat runners, males tend to win slightly more often than females.

It makes sense to look at this female group in more detail. Firstly, let me examine their stats by Class of race:

 

 

In the ‘run of the mill’ handicaps of Class 4 and 5, female runners have performed far less well. However, at either end of the scale, Classes 2 to 3, and Class 6, their record has been very solid. At the basement level of Class 6 they have made a good profit and with the highest priced success being 22.58 BSP, these figures have not been skewed by a random 50/1+ winner or two.

Another stat worth sharing is that female qualifiers who were raised just 1 or 2 pounds would have been worth following thanks to 70 winners from 423 (SR 16.6%) for a BSP profit of £54.35 (ROI +12.9%).

Sticking with these LTO female winners, they seem to have a favoured time of the year. Below are the A/E indices split between two time frames – March to June and July to November.

 

 

Runners racing in July to November have proved far better value than those seen earlier in the season. The ROI percentages correlate with these figures as female runners from March to June would have lost you over 16p in the £, females racing between July to November have essentially broken even. There is a theory about fillies and mares enjoying the sun on their backs and, while that may or may not be true, the data appear to support it.

Before moving on there are three more female stats worth sharing:

 

 

As we can see, LTO turf handicap winners raised in the weights who were female have proved profitable in a variety of situations.

 

Rise in Official Ratings – Comparison with Class LTO

When a horse wins a handicap and goes up in the ratings there will be times when they will be rated too high for the class of race that they contested last time. Hence there will be far more horses stepping up in class than dropping in class. Obviously, there will be some that will contest the same class as last time. Let us look at the overall figures for all LTO turf handicaps winners that went up 1lb or more in the ratings:

 

 

Horses dropped in class have won more often than those upped in class but they have been poor value, losing around 19p in the £. Horses remaining in the same class have offered the best returns/value, but they still produced losses of around 7p in the £.

Drilling down in class change + rating change there is one positive I have found. Horses that were raised in class but upped just 1 or 2lbs have made positive returns. The 509 qualifiers have provided profits of £97.69 (ROI +19.2%) thanks to 73 winners. The overall A/E index is a solid 0.94, and results have been consistent over the last four years as all four have turned a profit.

Conclusions / Main Takeaways

Ratings change in handicap winners is not an area that I have investigated in much detail in the past, but it has highlighted a few interesting stats well worth noting through the season.

Below I have picked out what I think are the strongest positives and negatives to keep in mind.

 

 

Good luck.

- DR

Monday Musings: My Idea of the National Winner is…

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It’s a horrible thought, but if all the horses eligible to run before today’s five-day stage for the Randox Grand National stood their ground and then took up the engagement on Thursday morning, only six of the drastically reduced field this year, from 40 to 34, will be trained in the UK, writes Tony Stafford.

Even more salutary, between them, Gordon Elliott (ten) and Willie Mullins (eight) will have more than a 50% chance of knocking off the £500,000 first prize and the better than acceptable place money from second, £200k, down to five grand for tenth.

The inertia once horses get to a certain level – and this time there’s no fault being found about handicapping on either side of the Irish Sea - means it takes a lot for, say, a 150-rated animal to drop out of his guaranteed place in the line-up from year to year. That’s why they race so infrequently – where else can you have a shot at half a million?

The lucky six this time would be supplemented if the big two fine down their options. Six of the next ten are trained over here so it could at least bring, if not a level playing field, one that offers a hint of promise. Of the guaranteed sextet, connections of the 11-year-old Latenightpass will be on a winner even before the gelding lines up.

Fourth under multiple champion and overall point-to-point lady record holder Gina Andrews in last year’s Foxhunters at the National meeting over the same fences, the gelding will be her first ride in a Grand National. He’s safely in on 24, and Gina, the multiple point-to-point champion and by far the winning-most lady rider in that sphere, rides the family gelding for husband Tom Ellis, king of the point-to-point trainers.

In racecard order as they stood this morning, the top two from the UK are number 3 Nassalam and number 8 Corach Rambler. After his excellent third behind Galopin Des Champs in last month’s Gold Cup, Corach Rambler is only a 4/1 shot to repeat last year’s victory for Lucinda Russell. Nassalam concedes him 2lb because of two spectacular performances around Chepstow in December but was then pulled up in the Gold Cup, so the market’s preference is understandable.

But such was Nassalam’s astonishing demolition job on the Welsh Grand National field in his last race before Cheltenham – unfortunately causing Gary Moore’s gelding that abrupt jump in his rating – he must be a contender especially as we’ll be having heavy ground bar a miracle with the weather by Saturday.

Nassalam also looked good around the big Aintree fences in the autumn, staying on well from a long way back in the Grand Sefton over a woefully inadequate 2m5f, gathering momentum as the race neared its climax. He’s one of the best equipped to handle both ground and distance in the field and although he did carry a big weight in the 3m6f Welsh National, his mark soared another 16lb after that.

I reckon every 1lb will be worth two under these conditions, so with regret I’ve been looking down the list. Sadly, apart from the obvious claims of Corach Rambler – and repeat winners aren’t exactly unheard of - even if the ground might not be totally to his liking, I’ve landed on an Irish contender.

