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.
It would appear that since my last blog post about a fortnight ago, we haven't had a drop of rain worth mentioning around here in the Midlands and indeed, small fields have really been a pain in the backside for bookmakers during the latter half of February, writes David Massey. It is rare for us not to go to a meeting that we've scheduled in but Hereford on Sunday got the push after we realised there were four four-horse events on the card. I'm sure there are connections out there delighted with the dry weather for their good-ground horses but it's not much use to punters or bookmakers, and we decided a day on the sofa rather than freezing us whatsits off trying to get the odds-on pokes beaten made more appeal.
I have been out since we last conversed, though, with a couple of visits to Warwick, on Kingmaker Day and then for their in-for-a-fiver day last Friday. Kingmaker Day was decent business and one of our regular bigger punters turned up. Sadly for us, he was in good form, having £200 on Mr Freedom at 7s to win the handicap hurdle and another £400 on Imperial Alex, but we did still win on the day.
The Jonbon match for the Kingmaker itself saw more action in the race than it did beforehand, although needless to say the whole crowd had had their fiver on Calico to cause an upset. (I didn't hear of one single punter willing to take the 1-14 available, out of interest). With five to jump it did look like Calico was going to give them all something to cheer about, but the pantomime boos as Jonbon went past the post in first place were much more about people's pockets than any hatred towards Nicky's star chaser.
For the record, as I was working on the rails and saw Jonbon go down to post, I thought I'd seen him fitter and that he'd come on for the run. He's still the one to beat in the Arkle, for my money.
The most comical conversation of the afternoon took place not on my joint, but next door with Colin, working for Martyn Of Leicester. A few of the books bet "win only" on the novice hurdle that followed the Kingmaker as the each-way was shocking business (plenty of those that bet each-way were well overbroke on the places, come racing) but Colin was each-way. Up comes a lady punter to him with her tenner.
"Are you betting each-way on this race?" she asks him.
"Indeed I am", replies Colin.
"Can I have five pounds on number four then, please?"
"Each-way?"
"No, win."
Brilliant. I could barely suppress my laughter and Colin's face told its own story of bemusement. He just shook his head, and carried on...
In the middle of the course one of those Invades student gigs was going on. You might have seen these on your travels. If not, have a Google and you'll see what they're about. Generally speaking I'm all for them, although as yet I've not had to work in the middle of one of them, which is what my friends at S&D Bookmakers did on the day. [They look like a lot of fun and, unlike concert nights, the students are actually having a bet! - Ed.]
4 out of 5 bets you take are on debit card; whilst us oldsters still like the feel of cash in our wallet, it's all on card with the kids these days. Some bookmakers still don't take card, and I do think they'll have to move with the times, or miss out. Yes, it takes a few seconds longer and sometimes they can be a pain when you're busy, but ultimately the future lies that way, and I think you're better getting with the program now rather than later.
Anyway, we leave Warwick that day with the party in full swing, Fatboy Slim's "Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat" blasting in our ears. Eat, Sleep, Race, Repeat, more like. In the car park we bump into the S&D lot; they look utterly exhausted. "I've never worked so hard to take the money we have", says Rob, ashen-faced and in need of two paracetamol. "Fiver win, card. Fiver win, card. Fiver win, card. Does nobody carry cash any more?" Not under 25 they don't, Rob.
Warwick's Fiver Friday, timed to coincide with half term for maximum effect, usually draws a good family crowd, and last Friday was no exception. You know what the day will be like, a lot of novice punters there for a day out with the kids, so expect small money but plenty of it. Our big punter turns up again, too, and again he finds a winner, having £400 on Pikar. But before that, we have the farce that is the first to sort out.
You may have seen the race. Half the field go one side of a set of railings down the back and the other half go the other side. Who has taken the wrong course? It would appear there's going to be some sorting out to do in the Stewards room afterwards and, of course, that means we can't pay out.
The first thing to note is how long it took to actually call the enquiry. You'd have imagined the moment they went past the post that the "bing-bong" would sound, but no, it took a good three minutes for them to actually announce the enquiry, during which everyone was as wise as each other as to what was happening. We are telling punters to hold on to their tickets, they are (rightly, at the time) telling us no enquiry has been called, and whilst it isn't a tense situation by any means, it's one that could have been easily diffused. In the end, the result is allowed to stand, and we can finally get paid out and crack on with the next.
The rest of the day passes without incident, until we get to race 6. One woman, the worse for a beverage or two, has a couple of bets on the race and I'm fairly sure, post-race, that she's backed the winner. However, nobody picks up and after the last, we get packed up and are ready to go. Just as we are about to leave, a bloke and his wife come up to me with half a ticket.
"I think this has won, but she's torn the ticket in half."
It is indeed the winning ticket from race 6. Well, half of it. It's been torn from top to bottom. As this isn't the original punter, I'm a little suspicious.
"I don't suppose you have the other half, do you?"
"She says she's lost it."
Leaving aside why the hell you'd rip up a winning ticket, I have a feeling if I pay this, the other half could mysteriously appear, get sent to Late Pay for payment (you can do this, have a look on the back of your docket next time you have a bet at the races) and we'll end up paying twice. I politely decline to pay, suggest they have a good look through their pockets and send it in to Late Pay once they've found the other half.
You do get the odd punter try it on, but less so on course than in the shops. I remember working for Stanley Racing back in the day and had a Polish bloke and his mate, who we nicknamed Jaws (built like said character from the Bond movies) who was always trying something. He once came rushing up to the counter for a dog race shouting "trap 6, favourite, trap 6" as they were going in the boxes. I ask him does he want trap 6 on the slip, or the unnamed favourite? "Trap 6, six!" he barks back at me. I duly write trap 6 on the slip. In the meantime, the jollies have flipped and the one dog is now favourite, not the six. The red bolts out and makes all.
Up comes our man. "Favourite, favourite!" he shouts, waving his slip at me. I know what he is doing. "You said trap 6, and that's lost.", is my reply. He looks at me, and calmly walks out. Thinking I've had a result and there's no trouble, I get back to settling the bets. However, thirty seconds later they return. Jaws has picked up next door's wheelie bin and launches it at the bandit screen. It cracks but holds. Even more remarkably, the pair just stand there like lemons whilst I call the coppers, who come and take them for a free ride in the back of their car. But not before I tell them they're barred.
Back to the present, and I've just seen the weather forecast for this week. Drier than a Bedouin's flip-flops. Snow for Cheltenham a possibility, I'm told. Don't be packing the big coat away just yet, boys and girls. See you all at Prestbury in a couple of weeks, and the best of luck to you.
- DM
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Jonbon_Kingmaker_Warwick2023.png319830David Masseyhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDavid Massey2023-02-27 11:34:102023-02-27 11:34:10Roving Reports: Kingmaker for a Day
Much has been written and argued about concerning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s attempts to shortcut its way into top-level international sport, writes Tony Stafford. First golf, where millions of dollars were paid several years ago to a few selected stars to entice them into a tournament where, if winning, they would only have added a minimal amount to their guaranteed pot. The only requirement for them was to turn up and smile – all the way to the bank.
