Read all sorts of commentaries and tips across a range of racing disciplines on the most popular horse racing blog in Britain, from staff and guest writers.
The new year is well upon us now and, on this fourth day of January, a few resolutions may remain intact. Chocolate, biscuits, cakes (and especially chocolate biscuit cakes) and beer are largely off the agenda for a bit here - yes, life is currently very dull - but, on a much more interesting note, below are some words around what is on the 2024 agenda for geegeez.co.uk...
Racecard Small Changes
We'll start with a 'not very rock n'roll' update: a collection of small changes to the racecards. Although small, most of them are things many users repeat countless times while navigating the software in search of interesting horses.
22nd January Update
These changes are now live and you can see them in action in the video below - there's a timeline below the video:
00:00 Intro
00:31 Save Racecard Filters (desktop & mobile)
02:45 Actual Race Distance in form blocks
04:16 Full Form UK/Ire filter
05:25 'By Time' Racecard view now has time order dropdown
06:40 Asterisked notes
09:10 Run Style added to Full Result
11:00 Removed 'abandoned' meeting non-runners from Tracker
11:35 Outro
Editorial Explainer
First up is a racecard menu filters 'memory' - currently, a user must select parameters from the racecard menu filters section each time they close and open the cards menu page. If you use the same filters all the time, you have to reinstate them each time. Faff. We'll sort that.
[Incidentally, if you sometimes see there are no races displaying on the menu page, just hit the 'reset' button top right]
Next, an asterisk on the form row when you have a note saved for any/all of meeting, race or runner - to notify you that it's there.
Also, we'll be displaying the specific race distance and any distance amendments when you hover over the 'Race Conditions' on any form row:
And, if you choose to view the racecard menu page 'by time' you can view the race dropdown ordered by time.
If run style is of interest to you, we're adding each horse's early pace position to the full results:
We'll get those small, but perfectly formed, changes live later this month.
Betfair Data
One of the projects for later in the year is to incorporate Betfair data - Betfair Starting Price (BSP) as well as in-running high and low prices. We actually have these data in our system but adding them appropriately to results and into the tools will take a while. But it's on our to do list.
For a lot of readers who have been restricted, some of the BSP results are likely to make eye-opening reading, certainly when compared to SP.
Ratings Model
This is one of those dreaded rabbit holes into which I vowed we'd never delve. Well, we have already sunk a good few hours into the project and we've made some promising progress; but there is much still to do. I'm at the point now where, for the first time, I do believe we can produce a set of ratings that a) finds a lot of winners and b) highlights some value.
The process involves creating separate models for separate groups of races, and if/when we get as far as publication, we'll do it piecemeal. That is, once we're happy with, for instance, our all-weather sprint handicap model, we'll publish numbers for all-weather sprint handicaps. And so on.
There are loads of ratings out there, many of which are very good at finding winners - but due to the fact they're published so widely they are significantly loss-making. Our Peter May ratings get close to break even at Betfair SP with their top rated picks every year, sometimes turning a small profit and sometimes a small loss. And we might not be able to fare better than that.
My main point is that, unless we find something of utility, as opposed to the somewhat ornamental numbers produced by the fashionable houses, we'll not publish.
Query Tool
QT is a powerful means of analysing large chunks of racing data and, once that's done, of saving specific 'QT Angles' to your own account and being notified of qualifiers each day. It's been unchanged for a few years now, and we've aborted a few attempts at an upgrade; but I have so many things I want to add to QT - a majority of them from your feedback and suggestions - and, once we've re-engineered a QT 2.0 engine, it will be relatively straightforward to deploy that extra functionality.
This WILL happen in 2024, it's been too long.
*
As you can see, apart from the small changes due for release this month, we've got a couple of pretty big 'how long is a piece of string' projects for later in the year. The Betfair element shouldn't be too onerous but I'd like to put some developer time into the modelling next. Very, very loose timeline would be aiming to get some flat rating models on stream for the start of the turf season; then perhaps pivoting to the Betfair and QT projects before reverting to the remaining race code ratings models.
There is a lot of scope for timelines to change, but these are the 2024 resolutions for geegeez. Let's hope they last longer than my personal attempts at self-improvement!
Matt
p.s. away from the bright lights of geegeez, there are a couple of other interesting projects on the go. One, a tote ticket builder, should hopefully be available very soon (I've been using it for a year!), and the other, TennisProfits.com, is a site for tennis traders that we're hoping to make more accessible for bettors, too. I'll share snippets on these from time to time as the year progresses. The tote ticket project especially is one that I think will be of great interest to many geegeez readers/racing punters.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/newin2024.png320830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2024-01-04 17:39:572024-01-22 11:35:48What to expect in 2024
The first piece of good news I receive regarding the working day is the start time for my pick-up from Leicester, writes David Massey. I’ve heard some horror stories from lads that have worked Boxing Day at Kempton previously. Half-five starts to miss the traffic seemed almost to be the norm, so I’m delighted when I’m told it’ll be a 7.30 collection. That still means getting up at 6.20 for a quick shower and out, but that almost feels like a lie-in given what I was expecting.
However, I’m about to make my first and second mistakes of the day. As I need petrol, I’ve also decided to pick myself up a McD’s breakfast from the restaurant next door to the pumps, and kill two birds with one stone. As it turns out, the two turtle doves remain untouched by shot, as not only is the petrol station still closed, so’s my breakfast. Nothing’s open until 8am. I do at least fill up at a nearby Shell and grab two bars of chocolate, which is entirely within the Breakfast Rules Of Christmas Week.
My lift is waiting as I pull into the car park. From here it should be about two hours to Kempton, with barely a car on the road. If there’s two days when, as a workman, I love traveling, it’s Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. It’s a joy to go to places like Cheltenham and Fakenham when the roads are as clear as a bell.
Having said that, I’m amazed how many cars we see on the hard shoulder of the M1. “They’ve all run out of petrol”, says Irish Joe, in the car with us for a lift. He might have a point. I can’t believe they’ve all broken down, but, like me, I can believe they couldn’t find a petrol station early in the morning and haven’t made it to one before the juice has run dry. Careless, lads.
We get to Kempton around 9.40am and set the two joints up. The pick isn’t for another 90 minutes, so I’ve time to wander off to find a tea and a bacon roll from somewhere. There are plenty of familiar faces to chat to, and I’m delighted to bump into James Millman, who is his usual effervescent self. I like James a lot, not least because he puts plenty of homework into his selections when he’s on the telly; and if you ask him about one from the yard you’ll always get a straight answer. I wish him well for the day, but not before I tell him Hewick will win the King George.
It’s pick time and once we’re settled up, we get up and running. I have to say the crowd does not look huge, but to be fair plenty are still coming in, so there’s reason to be optimistic. As we’re in the Silver Ring, we aren’t expecting big bets, but it isn’t long before the other pitch takes a £100 each-way on Russian Ruler at 4s.
It’s slow to get going on our pitch, mind, only picking up in the half-hour before the race. As tends to be the case on days like this, the general public latch on to the same couple of horses in each race; this is both good and bad: good because the book makes itself, bad because it can mean you’ve got a lop-sided look to things.
Anyway, Blow Your Wad is no good to us in the first but on the plus side, punters now have money to play with. We get betting on the Kauto Star but here’s a problem already - my keyboard has packed up. I can’t take a bet. The last thing you need on a day like this is technical issues. Poor Morley is flat out trying to pay out and take bets whilst I reset everything to try and get it working. Thankfully, after a couple of failed attempts, on the third go it starts working again.
Hermes Allen is backed almost to the exclusion of everything else. One punter does have £120 on impressive winner Il Est Francais at 8-5 (it saves the change) but him aside, it’s a one-sided book.
I’m a lovely, patient soul, as you know, but I have to say this - don’t come to me asking “how does this all work, I’ve never placed a bet before” when there’s a queue of 25 behind you and you want a pound on something. Please ask when it’s quieter, such as when I’ve gone home. (I’ll add she also wanted to pay on her card.)
Constitution Hill time. The inevitable £2.50ew bet comes in early on, as does someone having a tenner win. Those are the only two bets we will take on him, although word reaches us of someone having £100ew at 1-10 in Tatts. A profit of £12.50. You may scoff, but that’s an interest rate you’ll not get at Barclays. The Hill doesn’t come out of first gear, never mind second. Surely they are playing for second come March. Incidentally, as he coasted past the post in front, there were one or two boos among the crowd. Is that where we are now? We boo short-priced top-class horses for winning easily? Hardly his fault it wasn’t much of a race.
Big race time, and everyone’s having a bet. But hang on - the keyboard’s knackered again. Not now, keyboard. I’ve no time to repair - it just gets binned off and we do the best we can. They want Bravemansgame, which is perhaps not a surprise. Plenty of £20 and £40 bets come for him and he’s our loser. Shishkin is second worst. I’m just praying he jumps off, as the last thing I need to be doing is explaining to novice punters they won’t get their money back if he comes under orders and digs in again.
There’s time for a bit of food and a drink as the race progresses, but as they go past us with a lap to go, I remark to Tim, who I’m working with, that my money on Hewick is done. He looks to be going nowhere. Shishkin appears to have matters in hand but somehow Nico is dislodged from the saddle after two out. The crowd roar as Bravemansgame is left in front but a riderless Shiskin gets in his way, and it looks like a fight between him and Allaho for victory. But wait! Who is this steaming down the outside?! Hewick, who couldn’t keep up for two miles and six furlongs of this contest, has hit top gear and sails past them on the run-in! “Never in doubt!” shouts Tim, and the pair of us burst out laughing. What a result, and a short payout queue to boot!
It’s a good job that three of the front four in the market fill the places in the maiden hurdle, as all the punters wanted was fivers and tenners each-way on all the rags. Had Sea Invasion - a horse I like a lot, by the way - got third rather than fourth, it might well have been a losing race. But it’s fine, no damage done and Mahon’s Glory is a cracking result in the last.
We pack the gear up, get paid and all we need to do now is get out of the car park. There are queues of cars everywhere, none of them going anywhere very quickly. Pick a line, join it, and hope it moves. Ours does after about fifteen minutes and we’re out and back on the M3 in twenty. Back to Leicester for half six and home for 7.15. My first Boxing Day at Kempton is done. I’ve enjoyed it, but I’m knackered. Just another year until we do it all again!
Happy New Year everyone!
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Hewick_KingGeorge2023.png319830David Masseyhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDavid Massey2024-01-02 16:36:352024-01-02 16:36:35Roving Reports: A Boxing Day Miracle
It is the turn of the younger up and coming riders to come under the spotlight in my series on National Hunt jockeys, writes Dave Renham. For this piece I have used a variety of data collection tools and as with the previous five pieces the profits/losses quoted are to Industry SP; I will quote Betfair SP when appropriate. I will be analysing a more recent National Hunt data set for UK racing than in the earlier articles, in this case starting from 1st Jan 2019 and running to 25th Dec 2023.
In the fifth article in the series, I highlighted Charlotte Jones and her overall record with trainer James Moffatt, so she seemed a good starting point for this one.
Charlotte Jones
Let's look firstly at her overall record in the past five years:
These stats are extremely impressive. To BSP, Jones's profits soar to £509.30. She has made a profit to SP in four of the five years, with the other one breaking even. To BSP every year has been profitable. It is worth stating that she has had some big priced winners, which naturally skews profits and returns somewhat. However, she has been profitable and consistent even when focusing on the front end of the market. The table below include results from all horses priced 6/1 or shorter broken down by year:
Every year has been profitable, and comfortably so, which considering the price bracket is very impressive. Her overall A/E index for these 6/1 or shorter runners stands at 1.54 which is outstanding.
Let me now look her record by trainer. We know her record with Moffatt is excellent, and the Cartmel-based trainer provides most of her rides. The table below compares her record with Moffatt against all other trainers combined.
On first viewing, this is some contrast. However, we need to put the ‘all other trainers’ data in more context as only five of those rides were on horses priced in single figures, and just three were in the top three in the betting. Further, there are only 35 runners compared with 301 for Moffatt.
Jones primarily rides in the north and, as stated, Cartmel is her local track. At the Lake District venue she has ridden 25 winners from 95 (SR 26.3%) for a small SP profit of £4.08 (ROI +4.3%). Hexham is a course where she has an even better record thanks to 11 wins from 31 rides (SR 35.5%) for a profit of £9.82 (ROI +31.7%).
Before moving on, Jones managed to ride five winners in a row in November 2023 – three on the 10th November and two on the 11th. Not many jockeys achieve that feat. Hopefully she will get more opportunities in the coming months and years. (STOP PRESS – the day I was writing this up, Boxing Day, Jones had two rides at Aintree for Moffatt, and both won at 13/2 and 6/1 respectively).
Danny McMenamin
Danny McMenamin was Champion Conditional Jockey in the 2020-21 season. He rode out his claim in February 2021 and since then he has continued to impress. Below is a breakdown of his win and each way strike rate by year:
As the graph indicates there has been no drop off since riding out his claim at the beginning of 2021, and 2023 was one of his best years. Indeed, his last six rides before Christmas produced four winners, at 9/1, 9/2, 10/11 and 5/2, and one second at 10/1.
In terms of trainers Nicky Richards provides McMenamin with the most rides, and below the table shows trainers who have used him 75 times or more since 2019:
Three of the four trainers are in the black in terms of profits, even to SP. And even the negative SP ROI with Richards goes into profit at BSP to the tune of £27.18 (ROI +10.0%). Riding for Ann Hamilton has produced some excellent results – a strike rate close to 30% is outstanding. Not only that, but considering he is 0 from 16 with horses priced 20/1 or bigger means focusing in on the rest gives 23 wins from 64 (SR 35.9%) for a profit to SP of £43.72 (ROI +68.3%); to BSP it is +£75.42 (ROI +118.5%).
In terms of courses, McMenamin has ridden at least 50 times at nine different venues. Below shows the win and each way strike rates at all of them:
As you can see, his record is consistent / similar across all of them. Hence at this early stage in his career there is no stand-out course for which to keep an eye out.
Before moving on, Danny McMenamin has a good record on clear favourites, with a strike rate of 41.1% (62 wins from 151) for a small SP profit of £16.70 (ROI +11.1%). To BSP this improves a smidge to +£23.54 (ROI +15.8%).
Bryan Carver
Bryan Carver first caught my eye at the end of 2019 / beginning of 2020 when he rode six winners out of eight including an 883/1 treble at Exeter on New Year’s Day 2020. Since then, he has ridden out his claim at the beginning of April 2022 and now plies his trade mainly in the South of England, Wales, and the Midlands. Just 7% of his rides in the past five years have been in the Northern part of England or in Scotland.
