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.

Monday Musings: Sleepy’s Fighting Fourth

/in /by

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.

- TS

Jockey Profiles: Blackmore, Kennedy, Townend

/in /by

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)

  1. He has an excellent 34% strike rate for Willie Mullins.
  2. Horses priced 13/8 or shorter have provided the best value.
  3. Townend has a strong record when riding a favourite in a chase.
  4. He has a good record at Tramore but has struggled a little at Galway.
  5. Townend has an exceptional 44%-win rate on front runners.

Paul Townend (UK racing)

  1. Runners outside the top two in the betting have provided by far the best value.
  2. He is a rare visitor to Perth, but he has a good record from his handful of rides.

Jack Kennedy (Irish racing)

  1. Horses priced 4/1 or shorter have provided the best value, especially those priced Evens or shorter.
  2. Kennedy has a good record in non handicap hurdle races. Conversely his record poor in handicap hurdle contests.
  3. Kennedy has a good record at Down Royal on all price bands. This includes favs where his record is very strong.
  4. As with Townend he has very strong record when riding front runners.
  5. His record on favourites that are held up early in a race is poor.

Rachael Blackmore (Irish racing)

  1. Horses priced Evens or shorter has edged into profit. Horses priced 9/2 or bigger have proved to be relatively poor value.
  2. 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.
  3. She has done extremely well at Tipperary when riding the favourite.
  4. She is a solid record on front runners both when favourite and when not favourite.
  5. 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)

  1. Has an excellent record on favourites.
  2. At the Cheltenham festival she has an outstanding record on either favs or second favs.
  3. 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.

- DR

Roving Reports: Southwell, but not as we know it

/in /by

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

Monday Musings: Snowden’s Gino Beats the Snow

/in /by

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.

- TS

Jockey Profiles: Harry Skelton & Sean Bowen

/in /by

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

Monday Musings: Parabola

/in /by
Ed Byrne's classic study of chaser Pendil in full flight

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?

- TS

Luna Lux: Another Cookie?

/in /by

In November 2017, when we were all younger and many of us were better looking, I embarked on a jolly boys’ outing to northern France. But this wasn’t your average lads’ weekend away; no, this was a sortie to the sales – a half-cooked fantasy gaining momentum through peer group pressure!

Coquelicot, bought as a yearling at Arqana in November 2017

Coquelicot, bought as a yearling at Arqana in November 2017

The innocence of (relative) youth, allied to one too many croissants during a classroom session with Ron, a master of the catalogue, led to us looking at a few yearling fillies at the Arqana November sale, and subsequently securing one of that small group.

She had an emerging sire on her page, and a proven producing mare. The filly we bought was named Coquelicot and she’s now seven, rising eight. So how did it go?

As is the way with such long-term projects, progress was not linear. Our plan was for her to be dual purpose, having a few spins on the level before her hurdling career and then back to flat handicaps later on.

As it has panned out, that’s exactly what she’s done, though not exactly as we envisaged. A growing pain as a two-year-old scuppered her early flat runs and, instead, she ran in ‘junior bumpers’ – National Hunt Flat races for three-year-olds.

On 20th November 2019, a day shy of two years after we acquired her, Coquelicot – Cookie – made her debut in a fillies’ junior bumper at Warwick. In a field of ten, she was sent off 11/2 and, turning for home on the business lap, she looked like tailing herself off.

My first racecourse thought with any syndicate horse is always, “please don’t be useless”, and here those fears seemed well founded. But wait, what’s this? After getting tapped for toe and looking like falling out of camera shot, she found her racing gear and motored home... for second – behind her Anthony Honeyball stablemate, Belle de Manech (also bought at Arqana).

We were delighted: we had a racehorse! But that was just the beginning of an odyssey which has yet to end. Another second place, this time at Newbury, was followed by wins at Taunton, Huntingdon and – memorably, as Covid took a grip on the nation – in Listed company at Kempton, rounding out a remarkably successful bumper season and incubating some hot hurdle dreams through those warm locked down summer nights.

Cookie’s debut season over hurdles was, erm, disappointing, to say the least. The problem was she didn’t really make a hurdle shape over a hurdle. It was more of a snooker table shape, in spite of extensive schooling. And yet still she wasn’t beaten far: in 2nd, 3rd twice and finally 4th, she was never more than eight and a half lengths behind the winner.

The following season, on 3rd November 2021 and having had a maiden jaunt on the flat at Nottingham just a week before, Cookie won her handicap debut over three miles at Chepstow. But she wasn’t really right for some reason in the 2021/22 campaign and just one further effort followed, a valiant second to a good – and tough – mare in a valuable handicap hurdle at Hereford (that’s easy for me to say).

Then, last year, it all came together again. Cookie once more began on the level at Nottingham – finishing one place and a couple of lengths closer than she had a year prior in the same race – before heading to Ascot for the three mile handicap hurdle being staged this weekend. Under an inspired Rex Dingle she led them a merry dance and gave her owners – including yours true – one of the days of their lives.

Incredibly, she was still not done, rocking up next at Sandown on Tingle Creek day and delivering a similar verdict in similar fashion, this time with Aidan Coleman doing the steering. Next stop was Kempton the day after Boxing Day and here she gave best only to a well-handicapped mare in Glimpse Of Gala, still collecting up five grand for her second place.

To this year and, after a slightly flat effort in a £100,000 handicap hurdle where she perhaps had too much use made of her against a hotly contested early pace, she reverted to flat races. One more run was needed to qualify for a handicap mark on the level and, that box duly ticked at Southwell, she returned to Nottingham’s familiar turf in gloriously wet conditions.

Under Andrea Atzeni, Cookie just kept rolling all the way up the straight, eventually bashing her closest pursuer by an easy four lengths. She’d have doubled up at Pontefract on her next start, too, but for a difficult transit; and she was again close up in fourth – beaten just three-quarters of a length – at Ascot in a race where her stamina strengths were not brought to the fore.

Her debut this season was at Newmarket in a £15,000 handicap where she ran second to an old warrior, with nine lengths back to the third and another nine to the fourth…

...and on Monday she tried Listed company for the first time over hurdles, in a three mile mares' race at the same track where she claimed her Listed bumper win, Kempton. Unbelievably, she made all to win unchallenged, from a mare rated 10lb higher than her, by six lengths! Now we have to consider raising our sights still further and have the Grade 2 Warfield Mares' Hurdle at Ascot in January on the agenda.

At some point, though we have only one eye on it just now, she will go to the breeding shed and she’ll be a valuable proposition there. First, though, she will have further opportunities to add to a record of eight wins and seven seconds from 23 career starts; she’s only twice been out of the first four in her life, and one of those was a fifth place effort. She is the sort of horse any owner, regardless of depth of resources, dreams of.

-

And so here we are again. No trip to France this time but what was lost in being up close and personal in Deauville was more than gained by time with the videos and the catalogue; and we had the best in the business, Highflyer Bloodstock, on the ground across La Manche.

A shortlist was drawn up, a budget established, and our agent set to work. Tessa Greatrex, one of the Highflyer three (along with Anthony Bromley and David Minton), loved a filly whose page was impossible to ignore so loaded was it with Black Type – an indicator that members of the family on the maternal side have performed well, either winning or placing, in Pattern races.

Vetting sailed through, the hammer fell at our very top price of €50,000 and, rather than the usual buyer’s remorse, I am still cock a whoop at the filly we’ve secured. So allow me to introduce you to LUNA LUX. Here she is, arriving at Potwell Farm.

 

 

And here she is meeting her new mates. I love the way she handles herself with quiet authority. Note, she's a yearling in a field with mostly two-year-olds which is why she looks a little smaller than some.

Luna Lux is by Masked Marvel out of Black Luna, and she has a year younger half-brother by Doctor Dino.

Masked Marvel was a very good three-year-old, winning the St Leger by an easy three lengths, and has a National Hunt pedigree to die for: by Montjeu out of a very high class German-bred mare. His first 2yo’s hit the racetrack in 2018, so his oldest crop are now only seven.

He can already boast the likes of Grade 1 winners Teahupoo and Sel Jem, Cheltenham Festival winner Maskada (who, incidentally, finished third behind Coquelicot the day Cookie made her debut), the rapidly improving Heltenham, Aintree Grade 1 second Marvel de Cerisy, the smart French mare La Danza, and nine-time (!) winner Geromino.

He has a 43% winners to NH runners ratio so far (20 individual winners from 47 horses, according to Racing Post’s database) which, when you consider most of his progeny to have raced are yet to reach their peak, is impressive; and he’s had 52 wins from 285 runs overall under National Hunt rules (18% strike rate).

That puts him third overall amongst all NH stallions to have had at least 250 runners in the past five years! And, though it’s not really relevant in this context, backing all Masked Marvel’s on all starts would have delivered a 17% ROI at Betfair SP – 49 points profit.

 

 

So far so (very) good. But what of Luna Lux’s mum, Black Luna? Well, she was a very, very good race mare indeed. She had 18 races over obstacles, eleven hurdles and seven chases, winning six and placing on another six occasions.

Her wins included a 2m2f Listed hurdle, a 2m6f steeplechase and, on her final start, a twenty length demolition of a conditions field in a 2m4f hurdle. She was also second in a Listed chase on her penultimate start.

Black Luna is by Soldier Of Fortune, the same sire as Coquelicot, and her page is awash with Black Type. Her dam, Back The Winner, was Listed placed herself and, as well as Black Luna, threw Jazz In Montreux, an eight time National Hunt winner including at Grade 3 and twice at Listed level. And, further down the page, is the name Hiddenvalley Lake, well known to devotees of the winter game.

 

-

So Luna Lux is bred for this job, all right. She was born and raised at Maulepaire, one of the best farms in France.

 

 

And this week she made her way to Potwell Farm, home of Anthony Honeyball Racing, where she’ll be given time to settle in and get over the strains of the sales.

Thereafter, she’ll be broken in and lightly trained with a view to making her debut in 2025. If you think that’s a long way off, consider that it will be 2024 in 39 days’ time!

I’ve syndicated her into tenth shares and she sold out to existing syndicate members within a week.

Like Coquelicot, because of Luna Lux's pedigree, she'll be a valuable broodmare down the line almost regardless of how her racing career goes.