That has continued with their own lavishly endowed tour which has caused such a personal rift between those like Phil Mickelson and Ian Poulter, who have broken away, and former friends Rory McIIroy and Tiger Woods, die-hard stalwarts of the existing PGA programme.
Then it was football – and, with the spotlight of the World Cup last autumn, their own footballers were on hand and even won a match – against champions Argentina no less! – to kick off their campaign before the competition eventually proved too hot. That their country’s football administrators could then manage to seduce Cristiano Ronaldo to abandon his lucrative Manchester United contract for one of infinitely greater instant wealth, even at the age of 38, to join their best domestic team, further emphasised their seriousness.
Horse racing has always been a focus for Saudi owners. Prince Khalid Abdullah, via his Juddmonte Farm breeding operation, had been a serious challenger in world racing both to the Maktoum family from Dubai and Coolmore for much of the past fifty years until his death in 2021.
Two decades earlier, two more Saudi Princes, the brothers Fahd and Ahmed Bin Salman, both had massive international strings. Fahd, the elder by a few years, won the Derby with Generous and, soon after, Ahmed, via the vehicle of his Thoroughbred Corporation, also won that Classic with Oath, as well as, in the US, four consecutive Triple Crown races, although bizarrely not managing to complete the Triple Crown itself.
I was fortunate to be involved with the TC throughout that entire period, and it was almost as much a shock to me as to the family and the country when both princes died in their 40’s, Ahmed a year after his brother. Their status in the country was immense, fittingly as sons of Prince Salman, now King Salman, who acceded to the country’s throne in 2015 and who remains its Head of State.
In those days, racing at their home track in Janadriya, and in the summer at Taif, where the temperature is much cooler than in the capital, was generally restricted to local owners. The horses raced around a very basic track, adjacent to which the smaller trainers and their owners would sit in the stables close to their horses for many hours and at leisure formulate their plans.
Then, as the decade of the 2010’s proceeded, news came of a big new racetrack, the King Abdulaziz Racecourse, in the same part of town. In 2020, the first running of the Saudi Cup was scheduled, a tactically astute four weeks before the Dubai World Cup at Meydan. Saudis regard the Maktoum-family emirate of Dubai, and the other Emirates for that matter, as Johnny Come Latelys and. while they are prosperous enough, the wealth in Saudi is, as was described to me when I first joined the TC, “a bottomless pit”. Funny how some phrases stay with you!
Consequently, the decision for Saudi Arabian horse racing massively to outbid and therefore upstage the Dubai World Cup and then get in ahead of it was probably only to be expected. Now on Saturday, the fourth running of the Saudi Cup, a 10-furlong race on the dirt, carried a total prize pool of £16 million and a first prize in excess of £8 million.
As with the golf and soccer, it was money no object and such distortion surely, one might think, must have the potential of causing a re-drawing of the world record for prizemoney for any horse in the history of the sport.
The leader up to Saturday morning was the wonderful Australian racemare Winx, on a final figure of £14,564,743 from 29 wins in 32 races for trainer Chris Waller until her retirement in 2019 for the breeding shed. She holds the record, from Bob Baffert’s Arrogate, winner of the Dubai World Cup for Prince Khalid. Japan’s Almond Eye, another great mare, is third, both horses having picked up more than £13 million.
Although the list I used does not include him, another of the world’s greatest money-accumulators was topically boosting his tally yesterday in Hong Kong. Preferred in the market on the Citi Hong Kong Gold Cup, the seven-year-old gelding Golden Sixty still recorded his 24th victory in 28 starts at Sha Tin, beating the 1-2 favourite, the two years younger Romantic Warrior, by a head. The 700-odd grand for this latest triumph actually puts him fourth on the overall list at £13,077,966.
It took Winx and Golden Sixty many years of endeavour to reach their massive cash accumulations. The Saudi riches will no doubt one day distort the record books, but despite Bob Baffert’s best efforts, it hasn’t happened yet.
On Saturday, Baffert brought a formidable double challenge to Riyadh. He supplied the Saudi Cup’s favourite in Taiba, a four-year-old with four wins back home in California, three at Grade 1 level. Despite having big-race specialist Mike Smith on board, Taiba could finish only ninth.
That was a long way behind the other Baffert runner, Country Grammer, now a six-year-old and runner-up in this race 12 months ago. It was a shock when he failed to beat locally trained Emblem Road last year but then, with Frankie Dettori drafted in, he collected the marginally (albeit almost £3 million) less Dubai World Cup a month later.
Dettori, as we know, is on his Let’s Get In As Much Cash As We Can In My Last Year’s Riding World TourTM and he stopped off for Christmas in California to win a Grade 2 on Country Grammer as the gelding’s prep for Saturday. Lo and behold though, the Frankie magic was in vain as the Japanese-trained Panthalassa, also a six-year-old, made every yard at 16/1 for trainer Yoshita Yahogi and rider Y Yoshida.
I spoke of distortion: If Country Grammer had picked up £8 million plus rather than a measly £2.91 million, he would have sailed a full £2 million past Winx. He can make up the deficit by winning the £5 million plus World Cup, so while it would be nice for Frankie to have another little payday to bolster his pension fund, let’s hope Winx can stay ahead of the pack for one more year at least.
There were several handsomely rewarded UK recipients of the Saudi largesse on the undercard. Unsurprisingly, they were headed by the Gosdens, winners of the second Saudi Cup with Mishriff, who as a result remains in the top ten money-earners narrowly ahead of Prince Khalid Abdullah’s great champion, Enable, whom John Gosden also trained. They picked up the £750k first prize in the Neon Turf Cup, Mostahdaf winning by seven lengths from Dubai Future, trained for Godolphin by Saeed bin Suroor.
While the Gosdens and Dettori are hardly unacquainted at picking up sackloads of lolly, one trainer more than happy to take just a small portion of the day’s rewards was Ian Williams.
He ran recent Dubai Carnival handicap scorer Enemy in the £1.25 million to the winner Longines Red Sea Turf Handicap over 1m7f. As his horse came to challenge under Richard Kingscote, for at least a furlong the trainer thought the unthinkable: “We’re going to win!”, but as in the big race later, the Japanese front-runner kept front running to the line and beyond.
Still, the consolation prize for second was a cool £440k for owners Tracey Bell and Caroline Lyons (from which Williams and Kingscote will both earn a nice percentage). Enemy has already been accepted for the Dubai Gold Cup on World Cup night and must be a prime contender, while the intended Melbourne Cup challenge, aborted when the horse lost his form last summer, may well be on. “We have to thank Ben Brain for that as he sorted out Enemy’s issues with his customary magic touch,” said Williams.
Waking up to reality yesterday, he was looking forward to watching his team Manchester United at the hotel in the Carabao Cup Final before going off to see that other spectacle, the big fight between Tommy Fury and Jake Paul, which is the preferred venue to end Saudi Cup weekend. Not much fun this racehorse training lark, is it Ian?