The small stable of trainer Chris Honour has provided him with the most rides during the period of study and below are his stats with all trainers for whom he has had at least 50 rides:
The A/E indices are all above 1.00 which indicates value, and his record with these four trainers is better than compared with all other trainers for whom he has ridden. Combining these other trainers together gives the following figures:
I think Carver has been a little unlucky not to get a real break with one of the bigger stables since riding out his claim. Luck plays a part in any walk of life as we know; it would be a shame if Carver ends up as a journeyman type of jockey in my view.
Here are three additional stats for Carver worth sharing:
When riding clear favourites he has secured 42 wins from 105 (SR 40%) for an SP profit of £8.77 (ROI +8.4%). To BSP the profits edge up to £13.88 (ROI +13.2%).
He has ridden at Exeter more than anywhere else and his record there is excellent. He has had 18 winners from only 86 rides (SR 20.9%) for an SP profit of £56.75 (ROI +66%). To BSP his profits reads £80.54 (ROI +93.7%).
He has a good record in races of three miles or more, performing best in these longer races compared to other distance groups as the graph below indicates:
This is an unusual jockey trend based on the stats of the jockeys analysed in previous articles. In these three-mile+ races he has secured a blind profit to SP returning 23p in the £, and his A/E index stands at a solid 1.03. One would have also made good profits betting his mounts each way in such races. It should also be noted that he made solid profits in these 3-mile+ races when focusing solely on runners from the top three in the betting market. Those figures read 25 wins from 98 (SR 25.5%) for a profit to SP of £16.19 (ROI +16.5%).
Rex Dingle
Rex Dingle announced himself to the racing world when winning on the 25/1 shot Indefatigable in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap hurdle at the 2020 Cheltenham Festival. He is currently riding primarily for Anthony Honeyball and Chris Gordon, and let me start by looking at his overall record since the beginning of 2019:
This is a very solid record and to BSP he has made a small profit of £28.85 (ROI +2.7%).
My next port of call is splitting Dingle's win and each way stats up by year and this is shown in the graph below:
What immediately catches the eye is the dip in 2021. This coincides with when he was no longer able to claim his 3lb allowance. It had been at the end of December 2020 when he rode out his claim and clearly the next 12 months were a difficult adjustment. In fact, the start of 2021 was particularly difficult with just 7 winners from 100 rides (SR 7%) between January and April. The rest of 2021 began to show an uptick with 15 wins from 121 (SR 12.4%), while it should also be noted that the final eight months of the year saw 31% of his rides making the frame compared with just 17% during the first four months.
In terms of trainers there are three trainers apart from Honeyball for whom Rex has had at least 50 rides. The splits are shown below:
A one in five strike rate for Honeyball is impressive despite not quite getting into SP profit. His record for Paul Webber is poor, but Webber’s overall strike rate going back to 2019 is only 5.4% which helps explain Dingle’s figure.
The partnership with Honeyball has been particularly potent at Fontwell with 14 winners from 51 (SR 27.5%) for an SP profit of £5.14 (ROI +10.1%). This pairing has also performed extremely well when the horse has been clear favourite. Under these circumstances Honeyball and Dingle have combined to win 35 from 75 (SR 46.7%) for a profit to SP of £11.66 (ROI +15.6%); to BSP this increases slightly to £15.42 (ROI +20.6%).
Looking at Dingle’s record for all trainers, it is worth checking out his record in handicaps compared to non-handicaps. These results may surprise a few:
It is rare for jockeys to score more regularly in handicaps, but Dingle certainly has. The difference between the two race types is significant. While it is true that Dingle had a handicap winner priced 80/1, of all the horses priced over 25/1 in handicaps this was his only success from 58 runners. Hence when taking these bigger priced runners into account this sole winner does not skew the profit figures that much in reality. The non-handicap figures are quite poor especially the bottom line – this is very likely a function of riding for shrewd trainers who like to get their horses competitively handicapped.
Jonjo O’Neill, Jr.
Jonjo is the son of the trainer Jonjo O’Neill, Sr., and was the conditional Champion in the 2019/20 season. Here is his overall record since the beginning of 2019:
Jonjo Jr. has averaged nearly 400 rides a year which makes him one of the busier jockeys on the circuit. Let us see a yearly breakdown of strike rate both to win and each way:
O’Neill saw a small dip in success the year after losing his claim (2021), and since then he has nudged back up a little. As a 3lb claimer he won 20% of his races, compared with 15.6% since riding without that weight allowance.
I want to split his performance now by race type. It should be noted that he has also had two spins in hunter chases which are not shown.
A similar performance level has been achieved across the board, but his NH Flat record shows the best strike rate and a near break-even scenario at starting price. These figures are not skewed by big priced winners. For his father, the NHF strike rate hits 19.4% (26 wins from 134) with a small return of just under 8p in the £ to boot.
In terms of trainers, 72% of O’Neill, Jr. rides have been for O'Neill, Sr., and the only other significant trainer in terms of rides has been Colin Tizzard, who is now retired. His strike rate for O’Neill Senior is 17%, for all other trainers combined this drops to 12.6%.
I want to finish by looking at Jonjo Jr's course data, restricting it to courses where he has had at least 60 rides. The win strike rates are shown in the graph below.
As can be seen the performance varies markedly from course to course. Four tracks (Carlisle, Huntingdon, Southwell, and Warwick) have yielded strike rates above 22%. Of these, three have turned an SP profit – Carlisle, Huntingdon, and Warwick. Indeed, at Warwick O’Neill has been in profit in all five individual years. Hence, Warwick is a course to note whenever he has booked rides there. In contrast, six courses have seen win strike rates below 11.5%, with three of these under 7%.
O’Neill is in his mid-20s so could easily have another 20 years in the saddle. It will be interesting to see how he progresses in the years to come.
------------------
The five jockeys discussed in this piece are worth keeping a close eye on over the coming months and years. It will be interesting to see which, if any, of them will make it to the very top of the National Hunt riding tree.
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/WindsweptGirl-e1603189967643.png320829Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2024-01-02 16:11:592024-01-02 16:11:59NH Jockey Profiles: The Younger Generation
They were certainly getting excited after Galopin Des Champs came back to form with a 23-length romp in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown on Thursday, writes Tony Stafford. They reasoned that in beating market rival Gerri Colombe by that margin, he was reasserting his place at the head of the steeplechasing tree. He probably was.
The 2023 Gold Cup winner had been beaten twice since the Cheltenham centrepiece, each time by Fastorslow, at Punchestown in the spring and then on his comeback to action in November. Therefore, he needed to do something to restore his reputation.
Even after those two less than sparkling shows, the surprise to me was that the two horses on Thursday had been as close together in the market on the day as they were, with an official 11lb between them before this encounter.
Galopin Des Champs did indeed power away up the Leopardstown run-in, but just imagine a different scenario, one where Gerri Colombe, rather that Gordon Elliott aiming him at a very likely minimum second prize of €33k (the winner got 70k more), he would have gone elsewhere.
Had Gordon declined this clash, would we have been quite so enamoured of a 23.25 lengths defeat of the 80/1 Willie Mullins field bolsterer Capodanno, who almost denied the Elliott horse that handy runner-up money? Capodanno is rated 20lb inferior to Galopin Des Champs and ran almost exactly to his rating. Nice enough, but it’s easy to take a secondary view, that Gerri Colombe simply did not run to form.
Over the week, there were many good performances either side of the water, with novices over here from such as Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls leading the way. In other words, they were provided by those trainers with the financial owner firepower to challenge the Mullins/Elliott and De Bromhead otherwise open goal into the Irish pointing (and French) marketplaces.
That triumvirate took some collective stopping at home and most of the big level-weight races had the look of, and proved to be, Willie Mullins benefits. Willie’s brother Tony – a good friend for many years – did speak out against the obscene situation in some major handicaps, especially over fences, where multiple entries by a single trainer make success for him in them almost a formality. He was less critical of his brother’s total dominance in the big stuff, though!
The obvious example has been (and no doubt the one that caused Tony’s ire) last month’s 20-runner Troytown Handicap Chase at Navan. Elliott supplied 15 of the runners and duly won it with Coko Beach. That tough grey then showed his credentials for this year’s Grand National with a staying-on second in the 3m2f Becher Chase over the big fences last month.
Another non-winning but significant run over those obstacles had been made a month earlier by a six-year-old, already winner of three chases before that, making his season’s comeback. The son of Dream Well had evaded the, in his case, not so all-seeing eye of Harold Kirk and found his way into the Gary Moore rather than Mullins yard after an encouraging debut second in July 2020 at Clairefontaine, a nice track not far from Paris.
The horse is called Nassalam. He recorded wide-margin hurdle wins as a juvenile on arrival for Moore and now he was noted coming on late into sixth after getting a long way behind in the Grand Sefton over 2m6f.
Next time, early in December, he defied top weight with a convincing success in the Trial for the Coral Welsh Grand National over three miles of the course. Few, though, connected with the Moore yard, including the trainer, and rider Caoilin Quinn, can have expected what was to happen on Wednesday in the Welsh Grand National proper.
I have no hesitation in naming this overwhelmingly emphatic win as the National Hunt performance of the entire year. Nineteen long-distance chasers lined up, as should be the case in a 150 grand race. Always close to the lead over the twice-round marathon in heavy ground, Nassalam was one of perhaps half a dozen with chances as they left the back straight. Here, Quinn realised to his amazement that his mount was still cantering and didn’t want to disappoint him.
He struck for home, a move that committed what was left of the feasible opposition much earlier than their riders would have wished, and once in the straight, most were taking turns to give up. In a rare show of power and stamina, he drew remorselessly away and, by the finish, had 34 lengths in hand of the strongly fancied Iron Bridge, winner of five of his nine career starts prior to Chepstow. Third, just behind, was Iwilldoit, last year’s winner of the race by nine lengths.
When the owners were interviewed as they waited to accept the prize – never the fairest time to talk to elated connections – they were asked about Aintree, and understandably that would have to be in the thoughts of Gary Moore, with his successful negotiation of the track in the Grand Sefton, but he’ll be going up a minimum of 14lb, maybe more I guess, on top of his 145 on Wednesday.
When Corach Rambler won the race last year for Lucinda Russell, he was off 146, 20lb less than the 2022 winner Noble Yeats, whose victory under Sam Waley-Cohen had also come off 146. That one did extra well considering the rise to be fourth last year. Incidentally, Noble Yeats was beaten at odds-on returning to action for the season in a four-horse conditions hurdle race at Limerick. The system doesn’t lend itself to rewarding extravagance.
Winning the Welsh Grand National, far from indicating an automatic follow-up at Aintree, if history is to be believed, connections might be better served having a good look at the Gold Cup. The chance of the heavy ground that didn’t inhibit Nassalam here is probably unlikely, but you never know.
But the Welsh race has a very decent record in throwing up future Cheltenham Gold Cup winners, and the sort of relentless gallop shown by Nassalam this week is just the requirement for the biggest level-weights test in the calendar. I’d love him to be trained for it. If he doesn’t measure up, there’s time enough to go the big step to Aintree later, if not in 2024.
Just to name a few, Burrough Hill Lad, Master Oats, Synchronised and Native River all completed the double, winning at Cheltenham following victory in Wales.
Gary Moore had an extraordinary day on Wednesday, sweeping up the three biggest prizes for a combined figure approaching £200,000 for his owners. It started with the Finale Juvenile Hurdle at Chepstow, often one of the key races for Triumph Hurdle candidates. Many would have veered away from tackling unbeaten Burdett Road, but the Gredley family’s youngster was a late withdrawal because of the ground by trainer James Owen.
Running away from one star is not in Gary’s DNA. He ran the likewise unbeaten Salver, a gelding that had no flat-race career to call on, unlike the withdrawn theretofore favourite. A comfortable winner of his two previous starts, he ended up the 5/4 favourite and won like one, by 21 lengths.
A brother to Saldier, one of Mullins’ better hurdlers of recent times, he can go a long way and the Triumph is not looking too far off for him now. Messrs Mullins and Elliott would have been taking notes no doubt.
Then, in some ways, the crowning glory for the yard was over at Kempton, in between the two Chepstow cakewalks, when Editeur Du Gite, like Galopin Des Champs the following day, was on a career retrieval mission.
The surprise winner of last year’s Desert Orchid Chase when it was a conditions event, he now lined up under top weight for the newly installed handicap version. As with Quinn on the horses at Chepstow, Moore was happy to rely on Niall Houlihan who could claim 3lb, as was the case with Quinn in the Welsh Grand National.
The latest injury to son Jamie has thrust these two young Irishmen into the spotlight and both have come through with many excellent performances. No searching around for big-name replacements for the Moore stable. Editeur Du Gite went off in his customary place at the front and, though challenged coming to the final bend, at the finish he was well on top.
A day to remember for the stable, but for me Nassalam’s display was one I will cherish for a long time.
Happy New Year to him, and to you all!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Nassalam.png319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2024-01-01 05:29:382024-01-01 08:17:09New Year Musings: Of Moore’s Grand ‘salam
I’m quite good at guessing the time as I look out of my window early in the morning, writes Tony Stafford. Yesterday, I surmised 7.24 a.m. – yes, I allowed myself a Christmas lie-in – but it was 7.26. I’d obviously miscalculated that the days were getting longer again (hurrah). The clocks will soon be going forward, too, by which time we’ll have had Cheltenham!
Then it was starting preparation for the Boxing Day cards. Last year I was swamped with the number of calls needed to the trainers on the From The Stables and Trainers Quotes services – I think we had upwards of 80 runners on the day.
This year, having spoken to Sam Stronge, who while assisting his wife Ali in running their small stable in Berkshire, is also the new Dave Roberts, agent not to A P McCoy obviously, but the man who has picked up the slack of the master jumps agent since his retirement a year or so ago.
At last count, the engaging Sam is listed as having 28 almost exclusively jumps jockeys and conditionals in his care, notably Nico De Boinville, Harry Cobden, Charlie Deutsch and Daryl Jacob. There’s some earning potential there and as he says: “It not easy to get away to the races any more”. I know how he feels, at this time of the year what with those early starts.
He did say, on hearing my early bleat about how much work there would be in compiling my information for the members: “I think there will be small fields, so it should work out quite nicely for my boys.”
How right he was. With all the meetings lost to bad weather of one type of another, but latterly mainly through waterlogging, you’d have thought there would be plenty of trainers, and especially their owners, gagging to have a runner at one of the seven UK jumps fixtures on Boxing Day (Tuesday).