She may or may not be as good, and as fun, as Cookie - then again, maybe she will! - and it will be an incredible journey finding out.

Matt

Roving Reports: Pointless

/in /by

“The road to the Superbowl is long, and pointless.”

The Simpsons fans among you will recognize this line from the said Superbowl episode where various misdemeanors happen, including Homer having fake tickets (which appear to be printed on crackers), then getting locked up in Superbowl jail, getting busted out by Dolly Parton (no pun intended) and finally ending up in the winning team’s locker room, writes David Massey.

There’s been no winning team at Fakenham on my last two visits over the past few weeks, I can tell you, but the road there has indeed seemed both long, and as it turned out, pointless.

Let me start by saying I’m certainly not knocking Fakenham at all, a track I’ve extolled the virtues of on many an occasion, but circumstances have made things difficult this autumn. (It isn’t winter until December, whatever the weather feels like.)

Fakenham’s first meeting took place at the very beginning of November and, filled with the joys that lay ahead, was picked up at 9.30am from Bingham, midway between Nottingham and Grantham, for my lift to the track. The same old routine ensued on the way there; a McDs’breakfast at Long Sutton, plenty of football and racing chat with driver Daren, and of course the Radio 2 10.30 music quiz. Not Popmaster any more though, not since Ken Bruce moved to pastures new, but the lesser imitation Ten To The Top. Daren used to get a six-point start on Popmaster; not any more he doesn’t, with the new quiz far more random given the incremental scoring system.

So far so good then. All very familiar and all’s well as we reach the track in plenty of time. The weather forecast doesn’t look as good as it did earlier, with some hefty showers now forecast around racetime. We’ll deal with it as we have to if it comes.

In the meantime, a visit to the home-made cake stall is obligatory; two slices of lemon drizzle (one for the wife, before you accuse me of having them both) and a tremendous sausage roll to go with my lunch. This is what courses are missing.

I’m with the S&D firm, called in to work the rails at the last minute as business is expected to be good for the first fixture of the year. We get betting an hour beforehand and as ever, it’s slow to begin with. Then, a spaceship appears overhead.

Well, it feels a bit like that scene in Independence Day when the aliens arrive on Earth and it all goes very dark, but it is nothing more than a massive black cloud, which right now, is worse. It envelops the track and everybody dives for their wet weather gear. Sadly, I’m too late. The rain comes in very quickly, the wind whips up and the rain is hitting me horizontally as I try desperately to get the waterproofs on. By the time I do, my trousers underneath are soaked, and this is also a bad time to discover a hole in your left boot. I get back on the joint but it’s pointless; there’s nobody in front of me as everyone has run for cover.

By the way, the bookmaker’s umbrella - the most pointless invention since somebody came up with the idea of those “Baby On Board” car stickers you put in the back window. (Well, I was going to ram you, but now I know you’ve a baby in the back seat... To be fair here, if I see one that says “Show Cats In Transit” it does make me want to give it a little nudge. Just to keep the felines on their toes, you understand.) Utterly useless as protection from the rain when the wind’s up. You’re as well standing there with a sieve on your head.

The rain finally abates just before the first race but it’s killed the business off. I’ve taken eight bets for the grand sum of 90 quid. As the race jumps off we try and get dried off, but at halfway a horse slips up on the bend and brings another one down. We all look at one another. This could be a very short afternoon indeed.

Post-race, it takes a consortium of jockeys and officials about five minutes to decide racing can’t go ahead after walking the track. “Like ice”, is how it’s described by one of the jockeys. Ten minutes later, the bing-bong goes, and it’s all over. Racing is abandoned.

Six hours on the road to bet on one race that the favourite wins, and staff all have to be paid regardless. It isn’t a good afternoon to be a Fakenham on-course bookmaker.

Undaunted by this sorry episode, the call once again came in on Monday of this week to work at the track Tuesday. It’s a Greene King Day at Fakenham, and the Bury St Edmunds-based brewery often give out loads of free tickets for these days, resulting in a good crowd that have a bet. I’m on the firm again.

An earlier start time means a 6.50am alarm call and an 8.30am pick up at Bingham. Traffic is bad though and we set off ten minutes late. Indeed, we’re already debating whether we have time for a McD’s within a few miles of setting off, with a slow-moving tractor not helping the situation; the pick for pitches is 11.10am, and Google Maps is currently forecasting our arrival at 10.50am. That doesn’t leave you a lot of wriggle room if you get caught behind an articulated lorry or farm vehicle, which is almost always 1.01 in the run in north Norfolk.

However, man must eat, and so a swift drive-thru is required. You can imagine our joy when the car in front of us gets his food, yet doesn’t drive off; instead a woman darts out the passenger side to use the facilities inside, but rather than park up, the car does not move from the food window. I’m just about to get out and politely enquire if he wouldn’t mind kindly sodding off as we’re in a rush, when he finally moves off. 10.56 sez Google Maps. Squeaky bum time.

Delighted to say that for the rest of the journey we encounter little traffic and get there at 10.47 thanks to Daren’s judicious decision making at roundabouts. Amazing how much time you can make up by knowing which lane you should be in.

I’m with S&D again, on the rails, working Pitch 3 which is the least attractive of the four (end picks 1 and 4 best, then 2, then mine) and whilst the weather is at least dry, if cold, there don’t appear to be many people about….

I will not bore you with the details of the afternoon. All you need to know is this - seven races, over which I took less than seventy bets, and bar a £200 wager on Pretending in the fifth, the biggest bet I took all day was forty quid. It felt like a very long afternoon and reports of a big crowd had been greatly exaggerated. Worse still, the cake stall was absent.

The next fixture at Fakenham is their Christmas one, on the 19th. I think I might wear my Christmas jumper - the one that says “BAH HUMBUG” across the front - for that one…

- DM

Jockey Profiles: de Boinville and Cobden

/in /by

This is the first in a new series of articles looking at the performance of some top National Hunt jockeys. In this initial offering I will be looking at Nico De Boinville and Harry Cobden. Both jockeys have the backing of huge stables with De Boinville riding primarily for Nicky Henderson and Cobden for Paul Nicholls.

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. Hence all profits/losses quoted are to Industry SP, but I will quote Betfair SP where appropriate. All tables include A/E indices, an indicator of sustainable profitability. In addition, when data has been pulled from the Geegeez Profiler Tool, I have also shared the PRB (Percentage of Rivals Beaten) figures.

Let’s start with De Boinville.

Nico De Boinville: Overall Record

Let me first share De Boinville’s overall stats by looking at his performance on every single runner during the period of study:

 

 

This is a very solid set of figures – a win rate of more than one win in five, and an above average A/E index of 0.92 (the figure for all jockeys stands at 0.87). Losses of 11p in the £ to SP are also better than ‘average’ and if backing to BSP you would have made a small blind profit of £142.54 (ROI +5.5%). However, he has had a BSP winner at 130.0 which essentially is the reason for the + figure.

Nico De Boinville: 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%):

 

 

As the graph indicates, De Boinville has been consistent in terms of yearly winners / placed efforts. There was a slight dip last year in 2022, but in 2023 he has won nigh on a quarter of all his races.

Nico De Boinville: Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)

A look at the results by splitting them into different price bands:

 

The Evens and shorter group have performed above the norm, getting close to a break-even situation. These short-priced runners have done especially well in chases hitting a win rate of over 71%. The 7/4 to 5/2 group has edged into profit, so this price range has offered some value. However, I would not be confident that it will continue in subsequent seasons as the slightly inflated results are probably down to statistical variance.

Nico De Boinville: Record by Distance

A look at De Boinville’s record at different distances now. I have grouped them into four distance bands and to begin with I’m comparing win and each way strike rates:

 

 

This graph shows that the shorter the distance the better for De Boinville. If we look at the PRB figures (Percentage of Rivals Beaten) they correlate with the win/EW strike rates:

 

 

The 0.62 figure for the two mile or shorter races group is extremely impressive, as is the 2m1f to 2m2f group; less so the three miles or longer PRB figure of 0.48.

Nico De Boinville: Record by Race code

It is time to see if Nico’s record is better over the bigger obstacles, the smaller obstacles or on the level:

 

 

There are stronger figures across the board in hurdle races – a higher strike rate, better returns, and a higher A/E index. Backing all his mounts over hurdles to Betfair SP would have yielded a profit of £325.45 (ROI +21.1%), with six of the eight years producing a profit. Of course, a few big-priced winners have helped but hurdle races seem to be the races to concentrate on. Handicap hurdle races have produced the bigger profits to BSP but non-handicap hurdle races have also yielded a BSP profit.

Handicap chase results have proved to be poor by comparison. A strike rate of 13.2% has seen SP losses of 33p in the £; the BSP figures are not much better with losses standing at 27p in the £.

Nico De Boinville: Record by Racecourse

Below is a table displaying all courses where De Boinville has had at least 80 rides. The courses are listed alphabetically:

 

 

In general, the course strike rates are over 20% although Aintree and Cheltenham both dip below this mark. This is due to the competitive racing / bigger average field size you get at both tracks, and the A/E figures at those courses are actually top and third in the list. Uttoxeter results also come in at under 20% (15.65%) with a modest A/E index and PRB figure, so this looks a course to be a little wary of.

The Newbury figures are strong and are particularly impressive when focusing just on hurdle races. In these races at the Berkshire track, De Boinville has won 34 of his 116 starts (SR 29.3%) for an SP profit of £57.96 (ROI +50.0%). This profit almost doubles if backing to BSP standing at £106.62 (ROI +91.9%). However, don’t get too excited about the overall profits as a 50/1 winner (BSP 84.9) is almost solely responsible for the bottom line. Having said that, if you look at hurdlers at Newbury priced 2/1 or shorter, the record is very good (and profitable) – 22 wins from 38 (SR 57.9%) for an SP profit of £8.05 (ROI +21.2%); to BSP this edges up to +£10.33 (ROI +27.2%).

 

Nico De Boinville: Record by Trainer

Along with Nicky Henderson, only Ben Pauling has used De Boinville more than 100 times going back to the start of 2016. However, they have not joined forces at all in 2023, and only six times in 2022. Hence, I will simply focus on the combination with Henderson:

 

 

Let me compare these figures with his record with all other trainers combined:

 

 

There is a quite a difference as you can see. The strike rate for Henderson is more than double, and his runners have produced better returns, with both the A/E index and the PRB figures higher. Of course, this was perhaps to be expected as Henderson has a glut of quality horses.