The same age as Nassalam, that’s seven, and significantly the 2022 winner Noble Yeats was also that age at the time, I find it hard to get away from the Gavin Cromwell-trained and, need I say it, J P McManus-owned mare Limerick Lace.

Limerick Lace would be the first of her sex to win the race since 1951 and indeed only three mares, Shannon Lass (James Hackett) in 1902, 1948 Sheila’s Cottage (40/1) trained by Nevile Crump, and Nickel Coin (50/1) for Jack O’Donoghue, won the race in the entire 20th Century. It will take something special to quell that statistic but maybe Limerick Lace is that entity.

She had the effrontery to intrude on Elliott’s second most heinous action as a trainer when he supplied 14 of the 20 runners in Navan’s Troytown Chase in November. Limerick Lace didn’t win the three-miler on heavy ground but got within a couple of lengths of Coko Beach, who did, a fair old run for a 6yo.

She will meet Coko Beach on 2lb better terms, fair enough, and equally being put up 6lb for that was entirely understandable. But she’s run twice and won twice since then, both in the UK. Firstly, she came over to Doncaster for a mares’ chase and bolted up by six lengths with her mark already on the 147 allotted after Navan, and that remained unchanged.

Then she took in the Grade 2 2m5f Mares’ Chase at Cheltenham last month and won it nicely from Willie Mullins’ Dinoblue, who was rated 13lb her superior. Cromwell’s mare did a touch of tail-flashing but showed plenty of resolution and her official mark is now 153, but a bargain 147 for this early closing race only.

In all she has five wins from ten starts over fences with three seconds and a third as back-up. I’m going for a rarity, but one that did happen twice in the first five years of my life – I wasn’t out quite in time for Shannon Lass! Limerick Lace to beat Nassalam and Corach Rambler.

**

My copy of Horses in Training finally came on Friday and I’ve enjoyed trying to work out which stable has the most horses, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. Inevitably, we have to guess a bit as two of the biggest strings each year decline sending full lists. The Gosdens have 149 three-year-olds and up but are keeping their two-year-olds a secret while Richard Fahey won’t tell us a thing.

Generally, the boys with more than 200 in their care are the ones that will be challenging for top honours most of the time. But while not yet at that rarified atmosphere numerically, one intriguing name which has a lasting place in Grand National history, is undergoing a re-vamp.

I noticed his list on first skim through but then when wanting to look again, couldn’t find it. The book is in alphabetical order, but Dr Richard Newland and joint licensee Jamie Insole are sandwiched between Tina Jackson and Iain Jardine.

Ten years ago, I backed the doctor’s Grand National winner, Pineau De Re. Now he and Jamie have 100 horses in their care and are obviously going much more seriously at the flat. Last year’s 73 were all older horses. This time, of their 100, 20 are juveniles and all bar one was acquired at the sales, at prices between 16 grand and 110k.

They joined forces late last season, by the end of which they had four wins from their first six runners on the flat. A further four have come at the more sustainable rate of ten per cent this year. The jumpers have provided the partnership with five wins from 77 runs. Until the switch-around, Dr Newland alone had 18 jumps wins from 158 runners.

Insole, 26, is from an Irish family with plenty of NH riding history behind it. He grew up, some might say, curiously in Billericay in deepest Essex but has been involved in the sport for most of his life from adolescence. After jobs with such as Alan King, he went the whole hog into flat racing as a pupil assistant to Charlie Hills.

Of all the stables that have caught my attention, in Grand National week I can’t stop thinking that if someone like the doctor (and his owners) have invested the best part of £1million at the sales to get this embryo partnership under way, they must have the utmost faith in their new recruit. I can’t wait for their first juvenile runner. Royal Ascot maybe?

- TS

Roving Reports: Chasing the Easter Money

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It’s a busy time for bookmakers, is Easter, with a whole raft of meetings both Flat and Jumps to attend, although the early news on Saturday is not great, writes David Massey. Not only has Musselburgh bitten the dust after an early morning deluge, but for the Midlands bookmakers, the point-to-point at Sandon, near Stafford, has also been called off. That’s usually a really well-attended event, and will be a big miss for them. There will be no chance to see Eddie Redmayne, and his dogs, there this year. 

This matters not to us, as we’re off to Haydock for their family fun day. The weather looks mixed, to say the least, and it’s grey and damp as we set off. By the time we get there, however, the sun is trying to break through and things look brighter, literally. 

Other meetings being off means more bookmakers than there were last year at Haydock; four more, in fact, and this means betting on two lines rather than the one we were in last year. (The line takes 17 bookmakers.) When all the punters are in front of you, business is better; if you’re on the front line, you run the risk of a bookmaker betting behind you, and taking a share of your business. Such is the bookmaking life. 

We know what today will be like - all small money, lots of bets on “named” horses (it cannot be coincidence that one of the best backed horses all day with us is called Holly) and now the sun is fully out, we should have a decent day. 

Quiet to get going, as ever, and putting the forecast up for the four-runner first event is a waste of time. Nobody has a clue what it is, and nobody asks. I’d have been better putting the weather forecast up. It might have been more informative. 