Less rewarding, sadly, was William Knight’s trip with his money-spinner Sir Busker, set up nicely with a run around Lingfield under big-race rider Ryan Moore, but after starting slowly in Mostahdaf’s race, never got in a blow. Most races on Saturday favoured horses away in the forefront and Sir Busker therefore had everything against him from the start. There will be other days for him, but few with the sort of money that might have been coming his way if things had gone to plan.
This is the second part of a double header where I am examining sire data in National Hunt racing to see if we can gain any type of edge. You can read part 1 here. Once again I am using UK data from 1st January 2018 through to 31st December 2022 and the profits/losses shown in all tables have been calculated to Industry Starting Price. I will also quote Betfair SP if appropriate. Virtually all of the data shared in this piece has been sourced using the Geegeez Query Tool.
At the beginning of the first article I shared a table with the top 50 sires in terms of number of runs, and I looked at Authorized, Shantou, Ask, Presenting and Yeats, highlighting some interesting facts and figures. To begin part 2, I am going to highlight two more noteworthy sires before looking in detail at a pair of specific racing angles.
Individual sire analysis
Fame and Glory
Fame and Glory is a relatively new sire having had his first runners back in 2017. The sad thing to report is that Fame and Glory died five years ago, so the current group of horses in training will not be added to. On the plus side there are around 100 still in training all aged 9 or younger. Hence he will be of interest as a sire for four or five more years, which is why I am sharing some of his data.
His overall strike rate over the five years stands at 14.9% and his yearly figures have been unbelievably consistent as the graph below indicates:
There is less than one percentage point between the highest and the lowest yearly win strike rates (SR%) - 0.79% to be precise. It is highly unusual to see this type of uniformity, something many punters would love to embrace as so many angles or systems incur wild swings of variance.
If we examine Fame and Glory’s record as a sire there are several angles that underscore this consistency. For example, male runners have won 15.3% of the time, females 14% - almost exactly what we would expect the figures to be. Likewise, strike rates in chases and hurdle races fit the overall average pattern with his chase win% at 16.7 and his hurdle one at 14.2. This gives him a chase to hurdle C.S.R. (comparison strike rate) of 1.17 where the average for all runners is 1.25 (see table in previous article).
However, indications suggest they may be a slight distance bias, certainly in terms of success rate. Here are the splits:
Horses racing at 3 miles or more have a poorer strike rate as you can see. There are potentially two logical reasons why this is the case:
Fame and Glory was a flat horse who was bred as a flat horse. It may be that distances of 3 miles-plus are stretching the stamina of his progeny;
Up to the end of the 2022 season the oldest runner sired by Fame and Glory was 8. We know as a rule that some older horses do step up in distance so maybe we have not got enough overall age data yet.
As I have mentioned several times in the past, it is so important when doing this type of research to appreciate that there is often no right or wrong answer. One of these reasons may be a contributing factor, both of them may contribute in some way. And neither may actually have anything to do with it! Unfortunately, with research we are often having to guess a bit; logically where possible, of course. Indeed, the first reason I gave could be contested with some validity because Fame and Glory won at 2m4f on the flat, hence it makes sense that his progeny would ‘get further’ over the sticks. For most arguments there is often a counter argument. Suffice it to say it will be interesting to see what happens in the next year or two.
Kapgarde
Kapgarde was a successful French hurdler and chaser in the early 2000s, as an entire (obviously), which is rare in UK but less so across the Channel. His offspring seem to prefer chases to hurdles as the table below shows:
The chase stats become even more interesting when we look at chase results by age. Horses aged 8 or younger have won 19.5% of the time; for those aged 9 or older this drops to 10.5%. Now it should be noted that there have been far more qualifiers for the younger age bracket, so we need to be careful not to be too judgmental here. However, the each way stats correlate strongly (37.1% v 24.6%), as do the A/E indices (1.01 v 0.73), which gives me at least more confidence that there is something in this. It is often the case the French-bred NH runners show precocity rather than longevity, so Kapgarde aligns with an overall trend.
I would also like to share that Kapgarde chasers priced 12/1 or shorter would have secured you a 14p in the £ return to BSP from just under a 22% strike rate.
*
It is now time to home in on possibly the most important area as far as sire research in NH racing goes and that is the ground conditions / going.
NH Sires by Going
One area where I believe sires can pass on a trait or a preference is when it comes to handling the going. Ground conditions vary markedly depending on the weather, time of year and the drainage of the track. Some horses seem adept on any ground, others clearly do better on either softer or firmer.
To begin with, a couple of baseline figures are that the average horse/sire wins 12.57% of the time on good or firmer ground whereas on soft/heavy this drops slightly to 11.63%, a function of field size.
This is important because below I compare each sire’s record on fast ground (good or firmer) with their record on slower (soft or heavy). To be clear, in order to achieve a proper distinction, I have ignored good to soft going descriptions.
As with the first article I am going to divide the two percentages to give us a type of Impact Value which I call Comparison Strike Rate (CSR). The average CSR figure should be 1.08. Scores above this suggest the sire performs better on firmer ground than he does on softer ground. Conversely, scores below 1.08 imply the opposite. Here are the findings – they are ordered by highest CSR figure to lowest (the midpoint of 1.08 is highlighted in green):
Robin Des Champs tops the list with a CSR figure of 1.68. Sadly this sire died in December 2018 so his horses will only be active for possibly three or four more years. However, that still leaves some time to take advantage of the fact his progeny appear far better on good or firmer ground. Backing all runners on good or firmer would have yielded a 19p in the £ profit over the past five years; backing all his runners on soft or heavy would have yielded a loss of 35p in the £ to BSP.
Yeatslies second in the table and, in the first article, I highlighted this sires’ record on good or firmer. Yeats as a racehorse performed on good to firm ground nine times winning all nine races. He also raced once on firm once, winning that, too. He only raced on soft or heavy four times; he did win once but two of his losses saw him beaten 60 lengths and 32 lengths respectively. It should be noted that he was a long distance flat horse, but regardless of that, his going traits do seem to have been passed on to his offspring.
Presentingis third in the list showing a definite preference for sounder surfaces. However, as I mentioned in the preceding article, Presenting runners generally produce poor returns, and even on good or firmer ground backing all his runners would have seen a loss of 25p in the £ to BSP.
At the other end of the spectrum, Schiaparellihas the lowest CSR at 0.60 suggesting he is far better on easier going. Indeed his runners on soft or heavy ground have produced excellent returns of 61p in the £ to BSP. Further, you would have made a profit on these runners in four of the five years in review. Schiaparelli was highlighted last time as being more effective over fences than over hurdles, and if you combine chases on soft or heavy ground, his offspring have produced 17 wins from 64 runs (SR 26.6%) for an SP profit of £38.36 (ROI +59.9%); profit to BSP has been £53.76 (ROI +84.0%).
There are plenty of other sires here near the top, or the bottom, of the table that readers may want to investigate further using the Geegeez Query Tool, but for this article it’s time to look at A/E indices.
First let's look at sire performance on good or firmer ground. The table below shows those whose A/E index is 0.95 or above. They are ordered left to right alphabetically:
Horses sired by any of the above are worth keeping an eye on when racing on good or firmer. Here are their full stats in terms of wins, runs, returns to SP etc.