They range around the country from Wincanton in the southwest; Kempton and Fontwell in the south; Market Rasen in the east; Sedgefield and Wetherby in the north and Aintree in the northwest.
So, a better geographical split than we sometimes get – viz Friday last week when Midlands trio Wolverhampton, Southwell and Uttoxeter shared the programme with Ascot. That admittedly can be and was extenuated as the BHA is providing extra all-weather action where it can to make up for other jumps cancellations.
So, what’s my point? I said above that you’d think jumping connections would leap at the chance of having a Christmas runner after the relative blight of cancellations. In the event, there has been an uncanny correlation, both in the average number of runners per NH meeting on the day, and likewise its diminution since 2022.
Also odd, is that after all the extra all-weather cards alluded to, the sole AW programme on Boxing Day, at Wolverhampton, has a much greater number of runners than was the case last December.
When that meeting comes along every year, I never forget how I voluntarily passed up Kempton’s King George back in 1993 to attend the first-ever UK fixture held under lights at the then still shiny and relatively new Dunstall Park track, inspired by Ron Muddle and Arena, a few hundred yards from the old turf circuit where jumping had an equal share of the fixtures with the flat.
In 1993, the weather had turned cold and there were four abandonments from the nine jumps fixtures planned, with no obvious geographical bias. Ayr, Sedgefield, Hereford and Wincanton were lost. Wincanton and Sedgefield are the only two of the four still on the roster. Kempton was joined by Huntingdon, Market Rasen, Newton Abbot and Wetherby as surviving the elements.
Newton Abbot no longer races in the winter and, until this year, Huntingdon had been a staple, but Jockey Club Racecourses have jettisoned it in favour of Aintree this year. It gave JCR the opportunity to switch Sandown’s Tolworth Hurdle from there, bolstering the overall winner’s prizemoney at Aintree by 45 grand, with the inevitable sting in the tail.
Now it’s called the William Hill Formby Novices Hurdle (formerly the Tolworth Hurdle). At least it will be run with a very nice field.
Let’s return now though to Dunstall Park and 1993 when seated at my private table in the crammed to overflowing grandstand, I had the novel pleasure of my own TV set as I ate what I remember as an excellent lunch – it’s still very nice there - while watching Barton Bank beat Bradbury Star and The Fellow to win 45k in the King George VI Chase at Kempton.
Google tells me that the 2023 equivalent after the interim inflation is £137k, so a first prize now of £142,000, courtesy Ladbrokes this time, narrowly beats that figure. If it’s possible to do it for the big races, then why not the rest?
So numerically, none of the seven NH cards on Tuesday has more than a total of 62, that honour going to Market Rasen. Last time they had 76! The smallest is Kempton with 46 compared with 59 last time, but in mitigation there was an extra race. Six and out for the punters therefore, and time to go home for the next phase of turkey consumption.
Aintree basically has taken over from fellow JCR track Huntingdon – I’ve nice memories of Boxing Day there, too. Just 51 horses in Liverpool compares with 76 at Huntingdon last year and the pattern continues at Fontwell, 74 last year, only 51 this time around. Wetherby also has a big drop, from 85 to only 53.
The other alteration is Sedgefield coming in for Newcastle. The Co Durham circuit was certainly on when Michael Dickinson had his remarkable 12 wins on the single day around the country. I had a great HWPA lunch recently, sitting for half the time next to Chris Pimlott (half a lunch with the Editor is more than enough!), who told me the maestro had only 15 runners that December day in 1982.
Chris rode a double at Market Rasen but said he had ridden a winner on the Brod Munro-Wilson-owned Talon, a horse I bought for the late, great amateur and all-round “cad” – he wouldn’t have minded me saying that – somewhere else later on. Talon was possibly the least grand of the duodectet, but we were as thrilled with that as the first of three King George wins that year of Wayward Lad (my second favourite jumper of all time after L’Escargot).
With one extra race in 2022 that averages out to eight per race, compared with 11 last year. And that’s comparing declarations and the possibility of late withdrawals with actual runners.
Prizemoney may have jumped at Aintree, even without the addition of the “George Formby”, in relation to Huntingdon, but that is not the case elsewhere. Wetherby is holding close to last year’s total, but Fontwell is down from 42k to 32k, and Sedgefield is way down on Newcastle last year – 26 grand following 43k last time at Gosforth Park. Maybe that’s why trainers and owners aren’t as bothered to leave the Christmas home comforts?
Meanwhile over in Ireland, and while I was writing this piece, the runners for the first two days of the Christmas meetings at Leopardstown and Limerick have been published. Reserves are in place for several races, but St Stephen’s Day’s (Tuesday) final declaration reveals 115 at Leopardstown and 80 at Limerick.
For Wednesday it’s respectively 93 and 83. It might be hard to beat the big three of Mullins, Elliott and De Bromhead, but there’s still plenty of other talented trainers willing to try for the massive money on offer this week.
Finally, all that remains to say is have a great and profitable Christmas. I think Dylan Cunha’s Mart (1.50 Wolverhampton) on Boxing Day will be very hard to beat.
December’s a quiet time, isn’t it? Not a lot going on, not much to do, writes David Massey. Not from a racing point of view, anyway. The days are short, which means earlier start times, which means getting up at the crack of dawn to get there, which means an early night the evening before, and usually abstaining from the bottles and bottles of Christmas booze you’ve bought for the festive period. Unless you want to work on the pitch with a sore head all day. And I don’t.
I’ll be doing Kempton Silver Ring next week. It’ll be the first time I’ve ever worked a pitch on King George Day, so that’ll be exciting. What’s less exciting is the 5.45am alarm call to get there in time. I’ll let you know how that goes in my next missive.
Southwell being as it is at the moment - no public, and there won’t be any for the near future, either - means my services are not always currently required at my local. It’s very quiet there, and for a recent meeting that kicked off around 11.20am, we were actually able to count the people attending (around 50) as we sat upstairs, keeping warm.
I have, at least, had more time on my hands to go racing and get some notes down. Last week I went to Leicester, to have a look to see how Apple Away was progressing. I don’t mind a trip to Leicester, although for a track that’s only 35 miles from me, it seems to take ages to get there. Once you come off the M1, you’re in a world of pain; Fosse Park retail traffic to start with, then a whole series of traffic lights, bottlenecks and roundabouts before you get to the track. There’s not a lot to look at, either; no rolling Cotswolds to keep you calm, merely a series of Chinese takeaways, tanning salons, and Betfreds.
The one thing I do miss about Leicester is Reg’s Beef Rolls. An absolute must in the winter months, lovely tender beef mopped up in gravy in a massive bap, all for the bargain price of a fiver. There was always a queue.
That aside, Leicester is a perfectly nice day out. Apple Away was very good, and looks to be improving. Come the end of the day I had a little chat with Jonjo O’Neill about his in the last. Talking to Jonjo always brings a smile to your face. He gives nothing away.
“Did you find a reason why he ran so poorly at Newbury, Jonjo?”
Jonjo looks at the horse, looks at me, and looks at the horse again.
“Which one is this?” he says to the lass, pointing at it. I burst out laughing.
“It’s Regal Blue”, she says. “Nothing came to light.”
I’m just confused and laughing. Forty seconds ago he didn’t know which horse it was!
He actually ran a good race, finishing third and running much better. I think he’ll win one soon.
It was also a great pleasure to meet Malcolm Heyhoe and his partner at Leicester, both there for a day out. I’m sure older readers will remember Malcolm’s columns in the Guardian and Weekender, among others; we had a lovely chat and it turns out Malcolm’s a fan of these Geegeez scribblings. I look forward to bumping into them again in the near future.
Next stop was Cheltenham, at the weekend. On Friday I was free, so was able to do some useful paddock notes and enjoy myself, but Saturday I’d already committed to working on the rails. I found myself next to the ever-jovial Pinno, who had clearly been working on the joint I was on on the Friday. There’s always an easy way to tell; Pinno is the most untidy bookie you’ll come across. All of the previous day’s ripped-up tickets and newspaper were still in the hod, now wet from a bit of rain, and you have to clear them out before you can start. One of these days I’ll charge him for cleaning services. He always calls me “Davey Boy”; “what do you like here, Davey Boy?”, “can we get this jolly beat, Davey Boy?”, “not a lot of business about, Davey Boy”, that sort of thing. I like working next to him, he’s always good fun.
Saturday was not busy. I was taking in the region of 600-700 a race on the rail, steady but nothing outstanding, The biggest bet I took all day was a 1000-200 Nurse Susan in the last, which won, and that sort of tells you how the whole day went. Over the 14 races on the Friday and Saturday, there were eight winning favourites and the biggest priced winner was 9-1 (Madara, I even managed to take a 900-100 that as well), and not many books were smiling as they headed to the car parks at four o’clock.
And finally, lovely Fakenham on Tuesday. Sadly for me, my lift bailed after he’d seen the weather forecast of rain all day, so I had to drive myself on the 250-mile round trip. It’s a good job I actually like driving!
I always keep Google Maps on to update me of any potential issues and one cropped up on the A17 near Sleaford. A lorry had come off the road and gone over into an embankment; it was lucky there was a large hedge there or he’d have gone fully over. I just about managed to creep by the accident, only to hear on the radio ten minutes later the road had been closed. That would have been game over as far as getting to Fakenham went. I often see accidents like that while on my travels and am always grateful not to be in them.
Around 9.40 I was getting peckish and fancied a bacon sandwich, so was pleased to spy a “Hot Food Next Layby” sign near Sleaford. However, on pulling up the guy had already packed up and was preparing to tow his wares away! Either he’d had a jackpot morning or people don’t eat bacon sandwiches on the road after half nine anymore, it seems. A couple of miles down the road was “Michelles” in another layby, and she did provide an excellent bacon roll. All’s well that ends well, and I’m back on the road with a decent cup of tea to boot.
At Fakenham, I’m working with the lovely Julie for the S&D firm and we have a fun afternoon, despite the rain. Plenty of locals have turned up and although it’s mainly small money, it’s busy enough, and the firm wins nicely on the day. Just as well, as my petrol expenses, having driven myself, are on the high side. Plus the bacon roll. The rest of the firm are off to the local Wetherspoons for their dinner, whereas I have the three-hour drive home.
The sky is a beautiful red and, as it starts to turn dark to the west and the light disappears, the colours begin to clash and I manage to get a picture as the last of the daylight goes.
I haven’t got an arty bone in my body, but I do like the snap I managed to take. I hope you do too.
On that note, I’d like to wish all Geegeez readers a merry (and profitable) Christmas and a Happy New Year!
See you all in 2024!
- Dave M
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FakenhamRacecourse.png319830David Masseyhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDavid Massey2023-12-20 14:27:352023-12-20 14:27:35Roving Report: It’s beginning to look a lot like Fakers
This is the fifth article in a series on jockeys and here I’ll helicopter out to a more general perspective, writes Dave Renham. I will include data from some of the jockeys I have already looked at but will mainly introduce many new names and plenty of new stats.
As previously I have analysed National Hunt data for UK racing from 1st January 2016 to 31st October 2023. For this piece I have used a variety of data collection tools and, as with the previous four pieces, the profits/losses quoted are to Industry SP. I have quoted Betfair SP when appropriate.
All Races
Let me first share a table for all races looking at the jockeys who have the top 25 win strike rates. Jockeys who have appeared in the series to date are highlighted in green (minimum rides 800):
As the table shows, the UK jockeys on whom I’ve undertaken a deep dive are all in the top ten (top nine, to be precise). Paddy Brennan lies fourth in the table with one of the best ROI%s and a decent A/E index. He did not make the ‘cut’ for the first four articles mainly because he has ridden a lot less this year. To give you some perspective from 2016 to 2019 he averaged 470 rides a year; in 2023, at the time of my data collation at the end of October, he had ridden only 152 times. Therefore, it looks like he will barely reach 200 rides this year. It may be, then, that after around 25 years riding, Brennan is starting to wind down somewhat. Having said that, the last four seasons have seen an improvement in win success after poor campaigns for him in 2018 and 2019.
Maybe he has decided to try and ride quality over quantity as he sees out his latter years in the sport.
Aidan Coleman and Gavin Sheehan are both in top eight in the table in terms of strike rate. Coleman, at the time of writing, was still not back from a nasty injury, but he is hoping to back in the saddle before year end (though time is running out for that). One interesting stat for Aidan Coleman is that his strike rate is much higher when he rode the same horse last time out – 19.7% to be precise. When he did not ride the horse LTO this drops to 14.5%. There is also a difference in terms of ROI% of 9% (in favour of the 19.7% group).
Gavin Sheenan has one of the better ROI percentages at just under 10% losses (10p in the £), and to BSP you would have made a blind profit backing his runners to the tune of £167.87 (ROI +5.7%). He has had a couple of big BSP priced winners, but if you limit his rides to a BSP of 12.0 or shorter, he has still made a BSP profit £104.04 (ROI +5.7%). He has certainly offered punters some value in recent years. Sheehan also mirrors the stat I shared for Coleman whereby when he had ridden the horse LTO his strike rate has been 20.3%; if he did not ride the horse LTO it drops markedly to 13.2%.
Riding the favourite
Time to look at the jockeys who have performed best when on the ‘jolly’. To qualify they need to have ridden the favourite at least 70 times; again, I am sharing those with the top 25 strike rates:
David Maxwell has the higest strike rate but has proved costly to follow. He has primarily ridden in hunter chases for Paul Nicholls or Philip Hobbs. However, the contrast in results between the two is stark as the table below shows:
*Hobbs now trains with Johnson White
The Maxwell / Hobbs combination with favourites has fared extremely well, whereas the partnership with Nicholls has been surprisingly poor.
Looking at the main group of jockeys that make up the top 25, 16 of them have made a profit to SP which is impressive. To BSP this moves up to 18 with a further two hitting the break-even point. Jonathan Burke has proved profitable to SP returning nearly 18p in the £; this increases to 26p if using BSP. He has an outstanding record when riding a favourite for Harry Fry winning 18 of 33 for a strike rate just shy of 55%.
Considering that he has ridden over 900 favourites, Harry Cobden has done well to sneak into a miniscule SP profit. To BSP his profit on all favourites stands at £40.97 to £1 level stakes (ROI +4.3%).
Racecourse Angles
I would like now to look at some course data now. Here, I have looked at jockeys that appeared in the top three for win strike rates most frequently across all individual courses. Minimum 60 rides at each course to qualify.