As stated, the aforementioned Holly is an each-way disaster in the second race for us, and with the favourite, Brentford Hope, winning it’s a losing race. Secret Trix is much better in the next, but there’s a dinosaur show on for the kids, and business isn’t as strong. 

There are often dinosaurs in the betting ring - most of them will take your bets with a smile - but these two are bigger than the norm. One is a T-Rex and the other one isn’t. Some of the younger kids find it all a bit much. If you’ve bought “crying children” at 15 at the start of the day, go collect. 

Numitor is actually an okay result but Daly Tiger finishing third knocks a fair bit of the place money out. I go to get the coffees and offer up a loyalty card. Despite buying three drinks, it’s only stamped once. “One stamp per visit”, we are told. I shake my head. Come racing. 

Duke Of Deception is a good result but the enormous gamble on One Big Bang is joined in by a fair proportion of the crowd, and that’s not. Said crowd ebbs away pretty quickly after the sixth, with tired and emotional children in tow, carrying their dinosaur merchandise. Elleon wins the last, a good result, and it’s time to go home, although somehow I manage to join the wrong lane at the Haydock Island roundabout and end up taking a three-mile detour to get myself on the M6. 

Sunday sees me at Southwell, and in truth there’s little to say. Southwell are only allowing 100 public in, on top of owners, trainers and annual members, with the downstairs grandstand still out of operation. There’s only three bookmakers in the ring, and one on the rail, and whilst there’s enough business for the four, there’s only just enough. It’s families again, although with a cold, grey day, most are in the warmth upstairs, bar one family determined to stick it out on a couple of picnic tables. There’s an ice-cream van on the premises, but you wouldn’t want a share in it today. Results are irrelevant with the business - at least for four races - when suddenly a big punter appears, wanting a grand each-way Squeaker. He gets laid, and the business, rather than going back to the machine, is shared around the books. Squeaker looks beat at halfway but rattles home and is beaten under a length. He’s copped the each-way money for him, at least. He doesn’t bet the next but smashes into Brother Dave in the penultimate, and when that cops, it looks bleak. We get a bit back off him in the last but we’ve stood all day for very little. And it’s freezing. 

On to Huntingdon on Monday. This is more like it. My first McDonalds of any description for 41 days (not that I’m counting, you never do when you’re on a diet, do you?) is a Bacon Roll and Hash Brown as we make our way down the A14. God, I’d forgotten how good a bacon roll tastes. Everyone knows calories don’t count on Bank Holidays. Just for once, the Shredded Wheat can be passed over. 

After a rainy start, the sun really does come shining through - I contemplated sun cream at one point, no, honestly - and a good crowd are still piling in as the first goes off. If the money was small at Haydock, it’s positively minute here, with about 50% of the bets either £2 win or £1 e/w. Families having five or six bets, novices placing their first ever bets, mums taking advice from their kids, they’re all here today. Two families, from Cambridge, apparently remember my face from last year and have their knicker each-way bets with me all day. “You were very polite”, they tell me. That’s the game on these days - price is irrelevant, customer service everything. This is proven by the very first bet I take - £10 on Annie Day at 10-1 in the first race, when next door to me is 11s. Smile, be nice, have a joke. It works. 

However, I’ve got a problem. Two, to be precise. Because the firm have no fewer then seven pitches running between Huntingdon and the other half of the crew at Fakenham, it means that bits of kit that wouldn’t normally be used are wheeled out today. The laptop I’m using was the very one that Noah used to count the animals onto the Ark two-by-two with. The light board is old too, and for some reason, the bottom half of it isn’t working, which is far from ideal. The laptop crashes, at various inconvenient points throughout the afternoon, no fewer than eight times, and each time I have to restart everything. At the end of the day, I reckon that’s probably cost me a monkey’s worth of business. The temptation to launch the damned thing into the bin at close of play is great, but it’s not my equipment...

This is doubly frustrating with results as good as they are: not a winning favourite in sight until the last two races, by which time business has notably dropped off anyway, with many families off home after the sixth. We’ve won and won well on the day, and although the urge to double-dip at Maccy D’s on the way home is great, I resist. Just. 

And so finally, to Pontefract. I’m not working, just a day out. It normally takes me an hour and 10 minutes from my house to get to the track, so I leave in good time. Or so I thought. 

I drive into the track as they are going into the stalls for the first. The M1 was bad, the A1 worse, and finally Pontefract town centre itself appeared to be at a standstill. The nearer I got to the track, the further away I got, time wise, according to Google Maps. That’s never a good thing. So as you can imagine, I’ve fallen out with myself before I’m even parked up, and when the only parking space left appears to be in the middle of a lake of a puddle, the appeal of turning the car around and going home is strong. 

But I'm glad I didn’t, as it was quite an enjoyable day overall, bumping into a few old friends, backing a winner, then giving most of it back, and probably seeing a future winner in Vallamorey. However, if anyone wants to pop round and clean my car in readiness for Aintree next week (when it’ll DEFINITELY get dirty again) then don’t let me stop you...

- DM

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