Three of the thirteen have made a blind profit to SP, which increases to 11 of 13 if betting to BSP. Only Midnight Legend (BSP ROI -4.6%) and Sulamani (BSP ROI -0.6%) missed out at exchange starting price, albeit both marginally. Naturally, I am not suggesting you should bet all 13 sires blind on better ground, but they are definitely worth considering combined with other race reading factors.
Now let's take a look at the records of sires on soft or heavy whose A/E index is 0.95 or above. Once more they are ordered left to right alphabetically:
Ask, Dylan Thomas, King’s Theatre, Malinas and Sulamani appear in both this list and the good or firmer list showing real versatility in terms of going requirements. It should come as no surprise that all five of these sires are profitable to BSP with ALL runners on ALL goings. This quintet could be a bit of a blind spot in the betting markets currently.
Here are the complete soft/heavy stats for all 14 sires with an A/E index of 0.95 or above:
Seven of the sires have produced a blind profit to SP on these soft surfaces; 13 of the 14 are profitable to BSP. Only Winged Love is in the negative.
It is often worth checking profit and loss stats where bigger priced runners are ignored; this helps to avoid ‘skewed’ results. Below are the performances of these sires on soft/heavy ground at prices of 12/1 or shorter:
These are very positive when taken as a whole; all but four have made a blind profit to SP and three of these would have made a profit to BSP. When the going rides soft or heavy, horses sired by these runners should definitely be on our radar.
Age
Below are some data relating to age of the horse, looking for any sires which have different patterns to the norm. Age wise, I have split horses into three groups – those aged 3 to 5, 6 to 8 and 9 and older. In terms of strike rate the average figures for ALL horses are as follows:
The 6 to 8yo age group win more often than the other two, while the older brigade have the poorest strike rate. In terms of A/E indices the figures are 0.85 for 3-5yos; 0.88 for 6 to 8yos; and 0.84 for horses aged 9 years-plus.
With these figures in mind here is a table with 40 of the leading sires comparing their strike rates and A/E indices across the age groups. With a ‘par’ A/E index for all sires at 0.87, I have highlighted A/E indices of 0.95 or higher (in green) – these are essentially positive. A/E indices of 0.79 or lower (in red) are essentially negative:
This should be useful table to use ‘at a glance’. Sires with green A/E indices within the specific age band are worth keeping an eye out for, as they are much more likely to offer some value. Likewise, red values are combinations of sire and age that we should perhaps avoid, or at least be wary around.
Here are some more age-based sire stats that I have uncovered – some positive, some negative:
The offspring of Authorizedaged 3 to 5 that started favourite or second favourite have provided 59 wins from 136 (SR 43.4%) for an SP profit of £26.28 (ROI +19.3%). To BSP returns increase around 10 pence to 29p in the £;
Mahlerwith 3 to 5yos that started favourite also has an excellent record – 34 wins from 66 (SR 51.5%). Returns of 32p in the £ to SP; 40p to BSP. Splitting these results by race type we see that of the ten National Hunt Flat favourites eight went on to win (returns of 167p in the £); 24 wins from 45 for hurdling favourites and just 2 wins from 11 for chase favourites.
Trans Island with runners aged 9 and older has a strike rate of below 5% as can be seen in the table above. Narrowing down these older runners to those priced 9/1 or shorter, this has seen just 4 winners from 51 (SR 7.8%) for loss of £26.50 (ROI -52.00%);
Excluding horses that started favourite, Vinnie Roe has produced just 9 winners from 208 (SR 4.3%) with runners aged 9 or older. This equates to losses of over 45p in the £ to SP;
Passing Glance has a decent record with older runners (aged 9+). They would have produced returns of 24p in the £ to SP if backing all runners blind (30p in the £ to BSP). Digging deeper and looking at performance by run style, older runners that raced close to or up with the pace (e.g. prominent or led) won 25.8% of the time; those who raced midfield or near the back early won just 3.6% of the time (2 wins from 56);
Offspring of Ask have a moderate record once they get to the age of 9 or older. In fact if you exclude favourites or second favourites their record is dire – just 4 wins from 90 runners (SR 4.4%) equating to losses of 65 pence for every £1 staked.
MAIN TAKEAWAYS
Before winding this two-parter up, here are some positives and negatives to take away from this piece. I have chosen the sire stats that I feel are the strongest. Some I have highlighted in more detail already, others I have taken from the tables:
I guess sire research for some is like Marmite; but personally I think it is an under-researched area and that, under certain circumstances, can offer up a fair edge. The problem of course is that this type of data can be interpreted in so many different ways; we just have to interpret it better than most of your fellow/rival punters!
- Dave Renham
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/NobleYeats_GrandNational2022.jpg320830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-02-21 11:00:142023-02-21 11:00:15National Hunt Sire Data: An Edge? Part 2
When Nicky Henderson sends one of his big guns to Cheltenham, something he’s been doing for 40-plus years, he and the racing world generally expects it to win, writes Tony Stafford. Racing expectations, though, are fickle; so, once one of those penalty kicks goes awry, often the reputation garnered through a steady pattern of achievement can be lost in a trice.
That was the case with Shishkin, until Saturday at Ascot anyway, when he restored his standing at a stroke. Going 2m5f for the first time under Rules – we forget he started as a winning Irish point-to-pointer, so we should hardly be shocked he stays – he demolished his rivals with a 16-length beating of Paul Nicholls’ front-running Pic D’Orhy.
The favourite and last year’s winner, Joseph O’Brien’s Fakir D’oudairies, was another seven lengths back in third after an uncharacteristically sluggish display.
In the manner of Sprinter Sacre and Altior, his Seven Barrows predecessors as champion two-mile chasers, Shishkin ran in the Supreme Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham, usually the place where Nicky as well as the general public finds out which of his theretofore hard to separate smart novices is the superior.
Even that yardstick is fallible. When Altior won the Supreme in 2016, stable-companion Buveur D’Air finished third, but Hendo insisted Altior went the chasing route and never again in a career of 18 more races, 15 wins, three second places, did he see a hurdle in public.
Fortunately for Henderson and new owner J P McManus, who bought him after the third at Cheltenham, Buveur D’Air didn’t impress in two runs over fences, and switched back to hurdles, winning the next two Champion Hurdles. At the time it left us speculating what had possessed Henderson to allow what was surely the best hurdler around to miss out on at least two Champion Hurdles.
He, though, and the owners of Altior and Buveur D’Air, were more than happy as his stable enjoyed the best of both worlds. Until injury and an unfortunate misstep intruded on Altior’s career, here was a two-mile chaser deserving of mention in the same breath as his illustrious predecessor, Sprinter Sacre.
He, too, had run in the Supreme, but in his case in 2011 he was only third and not even the best of the Seven Barrows horses, pipped for runner-up spot by Spirit Son in the Michael Buckley colours and, at 5/1 the preferred in the market with stable jockey Barry Geraghty aboard, following Paul Nicholls’ Al Ferof over the line.