The two Harry's, Cobden and Skelton, are in the top three jockey strike rates at 13 different courses each, which is impressive. Most of the big guns are near the top as you would expect. From a punting perspective, though, the jockeys who feature once or twice may potentially fly under the radar from a wagering perspective. Indeed, of the 16 jockeys that appear only once, 14 of them made a blind profit to SP, and all but one made a profit to BSP. The graph below shows the BSP profit for each jockey/course combination:
The only jockey of the 16 with losses to BSP was Sean Quinlan at Hexham (not shown in graph).
It is unlikely that these course/jockey combinations will continue to make such impressive profits, but it does show the power of perhaps steering clear of the obvious – betting against the crowd is often a good policy.
Trainer Angles
Like myself, many punters are fans of jockey/trainer partnerships, and I want to again look for potential ‘under the radar’ tie ups. In the graph below, you can see the top ten jockey/trainer combinations in terms of A/E indices. These figures are indicators of value – anything above 1.00 is considered value:
All of these jockeys have had at least 100 rides for the trainers in question and they must have combined at some point this year (2023), too. Lee Edwards riding for Adam West has produced the highest A/E index at 1.80. The breakdown of results for the pair reads 21 wins from 135 (SR 15.6%) for an SP profit of £110.33 (ROI +81.7%). To BSP the figures read +£158.79 (ROI +117.6%). Four of the past five years (2019-2023) have been profitable to SP and before then (2016-2018) Edwards rode just five times for West making yearly data effectively irrelevant.
Of these ten combinations, nine have made blind profits to SP, and all ten were profitable to BSP. Perhaps the most potent combination certainly since 2019 has been when Charlotte Jones has ridden for James Moffatt. The yearly breakdown is shown in the table below:
The last five years have produced good profits each year and although 2023 looks slightly less impressive, as I am writing this up in mid-December, Jones has had 14 more rides for Moffatt since collating the data for this article of which six have won.
It is also worth sharing the Jones/Moffatt record with horses priced 10/1 or shorter at Industry SP – this stands at 55 wins from 197 (SR 27.9%) for an SP profit of £89.21 (ROI +45.3%). Hence, although they have combined for a few big priced winners, they have also proven to be extremely successful with shorter priced runners too.
A look now at the top ten trainer/jockey pairs in terms of strike rates (100 rides minimum):
Only three of the ten have secured a profit to SP, but successful trainers and jockeys are popular with punters so obviously bookmakers are very wary, too. Hence getting value prices is not going to happen too often. In terms of BSP both Henderson/De Boinville and Richards/ Hughes have proved profitable.
The Frost/Nicholls combination has secured SP profits in six of the eight years with one breaking even. Only 2022 showed a loss but that has been reversed again in 2023 thanks to an excellent strike rate of around 28%. Also look out for when Frost was on the horse last time out as well. Her record when repeating a ride on the same Nicholls horse reads 48 wins from 172 (SR 27.9%) for a profit of £79.31 (ROI +46.1%). To BSP this improves to +£111.37 (ROI +64.8%).
*
So, there we have it. I've tried in this article to offer a selection of useful stats that you can put to work as we move into 2024. On that note, may I wish all Geegeez readers a very Happy Christmas and New Year.
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/BenGodfrey_830x320.png320830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-12-19 18:49:022023-12-19 18:49:02Jockey Profiles: A General NH View
I got a parcel in the post the other day, preceded by an explanation as to why my friend Peter Ashmore would want to send me “The Boss”, written in the year 2000 by John Budden and subtitled the Life and Times of Horseracing Legend Gordon W Richards, writes Tony Stafford.
Peter knows I speak regularly with Nicky Richards, Gordon’s son and successor at Greystoke stables in Cumbria. He also thought I might find it interesting that Gordon basically was sent away from home in Bath, where he had learnt to handle all manner of horses associated with his father’s business, at the age of 11.
It intrigued Peter that young Richards’ first stop was at Sandbanks in Dorset, now the most valuable stretch of real estate, excepting certain parts of London, for instance Hampstead and Mayfair, in the UK. In 1941. When he arrived during the early stages of the Second World War, the beach was split into no-go areas by the military’s prolific use of barbed wire.
That didn’t faze Louie Dingwall, in effect and indeed practice, one of the first horserace trainers in the UK, even though it took the Jockey Club thirty years to accept that she and any other female should hold a licence, originally officially in her husband’s name.
What Peter didn’t know is that there is a small connection with me here. In the early 1970’s soon after I joined the Daily Telegraph and a few years after Mrs D, as everyone who worked for her called her, had been officially sanctioned as a trainer, I headed up a syndicate in the first horse in which I ever had an interest.
Looking in the Sporting Life, which I devoured just as I had the Greyhound Express in my first Fleet Street job a few years earlier, the racehorse sales were always an interest. I noticed that a three-year-old called Princehood had been acquired from Doncaster the day before by Mrs D for £300, or maybe even £260. I called her and asked whether she had a buyer. “Yes, my dear, me!”
As an article commissioned by the Poole Museum about this remarkable woman revealed much later, her horses usually cost £500 or under. I reckoned this impressive winner by five lengths of his debut for the classy Newmarket trainer Atty Corbett, but a disappointing fourth next time, had to be a snip. (In those days I had no idea that horses could go wrong!)
I thought putting together a syndicate (at £30 a shot!) from the paper and the reprobates, including long-term friend Trevor Halling (father of boxing commentator Nick) and band leader Chris Allen, habitués of the Corals shop across the road from the paper, would be an easy task. It wasn’t, and fifty odd years later, it still isn’t!
But in the end, we did it, and Princehood ran a few times in the name of Mrs S Carroll, a Roedean teacher who was married to my racing desk colleague, John. We were all excited and I had a couple of trips down to Sandbanks, to the stables which had its own petrol pump, a remnant of the garage she ran when she also had, among others, a successful bus business, that serviced the area.
Those days more than half a century ago, the multi-million pound properties to be were a distant illusion, but any coastal place which has water on either side of valuable land is to be treasured and that’s where we had a family lunch at Rick Stein’s restaurant a couple of years ago.
By the time I met the trainer she was already in her 80s and was poorly sighted, so that she could a couple of years earlier have driven her horsebox to Nice in the South of France and won a £6,000 prize (big money in those days) with the unconsidered veteran Treason Trail at Cagnes-sur-Mer says much for her endurance and tenacity. Then she drove it all the way back, drawing on all those days driving buses before the War.
Mrs D’s main jumps jockey in those days was the talented Gary Old, but instead of slogging through the hot Dorset summers on horseback, he used to trade that for hiring out deckchairs and his extreme good looks on the beach at Bournemouth, barely five miles along the coast.
His true potential was only really revealed when he left the Dingwall yard to join Donald Underwood near Guildford, and he had a great association with True Song, a smart hurdler who won the big novice race at Chepstow on the eve of the Cheltenham Festival. Sadly, Gary Old died very young.
Another Sandbanks inmate was Pat Butler, whose time there didn’t exceed Princehood’s by long as he has been training in his own right in Sussex since 1976. When we bump into each other on the racecourse, Pat always reminds me of those distant days.
Princehood left to join Ken Payne when he moved from the New Forest to Middleham and broke the 5f track record at Lanark at 14/1 as we looked on in concerted disbelief in the Kings and Keys pub. Two days earlier we were all on when he got stuffed in a seller at Doncaster.
When I began today’s jaunt I had intended to give rather more prominence to the journey Gordon Richards made to the top of the jumping tree. As when in his early days as an apprentice jockey with the Tom Waugh stable at Chilton, the clerk of the scales asked his name. “Gordon Richards”, he replied. “I don’t think we can have two Gordon Richards”, was the clerk’s response, referring to the perennial champion who set even greater records than Tony McCoy’s over jumps as the leading flat jockey either side of and during WW2.
Young Gordon was asked who he worked for and when he replied, “Mr Waugh”, Gordon W Richards was born, never to be altered for the rest of his highly-successful life and career.
Reading John Budden’s studiously researched missive, understandable as his original occupation was as a schoolteacher in Cumbria, for me it was a series of human and equine names that also exactly mirrored the most active of my betting days.
Names like Playlord, the horse that got him going in Yorkshire and enabled him to take the Greystoke stables across in Cumbria previously the home of Tommy Robson, through to Noddy’s Ryde and after that many more, lastly in Gordon’s life, One Man, the enigma that could win any race – apart from the Cheltenham Gold Cup – provided vivid reminders of those days.
The brushes with authority were detailed, often with some humour, as he always stood his ground and supported his jockeys. But then came the gradual and eventually rapid decline in his health, which meant Nicky had to take control. He has done so with great skill and dedication for 25 years already – and he’s now approaching, unbelievably, the age his father was when he died from cancer in 1998.
John Budden, known as Lord John Budden in the press rooms in the north of England for his plummy tones, used that term to describe the great radio commentator Peter Bromley. John also commentated in points and under Rules and was a very popular man with colleagues and professionals in the sport. He was a good tipster to boot and wrote for the Cumberland News from 1966 until his death last year. Dedication indeed.
There were parallels with my other much treasured book that ended in a similar period. Horsetrader, subtitled Robert Sangster and the Rise and Fall of the Sport of Kings, was written by Patrick Robinson with (no relation) Nick Robinson as early as 1993, yet it has become such a must-read that it has been re-printed and also voiced as an audio book.
I have my old copy and find that the events chronicled therein ended as far back as 1993! As with The Boss’s joint-author, Nick Robinson died only recently, in his case this summer aged 87. He was a major influence in the development of syndicate ownership, through Kennet Valley Thoroughbreds which continues to thrive under Nick’s protégé, Sam Hoskins.
It was Robinson, in a coffee shop in Liverpool attended regularly by sons of wealthy businessmen in the Liverpool area, that first whetted the young Robert Sangster’s appetite for horse racing.
The book details how winning (and losing) gambles gradually persuaded the son of the founder and chairman of Vernons Pools, in the days when football pools were the only way for the public to land onto massive riches. That was before even Premium Bonds (launched in 1957) and the lottery in the UK, although Ireland’s lottery was the driving force behind upgrading the Irish Sweeps Derby in the early 1960’s.
Sangster, off his own bat, studied his new-found obsession and decided Vincent O’Brien was the best trainer and acted on his opinion. Decades later, Robert, Vincent, and Vincent’s son-in-law John Magnier, ruled the world of horse racing.
Without Robinson there wouldn’t have been a Sadler’s Wells, thus Galileo and Frankel. It all came down to that coffee shop!
Just as Nicky Richards has assimilated the skills of his father, The Boss, so Robert Sangster’s sons and grandsons have made their mark either as breeders, owners, bloodstock agents or, in the case of grandson Ollie, an emerging trainer. A rich legacy indeed!
Horsetrader’s conclusion is that the arrival of the free-spending Arab owners altered the equilibrium, we thought once and for all. But look at racing in 2023, thirty years after Horsetrader’s publication, Coolmore stills thrives in its modified form, and while Arab owners are still very much in evidence, the growing threat and indeed the money to sustain it now comes from Japan.
That is epitomised by the brilliant Equinox, highest-rated horse in the world and about to service his first book of mares, including the wonderful Japanese champion Almond Eye.
They certainly adhere to the old racing adage, breed the best to the best and hope for the best. Then again, Coolmore, 30 years on from Horsetrader’s publication, might say that in daringly sending Rhododendron to mate with Deep Impact in Japan and getting Auguste Rodin they weren’t far off!
This is the fourth article in a series looking at the performance of some of top National Hunt jockeys. In this one I will be looking at Sam Twiston-Davies and Brian Hughes. Previously I've looked at:
I have analysed NH data for UK racing from 1st Jan 2016 to 31st Oct 2023. The main vehicle for my data gathering has been the Geegeez Query Tool, but I have also used the Geegeez Profiler when required. All the profits/losses quoted are to Industry SP, but I will quote Betfair SP where appropriate. All the tables include A/E indices. In addition, when data has been pulled from the Geegeez Profiler Tool, I have also shared PRB figures (Percentage of Rivals Beaten).
Let's start with Sam Twiston-Davies.
Sam Twiston-Davies Overall Record
Let me first share Sam's overall stats by looking at his performance on every runner during the period of study:
On average Twiston-Davies rides around 650 times a year, which is much higher than any jockey I have looked at to date. His figures are reasonable, winning on roughly one in six rides, with a PRB figure of 0.56; but his A/E index is just below ‘average’ for all jockeys. Losses to SP stand at just over 21p in the £. This drops to 9p in the £ to BSP.
Sam Twiston-Davies Record by Year
Let's see what the yearly stats show. Here is a breakdown by both win, and win/placed (Each Way) percentage / Strike Rate (SR%):
As the graph indicates, his best two years in terms of win and each way percentage were in 2016 and 2017. This is because he was riding regularly for Paul Nicholls then and 42% of his rides in those two seasons were for the Ditcheat trainer. 2020 to 2022 showed a dip in overall performance but this year (2023) to date has been much better hitting the mid-17% mark.
Sam Twiston-Davies Record by Month
Here is a breakdown of his record by month using win strike rate:
August and September are the best months, while June to September are the best four. The EW (win and placed) strike rates correlate well with June to September seeing SR%s over 40% - the remaining eight months are in the 30s ranging from 31.2% to 38.3%. While it is material that field sizes are at their smalles in NH racing between May and September, concentrating on August and September, and if we focus on horses priced 11/2 or shorter, we almost get to a break-even scenario to SP: 96 wins from 311 qualifiers (SR 30.9%) for a small loss of £4.83 (ROI -1.6%). To BSP that would have turned a small profit of £17.55 (ROI + 5.6%).
Sam Twiston-Davies Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)
Now a look at the results by splitting them into different price bands:
The 'evens or less' group have incurred the least losses to SP, and all other groups have seen losses (ROI) of more than 10p in the £. Horses priced in double figures look best left alone on every measure.
Sam Twiston-Davies Record by Distance
Moving on now to distance metrics and Sam's record at different distances. I have grouped them into the same four distance bands as in prior articles and below is a graph looking at the win and each way strike rates:
This graph shows that the shorter the distance the better for Twiston-Davies in terms of strike rate. If we look at the PRB figures (Percentage of Rivals Beaten) they correlate with the win/EW strike rates:
The two mile and shorter group have also produced the smallest losses to SP and a better A/E index of 0.90.
Sam Twiston-Davies Record by Race type
Next under the microscope is ST-D's record by race code/type:
The hurdle and chase results are virtually a carbon copy of each other in terms of strike rate, ROI% and A/E indices. The NH flat races show a very high A/E index, but this is not reflected in the profit/loss figures. For the record, Twiston-Davies has ridden in six hunter chases (no wins).