There are a couple of Henderson / De Boinville stats I’d like to share:

  1. Henderson is not a huge fan of horses returning to the track quickly, but the jockey/trainer combo has done well when a horse is returning off a short break of two weeks or less. There have been only 50 qualifiers, but 13 have won (SR 26%) showing a profit to SP of £25.08 (ROI +50.2%).
  2. When De Boinville rides Henderson horses aged 3 or 4 the record reads 80 winners from 258 (SR 31%). Profits have been modest to SP (+£12.66, ROI +4.9%), but to BSP they look healthier at £56.53 (ROI +21.9%).

Nico De Boinville: Record by Class of Race

There are some interesting stats when looking at Graded / Listed races as the graph below of win strike rates show:

 

 

Grade 3 races, which in National Hunt are all handicaps, have provided a strike rate of just 1.1% - this is due to just one winner from 93 attempts. Of these 93 Grade 3 contestants, 39 of them were priced 8/1 or shorter. All 39 were beaten and only nine managed to place. 13 of the 39 were favourites, while 32 were in the top three of the betting.

In races of Class 2 or lower, De Boinville has hit win strike rates above 20% in three separate classes (Class 3, 4 and 5 events). He has only ridden in 41 Class 6 races, winning 6 (SR 14.6%), while in Class 2 events he is 46 from 299 (SR 15.4%).

Nico De Boinville: Record by Run style

Regular readers of my articles will know I am fan of sharing run style data. To begin with here is a breakdown of Nico’s run style performance in terms of win strike rate across ALL races:

 

 

Front runners (led) have edged it over prominent runners in terms of strike rate, both groups have secured a better than one-in-four win rate. If we examine the A/E figures we can see that they correlate with the SR%s as the following chart shows:

 

 

The led A/E index is decent at 1.05 which suggests these runners would have been value investments. Horses that raced mid-division or further back early would have offered punters poor value.

The two sets of run style data clearly show that when De Boinville is riding, a horse racing close to or up with the pace is what, as punters, we are hoping for.

Nico De Boinville: Additional stats

Before moving onto Harry Cobden, here are some extra stats for De Boinville that I feel are worth knowing:

  1. His record in novice events is poor from an ROI perspective. Despite a strike rate around the 25% mark, in novice chases you would have lost over 24p in the £ to SP (19p in the 3 to BSP). In novice hurdle races the figures are similar with 25p in the £ losses to SP, 15p in the £ to BSP.
  2. Horses priced 14/1 or bigger in novice events are 0 from 123.
  3. De Boinville has secured a better strike rate on fillies and mares (22.8%) compared to their male counterparts (21.4%). The female runners would have also produced a blind profit to SP of £27.57 (ROI +5.6%); to BSP this increases to +£128.50 (ROI +26%).
  4. Sticking with fillies and mares, when they have started Evens or shorter, 36 of the 45 have won securing an 80% strike rate. Returns have been positive, too, as one would expect – 31 pence in the £ at SP, 37p using BSP.

-------------

Harry Cobden: Overall Record

Let’s now shift our focus to Harry Cobden and start by looking at his record on all horses in all UK NH races:

 

 

These figures are remarkably similar to those for De Boinville. The strike rates are within 0.21 of a percentage point and the ROIs are both around the -11% mark.

Now it is time to break down these data, firstly by year.

Harry Cobden: Record by Year

Here is a graphical breakdown by both win, and win/placed (Each Way) percentage / Strike Rate (SR%):

 

 

As the graph shows, Cobden has managed a win strike rate of 20% or more in six of the eight years, with the other two years just missing out (18.5% and 19.5%). Likewise, seven of the eight years have seen each way (win & placed) strike rates hitting over 40%. Overall, his figures look very consistent.

Harry Cobden: Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)

Let us see whether any market / price patterns can be found by breaking down Cobden’s results by Starting Price bands:

 

 

The shorter priced runners (first three rows in the table) have provided similar results to those for De Boinville. Horses priced Evens and shorter have effectively broken even, while the 7/4 to 5/2 have again snuck into profit. As a rule, Cobden’s price stats suggest that horses 5/2 or shorter look the ones to concentrate on.

Harry Cobden: Record by Distance

A dive next into Cobden’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:

 

 

These are a more even set of stats than those for De Boinville, with only a slight drop in longer distance races (3 miles or more). If we look at the PRB figures we get the following splits:

 

 

A much more even grouping for Cobden than we saw for De Boinville. He seems to ride all distances well, especially distances of 2 miles or less.

Harry Cobden: Record by Race code

The next table illustrates Harry’s record by race code.

 

 

Chases and hurdle races offer similar looking stats, certainly as far as strike rate and ROI% is concerned.

The results in bumpers (NH Flat) are poorer when considering the whole-time frame, and losses have been steep at over 27% (27 pence in the £). However, 2022 and 2023 would have seen you break even thanks to a strike rate of just over 20%.

Harry Cobden: Record by Racecourse

I am now going to look at all courses where Cobden has had at least 80 rides. The courses are listed alphabetically:

 

 

Wincanton is the course that initially catches my eye. Not only has he ridden there more than anywhere else, but he has secured the best strike rate of all courses, too. A small profit to SP has also been achieved and the PRB figure of 0.68 is extremely high considering we are talking about over 300 rides. Not only that, but his record there has been very consistent hitting a strike rate of over 25% in each of the eight years. Hurdle races have provided the best results with 61 wins from 171 rides (SR 35.7%) for an SP profit of £40.86 (ROI +23.9%).

Taunton is another track with an excellent PRB of 0.68 – his rides at the course have seen a decent SR% again; this time 28.3%, but no blind profit. Like Wincanton, the hurdle results at the Somerset venue are the best with a 31% strike rate for a break-even scenario.

Other tracks where Cobden has done well include Newbury, Plumpton, and Worcester. Before moving on I will mention his record at Musselburgh. He has only had 24 rides there, but has been successful on 11 of them (SR 45.8%) for a profit of £13.21 (ROI +55%).

Harry Cobden: Record by Trainer

During the period of study, Cobden has had 100 plus rides for two trainers – Paul Nicholls and Colin Tizzard. Cobden had ridden over 600 times for Tizzard when that trainer passed the baton to his son Joe in April 2022. Hence, I will focus on his combination with Paul Nicholls:

 

 

He has secured a strike rate just above one win in four, but losses are slightly bigger than his overall P&L. For comparison purposes, here is his record with all other trainers combined:

 

 

As we can see the strike rate drops markedly to around one win in every six rides, but losses have been smaller. The PRB is lower, while the A/E index remains the same.

Harry Cobden: Record by Class of Race

When sharing Nico De Boinville’s stats earlier, it was shown that his record in Grade 3 contests was extremely poor. We see a similar situation when looking at Cobden’s results as the graph below shows:

 

 

Once again, the results for Grade 3 contests (remember, all of which are handicaps) are quite woeful, especially when we consider his overall record. It should also be noted that 39 of his rides in Grade 3 contests came from horses in the top three in the betting. Of these, just one prevailed.

Harry Cobden: Record by Run Style

Finally, in terms of main sections, let’s look at the run style splits in terms of win percentages:

 

 

This breakdown shows how effective Cobden is when taking the early lead. A strike rate of 35.3% is exceptional. 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 £126.04 (ROI +16.2%). Conversely, backing all hold up horses would have seen huge losses of £472.71 (ROI -47.8%). As one would expect the A/E indices for his Run Style runners correlate with the win rates:

 

 

The clear takeaway here is that Cobden on a front runner is a potent combination.

Harry Cobden: Additional stats

Before concluding this piece here are some extra stats for Harry Cobden that are worth knowing:

  1. Good to firm ground is relatively rare in NH racing but Cobden has scored 33.6% of the time when racing on this ground. He has won 45 races from 134 rides. A small 4p in the £ profit to SP would have been achieved if backing all such runners blind.
  2. When Cobden rides a horse for a second time in their careers having won on them last time out, he has an excellent strike rate of 28.6%.
  3. He has a modest record in maiden races in terms of returns. Losses of over 28p in the £ would have occurred if backing all qualifiers. If you exclude trainer Paul Nicholls from these figures the losses are even greater at over 40p in the £.

Main Takeaways

Below is a 'cut out and keep' table of the main takeaways from this research.

 

That’s all for this article – two jockeys for the price of one! I hope it has uncovered some angles that may prove useful for readers over the coming months.

- DR

Horse Racing Metrics: A/E, IV, PRB

/in /by

Throughout this site, in editorial content and on our award-winning Gold reports and racecards, there are references to various measures of performance or utility: horse racing metrics. Although some of the concepts may be new, their application – and therefore your understanding of them – is generally straightforward.

This article offers a brief run down of the metrics used, notably Impact Value (IV), Actual vs Expected (A/E) and Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB). In the following, I explain how the metrics are arrived at; but if you’re not a geeky type, simply make a note of the ‘what to look for’ component for each one.

Impact Value (IV)

IV helps to understand how often something happens in a specific situation by comparing it against a more general set of information for the same situation.

For example, we can get the IV of a trainer’s strike rate by comparing it with the average strike rate for all trainers.

Let’s say a trainer saddled 36 winners from 126 runners, a strike rate of 28.57%, during the National Hunt season.

And let's further say that, overall in that season, there were 3118 winners from 26441 runners. That’s an average strike rate of 11.79%.

We could simply divide the two strike rates:

28.57 / 11.79 = 2.42

Or we could do the long version, which at least helps understand the calculation. It goes like this:

('Thing' winners / All winners) / ('Thing' runners / All runners)

 

In this case,

(36 / 3118) / (126 / 26441)

= 0.011545 / 0.004765

= 2.42

 

What to look for with IV

An IV of 1 is the 'standard' for the total rate of incidence of something. A number greater than 1 relates that something happens more than standard, and a number less than 1 implies it happens less than standard.

The further above or below 1 the IV figure is, the more or less frequently than ‘standard’ something happens.

The example IV of 2.42 means our trainer won at a rate nearly two-and-a-half times the overall trainer seasonal average: 2.42 times, to be precise.

Note that very small data samples can produce misleading IV figures.