Sprinter Sacre had led over the last hurdle but faded up the hill under Tony McCoy. He started 11/1 so the Henderson pair finished as the market, and presumably stable insiders, had predicted. Sprinter Sacre’s was an amazing career over fences, winning 14 of 18 starts even with a late-onset heart problem, from which the maestro and his staff nursed him back to win again at the highest level, making him one of the true legends of jump racing.
Michael Buckley, after a few quiet years, was involved in a much more recent Seven Barrows dual-pronged attack on the Supreme. Just 11 months ago, his Constitution Hill and J P McManus’ Jonbon were respectively 9/4 joint-favourite (with Willie Mullins’ Dysart Dynamo) and 5/1 third best, and filled the first two places.
There wasn’t a gap between them at the finish, though: it was more a gulf if that’s the correct terminology for 22 lengths. This time Nicky wasn’t messing around and Constitution Hill has been campaigned adroitly since, considering the problems caused to trainers in this most unpredictable of summer/autumn/winters.
He has been restricted to just two exhibitions, albeit Grade 1’s, where only Mullins at home in Ireland could have engineered a similar feat in his Cheltenham trials. Filling second place to Constitution Hill in the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle and the Christmas Hurdle (at 12 and then 17 lengths’ distance) was Epatante, Champion Hurdle winner in 2020 before placing in Honeysuckle’s subsequent two victories in the race.
As for Jonbon, he’s off to the Arkle, the switch to fences delayed for a Grade 1 novice win at Aintree in April after which he has stretched his career tally to eight wins from nine with only Constitution Hill ever besting him.
He has always been odds-on and progressively heavier in each of his three runs over fences. If the latest at Warwick was a bit of a damp squib when he made hard work of beating a single opponent, he is still the 13/8 joint-favourite to follow Sprinter Sacre, Altior and Shishkin (and four others) to win the race for Seven Barrows.
That brings us nicely back to Shishkin, who following his Arkle triumph initially went on his merry way last season, getting the better of Ireland’s star second-season chaser Energumene in the Clarence House Chase at Ascot with a strong late rally to deny the Mullins front-runner.
Then came the denouement at Cheltenham, Shishkin never going, as Energumene exacted devastating revenge in the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Shishkin’s return in the Tingle Creek in December at Sandown was another backward step, as he finished a tired third to Alan King’s Edwardstone. That put him briefly into centre stage until he in turn tarnished his gloss with a sub-standard Queen Mother warm-up over course and distance late last month.
The knives were out anticipating another Shishkin backward step on Saturday but, over half a mile further than he’d previously tried under Rules, he clearly found the more leisurely pace to his liking and the same finishing burst that had been the key to all his wins was even exaggerated by the trip.
Since the Festival last year, the spotlight has been so firmly aimed at Constitution Hill that Henderson has been allowed to take his time; and taking his time always means not listening to advice from “helpful” media, who never tire of trying to get trainers to allow a horse to run when they know it is the wrong thing.
Henderson has always regretted that he succumbed to the journalists’ clamour for Altior to take on Cyrname in a three-horse race over 2m5f at Ascot a few years back. That decision cost the horse his unbeaten chase record. Project to last November and there was no way he was going to allow Constitution Hill to run at that same meeting when he found on arrival at the track that the ground was unsuitably fast.
He made the right decision there, and now Shishkin is back, too. While he does have the Queen Mother option – he’s 10/1 for that - the two-and-half-mile Ryanair looks tailor-made and he’s the 5/4 favourite to stave off the always formidable challenge from across the Irish Sea.
With Constitution Hill, Shishkin and Jonbon for starters, and whatever else Nicky drums up, for once the home team will be going to war thinking a few races at least can help prevent an Irish slaughter in the Grade 1’s. That said, the multiplicity of dangers from over there in the handicaps remains a massive worry for the home team.
One jockey who will not be riding at his local and favourite course is Tom Scudamore who, after an unseat on Thursday at Leicester from a David Pipe 11/8 favourite, promptly announced his retirement.
Tom had quite a few rides for Raymond Tooth when he had jumpers and I always found him a joy to talk to with his ready smile. The worst thing about his retirement was when it was revealed he is 40; I still think of him and trainer brother Michael as in their early 20’s!
One day in the paddock somewhere I told him his dad Peter had only ever had two rides in my colours each at (non-Festival) Cheltenham and both were winners. “I know”, he said, adding: “the picture of one of them was in Mum and Dad’s toilet when we were growing up!”
ITV didn’t take long to sort him out on their coverage at the weekend and hopefully he’ll be in the team at next month’s Festival. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two brown envelopes come his way over the four days either!
Last weekend we had the two days of the Dublin Racing Festival, writes Tony Stafford. In the proceeding Monday’s piece I referred to Willie Mullins’ win haul, speculating without adding that a million Euro plus would have been won. Overall, there was €2 million on offer.
UK trainers and their owners have become so defeatist about the annual annihilation at Cheltenham every March that the thought of challenging them on their home turf at Leopardstown five weeks before C-Day is anathema at best, the road to suicide at worst.
So, even with the riches on offer there, only two UK horses were dispatched across the water, one on each of the days. Nigel Twiston-Davies offered up Weveallbeencaught for the opening 2m6f Grade 1 novice hurdle.
A winner at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day, he started the 7-2 second favourite, just half a point longer than the Barry Connell-trained Good Land, but after making the running under son Sam, he stopped quickly and finished last of eight. In the subsequent veterinary inspection, he was found to have a skinned knee but otherwise no physical abnormalities.
Day two last Sunday also brought a single runner, the Alan King-trained and double-greens owned Sceau Royal, a 9-1 shot behind 4-1 on favourite Blue Lord in the same ownership. As expected, he couldn’t match the market leader, finishing almost four lengths in arrears, but the other Willie Mullins horse, Gentleman De Mee, did to the tune of seven lengths. Sceau Royal earned connections a handsome consolation €13,500 for his third place in a field of five to bring career earnings to a few quid short of £700k.
Over recent seasons, Paul Nicholls has been loath to travel across to Ireland, scene of so many major triumphs in the past, and he also seems very cautious about sending his best horses to Cheltenham in March. Instead, he favours saving some of the best for Aintree the following month where the invaders do not quite match the ferocity and numerically overwhelming strength of Cheltenham.
But, while an advocate of Aintree generally, his defeatism where the Irish hold sway is also shown with only one entry among 85 in the Grand National, run this year on April 15th. His lone candidate, Threeunderthrufive, was last seen finishing a well-beaten sixth in Warwick’s Classic Chase. More of the Grand National later.
The domestic trials days for Cheltenham in March are mainly at the same track at the end of January – a fixture which almost surreally survived the prevailing frost – and Saturday’s well-endowed card at Newbury.
Nicholls had his team primed for the latter, with nine runners on the seven-race Betfair Hurdle card. His sole entry in that tough handicap hurdle (which he had won with Zarkandar and Pic D’Orhy previously) was Rubard. He was a well-fancied 8-1 shot but, in finishing only tenth, was just one of a series of severe disappointments for the Ditcheat handler.