Sam Twiston-Davies Record by Racecourse
I am now going to look at all courses where Twiston-Davies has had at least a hundred rides during the study period. The courses are split into two graphs alphabetically and the win strike rate at each course is shown:
There is quite a range here going from Sandown at 7.4% win rate up to Hereford at 25.6%. His record at Hereford has been excellent with decent profits to SP of £65.51 (ROI +54.1%). The A/E index stands at a very healthy 1.31 and the PRB figure is 0.61. In six of the eight years, Sam's strike rate at the track has exceeded 20% and in five of the eight he has secured a profit.
Fontwell is another course where he has performed well, showing a small blind profit. In chases at the West Sussex track, he has excelled winning 18 of 54 (SR 33.3%) for an SP profit of £19.30 (ROI +35.7%). Indeed, his last six chase rides (up to the time of writing) have been as follows:
That's six wins in a row with six different trainers!
In contrast he has struggled at Sandown and Newbury, while it has not been easy to get on the board at Aintree or Cheltenham either, though in the latter cases that is true for almost all jockeys.
Sam Twiston-Davies Record by Trainer
Here is a list of trainers for whom Twiston-Davies has ridden at least 80 times for during the period of study. It should be noted that he has had only two rides for Nicholls in the past 24 months.
His record for Charlie Longsdon is surprisingly poor. Only one trainer was in profit, namely Neil Mulholland, but that is entirely down to a 100/1 winner. With Sam Thomas, the Sam combo has done particularly well in chases hitting a better than 27% win rate and edging into a small profit. His record when riding for his father Nigel is not as good as I had expected with quite significant losses of 27p in the £.
Sam Twiston-Davies Record by Class of Race
It is time to breakdown Sam's performance now by class of race:
Class 1 races have the lowest strike rate as one might expect, while Class 3 and 4 races have produced the highest strike rates. A profit has been made in both Class 5 and 6 races, but these figures are skewed a little by a couple of big-priced winners.
Sam Twiston-Davies Record by Run Style
Finally on Sam T-D, let me look at his run style splits in terms of win percentages:
The usual pattern we are used to manifests once more: the nearer to the front he rides early, the better. Twiston-Davies has performed slightly better on hurdling front runners than chasing ones in terms of win percentage - 28% v 24%.
If we examine the A/E figures we can see that they correlate with the win strike rate data as the following chart shows:
The 'led' A/E index is very solid at 1.00 which suggests these runners are edging towards ‘value’. Horses that raced mid-division or further back early offered punters poor value.
Before winding up the run style stats though, let me share his record when riding the favourite:
Front-running favourites proved profitable if your crystal ball was in reliable working order, whereas held up favourites lost a whopping 31p in the £.
**
Brian Hughes Overall Record
It is time to switch to three-time NH Champion Jockey Brian Hughes and we'll start by looking at his record on all horses in all UK NH races:
At first glance these figures are slightly better than for Twiston-Davies and, amazingly, he has ridden around 1500 more horses. Indeed, Hughes and Twiston-Davies are the two jockeys who have ridden the most in the UK going back to 2016. Hughes tends to ply his trade mainly in the North as the pie chart below shows. It shows the percentage of rides by region:
74% of Hughes' rides have come at northern English tracks or in Scotland. He ventures south rarely with just 3% of his total rides being at southern tracks.
Now it is time to break down his data, firstly by year.
Brian Hughes Record by Year
Here is a graphical breakdown by both win, and win/placed (Each Way) percentage / Strike Rate (SR%):
As the graph shows, Hughes has managed a win strike rate of 16% or more in seven of the eight years, with the other year (2017) just below at 15.8. Overall, his performance year in year out has been quite consistent. There is a difference of only 4.4% between the highest yearly EW SR% and the lowest yearly one.
Brian Hughes Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)
Let us see whether any market / price patterns can be found by breaking down his results by Starting Price bands:
The 16/1 or bigger horses look a ‘no no’, while those priced between 11/10 and 13/8 have produced the best returns; but there doesn't seem to be any SP bias going on here.
Brian Hughes Record by Distance
A dive next into Brian's record at different distances. I have grouped them into the same four distance bands I did earlier and am looking at the win and each way strike rates:
There does seem a clear distance bias here with the longest distance band of three miles or more performing well below the other three distance groupings. In these longer races Hughes has seen losses equating to 32p in the £, compared with the 2m1f-2m2f losses of just 9p in the £. It is time to look at the PRB figures now:
As the table shows the PRB figures correlate well with the win and each way strike rates, with performance much stronger to around two and a half miles and dropping off thereafter.
Brian Hughes Record by Race type
Now let's analyse Hughes' record in hurdle races, chases and in bumpers:
Chases and hurdle races offer extremely similar looking stats as far as strike rate ROI, and A/E are concerned. The results in bumpers (NH Flat) are slightly better. There is a big difference in these bumpers results when comparing male horses to female horses:
Males have outperformed females by nearly 8% in terms of strike rate, the A/E indices also strongly favour males as does the ROI%. Losses of just 8p in the £ for males compared with nearly 36p for female runners. It's hard to explain this disparity (the overall difference in bumpers is males 11.6% win and females 9.1%), and it might simply be down to a quirk of the relatively small female sample size.
Before moving on, it may or may not be worth noting that Hughes has ridden in five hunter chases, winning one.
Brian Hughes Record by Racecourse
Below is a table of all tracks where Hughes has had at least 100 rides. The courses are listed alphabetically:
Given his total number of rides, it should come as no surprise that Hughes has ridden over 100 times at so many different tracks. Aintree has not been a particularly successful hunting ground, nor has Haydock. Three courses have edged into a blind profit – Bangor, Southwell, and Stratford. Of those three, the Stratford stats are the most solid as Hughes has been profitable when focusing in on horses racing there that started in the top three in the betting. This subset of runners has won 25 from 87 (SR 28.7%) for a profit of £4.95 (ROI +5.7%).
The Musselburgh stats are strong, too, with a near break-even scenario. Again, focusing on horses from the top three in the betting at the Scottish track we get the following results: 80 wins from 260 rides (SR 30.8%) for a small SP profit of £7.49 (ROI +2.9%). Market Rasen and Worcester are two other venues where Hughes has made a profit with runners from the top three in the betting.
Brian Hughes Record by Trainer
During the period of study, Hughes has 100-plus rides with eleven trainers – one of these, Keith Dalgleish, has taken a sabbatical so here are the stats for the other ten:
Hughes is stable jockey for Donald McCain, and they have combined to hit a better than one-in-five win rate. The PRB figure of 0.60 is also noteworthy. With McCain his record has been better in hurdle races and the pair have combined to profitable effect at BSP over the smaller obstacles. There are three courses to note when Hughes is on a McCain runner – Bangor, Musselburgh, and Perth. All three have produced excellent win strike rates (27.9%, 27.2% and 32.8%), and all have provided SP profits.
Brian Ellison, James Ewart, Charlie Longsdon and Nicky Richards are four other trainers for whom he has performed well.
Brian Hughes Record by Class of Race
It is time to breakdown his performance now by class of race:
As we have often seen during this series, Class 1 races have produced the poorest results. Outside of the top level, Hughes has been consistent regardless of class bracket.
Brian Hughes Record by Run Style
The final stop is run style starting with the splits in terms of win percentages:
A near 30% strike rate on front runners continues the theme we have consistently seen throughout this series of articles. Backing all Hughes hold up runners would have set you back nearly 40p in the £.
Hughes' A/E indices by run style show a similar pattern although there is little in it between the prominent and mid-division groups:
Finally, let me share his run style win percentages when riding the favourite:
Incredibly, Hughes-ridden favourites which led have won more often than now and would have yielded a good profit if predicted pre-race. Held up jollies incurred painful losses of over 33%.
Main Takeaways
It is time to bring this fourth National Hunt jockey article to a close but before doing so, below is a table featuring some of the main takeaways to note regarding Sam Twiston-Davies and Brian Hughes. I hope I have uncovered some useful angles, both positive and negative for both jockeys.
Good luck.
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Sam_Nigel_Twiston-Davies.png319830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-12-13 10:49:332023-12-13 10:49:33Jockey Profiles: Brian Hughes & Sam Twiston-Davies
It’s only about ten weeks ago that I went through the lengthy career of Not So Sleepy, writes Tony Stafford. Of course, any time in competition for a racehorse that began with a win as a juvenile nine years before is unusual. Even more remarkable was Saturday’s romp to victory in the Grade 1 Betfair Fighting Fifth Hurdle, a race switched from Newcastle the previous weekend to Sandown.
This was Not So Sleepy’s fourth run in the race and his second triumph although he had to share the previous one in 2021 with Epatante, the pair impossible to separate in a dead-heat.
The previous year, Sleepy messed about at the start and unseated his rider soon after, prompting winner Epatante’s trainer Nicky Henderson to become paranoid about what the veteran Hughie Morrison gelding might get up to at the start in subsequent meetings.
He needn’t have worried. Last year when Constitution Hill came into the picture for his first Fighting Fifth on the way to that explosive Cheltenham Champion Hurdle success, Not So Sleepy was no problem.
I spoke to Hughie on Saturday morning, and it was he that alerted me to Henderson’s withdrawal soon after 8 a.m. of Constitution Hill. Also, it stopped the hastily changed plan for Shishkin, denied a run in the Rehearsal Chase that day at Newcastle, a week on from his standing stock still at the start at Ascot.
Hughie said, “Can you believe he’s the outsider of the four that are left? When I looked at the prices, he wasn’t just the outsider, but a double-figure price.”
The opposition included two mares. One, Love Envoi, is rated higher than the Morrison horse and, like the other, You Wear It Well, a Cheltenham Festival winner and fit from a recent winning comeback, they received 7lb from their two male rivals. They took the bulk of the market.
Then there was Goshen, back on his favoured right-handed way of going but hardly the most reliable. The ground was heavy, and as Hughie said, “That will be no problem for us!” And how.
Goshen had a 1lb higher rating over jumps than Not So Sleepy, but they met as recently as October in the Cesarewitch when the Morrison horse, trying in the race for the fourth time, finished seventh, 30 lengths ahead of the tailed-off Goshen. His flat-race mark of 101 exceeds Goshen’s by 15 lb, and how far did they finish apart at level weights on Saturday? - just about 15 lengths.
https://youtu.be/CmZfLDs_FYo?si=FAYdUn4tMCcf8YMU
In 66 races since 2014, Not So Sleepy has raced six times on official heavy ground. In his three-year-old season he was third in a Group 3 race in France on such going, and next time, four years on, was second in a Nottingham handicap.
Further investigation, though, should have alerted me to what must have been one of the bets of the year [they often are with hindsight – Ed.] without the Henderson horses to complicate matters.
These are the results, the last four times he has encountered a heavy surface: December 21, 2019, Ascot Grade 3 Handicap Hurdle 85k 1st of 13, by nine lengths, 9/2 JF; December 19, 2020, Ascot Grade 3 Handicap Hurdle 57k 1st of 17 from Buzz, 20/1; September 23, 2023, Newbury 1m5f handicap off 98, 36k, made all 15/2. Then on Saturday where he bolted up by eight lengths from Love Envoi with the other pair battling for third a similar distance back, he earned owner-breeders Lord and Lady Blyth another 45 grand!
In his last ten races, he has earned his owners around 170 grand and only twice in that spell has he started at shorter than 10/1, including Saturday. His average SP in those races has been 42/1!
As I say, the bet of the year! Hope Hughie had a bit on!
What is remarkable is the way this unique horse has been able to cope with such a long time on the track; and his only breaks have been early on in his career from one turf flat season to the next and since then planned absences, but never more than seven months at most. Despite two long barren spells as far as wins went, he never slipped below a mark of 92 having won Chester’s Dee Stakes on his third time ever on the track. Derby winners Oath and Kris Kin had that race as their prep for the Classic in 1999 and 2003 respectively.
He started hurdling late, aged seven, and while he stays every yard of the 2m2f of the Cesarewitch in which he has been in the first four three times, he is quicker than most hurdlers over two miles as the trio ranged against him on Saturday found to their cost.
Expect Hughie to keep him going as a 12-year-old and already he has survived in his career longer than Alcazar, Morrison’s winner of the Group 1 Prix Royal Oak in France wen aged ten. He had a couple of runs the following season without success, racing in all 31 times.
Originally with John Dunlop, with whom he won three times, Alcazar then had two very long absences, broken only by a first-time win for Hughie at Nottingham before resuming four years and four months after his last run for Dunlop.
In effect then, his active career could be regarded as six seasons. Not So Sleepy will be embarking on his 11th if he remains in training.
It was great that Betfair found room on the Sandown card to switch the race on a day when of the 41 races on offer around the country – Wetherby was abandoned – one was sponsored by the Pertemps Group, a qualifier for its long-standing Final at Cheltenham in March and one a Rachael Blackmore charity vehicle. The other 39 were all bookie-backed.
It was very nice money at both Aintree, where Boylesports underwrote the entire card of eight races including the Becher Chase, while Betfair was the benefactor of the Sandown card in its entirety. Coral got a nice Black Friday deal for the rather bargain basement (in comparison) card at Chepstow, which featured the Trial for their forthcoming Coral Grand National on the course just after Christmas: Gary Moore won that and a couple of nice pots at Sandown, too.
The two all-weather cards at Newcastle and Wolverhampton were shared between Bet UK and Bet MGM – reckon there might be some connection there! I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course.
There was big money on offer for the Grade 1 races at Sandown and the top prizes at Aintree, but it does pose the question, what would happen if the big bookmakers decided to take a unified stand and withdraw their support with little warning or as their deals expired?
In Ireland, there was a decent card at Navan, featuring a Listed handicap hurdle, a Grade 3 steeplechase, and the Foxrock Cup, but nothing like what will be on offer over there for the days immediately after Christmas. Still there was €130k to be sliced up.
I do like the feel of the variety of race sponsors, emphasising the homely feel to Irish jump racing. It started off with Mervyn Gray Construction; then the Headfort Arms Hotel, the Tote (what happened to them and race sponsorship over here?); Bective Stud, Tea Rooms and Apartments (love to stay there!), Durnin Workshop and Timeless Sash Windows. Oh for 1990!
As well as their three winners and a third, which pushed stable earnings beyond £100,000 on Saturday, Gary and Jayne Moore must have been still brimming with pride on the news that eldest son Ryan, unbelievably now a 40-year-old, was awarded the World’s Best Jockey accolade in Hong Kong on Friday evening.