 

IV3

IV3 is a derivation of IV created by us here at geegeez.co.uk to help ‘smooth the curve’ on chart data. You can see examples of this when looking at draw data on this website.

IV3 simply adds the IV of a piece of data to the IV's of its closest neighbouring pieces of data, and divides the sum by three.

For example, the IV3 figure for stall five at a racecourse would be calculated as:

(IVs4 + IVs5 + IVs6) / 3

where IVs4 is the Impact Value of stall 4, the lower neighbour of stall 5, whose IV3 we are calculating, and IVs6 is the Impact Value of stall 6, the upper neighbour of the stall whose IV3 we are calculating.

Thus, in the below example which shows stalls 1-5, the IV3 figure for stall 2 is the average of the IV figures for stalls 1, 2 and 3:

(1.98 + 2.27 + 2.55) / 3 = 2.27

 

 

 

As with IV, the greater the value the better, with anything above 1 representing an outcome which occurs more frequently than standard.

N.B. For the lowest and highest stalls in a race, IV3 is calculated from an average of the stall and its sole neighbour (stall 2 in the case of stall 1, and stall H-1 in the case of the (H)ighest numbered stall).

 

What to look for with IV3

Used on this site mainly in charts, IV3 shows a smoother, more representative curve when looking at the impact of stall position.

Example IV Chart:

 

Same data plotted by IV3:

 

 

Actual vs Expected (A/E)

Whereas IV tells us how frequently, relatively, something happens, as bettors we need to know what the implied profitability of that something is. In concert, they are a powerful partnership, with favourable figures denoting an event that happens more frequently than average and with a positive betting expectation.

A/E, or the ratio of Actual versus Expected, attempts to establish the value proposition (profitability in simple terms) of a statistic. The 'actual' and 'expected' are the number of winners.

The ‘actual’ number of winners is just that. In the case of the IV example above, the trainer had 36 winners from 126 runners. Actual then is 36.

But how do we calculate the 'expected' number of winners?

We use a formula based on the starting price (you could just as easily use Betfair Starting Price or even tote return if you were sufficiently minded - we've used SP), thus:

Actual number of winners / Sum of ALL [entity] runners' SP's (in percentage terms)

So far we know that to be 36 / Sum of ALL [entity] runners' SP's (in percentage terms)

 

To establish a runner's SP in percentage terms, we do the sum 1/([SP as a decimal] + 1).

For instance, 4/1 SP would be 1/(4 + 1), or 1/5, which is 0.20,

evens SP would be 1/(1 + 1), or 1/2, which is 0.5,

1-4 SP would be 1/(0.25 + 1), or 1/1.25, which is 0.8, and so on.

 

The sum of our trainer's 126 runners' starting prices, calculated in the above fashion, is 33.15.

Our A/E then is 36 / 33.15 which is 1.09.

We can then say that this trainer’s horses have a slightly positive market expectation, and in general terms her horses look worth following.

 

What to look for with A/E

As with IV, a score above 1 is good and below 1 is not good, though in this case the degree of goodness or not goodness pertains to market expectation, or what might be summed up as ‘likelihood of future profitability’.

A dataset that shows a profit but has an A/E below 1 is probably as a result of one or two big outsiders winning. Such runners have a low expectation associated with them and are far less likely to represent winners in the future.

Clearly, then, we’re looking for an A/E above 1. But we need also to be apprehensive around ostensibly exciting profit figures when the A/E doesn’t back that up. That is, when the A/E figure is below 1.

Note also that very small data samples can produce misleading A/E figures.

 

Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB)

One of the main problems with assessing horseracing statistics is that we’re often faced with very small amounts of information from which to try to form a conclusion.

For this reason, I personally prefer place percentages to win percentages, as there are more place positions in a small group of races than there are winners. Thus, it tends to lead to slightly more representative findings.

PRB tries to take this race hierarchy a step further and produce a sliding scale of performance for every runner in a race based on where they finished.

So, for example, in a twelve-horse race, the winner beats 100% of its rivals, and the last placed horse beats 0% of its rivals. But what about those finishing between first and last?

The calculation is:

(runners - position) / (runners - 1)

 

The 4th placed horse's PRB in a 12-runner race would be calculated as:

(12 – 4) / (12 – 1)

= 8 / 11

= 0.73 (or 73%)

 

The full table of PRB’s for a 12-horse race is below.

 

 

A word on non-completions

There are different interpretations of how to cater for a horse which fails to complete (refused to race, unseated rider, fell, pulled up, etc).

Some exclude those runners from the calculation sample, others use a 50% of rivals beaten figure. The traditional way of dealing with non-completions - the way its creator, Simon Rowlands, has managed them since introducing %RB  around 15 years ago - is to recode pulled ups as joint-last (so will be >0% if more than one), and fell etc as neutral (50% of rivals beaten).

Whilst I can see the rationale behind both of those, the approach we have taken is more literal: we assume a non-completing horse to have beaten 0% of its rivals. This is unfair on the leader who falls at the last but nor does it upgrade a tiring faller or a horse pulling up at the back of the field.

There is not really a perfect way to represent non-completions in PRB terms; this is at least a consistent interpretation which is of little consequence in larger datasets or where non-completions are rare (for example, in flat races).

 

What to look for with PRB

PRB is helpful when attempting to establish the merit of unplaced runs; for example, a horse finishing 5th of 24 in a big field handicap has fared a good bit better than a horse finishing 5th of 6.

A PRB figure of 55% or more can be considered a positive; by the same token, a PRB figure below 45% should be taken as a negative, all other things being equal.

The problem with PRB is that it assumes, as per the rules of racing, that every horse is ridden out to achieve its best possible placing. In reality that frequently fails to happen: horses whose chances have gone are eased off and allowed to come home in their own time.

Thus, the further from the winner you get, the less reliable is the PRB figure.

PRB2

As the name suggests, this is the PRB figure, expressed as a decimal, times itself. This is also sometimes written as PRB^2, which means the same as PRB2.

So, for example, if the percentage of rivals beaten was 80%, or 0.8, the PRB2 figure would be 0.8 x 0.8 = 0.64

The reason this is useful is that it rewards those finishing nearer to first exponentially, as the table and chart for an 11-runner race below illustrates.

 

 

 

The chart lines start and end in the same place but, in between, they are divergent.

The difference in the values is greater the further down the top half of the field a horse finishes, and then gravitates back towards the PRB line in the latter half of the field (where PRB2 scores are lowest).

This is significant when looking at, for example, trainer statistics. Let’s take an example where two trainers have the following finishes from three horses, all in eleven-runner races (for ease of calculation):

 

 

Using our reference table above for eleven-runner races, we could calculate the PRB’s, using decimals rather than fractions, as follows:

Trainer A: 1.0 + 0.5 + 0.0 = 1.5

Trainer B: 0.5 + 0.5 + 0.5 = 1.5

Both have a score of 1.5 which, when divided by the three runs, gives a PRB rating of 0.5.

But Trainer A had a winner and Trainer B failed to secure a finish better than 6th, so should we afford them the same merit?

Some will argue yes, but I prefer – and PRB^2 offers – to recognise all that has happened but to reward the trainer with the ‘meaningful’ placing to a greater degree than her perma-midfield counterpart.

Here’s how PRB^2 views the same trio of performances:

Trainer A: 1.0 + 0.25 + 0.00 = 1.25             / 3 = 0.42

Trainer B: 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.25 = 0.75           / 3 = 0.25

This time we see the preference towards Trainer A, who had the same average finishing position but the more worthy finish in that one of his runners won.

That, in my view, is a more meaningful statistic for all that it is not straightforward to know what a ‘good’ PRB^2 figure is.

What to look for with PRB^2

Anything above 0.4 on a reasonable sample size implies ‘good’ performance whereas anything below 0.3 on a reasonable sample implies ‘poor’ performance, though there is some scope for different interpretations between 0.3 and 0.4.

 

PRB3

PRB3, not to be confused with PRB^2, is used in the same way as IV3 when there is a logical and linear relationship between a data point and its closest neighbours. The example we used in IV3 was stall position and that holds equally for PRB3: it would be the average percentage of rivals beaten of a stall and its closest neighbours. Another example might be the rolling monthly percentage of rivals beaten for a trainer, although this will always be historical in its outlook (we cannot know next month's PRB).

As with IV3, its primary utility is one of smoothing the curve to make patterns in the data easier to spot.

 

Horse Racing Metrics Summary

Throughout the site, figures relating to Impact Value, Actual vs Expected, and Percentage of Rivals Beaten are referenced. There is nothing to be afraid of; rather, each metric simply provides an appropriate way of easily understanding the data (and, crucially, its utility), and comparing it within the context of the entity under investigation.

Monday Musings: Two Young Guns

/in /by

Last week, as I detailed the overwhelming power of the big yards in the UK and Ireland, on the flat and it seemed even more so over jumps, I should have conceded that there is always room for a talented upstart to pick up a piece of the pie, writes Tony Stafford.

He or she has to have at least one well-heeled and convinced supporter to crash the big boys’ party; but two young Newmarket jumps trainers showed at Cheltenham this past weekend that they are on the fast track to success.

Both are based in the least likely of hotbeds for training jumpers in the UK. Newmarket, for all the merits of the schooling facilities of the Links, just behind Newmarket golf club and across from the Cambridge Road polytrack gallop and thence the Rowley Mile, has fewer jumping trainers than ever. Maybe that will start to change.

Cast your minds back 14 hours to the last race of Cheltenham’s three-day Paddy Power Gold Cup meeting. The favourite, a 9/4 shot, was sent out by a young man who didn’t have his first jumps runners until earlier this year. He made a great start, collecting five wins between the beginning and end of the 2022-23 season in late April.

Another eight successes under NH Rules have followed this campaign and, in between, 13 have come off 50 runs from 25 individual horses in his first campaign on the flat.

Ben Brookhouse is the name and the winners have flowed ever since from the nicely compact and centrally situated Saville House stable, occupied to good effect for many years and still owned by Willie Musson.

Ben’s jewel in the crown as far as buying horses is concerned is his father Roger, a long-standing owner for the Pipe stable. Brookhouse senior has some well-regarded animals sprinkled around a few major Irish yards, notably with Willie Mullins and Henry de Bromhead.