The Betfair Hurdle was won with determination by Aucunrisque, reverting to hurdling after some good runs in novice chases. He held off the plotted-up favourite Filey Bay, trained by Emmet Mullins and running in the McManus colours, by a hard-fought length. The Gary Moore pair Teddy Blue and Yorksea were a long way back close together in third and fourth but will have big race wins to come I’m sure.
Aucunrisque, well handled by Nick Scholfield, is trained by Chris Gordon, who was once a bit of a comic turn around the Southern jumps tracks and a magnet for the Sky Racing TV cameras and interviewers both before and after his runners performed. He is now anything but – a serious and highly successful trainer who knows how to win big races.
That was the only race in which Nicholls did not send out the favourite and he must have had an early hint that maybe things might not go to plan when McFabulous, 4-6 for the three-runner limited handicap chase which opened proceedings, was never travelling under Harry Cobden and was pulled up a long way from home as Coeur Serein won, Jonjo O’Neill junior for his father taking gleeful advantage. Unfortunately, McFabulous was found afterwards to have an irregular heartbeat.
Next up was Barbados Buck’s in the much-loved Andy Stewart colours, going off 7-2 best in a handicap hurdle. He ran well enough for second and that was the finishing position, too, for Hitman in the Denman Chase, but the Philip Hobbs 16-1 chance Zanza galloped all over him to the tune of seven lengths. This would hardly have encouraged hopes for the Ryanair.
If Hitman’s run was disappointing, Greenatean’s in the four-runner Game Spirit Chase must have been simply demoralising in the Nicholls yard. Rated 15lb superior to Venetia Williams’ Funambole Sivola (off levels), he couldn’t go with him on the run-in and even lost second place to the Tizzards’ Elixir Du Luxe, rated 25lb inferior and only getting 6lb here. The Queen Mother Champion Chase seems to be receding into the distance.
There was another second place from 7-4 favourite Holetown Boy, annihilated in the novice hurdle by a smart Gary Moore debutant, Love Is Golden, recruited from the Johnston stable. Big things can be expected from him.
They can also be anticipated by the winning trainer of the final race, Aslukgoes, who retained an unbeaten record when battling home under Jack Quinlan in the valuable Listed bumper. Nicholls ran two here, 9-4 jolly Meatloaf, who was fifth, and Fire Flyer, 4-1 in seventh. The total prizemoney on offer for the fixture was paltry – in relation to the Irish trials meeting’s riches – at £365k. Nicholls’ owners collected less than ten per cent of that, just over 30 grand.
The Bumper winner was just the second success of the fledgling training career of Ben Brookhouse, whose father Roger owns and bred the horse. I met Ben first when he was assistant to Ian Williams, but last summer he and his father’s horses moved into the yard Wiilie Musson owns in Newmarket. He has followed, among others since Willie retired, James Ferguson, now a Group 1 winning trainer.
Aslukgoes won twice for Williams in summer bumpers, but the style of this success suggests he can be a force for the Brookhouse duo going forward in good company over jumps, maybe stopping off for the Festival Bumper and the Mullins hoards first.
I gave a passing reference to it earlier and on the evidence of this year’s entry for the Grand National, most English, Welsh and Scottish-based trainers can do little more than that these days either.
No race has had a bigger turn-around in the relative fortunes of home and Irish trainers than this greatest of all steeplechases and the unbroken sequence of winning raiders through the past five years looks almost guaranteed to be extended.
Of 85 entries, only 31 are trained in the UK and no domestic trainer has more than two horses in the field, those twin-prongers being Dan Skelton, previous winner Venetia Williams, Joe Tizzard, Henry Daly and Sam Thomas.
Lucinda Russell was the last UK winner with One For Arthur in 2017, following Mouse Morris a year earlier, but the decade before that was bereft of Irish success. Following Gordon Elliott’s explosion onto the scene with the 2007 winner Silver Birch, I seem to recall before he’d even had an Irish winner in his name, David Pipe, Venetia Williams, Jonjo O’Neill, Donald McCain, Paul Nicholls, Sue Smith, Dr Richard Newland and Oliver Sherwood won in succession.
Now the pendulum has swung so violently to the West that in the 2022 race won so impressively by UK-owned but Irish-trained Noble Yeats, he led home six more Irish and only two home runners in the first nine. Santini, fourth for Polly Gundry then, is not entered this time, but Fiddlerontheroof, fifth, is involved again and has not been seen since disappointing in the Coral, late Ladbrokes, even later Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury last November.
Three-time winner Gordon Elliott, two with Tiger Roll, alone has 21 entries, Willie Mullins eight and the rest of the Irish the remaining 25.
But to my mind, as I’ve said before, eight-year-old Noble Yeats is the one to beat once more. His stamina is outstanding and while we must wait for him to run at Cheltenham in the Gold Cup first, the 10/1 available now looks a gift. Help yourselves!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Nicholls-2.jpg320719Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-02-13 05:33:222023-02-13 05:33:24Monday Musings: Nicholls Clunk and National Disaster?
Back in the Spring of 2021, I wrote a four-part flat series on sires and damsires (which you can read here), but this is my first departure into National Hunt sire research for Geegeez. There is plenty to get the teeth into, so I've spread the research over two articles, this being the first half.
The use of breeding as a winner finding / betting tool has become more popular in recent years, especially in flat racing: some astute punters who bet in two-year-old maidens will use sire stats to try and help predict how a juvenile with little or no form will run. Sires are the fathers of the respective horses, and sires have a more discernible influence on their offspring (progeny) than dams (mothers) due to the size of the respective samples: dams can produce only a single foal annually whereas sires can produce 100 and more.
For this first article I will be using five years' worth of UK data, from 1st January 2018 through to 31st December 2022, and profits/losses shown in all tables have been calculated to Industry Starting Price. I will also quote Betfair SP if appropriate. The vast majority of the data for this piece has been sourced using the Geegeez Query Tool.
The Top 50 National Hunt Sires by Win Strike Rate
Firstly let us look at the top 50 sires in terms of number of runs in the last five years. I am only including sires which had runners in 2022. The sires are listed in order of strike rate (win%):
As the table clearly shows, backing sires ‘blind’ is not a profitable avenue as far as Industry SP is concerned. Just one sire has made a profit to SP with all his runners in the past five years (Walk In the Park). However, using BSP, several made a solid profit after commission including Shirocco, Passing Glance, Ask, Dylan Thomas, Great Pretender, Flemensfirth, Brian Boru, Schiaparelli and Gold Well.
It is time to dig a bit deeper...
Individual Sire Analysis
Authorized
Let's look at some of the leading sires in more detail, starting with Authorized who heads the list in terms of win strike rate. One snapshot worth sharing is his record at different race distances, because as you will see from the table below, the progeny of Authorized seem to prefer shorter trips:
It should not surprise you to note that races of 2m2f or less have produced a BSP profit given the very small industry SP negative return on investment. It also is worth noting that at these shorter distances an Industry SP profit could have been achieved if focusing on runners priced 8/1 or shorter. Such runners won 93 races from 321 starts (SR 29.0%) for an SP profit of £50.47 (ROI +15.7%).