He was there to ride four Aidan O’Brien horses in the handsomely-endowed International turf races at Sha Tin yesterday. In the first of them, the twelve-furlong Vase, Warm Heart ran another good race in defeat where, as when caught late by Inspiral at the Breeders’ Cup, she led into the last furlong but ultimately finished third to the Andre Fabre-trained Junko.
Two disappointments followed, but in the Cup, although not winning, anyone watching his ride on Luxembourg, finishing a short head second to the favourite Romantic Warrior in that mile and a quarter showpiece, would not question Moore’s best in the world status.
Always a couple of lengths behind the favourite on the way round, Luxembourg looked likely to be swallowed up as the challengers queued up entering the final furlong. With the favourite running on doggedly, another disappointment loomed, but Ryan conjured a final flourish, narrowly fending off his two nearest rivals and getting within an agonising short head of the fully extended winner.
In just missing the £2.1 million first prize, the Aidan O’Brien/Coolmore/Westerberg team still picked up £805,000 for second place, only £80k less than Auguste Rodin collected in the Derby. Also, it was considerably more than the £712k Auguste Rodin garnered when holding off Luxembourg in the Irish Champion Stakes on yesterday’s runner-up’s latest appearance.
The winner, a son of Acclamation, has earned more than £12 million in claiming 12 of 17 races since being bought by the Hong Kong Jockey Club for 300k at the 2019 Tattersalls Book 2 yearling auction. I will be writing next week about the various excitements in the same ring last week when one mare fetched 4.5 million guineas.
The other star yesterday was Golden Sixty, in the Mile. Like Romantic Warrior a 27/20 chance on the day, he made the local punters very happy, making short work of his field, bringing his career stats to 26 wins in 30 career starts, and pushing his earnings beyond £16 million.
This is the third article in a series looking at the performance of some of the top National Hunt jockeys. Parts 1 and 2 can be read here and here. For this piece I will be heading over the water to examine the stats of three of the top Irish jockeys - Paul Townend, Jack Kennedy and Rachael Blackmore.
I have analysed NH data for racing from 1st Jan 2016 to 31st Oct 2023 with the primary focus being their respective records in Ireland. However, at the end of each jockey’s section I have shared a selection of their UK stats.
As with the first two articles the Geegeez Query Tool has been my ‘go to’ for data collection, and I have sourced further insights from the Geegeez Profiler to help with certain parts. Profits and losses have been calculated to Industry SP, but I quote Betfair SP where appropriate. All tables include A/E indices, and when any data has been pulled from the Geegeez Profiler Tool, I also share the PRB figures (Percentage of Rivals Beaten).
Let’s start with Paul Townend.
Paul Townend Overall Record
Below is Paul Townend’s Irish record across all runners during the study period:
A strike rate of better than one in four is comfortably the best we have seen so far in this series. The PRB of 0.66 is very high and the A/E index of 0.93 is comfortably above the average figure for all jockeys which stands at 0.87. Losses of nearly 16p in the £ to SP are a note of caution, however; to BSP this loss is reduced to just under 3p in the £.
Of course, Townend's overall win rate is so good because he rides primarily for the behemoth Willie Mullins yard – just over 65% of his total Irish rides have been for Mullins during this time frame. Below is his record with Mullins compared to all other trainers combined:
As we can see it is a staggering 34.2% strike rate when riding for Mullins in Ireland compared with 12.1% for all other trainers.
Paul Townend Record by Year
Yearly stats are my next port of call. Here is a breakdown by both win, and win/placed (Each Way) percentage / Strike Rate (SR%):
This graph is unlike any graph we have seen to date in this series. However, this is because in 2016 and 2017 Townend rode 239 times for Mullins but 534 times for other trainers. Since 2018 he has ridden 1443 times for Mullins and only 356 times for other trainers. Indeed, in 2022 and 2023 he has had 488 rides in total of which 475 have been for Mullins: just 13 for other trainers. As we have already seen, more rides for Mullins means better strike rates.
Paul Townend Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)
A look next at his results by splitting them into different price bands:
The prices to concentrate on seem to be the shorter priced ones. Townend has almost broken even to SP with horses priced 13/8 or shorter. To BSP these runners would have made a small £21.10 profit (ROI +2.8%). Horses at the other end of the scale (16/1 or bigger) should be avoided if these past results are anything to go by.
Paul Townend Record by Race type
It is time to see if Townend’s record is better in chase or hurdle races:
He has ridden in far more hurdle races than chases, but his chase record looks slightly superior. When riding a clear favourite in a chase he has secured a strike rate of 54.3% (182 wins from 335) for an SP profit of £31.25 (ROI +9.3%). To BSP this increases a little to +£47.17 (ROI +14.1%).
Paul Townend Record by Racecourse
I am now going to look at all courses where Townend has had at least 100 rides. The courses are listed alphabetically:
His strike rate at Navan is modest by Townend's own standards but, thanks to a few double figure priced winners, he has edged into profit there. At Galway his stats are relatively poor, but Galway does stage highly competitive racing which could at least partially explain the figures. In contrast, the Tramore data are exceptional, hitting close to 40% of winners and showing excellent profits and a huge PRB figure of 0.75. For the record, in 2020 he won 8 of his 12 rides at the track and in 2022 won 8 out of 10.
Paul Townend Record by Run style
Time to look at an area that is still undervalued by some punters namely run style. Here is a breakdown of Paul Townend's run style performance in terms of win strike rate across ALL races:
This breakdown shows one of the strongest front running biases I have seen. A strike rate of 44% is mind-blowing. If you had been able to predict pre-race which of his horses went into an early lead you would have secured an SP profit of £40.60 (ROI +7.6%). Contrast that with the returns on all hold up horses, which would have produced significant losses of £197.00 (ROI -30.3%).
Let me also share his run style record when riding the favourite:
Front running favourites have produced outstanding results with prominent-racing favourites outperforming the other two groups.
Paul Townend UK data
Before moving on to our next jockey, let me take a quick look at Townend’s record in the UK. Overall, he has had 221 rides of which 38 have been successful meaning his strike rate has been 17.2%. (179 of his 221 rides have been for Mullins). His strike rate is lower here compared to Ireland as two thirds of his rides have come at Cheltenham with the majority of those being at the Festival. His Cheltenham strike rate is exactly 17% and you would have made a 10.7% profit if backing all his rides at the track. He is a rare visitor to tracks away from Aintree and Cheltenham, but at Perth he is 4 from 9 (SR 44.4%) for a profit of £5.50 (ROI +61.1%).
Possibly the most interesting UK stats are related to market position. Backing Townend on favourites would have lost you nearly 22p in the £; backing him on second favourites this worsens to losses of over 64p in the £. However, if backing runners from outside the top two in the betting you would have made an SP profit of £49.00 (ROI +41.5%).
*
Jack Kennedy Overall Record
Jack Kennedy’s record across all Irish races is as follows:
Kennedy is close to hitting 17% in terms of win rate, with a slightly above average A/E index and a decent PRB figure. Losses have been around 20p in the £ to SP which is still some way below the average. To Betfair SP you would have turned that loss into a small profit of £112.36 (ROI +4.2%). However, one big-priced Betfair winner (168.49) is responsible for that.
My next port of call is looking at his yearly figures.
Jack Kennedy Record by Year
Below we see the yearly breakdown by strike rate - both win, and win/placed (Each Way):
In general, we have seen an uptick in the past four years with 2020, 2022 and 2023 seeing win percentages more than 20%. 2021 looks disappointing from a win perspective but the each way figure suggests he was perhaps a little unlucky that year. This was also the year when his main trainer, Gordon Elliott, was suspended for six months, which is surely a contributory factor.
While discussing each way stats they have also been much stronger since the start of 2020.
Jack Kennedy Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)
I would like to look at the market now and I am splitting results up by the same Starting Price bands as earlier:
The shortest price band (Evens or shorter) have actually nudged into a miniscule profit. Horses priced 4/1 or shorter have completely outperformed those 9/2 or bigger when looking at returns and A/E indices. To BSP, horses priced 4/1 or shorter have made a small profit to £1 level stakes of £30.21 (ROI +3.2%). Overall, it looks worth avoiding bigger priced runners ridden by Kennedy.
Jack Kennedy Record by Race type
Under the microscope next comes Jack's record in hurdle races and chases.
We have a very similar set of figures for both race types. However, it is worth splitting the hurdle stats into handicap versus non-handicaps. In non-handicaps his strike rate has been 21% with SP losses of 11p in the £; in handicaps the strike rate drops to under 10% (9.1%) with losses of 40p in the £. To BSP non-handicaps have made a profit of £214.60 (ROI +18.1%), handicaps have still made a significant loss of £187.96 (ROI -28.1%).
Jack Kennedy Record by Racecourse
It is course data next for Kennedy. As earlier, 100 runs at a track is the cut off point for the table:
Kennedy has crept into profit at just Down Royal thanks mainly to an excellent strike rate of over 28%. He has a very good record on favourites at this track winning on 20 of the 31 of them. Not only that, of the other 11 he has finished placed on nine. Backing all Kennedy-ridden favourites at Down Royal would have yielded an SP profit of £10.45 (ROI +33.7%). To BSP this nudges up slightly to £11.69 (ROI +37.7%).
Jack Kennedy Record by Trainer
Nearly 80% of his rides have been for Gordon Elliott and their record together is much stronger than when we combine Kennedy with all the other trainers he has ridden for. Here are those splits:
It is interesting when we revisit the Down Royal stats in terms of trainers. When teaming up with Elliott, Kennedy is 35 from 96 (SR 36.5%), all other trainers have provided just one win from 20.
Jack Kennedy Record by Run Style
Let me look at the run style splits next starting with win percentages:
His front running record is excellent and if you had been able to predict pre-race which of his horses went into an early lead you would have secured an SP profit of £61.57 (ROI +21.5%). Conversely, backing all hold up horses would have seen huge losses of £314.42 (ROI -51.3%).
Let me also share his run style record when riding the favourite:
It is the same powerful message that we have seen numerous times before. It is remarkable to think that front-running favourites have been twice as successful as held up favourites in terms of win percentage.
Jack Kennedy UK data
Before moving onto Rachael Blackmore, a quick look at Kennedy's UK stats. He is not a regular visitor and comes primarily for the big two festivals at Cheltenham and Aintree. His overall UK record reads 17 wins from 123 (SR 13.8%) for an SP profit of £45.31 (ROI +38.8%). He has had three winners priced between 20/1 and 25/1 which skew the profit figure somewhat. At Cheltenham he has had 11 wins from 76 (SR 14.5%), while at Aintree he has won 4 races from 25 rides (SR 16%).
*
Rachael Blackmore Overall Record
Rachael Blackmore burst to prominence in 2021 when she not only won the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham but she also became leading jockey at the Festival, a month before being the first female jockey to win the Grand National, on Minella Times. A year later she repeated her win in the Champion hurdle and followed it up with success in the Gold Cup: it is quite a CV she is building. I will look at her UK stats at the end of this section, but let me start with Irish data and her overall record there:
Her overall figures look moderate, especially when comparing them to the other jockeys we have looked at to date in this series. However, to BSP losses have been massively reduced to just 3p in the £ rather than 23p. We do need to examine her yearly stats as they will paint a clearer picture.
Rachael Blackmore Record by Year
Below we see her yearly breakdown by strike rate - both win, and win/placed (Each Way):
As you can see, she started from a very low base in 2016 winning less than 7% of the time. Compare that with the improved record from 2018 which coincides with getting more rides for trainer Henry de Bromhead. 2021 was her best year in terms of both win and each way strike rates.
Rachael Blackmore Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)
Time to examine different price bands to see if any patterns emerge:
We see a similar trend here to both Townend and Kennedy, where shorter priced runners have been better value. Horses sent off at evens or shorter have made a profit, albeit only just. Once the prices hit 9/2 or bigger the results are relatively modest.
Rachael Blackmore Record by Race type
It is chases versus hurdles next:
The returns on investment (ROI) for each group are within 1% of each other. She has a better SR% in chases, but this is more down to field size than anything else (average field size in hurdle races is bigger than in chases).
Rachael Blackmore Record by Racecourse
Splitting Rachael's results up by course next. 100+ rides again to qualify:
Just one course has seen a strike rate higher than 20% which is Naas, standing at 23.8%. Blackmore has made decent profits there, too, and her A/E index of 1.31 is also excellent. She has had winners at 25/1 and 22/1 at Naas, but she has made a solid profit with shorter priced runners, too. Indeed, focusing on Naas runners from the top two in the betting, you would have been rewarded with 22 winners from 50 (SR 44%) for an SP profit of £16.98 (ROI +34%). Tipperary has edged into profit, and she has a good record on favourites there (13 wins from 28) returning 19p in the £ to SP. Her overall record at Downpatrick has been poor in comparison, although there have been better signs in the past two years with 4 wins from 24 (SR 16.7%).
Rachael Blackmore Record by Trainer
Henry de Bromhead has provided just under half of Blackmore’s rides during the period of study, but that figure is around 70% when we focus in on this year 2023. There are three other trainers that she has had at least 75 rides for and has ridden for them this year - they are also in the table below:
Her strike rate when teaming up with de Bromhead is good and the partnership would have made a blind profit to BSP, although those profits were accrued over 2018 and 2019. At Naas Blackmore and de Bromhead have combined to win 23 of their 71 starts (SR 32.4%) for a healthy SP profit of £76.04 (ROI +107.1%).
Rachael Blackmore Record by Run Style
The final main Irish section focuses on Blackmore and her run style stats.
Front runners would have yielded excellent returns of 28p in the £ if you had predicted their run style pre-race. Compare that with losses for both mid-division runners and hold up horses who both would have lost a whopping 46p in the £. Front runners for de Bromhead have won just over 30% of the time when Blackmore has been on board.
Now favourites split by run style:
As with the ‘all runners’ stats, front-running favourites would have proved profitable while hold up/midfield favourites would have lost 37p and 42p in the £ respectively.
Rachael Blackmore UK data
Earlier I mentioned some of Rachael's successes in the biggest UK races so let us look at her overall record in this country:
These are very solid figures considering 45% of her UK rides have come at the Cheltenham Festival. Her Festival record is similar to her overall UK record with a 16.1% SR% and positive returns of almost 15p for every £1 staked. However, it should be noted that a Festival winner in 2019 was priced at 50/1 and this skews the overall figures somewhat.
When Blackmore has been on a favourite in the UK her record reads an impressive 11 wins from 25 (SR 44%) for a profit to SP of £10.88 (ROI +43.5%). Indeed, when riding second favourites her record has also been positive – 10 wins from 32 runners (SR 31.3%) for a profit of £8.33 (ROI +26%). At the Cheltenham Festival she is 12 from 26 (SR 46.2%) when combining her rides on horses first or second in the betting for an SP profit of £15.16 (ROI +58.3%).