But the decision was made for Ben to train all the UK runners and yesterday’s impressive second bumper win for Brechin Castle under Jack Quinlan was as decisive as it was noteworthy and eye-catching for both trainer and long-neglected jockey. It ran in Roger’s colours, too!

Jack Quinlan has been just about the only professional jump jockey to be based in Newmarket for several years. Many questioned his stubbornness in remaining close to his family, but the association with Brookhouse has coincided with a general wider appreciation of his qualities.

An Irish point-to-point winner, Brechin Castle was prepared by the champion of the Irish pointer ‘conditioning and selling-on lark’ in Colin Bowe. He upgraded an original €52k yearling buy to a €165k project, merely by winning a point by a length; but as they say, it’s how they do it.

Pointers that turn into bumper and then jumping stars can come from all types of background. Brechin Castle’s sire Shantou died as a 28-year-old: yes, I kid you not, when Brechin Castle was already three years old. His dam’s sire, dual Derby (French and Irish by seven and then four lengths for Henry Cecil) Old Vic was 25 hen he passed away in 2011. Plenty of proven breeding talent to go with Classic performance.

The trick with Irish point winners is to find the ones with a touch of speed. We saw it from Brechin Castle on his UK debut at Sedgefield last month when he stretched 19 lengths clear. Yesterday, he drew alongside a Paul Nicholls previous winner up the home straight and had a comfortable two-and-a-quarter lengths to spare at the line of this Listed contest.

Of Ben’s five National Hunt wins before the season change-over, one was Listed bumper horse Aslukgoes, and he won twice with veteran hunter chaser Espoir De Teillee, each time ridden by Fern O’Brien, Fergal’s daughter. He also had a juvenile hurdler and staying novice to complete the eclectic score.

The flat campaign continued to reflect both his versatility and the varied composition of his stable. When we talked at an Epsom evening meeting in the summer, he said how lucky he is to be able largely to buy what he likes when he goes to horse sales. “Sometimes, though, if when I got one home, Dad doesn’t want it, I’m stuck with it until I can find an owner!”

Among the dozen winners, there were a couple of smart two-year-olds, Ben clearly intent on making his name as a dual-purpose trainer. In that respect he is following the example of his latest employer, Ian Williams, to whom he was assistant trainer until branching out this year.

Amazingly, James Owen, the other ground-breaking Newmarket handler to show his credentials at Cheltenham, also only took out his training licence this season. Before that, he had been one of the most successful trainers of Arabian horses in the UK.

He is now fully committed to the new job, though, and recently moved into Green Ridge stables in the Hamilton Road. When I had a connection with horses trained in Daryll Holand’s Exning yard – at the time the late Shaun Keightley was in situ – James Owen stabled his horses in a smart, but small, much newer building just to the right of the entrance.

Gay Kelleway was next door. As I mentioned, Owen was the top trainer of Arabian horses and the old maxim that if you can train one type of horse, you should be able to make a go at others seems to be ringing true in his case.

Owen started even later in the year – after the 2022-23 season end – than Brookhouse, but when Burdett Road, owned by the Gredley family, bolted up in the Triumph Hurdle Trial that opened Saturday’s programme, it made a lot of people take notice of this young man, probably many for the first time.

Burdett Road isn’t the only horse to give a salute to Bill Gredley’s East End of London heritage, Burdett Road going from Mile End Road to Commercial Road [and where the editor plays football on a Saturday morning! - Ed.] For this most successful businessman and Classic-winning owner (User Friendly won two Oaks’s and the St Leger against the boys in 1992), Owen has seven among those to have run so far this year. I doubt that this speedy gelding will be the last to win a good jumps race for his talented trainer, who is already up to 22 for his initial season.

Burdett Road had been a nice three-year-old when trained by Michael Bell, winning the Golden Gates Stakes at Royal Ascot and two other races on the flat before running third in two Group 3 events. A 100-rated horse ought to make a decent hurdler if he stays and on Saturday Harry Cobden was at pains to give the Muhaarar gelding a chance to last out the trip on the testing Cheltenham track.

He sat an exaggerated last of nine and only when they came down the hill approaching the home turn did he make any sort of move. Still three lengths adrift at the final flight, Cobden only needed to clear the obstacle safely. That achieved, he sprinted up the hill for a six-and-a-half length success.

As was pointed out afterwards, none of the Irish we’ll see and fear next March was there - no doubt Mr Mullins is honing the skills of the latest batch of Auteuil acquisitions - but rarely do you see horses scoot up that hill on soft ground in that manner.

James Owen said afterwards he would look forward hopefully to good ground at the Festival next March to harness his speed.

As Nicky Henderson wisely averred yesterday after Jonbon’s authoritative return in the Shloer Chase, a lot can happen before then, but Ben Brookhouse and James Owen will both be picturing a repeat of this weekend’s spectaculars to warm the long winter nights.

- TS

Dave Renham: NH Q&A

/in /by

This article is slightly different from my usual pieces in that I am going to address some of the questions you have asked in the comments over the past couple of years, writes Dave Renham.

As the turf flat season has come to an end, I will concentrate on some of the National Hunt questions that have been posed. Any profit and loss figures quoted have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price less 5% commission. Data have been taken from UK NH racing going back to 1st Jan 2017. Here we go...

 

Does the market position of the horse on debut make any difference in their next few runs?

For this answer I am going to combine the stats for all horses having their second, third, fourth and fifth careers starts. Horses that were favourite on their debut have gone on to win just under 20% of the time when grouping together all the results of their next four races. The graph below shows the second to fifth run combined strike rate for different market positions on debut:

 

 

The graph shows that the position a horse appears in the betting market on debut has an influence on their success early in their careers. In terms of returns, favourites on debut have got close to breaking even if you had backed them in all of their next four starts. Compare this to horses that that were 5th or higher in the betting market on debut – they would have combined to lose you over 20 pence in the £.

 

How successful are beaten favourites on their next start?

Horses that were beaten favourites last time out scored in 18.6% of their next starts; but backing all qualifiers would have produced a loss of 6p for every £1 staked. Looking at horses that were beaten favourite two starts back, they have produced a strike rate of 17.3% with slightly higher losses of 7p in the £.

Horses that have been beaten favourites on both of their last two starts have won just under 20% of the time, but losses have been steeper at 9p in the £. These are generally worth swerving!

 

Is wearing blinkers for the first time a positive or a negative?

Trainers turn to headgear in an attempt to make it easier for the horse to focus on what is in front of them rather than being distracted by other horses or the crowd etc in their peripheral vision. Hence, trainers hope that the application of blinkers will help the horse concentrate better and thus perform better. However, the stats point to the fact that horses in first time blinkers are a negative.

First time blinker wearers have won 8.5% of their races (205 wins from 2402 runs) producing losses of £367.95 (ROI -15.3%). One positive stat worth sharing is that if the horse was prominent in the betting (SP of 9/4 or less), this subset of first time wearers made a profit, albeit from a small sample. There were 104 qualifying horses of which 49 won (SR 47.1%) for a profit of £28.75 (ROI +27.6%).

Trainer Gary Moore has a good record with horses wearing blinkers for the first time scoring 7 times from 28 Runners (SR 25%) for a profit of £30.27 (ROI +108.1%). Yes, it is a very small sample but there are two other positives I can share. Firstly, seven other runners were placed, giving Moore a win and placed strike rate of 50%; and secondly, I checked his 2013 to 2016 results also and he won 5 from 18 (SR 27.8%) for a profit of £30.42 (ROI +169.03).

Of course, there are other headgear options and the application of first time cheekpieces has produced much better overall results than first time blinkers. The stats show that 10.7% of these runners won and losses stood at only 1.2% - or just over 1 p in the £ lost for every £1 staked.

 

How does the weight a horse carries in a handicap chase affect the result?

Horses are assigned different handicap marks in handicap races which affects how much weight a horse will carry. Better horses with higher handicap marks (Official Ratings) carry more weight. The idea is that the weight will balance out the differences in ability with the theory that any handicap race will end with all runners finishing at the same time. The handicapper does an excellent job, but higher weighted horses still win more often than lower weighted runners. The graph below shows this:

 

 

Top weights in handicap chases are more than twice as likely to win as horses weighted 7th or lower. However, the market does adjust for this. Top weights, despite their decent win rate, would have lost you around 7 pence in the £ if backing all of them ‘blind’. Horses that were 7th or lower in the weights actually turned a small BSP profit. Of course, a few big-priced winners did skew these results somewhat, but even without those you could legitimately argue that lower weighted horses offer slightly better value in these races.

 

What percentage of races are won by a horse from the top three in the betting?

When combining the results of all National Hunt races, the winner comes from the top three in the betting in 73% of races. However, there is a big variance depending on type of race. Here is a table showing the performance of the top three in the betting in different race types. I have ordered the table row from highest percentage to lowest:

 

 

Handicap races are generally more competitive than non-handicaps which is one of the reasons why the lowest figures are for the handicap groups. Having said that, field size plays a part and handicaps tend to have bigger fields which naturally impacts the percentages. In terms of returns, horses from the top three in the betting have performed best in non-handicap novice chases – these runners would have lost you just 1p for every £10 bet (ROI -0.1%).

 

Have you any breeding stats that will help with my National Hunt betting?

Here are my favourite stats connected with breeding.

  1. When looking at French-bred runners, did you know that female horses have outperformed male horses in terms of strike rate? This is unusual as male horses have a general strike rate edge over female runners in all types of racing be it flat, all weather or National Hunt. French-bred runners that are female have won 13.72% of their races; males have won 13.57%. Females have provided by far the best value of the two also – males would have lost you 9p in the £; females would have won you 14p in the £. I should also say that French-bred females have a strike rate edge in both hurdle races and chases. Male French-bred runners enjoy a small edge in bumpers.
  2. There are a handful of sires whose chase record is considerably better than their hurdles one. Muhtathir is one such sire. His chase SR% stands at 18% while his hurdle one is just 7.9%. In terms of A/E indices, his chase index is 1.04, his hurdle one is just 0.61. Another sire with a similar bias is Schiaparelli. His hurdle SR% has been 9.3% (A/E 0.79); his chase SR% more than double that at 18.9% (A/E 1.02). Fuisse has similar stats to Schiaparelli – he has a 21.4% strike rate in chases (A/E 1.14), in hurdles this drops to 11.9% (A/E 0.81). Both Fuisse and Schiaparelli have made blind profits in chases to BSP.
  3. Sire Trans Island performs much better in hurdle races compared to chases. Strike rates are 13% (hurdle races) versus 8% (chases) with the A/E indices standing at 1.10 and 0.70 respectively. Coastal Path is another sire who seems to have a clear edge when comparing hurdle results to chase ones. In chases he has a 12.1% SR% with his runners showing hefty losses of 44p in the £; in hurdle races the strike rate is 17.7% and his runners have made a blind profit of £322.48 (ROI +107.9%).
  4. Poliglote is a sire that only has a handful of hurdlers these days, but he is the only sire to secure a strike rate of over 20% in these races over the lesser obstacles (44 wins from 215 runners). Returns of 73 pence in the £ is noteworthy and hence any hurdler sired by Poliglote is worth close scrutiny.