It should also come as no real surprise that there is also an age bias for Authorized runners. With a fair proportion of horses stepping up in distance as they get older, one might expect this given the more profitable form was shown by progeny in shorter races. Horses sired by Authorized aged six or younger have a far stronger record than horses aged seven or older:
It should be said that one would expect younger horses to have a slightly higher strike rate (average figures for all horses aged 6 and younger during this time frame was 12.4%, whereas for 7yos and older it was 11.3%). However, as you can see, the difference is far more marked here.
Shantou
I would have looked at King’s Theatre next, but he has hardly any runners any more (just 65 runs in total in 2022). Hence Shantou is the next sire about which I want to share a couple of interesting findings. Firstly, let us compare male runners to female ones in terms of win percentage/strike rate. The graph below shows Shantou’s figures as well as the stats for ALL sires:
As you can see males score more often than females as a general rule, but Shantou’s figures show a significant difference between the two. Taking this a stage further, a really eye-opening stat is when we look at Shantou’s female runners once their SP hits 7/2 or bigger: just 12 such runners have won from 265 runners (SR 4.5%) creating steep losses of 47 pence in the £. It is not just the really big priced runners that have affected this, either, because 69 female runners have been priced between 7/2 and 7/1 and only three have won.
It's not easy to explain why this should be the case, so if any readers have a theory do leave a comment below this post.
One further Shantou stat worth sharing is his record with runners on debut. Of 120 debutants 24 have won (SR 20%) for an SP return of 38p in the £, BSP return of 65p in the £.
Ask
British sire Ask has some interesting weight carrying stats that I would like to share. The graph below compares light weights of 10st 6lb or less with heavier weights of 11st 5lb or more. The graph shows Ask’s figures and the ‘ALL sires’ figures:
As we can see horses carrying more weight win far more often than those carrying less weight (N.B. the market takes account of this so backing higher weighted horses is not a license to print money, I’m afraid!). However, we can see with Ask that the differential is far greater than the norm. Some horses are built to carry weight better than others and Ask seems to fit this ‘type’. Perhaps his progeny are somehow bigger, or more robust, than the average. Again, does any reader know?
Presenting
One thing to be aware of is that sire results / strike rates and so on do fluctuate from month to month, year to year. However, some sires can be very consistent and an example of this is Presenting. Below we can see his yearly strike rate in terms of win and each way:
There is very little fluctuation in either set of yearly figures. Knowing what ‘you are going to get’ on a consistent basis can be important. The sad part as far as Presenting runners is concerned is that his runners look overbet, even allowing for - or probably because of - his consistency, and hence finding profitable angles is virtually impossible.
Yeats
Yeats is also one of the more consistent sires, but from a punting point of view does give us an angle to try and exploit. His record on firmer ground is much better than on softer, and if we focus on races on good ground or firmer, his record is extremely good – 217 wins from 1203 runs (SR 18.0%). To SP he made a small loss of just under 8 pence in the £, but to BSP this becomes a profitable return of the same amount (8p in the £). That figure improves further if we restrict races on good or firmer going to three miles or longer. Here the strike rate improves to 20.5% (93 wins from 453 runs). Backing horses at £1 level stakes you would have seen rewards of £97.57 (ROI +21.5%) at SP, and a BSP profit of £169.39 (ROI +37.1%).
National Hunt Sire Performance by Race Code
I have several areas I want to cover in detail in the follow up article, but there are two specific subjects that I want to focus on in this piece - starting with a review by race code.
Chase and hurdle races
The first thing to appreciate is that hurdle races have more runners on average than chases so when we compare win strike rates we need to be aware of this. What this means is that individual chase strike rates should higher than individual hurdle strike rates. The average horse (and, by association, the sire) wins 13.7% of the time in chases, whereas in hurdle races this drops to 11%. This is important because I am going to compare each sire’s chase and hurdle strike rates.
I have divided the chase strike rate by the hurdle strike rate to give us a type of Impact Value. It is not a ‘true’ IV so I’ll call it a Comparison Strike Rate (CSR). The average CSR figure should be 1.25 (13.7/11 = 1.245). Scores above this suggest the sire performs better in chases than he does in hurdles. Conversely scores below 1.25 suggest the sire's progeny perform better in hurdles than in chases. Here are the findings – they are ordered by highest CSR figure to lowest (the midpoint is highlighted in green):
Dr Massini stands head and shoulders above the rest with a C.S.R fig of 2.5 although backing all his runners in chases would have only seen you break even on Betfair. This is partly due to the fact that the win strike rate was still a relatively modest 12.61%. Schiaparelli also has a high CSR figure of 1.93 and his runners in chases have secured a 16p in the £ profit to BSP.
Another measure to look at are the A/E indices for each sire in chases. A/E, or Actual vs Expected, is a measure of sustainable profitability where indices of 0.95 and above are generally considered good, with indices north of 1 suggesting good overall value.
Malinas (1.18) and Passing Glance (1.15) have the best two indices, and have proved profitable if backing all their runners in chases. Specifically, Malinas has seen 48 of his 222 runners win (SR 21.6%) for a BSP profit of £66.29 (ROI +29.9%), while the offspring of Passing Glance have won 37 from 177 (SR 20.9%) for a BSP profit of £162.55 (ROI +91.8%). Both made a profit to Industry SP as well.
The next four highest sires in terms of A/E indices were Great Pretender (1.09), Dylan Thomas (1.07), Shirocco (1.05) and Brian Boru (1.04); each of these also individually produced a BSP profit in chases. Indeed, you would have won £489.33 to £1 level stakes if backing the runners of all four sires in all of their chases. Ah, wonderful hindsight...
Moving briefly to hurdles, Winged Love and Walk In The Park were the two sires with the lowest CSR figures meaning they had thus far performed better over hurdles than in chases based on their win strike rates. Both horses made a blind profit to BSP in hurdle races, to the tune of 6p and 15p in the £ respectively. In chases they have both struggled, losing 21p and 22p in the £ respectively.
As an aside, I use the Comparison Strike Rate (CSR) idea quite a lot in my personal research. I also compare A/E indices and place strike rates in the same way. It just gives a bit more of an insight, and helps me to compare stats quickly.
Right and Left handed tracks
For the last section of this first half, I would like to compare sire performance at right-handed tracks compared to left-handed ones. Some horses have what Nick Mordin in his iconic book Betting For a Living called ‘the right-hand/left-hand pattern’. He mentioned the great Desert Orchid as a prime example of the right-hand pattern. This horse had a brilliant record on right-handed tracks but a relatively poor one in comparison when racing left-handed. Mordin believed that this pattern occurs a lot, generally with steeplechasers, more especially the right-handed pattern. Some horses simply don’t jump straight all the time and have a tendency to jump across the fence either right or left. Hence horses with a tendency to jump out to the right are going to struggle on left-handed tracks as they are constantly going wider on the track, especially if the jump is on or near a bend. Of course it works the other way round, too, with horses that jump to the left losing ground when racing right-handed.