20 of her 30 winners have come for de Bromhead, while her rare trips to Huntingdon have seen three winners and a second from four rides. Finally, her record in Grade 1 events has been excellent, hitting 20% success rate thanks to 14 winners from 70.
Main Takeaways
Paul Townend (Irish racing)
He has an excellent 34% strike rate for Willie Mullins.
Horses priced 13/8 or shorter have provided the best value.
Townend has a strong record when riding a favourite in a chase.
He has a good record at Tramore but has struggled a little at Galway.
Townend has an exceptional 44%-win rate on front runners.
Paul Townend (UK racing)
Runners outside the top two in the betting have provided by far the best value.
He is a rare visitor to Perth, but he has a good record from his handful of rides.
Jack Kennedy (Irish racing)
Horses priced 4/1 or shorter have provided the best value, especially those priced Evens or shorter.
Kennedy has a good record in non handicap hurdle races. Conversely his record poor in handicap hurdle contests.
Kennedy has a good record at Down Royal on all price bands. This includes favs where his record is very strong.
As with Townend he has very strong record when riding front runners.
His record on favourites that are held up early in a race is poor.
Rachael Blackmore (Irish racing)
Horses priced Evens or shorter has edged into profit. Horses priced 9/2 or bigger have proved to be relatively poor value.
Blackmore has a very good record at Naas, especially when the horse comes from top two of the betting. Also, when riding for De Bromhead her record at Naas has been excellent.
She has done extremely well at Tipperary when riding the favourite.
She is a solid record on front runners both when favourite and when not favourite.
Favourites that race mid division or further back early in the race have a very poor record (when comparing them to all favs).
Rachael Blackmore (UK racing)
Has an excellent record on favourites.
At the Cheltenham festival she has an outstanding record on either favs or second favs.
She has a strike rate of 20% in Grade 1 events which is roughly double the average figure for all jockeys.
-------------
So, there you go! Our trip over the Irish sea is completed. Next time, it’s back to the UK.
The news that Southwell was going to return after the autumn flooding recently was music to my ears, as I’d been missing those visits to my local course, writes David Massey. (I know there’s a track in Nottingham, and yes, I live in Nottingham, but I have always considered Southwell to be my local. Not least because there’s jump racing there, and is actually easier to get to.)
I’d popped down to the track a couple of times whilst the flooding was going on and had spoken to manager Mark Clayton on the first of them. Mark is positivity itself, he can find the good in pretty much any situation, but even he seemed quite down and it was obvious we weren’t going to be back to “normal” for some time. It would appear, from recent chat about the subject, that the general public aren’t going to be back until after Christmas, with anything at ground level unusable and the upstairs areas can only take so many people safely. So, for the time being, it’s owners, trainers and annual members only, with some temporary structures being used for the weighing room, jockeys’ changing rooms, etc.
Those changing rooms must have been very cold on the first night back. With 119 runners on a nine-race card and temperatures in the minuses, five bookmakers turned up expecting a crowd of around, well, let’s say estimates varied from 120-350. They were all hopeful there would be enough business for five books but they were wrong.
After five races two of the quintet decided enough was enough and packed up. For the remaining three there was just about enough business left, but it was becoming clear that, even with 100+ runners, two books would be plenty. We scraped by without too much mishap but as was pointed out, on nights like this you’re asking for trouble as a bookmaker. With all respect to the annual members, most only have small bets (one or two occasionally have a decent wager) so all you’ll take as an on-track bookmaker is live money from owners in low-grade handicaps for the majority of the time. You’re almost asking for a kicking.
If that was bad business, then unfortunately the jumps meeting that followed on Tuesday was worse. With just a third of Friday’s runners, we were always going to be well down on owners - although one positive you can take is that the jumps boys do like a bet. You’re more likely to field money for more than one runner, which is obviously a help, but there was no volume at all. From Pick 1 in the ring I took 47 bets, equating to eight bets a race. Business dwindled away as the afternoon progressed, with owners not hanging around after their horses had run. The rail pitch did better - the current one-way system in place means that the rail is the first bookmaker you come across - but all the same, it’s clear it is going to be a long, hard winter for whatever bookmakers turn up there, particularly with the Christmas fixtures, usually such a moneyspinner, now looking dead in the water.
The other positive, I suppose, is that the betting shop, situated on the first floor, is closed for the foreseeable and so betting the away meetings in the afternoon becomes a little more lucrative. Before you say “yes, but everyone has phones, they’ll just use those, won’t they?” you’d be surprised how many medium-to-large sized backers simply can’t get on with the online firms (or perhaps you wouldn’t be? We’ve all had those emails with “Your Account” as the subject matter, after all…) and have returned to the tracks to punt. Most have a share in something running, too, or know someone that does, and so can get themselves in without any hassle.
So Southwell is Schroedinger’s course at the moment - it’s back, but it’s not really back, not how you’d like it anyway.
However, one thing that’s made me a very happy man is that on the first meeting back I got to meet the legendary Michael Dickinson. Michael, apart from being one of the greatest trainers of a racehorse of all time, invented Tapeta, in case you weren’t aware (and is still made by Michael Dickinson Inc) and has come over to give his advice when Southwell have had issues with the surface in the past. He was there to get jockey feedback and make sure all was well with the surface, which it was. We had a chat about some of his wonderful horses, with Silver Buck top of my list. He still delights in telling people about all the 12 Boxing Day winners he had in 1982, and of course the first five home in the Gold Cup. There weren’t many at Southwell that night but he still had a captive audience, with everyone keen to say hello and get an autograph from the great man.
I’d have to say the bloke has barely aged in the last thirty years. He’s like Benjamin Button, physically younger the older he gets. Perhaps he rubs Tapeta on his face every night. Maybe that’s the secret.
I’ve still got two Tupperware containers full of Fibresand in the garage from when they dug it all up for the Tapeta. I wonder if that would work…
- DM
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/hammergun2.jpg389830David Masseyhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDavid Massey2023-12-05 14:02:482023-12-05 14:02:48Roving Reports: Southwell, but not as we know it
I remember many years ago, walking out of my office in Fleet Street to be greeted by a healthy, or rather unhealthy, fall of snow, writes Tony Stafford. It was just before Christmas and that winter racing was decimated.
Some years we escape snow until well into the New Year and the jumps season appears to continue largely without meaningful interruption. With global warming and all that, you would have thought temperatures at the end of November would be temperate enough.
But here we were on the opening weekend in December, with the far north of England suffering large deposits of the white stuff, causing the formality of the cancellation of the Fighting Fifth Hurdle. With it evaporated the chance for Gosforth Park’s jumps adherents to get a second view of the great Constitution Hill as he sets off on his ceremonious way to a repeat Champion Hurdle, only three and a bit months from now.
My fear is that such an early start to freezing and snowbound conditions could set in for quite a while. With still three weeks to go to the shortest day, there is so little time in the mornings to address frozen tracks, so inevitably more meetings will be lost.
Yesterday’s unfortunate abandonment of Southwell’s all-weather (sic) card because of frozen hailstones must make the BHA wary of too many panicked extra flat or jumpers’ bumpers fixtures. Carlisle’s jumps card yesterday meanwhile was little short of a fiasco with 18 non-runners, mostly due to travel problems that reduced a 40-horse card almost in half. Three matches hardly made for value for money for racegoers.
Nicky Henderson was relieved to hear that the Fighting Fifth Hurdle was preserved – added to the Tingle Creek Chase card at Sandown next Saturday. It wasn’t all positive in compensational terms for the Seven Barrows trainer though, as Shishkin’s planned attempt at rehabilitation in the undercard featured Rehearsal Chase is apparently unlikely to be rescheduled.
It was more than something of a cliff-hanger before Newbury’s superb, effective deployment of frost covers and the three hours it takes to lay them – just an hour to remove them – that enabled both Friday’s and Saturday’s cards to proceed.
With snow in the north, how appropriate was it that the Lambourn trainer Jamie Snowden – pity the Welsh mountain isn’t spelt correctly! – took the biggest slice of the 250 grand on offer for the Coral Gold Cup. In its days as the Hennessy, Betfair and Ladbroke before its present identity, it has always been one of the races that trainers and owners most wanted to win and clearly nothing has changed.
Snowden had two runners, both second-season chasers, in the race - the Ayr Grade 2 winner from last year Datsalrightgino, and last year’s Paddy Power Gold Cup hero Ga Law - as the local trainer chose the most valuable chase handicap of the season at his home track to explore his pair’s stamina.
Over the years, I’ve always maintained that the perfect formula for the Hennessy was a seven-year-old in the lower half of the handicap and in its second season’s chasing. Thatsalrightgino fulfilled all three requirements. Stablemate Ga Law, whose career has revived splendidly after a near two-year injury hiatus, is a year older.
Six of Saturday’s 20 runners were age seven, including the first three home. Datsalrightgino was a 16/1 shot, getting the better of a splendid tussle from the final fence with the Irish gelding Mahler Mission (15/2) with the Jonjos’ Monbeg Genius a respectful six lengths behind after running out of puff from the final fence.
Jamie Snowden was full of praise for his jockey Gavin Sheehan who waited in the pack with his mount before making his move near the inside and challenging at the vital moment. One fellow jockey that might not have been quite so chuffed was Tom Cannon, due to ride Datsalrightgino until Newcastle’s abandonment enabled Snowden’s regular rider to change direction. A share of £142k doesn’t crop up too often for even the top jumps riders.
The bookmakers would presumably have accepted forecasts and tricasts on the race, and I recently joined with my vote against the affordability checks – funnily enough from a Nicky Henderson email.
It takes 30 bets for a six-horse straight forecast combination and £120 for a full-cover £1 tricast. The bookies’ version of the two paid not extravagantly generous with respectively £129 and £859 for a £1 stake, The Tote version was close to twice as productive with £230 for the Exacta and £1,539 for the Trifecta. Of course, I forgot all about it.
Thirty-one years ago, I found what I thought to be the handicap certainty of all time. Datsalrightgino carried 10st7lb on Saturday, 5lb more than the Peter Beaumont-trained and Mark Dwyer-ridden Jodami, who had slipped into the 1992 race with 10st2lb.
He started favourite but could not cope with the gutsy Ferdy Murphy runner Sibton Abbey, who was 21lb out of the handicap. In a preview of the race three decades later, the first two came six lengths clear of third-placed The Fellow, trained in France by Francois Doumen. The winner was owned by Geoff Hubbard and ridden by Adrian Maguire, the best jump jockey never to win the championship. Blame Richard Dunwoody and then A P McCoy for that.
All three (among five in the race) that year were also seven-year-olds and the runner-up, amazingly, went on to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup just over three months later. I’ve never actually asked Mark Dwyer all the times we’ve met since, “What went wrong?” merely because when he shakes your hand, it stays shaken for minutes afterwards. Such a question might cause permanent injury! I’ll check again when I see him at the Tattersalls mares’ sales sale tomorrow when seven-figures will be a feature of the Sceptre section during the afternoon.
After his Gold Cup win, Jodami returned in 1994 and finished runner-up to The Fellow. You could say the form stood up and no doubt Saturday’s will, too, though whether Snowden will be thinking Gold Cup is another question.
Jamie Snowden may be a less high profile member of the jump trainers’ firmament, but he certainly knows how to exploit the material in his yard. Last season You Wear It Well went through the grades and impressively won the mares’ novice hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. The way she resumed her winning ways by beating a Nicky Henderson hotpot in Listed company at Wetherby suggests the big prizes will continue to come her way.
Formerly for a brief time in the Army, but long enough to qualify for the Military races at Sandown, where he was a multiple winner of the two top races, Snowden had a year as a pupil assistant to Paul Nicholls before spending three years as Henderson’s assistant trainer and amateur rider. You could hardly ask for better schooling than that.
Over the 15 years since taking out a licence, Jamie has developed to the level where he routinely trains between 40 and 50 winners (his best in 2021-22) and last season he passed the £700,000 mark in earnings for his horses, easily his best. These are exciting times ahead.
There are also exciting times – not that they’ve been short on them already – for the Geegeez syndicate mare, Coquelicot. When this column’s editor reminded me last Monday of his invitation to join him at the Horserace Writers’ lunch in London later today, he neglected telling me the seven-year-old mare would be returning to action in Listed company at Kempton that afternoon.
Usual result, she made all and won pulling away for a six-length margin over odds-on shot Kateira. In winning that race she was overturning a 10lb ratings deficiency, and her 127 mark is sure to go up by at least a few pounds in tomorrow’s updated list.
If it still leaves her a little short of, for instance, You Wear It Well, on 140 after her Wetherby success, I’m sure the always-adventurous Anthony Honeyball would not be averse to a tilt at the younger lady as the season progresses. They would need to come a bit nearer to three miles with the Snowden horse though, for that to happen.
This is the second article in a series looking at the performance of some of top National Hunt jockeys. Last time, I shared the records of Nico de Boinville and Harry Cobden, which you can read here. In this second piece I will be looking at Harry Skelton and Sean Bowen.
I have analysed NH data for UK racing from 1st Jan 2016 to 31st Oct 2023, and have predominantly used the Geegeez Query Tool for my data collection, but I have also sourced data from the Geegeez Profiler to help with certain sections.
All profits and losses shared have been calculated to Industry SP, but I quote Betfair SP where appropriate; and all tables include A/E indices and, when any data has been pulled from the Geegeez Profiler Tool, I have also shared PRB (Percentage of Rivals Beaten) figures.
Let’s start with Harry Skelton.
Harry Skelton Overall Record
Let me first share Skelton’s overall stats by looking at his performance on all runners during the study period:
A strike rate of better than one in five is extremely good, but overall losses stand at nearly 15 pence in the £. Having said that Harry's PRB figure is extremely high at 0.62 (higher than both de Boinville and Cobden, who were analysed in the first article). If backing to BSP you would have made a small loss of £67.62 (ROI –1.6%).
Harry Skelton: Record by Year
Yearly stats are the next port of call. Here is a breakdown by both win, and win/placed (Each Way) percentage / Strike Rate (SR%):
As the graph shows, Skelton has been consistent with six of the eight years seeing win strike rates above 20%, and all years above 19%. There seems to have been a slight dip this year which may or may not be something to keep an eye on.
Harry Skelton: Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)
A look next at Skelton's results by splitting them into different price bands:
Patterns are unclear from this market data. Nothing really catches the eye although the 10/1 to 14/1 results are below the average for all jockeys. From a wagering perspective, it looks as though - in general - Skelton rides are slightly overbet.