 

 

Are there any trainers who do particularly well in bumpers?

Let’s start by looking at the trainers with the highest strike rates in bumpers. In order for them to qualify they must have had at least 75 runners and achieved a 20% win rate or higher:

 

 

It will probably come as no surprise to see Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson at the top. However, neither have made an overall profit, losing 4p and 5p in the £ respectively. There is a profitable angle for both Nicholls and Henderson though when we dig a bit deeper into the numbers – and it is the same angle. For both trainers you would have made a profit if ignoring horses on debut and those with just one run under their belt. For Henderson, horses having their second or more career start have won 20 races from 79 (SR 25.3%) for a profit of £23.13 (ROI +29.3%); for Nicholls he has had 21 winners from 69 (SR 30.4%) showing a profit of £18.79 (ROI +27.2%).

There is one more trainer I would like to mention who does not appear on the above graph and that is Hughie Morrison. Morrison is probably better known as a trainer on the level, but he has an excellent record albeit from a smaller sample. He has had 58 bumper runners since 2017 of which 14 have won (SR 24.1%) recording a profit of £24.87 (ROI +42.9%). In fact, 7 of his last 19 runners (SR 36.8%) have won.

Sticking a little bit longer with bumpers, there are two trainers who have done particularly well with bumper debutants. Harry Fry and Anthony Honeyball are the trainers in question. Their figures are impressive:

 

 

Both trainers have been consistent, each making a profit in five of the seven seasons.

 

Which trainers do best with horses that make their career debut in a hurdle race?

Just under 70% of all National Hunt horses have their first ever run in a bumper. However, a good proportion start off their careers by ignoring the bumper route and going straight over hurdles. One trainer excels with these runners, namely Nicky Henderson. His record is outstanding:

 

 

The win strike rate is on another stratosphere with only two other trainers hitting over 20% (20% and 26% for Donald McCain and Paul Nicholls respectively). His biggest priced winner has been at 11/1 (BSP 17) so his results are not skewed in any way. Henderson also seems to target hurdle races at Newbury as 11 of his 18 runners (SR 61.1%) have won there on debut.

There are two stables to avoid, however, when they send an unraced horse over hurdles for their debut. Firstly, Venetia Williams has saddled just three winners from 52 (SR 5.8%) for a loss of £35.65 (ROI -68.6%). In fact, 31 of these runners started at single figure odds so this is not a case of lots of outsiders losing. The other stable to avoid is the Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero yard. They have managed just two winners from 64 runners (SR 3.1%) for a hefty loss of £52.38 (ROI -81.8%). In truth, a fair proportion of their runners have been at the higher end of the price spectrum, but regardless of price I think a wide berth is the prudent call.

 

At the Cheltenham Festival Irish trainers seem to excel. What is the record of Irish trainers in all UK National Hunt Races?

Here are the stats for all Irish trained runners in the UK going back to 2017:

 

 

This is an impressive set of figures. Having said that, 80% of the profits occurred at the Cheltenham Festival from around 28% of the total runners.

The Irish seem to target the better meetings and the bigger prizes. There are four courses where they have had at least 200 runners – all four have seen a blind profit as the table below shows:

 

 

It is no surprise that Cheltenham has seen the best returns, but the Perth stats are strong, too. It makes sense to me that when you see an Irish runner declared at any of these four tracks you should look carefully into their chances. If the race is a class 1 or 2 contest, then that has also been a positive.

 

Trainers with sole runners on the day – are any worth following?

The penultimate question for this piece concerns trainers who have had just one runner racing on a particular day. Firstly, let us see the trainers with the best strike rates with these sole runners.

 

 

The usual suspects of Nicholls and Henderson head the list, but it is interesting to see Ann Hamilton in fourth place. Six of the ten earned a blind profit – Henderson, Skelton, Hamilton, Richards, Lacey and Bailey. As far as Henderson is concerned, if you ignored his runners that started favourite, his record is mightily impressive with 53 wins from 249 runners (SR 21.3%) for a profit of £117.99 (ROI +47.4%). This subset of runners would have yielded a profit in six of the seven years.

 

What is the comparison of novice chase debutants with horses having their second chase start in a novice chase?

This is a very recent question which was asked after I wrote a piece on chase debutants. I was asked about trainer improvement between chase debut in a novice chase and the second chase start in a novice chase. Horses that are racing for the first or second time often contest novice chase events so there is a reasonable data set for some trainers.

Firstly, let me compare the overall strike rates in novice chases between horses having their first ever chase run compared with those contesting a novice chase having only their second run over fences:

 

 

As you can see, and might expect, horses improve for the experience. Remarkably, horses having their second chase run have made a blind profit when they raced in a novice chase on this second start. That 18% strike rate has helped turn a 7p in the £ profit.

Now to compare trainer performance. Below is a table displaying individual trainer strike rates on chase debut and 2nd chase run. Once again, these figures apply only when the race in question was a novice chase. To qualify each trainer has had at least 30 runs for each group. I have also created an extra column where I have divided the 2nd run SR% by the debut SR%. To show an improvement this figure needs to be higher than 1.00. I have ordered the table by ‘improvement’:

 

 

Tim Vaughan has shown a remarkable improvement going from 4 wins from 72 on debut to 9 wins from 33 on second start. There is also a significant differential when comparing the Evan Williams stats. There are very few trainers whose chase debutants out-perform their second chase starters but there are a handful (at the bottom of the table). I hope this table will prove useful to assess how likely a horse is to improve from chase debut to second chase run.

As stated, this final question has been geared to novice chase data only. Not all first- and second-time chasers race in a novice chase. Hence you would get bigger data sets if you allowed ‘all chases’ to be analysed for these two groups of runners. Having said that, I have looked briefly at that data, too, and the results for most of the above trainers are similar.

So, there you have it – a selection of answers to the many questions I have been asked about National Hunt racing in recent times. If you have any specific questions, please post them in the comments. It might inspire a new article!

- DR

Monday Musings: Crossing Borders

/in /by

You might not have noticed, but the British flat turf season ended with a whimper, as they say, on Saturday – on the Tapeta surface at Newcastle rather than on the swamp that was Doncaster, writes Tony Stafford. The end-of-season highlight, the November Handicap, sponsored by whoever they can drum up these days, was a denuded affair of half a field compared with its heyday, not that Brian Ellison or the owners of Onesmoothoperator minded as they picked up 36k of Virgin Bet money.

The last actual turf meeting to be completed had been Newmarket a week earlier and it wouldn’t have needed much creativity to suggest to trainers and owners that a decent turf surface there would still have been more likely than anywhere else in the country and could accommodate 20 runners with ease. The horses that turned up had presumably been geared up for a big race opportunity on autumn (or worse) grass and that’s what they could have got at HQ.

Instead, in addition to Newcastle, we had Aintree in the north-west and Kelso in Scotland over jumps, with Wincanton in the West Country and an all-weather card at Chelmsford in deepest Essex. There was again a mystifyingly small field for the first go over the Grand National fences this season in the not-so-Grand Sefton which attracted just eleven.

Meanwhile down at Wincanton, Paul Nicholls had a field day, sending out the first four winners before Anthony Honeyball spiked his guns winning the main race, the Badger Beer, with Blackjack Magic and then going on to complete a double, both with Rex Dingle in the saddle, this time on Good Look Charm.

Nicholls was still happy enough having swept up the other two main prizes, the Elite Hurdle, for the umpteenth time, with Rubaud, and the Rising Stars Chase with Knappers Hill.

I’d been wondering about the definitions of the United Kingdom, Great Britain and the British Isles before offering today’s quiz question. Bearing in mind Nicholls and his Wincanton four-timer, I ask, which trainer sent out most winners in the UK on the Friday and Saturday of last week?

The answer: Gordon Elliott, who provided 11 of the 14 winners at the two-day Down Royal meeting. Benefiting from a minimal representation from Willie Mullins, he had the first four on Friday and the last two after missing the fifth. Then on Saturday, he could not improve on his first five, despite having an odds-on chance in the last of seven races that day.

His tally there equalled his entire score of 11 more on Irish (non-UK) tracks over the previous 14-day period. Down Royal is close to the town of Lisburn, in the Six Counties, and situated around 40 miles from the border with the Republic whether you are travelling south or south-west as the border meanders its way across to the sea.

Of course, all the Down Royal stats apply to Irish racing. Its meetings, and those of Downpatrick, the other (and jumps only) Irish racecourse are staged under the Rules of Irish racing and all their statistics are included in the Irish returns. Many of the top domestic English, Scottish and Welsh jumps stables get a decent portion of their better imports though from the flourishing Northern Irish point-to-point field.

If the successes of Elliott and Nicholls tell you anything, the top stables have been stocking up avidly over the past 12-18 months and are going to be more formidable than ever. £300,000 plus is not unknown for a smart point-to-point prospect and, even then, success is not assured.

To illustrate that observation, three former Irish point winners lined up for yesterday’s finale at Ffos Las. Two that cost 100 grand and 85k respectively finished miles behind the Isabel Williams-ridden (and sourced at the sales) Followango. She paid 8k for the Evan Williams-trained five-year-old and owners W J Evans Racing could increase that probably by at least ten-fold if they wanted to leave the risk to someone else!

Gordon Elliott’s rehabilitation seems to have been largely achieved following the embarrassment of that infamous picture on his gallops. Talent will out as they say, though whether the major owners who decided to leave will ever return is another matter. But training is never plain sailing as he will be quick to admit. Yesterday’s nine runners at Naas, so back home in Ireland, produced no wins and just a couple of consolation second places.

The flat season may be over, the awards having been handed out a while ago at Ascot, but several trainers and jockeys have still been aiming at some of the major prizes available elsewhere. I’m not sure how Hollie Doyle is after unseating from her mount at Fukushima racecourse in Japan yesterday, while Ryan Moore would have been happier if the mare Geraldine, second choice for the Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Kyoto, had done better than finish in 5th place.

He has the consolation of the rider’s share of 85k, one tenth of the winner’s prize won by Christophe Lemaire on the favourite Brede Weg in this race for 3yo and up fillies and mares.

And the Melbourne Cup last Tuesday week had been a frustration for Simon and Ed Crisford as their former inmate Without A Fight collected the multi-million first prize having previously narrowly denied their present high-class performer West Wind Blows in the Caulfield Cup.

West Wind Blows, again ridden by Jamie Spencer, turned out on Saturday in the TAB Champion Stakes at Flemington but despite starting favourite for the £1 million plus first prize, could fare no better than 9th of 11. Prizemoney went almost all the way down but stopped at £33k for eighth!

There was a trio of UK jockeys riding in yesterday’s Group 2 at San Siro in Milan. The Crisfords targeted the race with hat-trick scorer Poker Face, ridden by James Doyle, while Archie Watson had two representatives with Oisin Murphy and Luke Morris doing the steering on Roman Mist and Brave Emperor respectively.

Once again, the Crisfords were disappointed, Poker Face started odds-on but the honours and the £100k pot went to Watson and Morris, with Brave Emperor striding to a four-length success over the favourite. The second Watson runner Roman Mist was denied third by a short head.

The Paddy Power Gold Cup and Greatwood Hurdle are the big races to anticipate next weekend as the jumps season now gets into full flow. The Paddy Power looks too complicated at this stage, and I’d like to see the first lot of acceptances later today before starting to formulate an opinion.

But I’m more than happy to put forward a tip for next Sunday’s Greatwood Hurdle. I always have a great respect for anything that Dan Skelton shows up with and can understand why his Knickerbockerglory is prominent in the market.

However, I was so impressed with the way Punctuation won going back on the flat at Doncaster, after a long layoff for Fergal O’Brien. That powerful win suggested he’d improved since his highly successful jumping stint last winter. Punctuation for me.

- TS

When Hurdlers Go Chasing

/in /by

Some horses are bred to chase, others are not, writes Dave Renham. Some horses are better over hurdles, others are better over the bigger obstacles. In this article I will look at horses making their debut in a chase having switched from hurdling last time out. The data have been taken from UK National Hunt races spanning the seven calendar years from 2016 to 2022. All profits and losses have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price less 5% commission.

All Runners

Firstly let’s review the breakdown for all first-time chasers that qualify having run las time out (LTO) over hurdles:

 

 

These chase debutants have won around one race in every seven and there is not a particularly good bottom line with all runners combining to lose over 10 pence for every £1 staked. In addition, the A/E index is quite modest at 0.88.

Handicap vs Non-handicap

Diving deeper into the stats, we’ll start by splitting the results between handicap and non-handicap races. Here is the win strike rate comparison:

 

 

As can be seen from the graph, debutants that contest a non-handicap have a much higher strike rate, which is to be expected; but, not shown, handicap runners would have lost a little less money overall. A/E indices are similar with 0.89 for non-handicaps, 0.87 for handicaps. It should be noted that most horses making their chase debut do it in a handicap – 72% in fact. With no clear edge to be had let’s move on to market factors.

Betting Market

How good a guide is the betting market is the next question? Here is the breakdown by Industry SP grouping.

 

 

As is shown, very short prices (less than 1/2) have scored enough times to make a profit. Conversely, the very big priced (40/1+) debut chasers have a dreadful record. They have proved extremely unlikely to spring a surprise and losses of nearly 80p in the £ would be painful had you backed them all. Horses priced between 5/2 and 6/1 (combining the price brackets 5/2 to 4/1 and 9/2 to 6/1) edged into profit from a decent sample size. You could argue that, if there is any value, then this is the price bracket which might offer some.

The 25/1 to 33/1 group looks to me to be an anomaly, especially considering the strike rate exceeds the 16/1 to 22/1 group’s strike rate. My guess is that the significant profit seen for the 25/1 to 33/1 bracket is unlikely to be replicated in the years to come. As a writer/researcher it is all well and good quoting profit figures, but if they are unlikely to be sustainable, for whatever reason, it is important to make readers aware of one’s thoughts and the likely bigger picture. Before moving on, I wanted to try and test whether my theory that the recent results for 25/1 to 33/1 runners was likely to be an anomaly. To do that I crossed checked data from 2009 to 2015 and, during that period, 25/1 to 33/1 shots won less than 2% of the time losing 44p in the £.

 

Gender of horse

This is an area I always look at when researching racing data because there are occasions when the sex of the horse makes a real difference in terms of results and returns. It is also a factor that not many punters worry about, so I feel there is a potential edge to be had in certain circumstances. Let’s see whether that is the case here. Firstly, a look at the win strike rates:

 

 

As we can see there is a big variance in terms of win strike rate. Male horses comfortably outperform female runners when making their chase debut. Now it is important to note that male runners do make up 84% of all runners. However, when we look at losses to BSP female runners have actually lost more in absolute terms than males: females produced a loss of £361.51 to £1 level stakes compare with -£344.48 for males.

When we compare the return on investment, there is a chasm between the two groups. Colts and geldings lost just 6% (6p in the £), while fillies and mares lost over 34% (34p in the £). These stats are powerful and can help give is an edge.

Age of horse

A look at what difference the age of the horse makes. Here are the splits:

 

 

4yo chasing debutants are relatively rare but from this modest sample they have performed well. The main takeaway from this table, though, is that horses aged 9 or older are to be avoided. They win far less often than younger runners, and the returns have been dreadful: nigh on 50p in the £. Mares aged 9 or older making the switch from hurdles to chases for the first time have been rare; but of the 71 qualifiers just 2 won!

The 8-year-old group also perform well below the norm and proved very poor value.

Last time out finishing position

The next area to come under the microscope is LTO performance in terms of finishing position. Let us look at the win strike rates first:

 

 

Last time out winners have the highest strike rates followed by LTO runners up, so a better LTO performance seems to be significant from a win probability perspective. It will come as no surprise that horses that were pulled up last time are a cohort to avoid – they have produced a low strike rate at 9% with losses of over 20 pence in the £ from 749 qualifiers.

The anomaly here is the group of horses that fell or unseated LTO. Their strike rate of 16.1% is higher than I had expected. Not only that, but these runners would have secured a profit of £117.10 to £1 level stakes (ROI +99.2%). At just 118 qualifiers, the sample size is quite small, so I think there is a case for remaining sceptical.

Looking at these results in more detail I realised that they were skewed somewhat by three big priced winners. That helps explain the profit figure. I did back check 2009 to 2015 data for LTO fallers/unseated riders to give more context: the strike rate in that period was 16% as well, but in this time frame they made losses more in line with my pre-research expectations of 16p in the £.

Country of Breeding

A quick look at breeding in terms of the origin of the horse. For this I want to compare the record of British-, Irish- and French-bred chase debutants. Here are the strike rates for each:

 

 

There is a big advantage to French-bred chase debutants in terms of their win chance. Remarkably, backing all French-breds blind would have yielded a profit of £70.55 (ROI +6.2%). French-bred chase debutants have shown good consistency, too, having hit a strike rate more than 18% in six of the seven years under review. Four of the seven years turned a blind profit, two years made a loss and one year broke even. Chasing debutants who are French bred demand close scrutiny.

Trainers

The final area for research is usually a popular one, namely trainers. Below is a table of trainers who have had at least 50 runners switching from hurdles to make their chase debut. I have ordered them by strike rate:

 

 

There is a huge difference in strike rate between Henderson at the top (31.82%) and Hawke at the bottom (5.66%). 13 of the 30 trainers have made a BSP profit with 17 in the negative.

It will come as no surprise to see Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls occupy the top two spots, but despite excellent strike rates neither have made a profit. This is simply due to the fact punters and bookmakers know these two trainers inside out and finding any value for either is relatively rare regardless of ‘angle’. However, there is one Nicky Henderson positive to share and that is with his odds-on runners. They have won a remarkable 24 times from 30 runners (SR 80%). A profit of £6.19 (ROI +20.6%) would have been achieved if backing all of them.

However, the trainer that catches my eye is Dan Skelton. A strike rate of just over one win in every four and decent profits to boot. Let’s dig deeper into his stats. Firstly, a year-by-year breakdown:

 

 

2016 was the one losing year and the only year where his strike rate dipped below 20%. The 2017 to 2022 results were very consistent, and impressive, showing that his bottom line has not been skewed by a few big priced winners.

Harry Skelton has ridden the vast majority of these runners, and this combination has been responsible for profits of £75.76. Backing this duo would have seen you earn over 44p for every £1 bet during the seven-year period (from 169 qualifiers). Here are three more positive Skelton angles:

  1. He has bucked the female horse trend, scoring with 28% of this cohort (10 wins from 35).
  2. His 5yo runners have done particularly well, winning 15 of their 42 starts (SR 35.7%) for a profit of £38.51 (ROI +93.9%).
  3. Skelton has an outstanding record when his chasing debutants tackle shorter distances. In races of 2m 1f or less he has recorded 25 successes from 67 (SR 37.3%) showing a profit of £46.40 (ROI +70.3%).

Dan Skelton looks a trainer to be on the right side of with chasing debutants.

Summary: bullet points

Before I wind this piece up let me share what I think are the strongest stats both positive and negative from my research on chase debutants making the switch from hurdling.

  1. Horses priced 5/2 to 6/1 (Industry SP) seem to be the range to concentrate on.
  2. Avoid horses priced 40/1 or bigger.
  3. Female horses have a very poor record in terms of both strike rate and returns.
  4. Four-year-olds do well albeit from a modest sample. Avoid chase debut runners aged 9 and up, and it is probably also worth swerving 8yo’s.
  5. Avoid horses that were pulled up LTO.
  6. French-bred horses comfortably outperform British- and Irish-bred runners.
  7. Dan Skelton is a trainer to keep a close eye on as his runners have a very good overall record.