Harry Skelton: Record by Distance
A look at Harry's record at different distances now. I have grouped them into four distance bands as I did last time, and am comparing the win and each way strike rates:
A remarkably consistent picture is painted in the chart above with all distance groups showing win strike rates above 20%. The 2m1f-2m2f stats are marginally the strongest for both win and each way. If we look at the PRB figures they all hit 0.60 or above with the 2m1f-2m2f edging it once more, which is highly impressive performance.
Harry Skelton: Record by Race type
It is time to see if Skelton’s record is better in chases, hurdle races or in bumpers.
The strike rates for hurdle races and chases is virtually the same, though chases have provided slightly smaller losses. Bumpers (NH Flat races) are poor in comparison with a much lower SR% and hefty losses of 34p in the £. Bumper horses to especially ignore seem to be those priced 8/1 or bigger. Of that cohort, just one win has been achieved from 116 runners.
In non-handicap chases, a tiny profit to SP of £3.56 occurred thanks to 85 winners from 296 rides (SR 28.7%). To BSP these profits stand at £30.82 (ROI +10.4%).
Harry Skelton: Record by Racecourse
I am now going to look at all courses where Skelton has had at least 80 rides. The courses are listed alphabetically:
There is quite a mixed bag here with relatively poor strike rates and records at Cheltenham, Chepstow, Haydock, Newbury, and Sandown. These five courses have strike rates ranging from 9.6% to 11%. Compare this with Uttoxeter and Wetherby hitting 33.3% and 33% respectively. The latter two courses have proved profitable to SP, Uttoxeter with stand-out returns of 29 pence for every £1 staked (44p in the £ to BSP). Having said that the most profitable period for the Skelton / Uttoxeter combination occurred between 2016 to 2020 so the cat may be out of the bag now.
Harry Skelton: Record by Trainer
92% of Skelton’s rides are for his brother Dan. The two have combined nearly 4000 times in the past eight years:
As a result, these are very similar numbers to the jockey's overall set.
Harry Skelton: Record by Class of Race
In terms of class of race I want to look first at Graded / Listed races:
Skelton’s record in Grade 1 and 2 events has shown significant betting losses. Indeed, his overall record in these better races is relatively poor. If we now split results by Class of Race, in terms of Class 1 to Class 6, we see the following when comparing win strike rates:
There appears to be a class bias going on here: specifically, it looks best to avoid Class 1 and 2 events and focus on Class 3 or lower. It should be noted that in Class 3, 4 and 5 events Skelton has made a BSP profit in all three.
Harry Skelton: Record by Run style
Onto one of my favourite areas – run style. Here is a breakdown of Harry Skelton's run style performance in terms of win strike rate across ALL races:
This breakdown shows a huge front running bias. A strike rate of 36.6% is very impressive. If you had been able to predict pre-race which of his horses would take an early lead you would have secured a small SP profit of £37.01 (ROI +6.4%). Contrast to that the returns on all hold up horses – they would have produced significant losses of £508.62 (ROI -29%).
As one would expect the A/E indices for his Run Style runners correlate with the win rates:
Any figure above 1.00 suggests value and early leaders / front runners have achieved this edge.
Before winding up the run style section, let me share Skelton's record when riding the favourite:
More evidence, if it was really needed, of the importance of early positioning in a race.
It is time now to switch to the record of Sean Bowen.
---
Sean Bowen Overall Record
Bowen’s record across all races is as follows:
Despite a strike rate of less than 20%, in terms of returns to SP Bowen has gone close to breaking even. And, to Betfair Starting Price, he has enjoyed a huge overall profit of £1129.71 (ROI +28.6%). However, before we get too excited, there was a single winner that paid over 700/1 on Betfair (was 200/1 Industry SP), so that takes out a significant chunk of the profits. That being said, Bowen has still recorded a BSP profit in six of the eight years.
As with Skelton my next port of call is looking at his yearly figures.
Sean Bowen: Record by Year
Below we see the yearly breakdown by strike rate - both win, and win/placed (Each Way):
In 2019 there was a bit of a dip, but since then the trend has been upward. The last two seasons have seen the best win strike rates and two of the top three each way ones.
Sean Bowen: Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)
I would like to look at market factors now and, as before, have split results up by the same Starting Price bands:
The shorter priced runners (first three rows in the table) have combined to sneak into profit. Despite that 200/1 winner mentioned earlier, horses priced 16/1 or bigger look the group to avoid. Overall, this is an impressive set of results from a betting perspective, and there does still seem to be some general value in Bowen rides.
Sean Bowen: Record by Distance
A dive next into Bowen’s record at different distances. I am again looking at the win and each way strike rates:
This is the first jockey across the two articles to date who has achieved his highest win strike rate in the longer races of three miles or more. Let me now look at the Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB) splits:
There is a slight advantage for the two miles and shorter group with the three miles-plus group edging ‘second’.
Sean Bowen: Record by Race type
Under the microscope next comes Bowen’s record in hurdle races, chases and in bumpers:
The chase results stand out from all perspectives – strike rate, returns, A/E index. Bowen has turned an SP profit in both handicap and non-handicap chases.
His BSP profits for chases stand at +£304.50 (ROI +18.9%). The BSP figures have not been badly skewed either, and if we concentrate on chase runners that started in the top three in the betting his record reads 242 wins from 872 (SR 27.8%) for a BSP profit of £103.43 (ROI +11.9%). He has also made a profit of £35.49 (ROI +4.1%) to Industry SP.
His NH Flat (bumper) record is modest in comparison. Breaking these bumper results down, horses priced 6/1 or shorter have performed around the norm, but those priced 13/2 or bigger have fared very poorly – just 6 wins from 187 runners (SR 3.2%) for heavy losses of £109.50 (ROI -58.6%).
Sean Bowen: Record by Racecourse
It is course data next for Bowen. Once more 80 runs at a track is the cut off point for the table:
Bowen has been profitable to follow blindly at six courses, with Taunton showing the biggest returns by far; but as you might have guessed that 200/1 winner mentioned earlier in the piece occurred at the Somerset venue. The stats for Perth are strong and this is mainly because trainer Gordon Elliott has used Bowen regularly at the course in the past two years. They have combined to win 40% of races at the track.
Two courses where Bowen has seemingly struggled a little have been Ludlow and Warwick. Losses have been steep and the PRB figures at both tracks are under 0.50.
Sean Bowen: Record by Trainer
During the period of study, Bowen has 100-plus rides with several trainers, and they are shown in the table below:
These figures are very solid – you just have to look at the A/E indices which are all 0.90 or higher. To give a comparison, Bowen’s wins to runs record for all other trainers combined stands at 188 wins from 1287 rides (SR 14.6%). That compares to an overall win strike rate from the table above of 19.52%.
The Elliott figures are notably strong. a large factor in which is their potent combination at Perth.
Sean Bowen: Record by Class of Race
A look next at class of race:
The best events (Class 1) have been a struggle to this point. Indeed, Bowen has had just two successes from 53 attempts at the very highest level, Grade 1. In contrast, race classes 2 to 4 have provided some good results by all measures.
Sean Bowen: Record by Run Style
Finally, in terms of main sections, let me look at the run style splits in terms of win percentages:
We can see a familiar pattern here with front runners doing best and hold up horses doing the worst. The A/E indices correlate with the above figures as shown by the following graph:
Both front runners and prominent racers have A/E indices above 1.00, which is excellent; and both groups secured ‘blind’ SP profits if being able to predict the run style pre-race.
My final graph shows Sean Bowen’s record on favourites by run style group:
These are very similar to the ones we saw earlier for Skelton: front running favourites perform extremely well, while held up/midfield early favourites performed relatively poorly.
Main Takeaways
Here is a table of the main takeaways highlighted in the research above, and which will hopefully help you find some profitable bets going forwards:
Two for the price of one again this week, and I do hope there are some useful angles, both positive and negative, for you in the above.
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Skeltons.jpg300830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-11-29 10:32:382023-11-29 10:32:38Jockey Profiles: Harry Skelton & Sean Bowen
Ed Byrne's classic study of chaser Pendil in full flight
I don’t know if you ever saw the famous Ed Byrne picture of Pendil jumping a fence, Fred Winter’s great chaser being revealed at the top of his flawless arc, writes Tony Stafford. It was a thing of rare beauty.
Pendil won two King George’s and was pipped on the line in the Gold Cup by The Dikler but avenged that defeat under top-weight in the Massey-Ferguson Gold Cup, also at Cheltenham. He had run a few times over fences before Ed’s classical study.
At Thurles racecourse on Thursday, a nine-year-old having his first race over fences, approached his first 13 fences taken in battle and was perfection over 12 of them. The exception, if you want to be pedantic, came at the one in front of the stands first time around when he gave himself a small extra step before again soaring easily across and to the other side
You occasionally see mention in these parts of the “clockwork horse!” and for some reason the latest before this to be lumbered with that appendage escapes me. Here instead goes, Klassical Dream, a seven-time Grade 1 hurdle winner as well as multiple placed at that level.
I owe it to Mark Smith, advisor to Joanne Coleman, for some of the insight to Klassical Dream’s story. Joanne is the widow of the man who struck the private deal for the then four-year-old after he had run seven times in France for just one win. Mark was a long-standing friend of John Coleman’s and was mortified, as was the family and friends, when John was struck down by illness before he could see Klassical Dream on the racecourse.
John would have been thrilled from day one. The tally since under Willie Mullins has been nine wins (seven at Grade 1) from 17, despite two long breaks – one of almost 18 months and another of nine. Mark tells me it was intended that Klassical Dream would be going chasing until Mullins made a late change of plan, pitching him into the Grade 1 Stayers Hurdle at Punchestown in May 2021 after the first of those breaks.
Despite Mullins’ suggesting he would be happy with a run in the first six, KD, with trainer’s son Patrick on board, was backed down from 25/1 to 5/1 on the day and sauntered to victory. This was replicated with rather less largesse from the bookmakers in each of the next two campaigns, this year avenging previous a defeat at Cheltenham by Flooring Porter.
Those hurdling exploits – to which you can add places in second and third in France’s big summer championship stayers’ hurdle race the past two years, not to mention the Supreme at Cheltenham in his first Mullins season – equated to a rating of 160.
Running to anything like that would mean he would make mincemeat of the opposition lined up against him at Thurles. He did, but with a mixture of elegance and unleashed power, the latter quality hinted at for a few strides as Paul Townend allowed him a tiny encouragement after the final fence, which he had measured immaculately this time around.
Mark says he’s had a small bet at 33/1 (it’s almost impossible to get any bet on at all nowadays, he says) for next year’s Brown Advisory three-mile novice chase at The Festival, but fears that Mullins has at least a couple that might at this stage take precedence, most obviously Saturday's easy debut chase winner Gaelic Warrior at Punchestown.
Led over the first three fences by a pliant stablemate, Paul Townend couldn’t restrain Gaelic Warrior any longer and the fast-improving winner of the big three-mile novice hurdle at the same course in the spring, sauntered into a 30-length advantage after halfway before coasting in 15 lengths clear of a fair tool in Inothewayurthinkin. It could easily have been doubled and 2m3f was hardly the limit of his stamina. He jumped well enough, but effective rather than startling would be my uneducated view. Not a parabola in sight!
Klassical Dream might have to defer to the National Hunt Chase over 3m6f. “It would be lovely and at the same time worrying to watch him bowling along at the front of a big field for that far and over 23 fences. Not that having Patrick on board will be a handicap, as we know from previous experience!” he said.
Two more notable winners on the same card were Mullins’ State Man, winning the Morgiana Hurdle by six lengths at 1/6 to confirm his status as the number one contender to Constitution Hill’s probable retention of his Champion Hurdle crown, but more interest with the future in mind came in the opening juvenile hurdle.
Here, debutant Mighty Bandit, unraced on the flat and a son of top Aidan O’Brien stayer Order Of St George, ran right away from a field including three Joseph O’Brien candidates. Leading shortly before the last, he won by just under ten lengths with Jack Kennedy having to do very little to prevent an even wider-margin success.
Mighty Bandit must be an early contender and challenger to whatever Mr Mullins and Howard Kirk can unearth (or presumably already have) from France. The sire, one of Coolmore’s National Hunt band, had only a single runner before Saturday, Gore Point, slightly unlucky when 2nd on debut for Anthony Honeyball in a bumper at Ludlow. Order Of St George’s services are sure to be sought from now on.
Saturday also featured a mulish display from Shishkin, 8/13 for his comeback run, but immobile at the start of his valuable race at Ascot, won almost by default by Paul Nicholls’ Pic D’Orhy.
The weekend continued yesterday with a couple of UK jumps cards and one more fixture in Ireland, but the crowning glory was yesterday’s crushing victory of Equinox, the 100/30 on favourite for the Japan Cup at Tokyo racecourse. He did get beaten twice as a 3yo, but his seven wins from nine starts have amassed prizemoney of more than £14 million. The highest-rated horse in the world, nothing we saw here will have dented either his status or reputation.
Second-favourite at 27/10, so almost to the exclusion of anything else in the 18-runner field, was the filly Liberty Island. Before yesterday the winner of this year’s Japan fillies’ triple Crown had suffered only one defeat in her career, as a juvenile, but here she was no match for the favourite, although comfortably best of the rest.
The race is simply described. Confirmed front-runner Panthalassa, repeating the tactics that had won him the Saudi Cup early in the year, defeating the smart Bob Baffert horse Country Grammer, set up a massive lead, almost in Saturday’s Gaelic Warrior dimension.
He was still several lengths ahead coming to the home turn but, approaching the final furlong, he was spent and Equinox and Christophe Lemaire went by him, stretching easily to the line four lengths clear with Liberty Island in his wake. To indicate the level of the race, third-home Stars On Earth had never been out of the first three in her career to date and won last year’s Japanese Oaks. Her rider, William Buick, collected his share of 800k for his trouble.
Last year’s winner, Vela Azul, a 7/2 shot then under Ryan Moore, was seventh this time under substitute Hollie Doyle and therefore out of the prizes. His win last year took almost two seconds longer to achieve than yesterday’s race in which he started 99/1!
Speculation is that if Equinox is to race again before his highly-lucrative future career as a stallion it is unlikely to involve another overseas trip, tempting though some of the massive winter prizes on offer nowadays might seem. I wonder what mares Coolmore might have lined up for him when he does go to the breeding shed?
geegeez.co.uk uses cookies to improve your experience. We assume that's OK, but you may opt-out from the settings. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