With the National Hunt season clicking into gear now, horses making their chase debuts will be appearing more and more regularly. Hopefully, this article will help to point you in the right direction.

 - DR

Breeders’ Cup 2023: The Chalky & Scratchy Show

/in /by

The 40th renewal of the Breeders' Cup in gorgeous Santa Anita was an intense cauldron of high-class action. It always is. But there were differences between the 2023 version and those that went before, as outlined in my five takeaways below...

Scratch That

There was a swathe of non-runners, or scratches as they're known across the pond, over the two days. In fact, even before the Euro runners were due to board their flights, a number were withdrawn. Once on the ground at Santa Anita, over the course of the week further scratches were announced including Aidan O'Brien's Pearls And Rubies and, more materially, River Tiber and Bolshoi Ballet; Classic intended runners Mage, Geaux Rocket Ride and Arcangelo; Dirt Mile second favourite Practical Move; as well as the Jessica Harrington-trained Givemethebeatboys and Archie Watson-trained Bradsell.

The withdrawal, on veterinary advice, of most of these - and due to injuries sustained training by Mage, Geaux Rocket Ride and Practical Move - were a feature of a very troubled build up to the race days. Disturbingly, both Practical Move (cardiac arrest) and Geaux Rocket Ride (displaced condylar fracture, failed to recover from surgery, euthanised) died.

 

This was fuel to the fire of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an entity with a strong presence in liberal California and who were making their point outside the racetrack throughout the weekend. A large banner proclaiming "Horses Are Killed Here" greeted racegoers and passing motorists alike and, while "Horses Die Here" might have been more factually accurate, there is no hiding place from this reality when horses are trained on the track.

Here in UK, where most horses are trained at yards not co-located at a racecourse, injuries and fatalities also happen - away from the glare of the general public. Which is to say that we should not assume this is a problem Stateside to which we are immune.

Of course, the racing surface and the medication regime are areas of longstanding concern which are now being addressed, in part at least, as a consequence of HISA, a new entity seeking to unify protocols across America similar to the way BHA oversee here. Even on this, though, HISA has been legally challenged by horsepeople aghast at the fact they might need to change some of their methodologies. Not a strong look, alas.

Back on the track, the vets were omnipresent. Barn inspections, trot ups and trackwork scrutiny were the last acts of a programme of oversight begun in July.

In total there were 16 scratches from Friday's five-race main card, and many more on Saturday. Some were as a consequence of the natural attrition caused by a long season and the general scope for minor mishap in prepping horses for championship races; but many - too many for plenty of observers - were withdrawn at the behest of the on site vets despite protestations from connections. The upshot is certain to be a reluctance to travel next year for some, with costs estimated in the region of $70,000 all told. That's a bitter, and very expensive, pill to swallow for luckless owners and trainers, even those whose pockets are deeper than us mere mortals.

The Chalkfest

In the US, favourites win at a rate close to 40%, a figure nodding to the absence of a meaningful handicap program - instead preferring a large number of (sometimes very high value) claiming-based race conditions - and the erosion in average field size: small fields equal more winning favourites. But, with field sizes holding up fairly well even after the glut of scratches, this Breeders' Cup was the chalkiest* in the forty-year history of the event. [*the 'chalk' is the favourite, a reference to the good old days of boardmen on track - days long gone]

Saturday began with Big Evs winning the Juvenile Turf Sprint at 3.2/1 locally, a fantastic result for the brilliant Mick Appleby and his team. The Juvenile Fillies winner paid 7/1, Juvenile Fillies Turf winner 9.1/1 and the Juvenile winner Fierceness returned just better than 16/1 on track. Then it got top heavy...

The Ryan Moore-ridden and Aidan O'Brien-trained Unquestionable won the Juvenile Turf at 6/4 on the board to close out Friday's quintet of Cup races, and that began an almost unbroken run of success for horses at, or very close to, the top of the wagering lists.

Cody's Wish (more anon), Inspiral, Goodnight Olive, Master Of The Seas, Idiomatic, Auguste Rodin, White Abarrio and Elite Power all paid 3.3/1 or less - indeed, all bar the wide-drawn Master Of The Seas paid 2.6/1 or shorter. The one spot of respite came from 12/1 Turf Sprint winner Nobals so, if you were looking away from the top end and didn't find him, you were in plenty of betting bother. Signing in on that score.

The table below shows that not only was Saturday's card the lowest average mutuel return of any Breeders' Cup for three-year-old-plus races, but also the entire two-day event had the lowest average mutuel return since the meeting was extended to more than seven races (note the gaps in the first six rows of cells).

 

 

It was a year for keeping it simple, all right, and personally I was guilty of over-complication, as were many finer judges on site in Arcadia. It's very frustrating when it happens this way; as you can see from the full table above, it doesn't normally happen this way!

Vive Les Euros!

We Europeans, or British and Irish if you prefer, focus almost exclusively on the turf. And that's because the trainers who send horses across do likewise: we know these horses and the very fact that they're sent all that way - some of them even getting to run! - advertises their prospects.

But they don't typically perform so well. British or Irish-trained horses won two of the three Friday turf races, and ran second in the other; and three of the four Saturday turf races, and finished third and fourth in the other. In the races our local horses won, there were also four 1-2 finishes. That is almost unheard of dominance.

The Juvenile Turf Sprint was a trifecta for the raiders, which if you happened to select the right three of the six Euro participants (or all of them in combination) paid $1,378.40 for a dollar. Or £1,378.40 for a pound 😉

Aidan O'Brien had a meeting to remember even in the absence of River Tiber and Bolshoi Ballet. He still won both races that pair were engaged in (Juvenile Turf and Turf). As I wrote in the Breeders' Cup Compendium report - showing expert hindsight but little foresight - "Aidan’s record in Santa Anita Breeders’ Cups is also (relatively) pedestrian: five wins from 51, and just 3 from 39 since 2012. 2019 was a washout, as was 2014, and there was a single win apiece in 2016, 2013 and 2012. Put another way, Aidan has had just one winner from the last three Santa Anita Breeders’ Cups combined."

Fortunately, I was prudent enough to add a caveat: "Is that a quirk of a small sample size or something more material? In truth, more likely the former than the latter, but it is cause for pause."

That caveat was needed as the Big Guy from Ballydoyle, a nickname absolutely certain not to catch on, saddled two winners, two seconds, a third and a fourth from just eight runners. That, clearly, was a phenomenal performance, with Ryan steering the brace of gold medallists, notably Auguste Rodin in the Turf. It was a ride suggested by many as a genius effort, but it is rare to ride the rail in a US turf race and get the smooth transit he and his horse did; perhaps tellingly, it was French-based Italian Cristian Demuro, riding the Japanese horse Shahryar in America (!), who drifted away from the inside allowing Moore to save all the ground without losing any of the momentum. You make your own luck, as they say, and this was both good and a bit lucky.

Looking at the two-year-old division, it's clear that the North American cohort is a step behind their British and Irish counterparts in 2023, and that largely extends to the seniors, too. It will be interesting to see how the form converges a year from now.

White Abarrio a very grey look

The Breeders' Cup Classic, normally the ninth and final race on the Saturday Cup card, was run seventh in the batting order to accommodate TV schedules; and it delivered a result that, in truth, very few would have hoped for. The sport in the States is desperate to wriggle free of welfare and doping claims and has been unlucky a fair few times recently; but sometimes, as with Ryan in the Turf, you make your own luck.

So it was that Richard Dutrow Jr, warned off for ten years for a litany of medication violations, returned to training in February this year and saddled the Breeders' Cup Classic winner seven months later. To put that into context, Mahmood al Zarooni, the disgraced former Godolphin trainer (remember him?), was banned for eight years by the BHA in 2013: he returned to a more low key conditioner role in the United Arab Emirates in 2021, saddling just nine runners since.

Bizarrely, Dutrow Jr. inherited White Abarrio from Saffie Joseph, another controversial figure. In May this year, shortly before the Kentucky Derby, he was banned from making stakes entries in Kentucky and New York as a result of two of his horses dropping dead within 48 hours of each other; and, though subsequently reinstated, the constraint led to White Abarrio moving barns. Joseph had previously been suspended for 15 days (15 days?!) for another banned substance found in one of his horses in March of this year.

Frankly, the problem here is not with Dutrow Jr. especially, or with Joseph; nor is it with Bob Baffert or any other high profile trainer receiving doping/ medication suspensions. Rather, it is with the authorities which allow such violations to pass with derisory punishments like the one referenced above that scream, "crack on, we don't really care". It is to be hoped HISA will be able to introduce measures that significantly improve the reputation of US racing in this regard.

The Classic itself was an absorbing race, with two fancied speed horses duking it out on the front end until wilting, before the smooth travelling White Abarrio fended off a spirited effort from the Japanese runner Derma Sotogake, who might have won the Kentucky Derby had he not broken poorly and then had a bad trip. This was a massive effort on his first run since, six months later.

Joy and crushing despair for Cody's connections

On Saturday afternoon, the highlight for many at the Breeders' Cup was the tear-jerking heart-warming win of Cody's Wish, who got up in a protracted stretch duel with National Treasure to win the opening Dirt Mile. Cody's Wish is owned by Godolphin but he's named for Cody Dorman, a young man born with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome, a debilitating condition that affects both physical and mental functions.

Cody's Wish was a reason for Cody to look forward, something to enjoy in what must have been an unimaginably difficult life for him and his family. Last year in Keeneland, Cody's Wish won the Dirt Mile and the outpouring of joy was immense; on Saturday, as Cody's horse gutsed it out to best his rival, the emotion surpassed even that of twelve months ago. It was a brilliantly bright day in a life of struggle.

And then, almost unbelievably, on Monday we learned that Cody had suffered a medical incident just a day after Santa Anita which claimed his young life a few weeks shy of his 18th birthday. What a dreadfully awful turn of events. Like everyone else, we send our sympathies and best wishes to Cody's family.

*

The 40th running of the Breeders' Cup was a celebration of the sport of horseracing that encompassed an impossible gamut of emotions. They say life begins at 40; we were reminded that it sometimes doesn't make it that far, and that, at the end of the day, racing is just racing no matter how much joy or pain it brings us.

- Matt

Your first 30 days for just £1