Below is some sire data on left- and right-handed tracks in chases (minimum 100 runs to qualify). I am effectively grouping individual horses together here as we are looking at sire stats, but it is possible that sires pass on a preference that they had to jump to the left or right. I have graphed seven sires below in terms of strike rate on both right- and left-handed tracks. Their figures suggest each of the seven potentially show a right- or left-handed pattern:
Poliglote, Scorpion, Kayf Tara and Westerner have much better records on right-handed tracks; the other three enjoy better records on left-handed tracks. Naturally, one cannot definitively say that these results are down to a right/left pattern, but it would be an idea to delve into these sires and their individual horse records to see how many horses show a strong pattern one way or the other. The sample sizes are generally quite big which lends credence to the notion that there might be something going on here.
As an example, I looked briefly at the sire Westerner and pulled up the record of a horse called Mr Mercurial. Mr Mercurial’s chasing career spanned from 2015 to 2020 and his 24 chase starts were split thus:
Although we're now dealing with micro sample sizes, we can see a clear preference to right-handed tracks; and this strengthens further when I share that the other three runs at right-handed tracks resulted in three placed efforts. Indeed Mr Mercurial's PRB (percentage of rivals beaten) on right-handed tracks was an amazing 0.93 (93% of rivals beaten). Now, I appreciate this horse ran some of the time outside the 2018 to 2022 period on which I am focusing in this article, but hopefully you take the point.
I am not saying all horses from these seven highlighted sires will display a preference but the chances are some will. This type of knowledge, should you uncover it, will give you a useful edge over the average punter.
MAIN TAKEAWAYS
Runners sired by Authorized have a good record over 2miles 2f or shorter. Horses priced 8/1 or shorter have been profitable to SP and BSP.
Horses aged 6 or younger sired by Authorized have scored roughly one win in every five races for a small SP profit.
The male progeny of Shantou score nearly twice as often as their female counterparts.
Horses sired by Ask seem very adept at carrying big weights (11st 5lb or more). They have a poor record when carrying light weights(10st 6b or less).
Runners sired by Yeats improve on better ground (good or firmer). This improvement is even greater when the race hits 3 miles or further.
The progeny of Dr Massini, Schiaparelli, Malinas and Passing Glance are much better when racing over fences than over hurdles.
The progeny of Winged Love and Walk In The Park are much better when racing over hurdles than over fences.
The offspring of Poliglote, Scorpion, Kayf Tara and Westerner have much better records on right-handed tracks.
The offspring of Jeremy, Doyen and Arcadio have much better records on left-handed tracks.
I'll be back soon with part two of this look into the characteristics of National Hunt sires… until then...
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/malinas-1.jpg320830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-02-10 14:55:182023-02-10 16:20:07National Hunt Sire Data: An Edge? Part 1
After a month of sand action, it's been good these past couple of weeks to get out and about, and it does feel as if spring is just around the corner now, writes David Massey.
Having said that, I write this as we've just endured another week of frost and fog; although, thankfully, we've only lost a couple of fixtures to the weather, and it looks like relenting completely in time for Newbury and Warwick this weekend. Warwick will be my stop-off, but for the time being here's the latest update on where I've been.
Cheltenham's nine-race card saw me in attendance to do paddock notes and pick up some pointers for the Festival; and I can tell you that of all those I saw, Edwardstone was the one I thought would come on most for the run. The trainer seemed happy enough afterwards, too, and he's the one to beat in the Champion Chase for me.
After the weekend's action from Dublin, this looks one of the most open Festivals for many a year. Normally, about this sort of time, you're formulating ideas about the likely ones for the Grade 1 contests but, Constitution Hill aside, I do think plenty of the other races are up in the air to varying degrees. That can only be a good thing, right?
Anyway, I digress. February is officially Bookmaker Holiday month and plenty from around here disappear off to foreign climes for a few weeks, coming back refreshed in time for the Festival. It means that I'm stepping into the breach for much of the month to work places I wouldn't normally, and that started off with Fakenham last week.
I've extolled the virtues of Fakenham in many an article over the years and, once again, it didn't disappoint. I worked the rail for S&D and it was steady, if smallish, business all afternoon. That's the beauty of Fakenham, everyone has a bet, even if it's just a couple of quid, as they all have their favourites that run at the track. Whilst the days of Cool Roxy are behind us now, there are still the course specialists around, and you can guarantee there will be money for them.
Speaking of money flying around the ring, a certain trainer could be seen backing his Dev Of Tara before the first and we copped for a monkey's worth of it at 4-1, only to watch the price collapse before our eyes. It duly won pulling a bus, and that rather set the tone for the day. We couldn't get them off Ben Buie in the next - I think literally every member of the partnership that owned him was there - and him winning actually left us short on cash for the rest of the day. Three of the next four favourites winning did not help our cause, but Cloudy Wednesday was barely backed (it was a Thursday, after all) and ensured the day wasn't a total write-off. I went to buy some lemon drizzle and a couple of sausage rolls from the home-made cake stall at the end of the day to make things complete. Fakenham's that sort of a place. You really should go. [Hear hear, Ed.]
Saturday saw an early start (up at half six, lovely) to get to Sandown to work for MT Racing. Normally you don't have to go so early but on Saturdays the pick time - when you decide where you'll stand and bet for the day - is earlier than it is in the week, and at Sandown it's 90 minutes before the first race. That means an 11.05 kick-off. Needless to say it is quiet early on, and an odds-on jolly in the first doesn't help us. I take a £100 forecast on the jolly to beat the second-in at 7-4, which seems a very fair price to me. Other than that, business is very slow, but we assume it'll improve as the day goes on.
We are wrong, very wrong. The rugby on at Twickenham later in the afternoon has killed it stone dead. I have never seen Sandown so quiet on a Saturday. That winning £100 bet on the forecast is the biggest bet I'll take all day. Actually that's not true - he had the whole £275 back on Twinjets in the next, and that gets beat, but that's it. A Saturday at the biggest meeting, on the front row, and we don't take 300 bets all day. The results are irrelevant as we aren't taking enough. At the end of the day we've just about covered the expenses. A 14-hour day, if you include travel time, for nowt. Surely things will be better at Hereford tomorrow?
A later start means I'm not up at the crack of dawn, but it's a good job we always leave plenty of time as around ten miles outside of Hereford, we encounter what appears to be some sort of protest. Tractors are blocking the road, about 20 of them, on a go slow. We're crawling along at 9mph and do so for about three miles. Thankfully, from our point of view, they turn off and we can continue our journey without further delay.
When we get to Hereford, the sun is out and it looks a bit busier than Sandown did. It's very much a family day. Boys with footballs, girls doing cartwheels. That sort of a day. It means we'll take money but it won't be big money. Still, if you take enough you can work with it, so we are hopeful. Again.
For the second day, it's misplaced hope. It turns out many are just here for the sunshine and a day out. A few back the first winner, Amidnightstar, trained by James Evans, at 40-1 with us. James was the first person I bumped into on arrival at the track. He could have let me know. Anyway, that's a winning race to start with, but it'll just about be the only one, with the next four winners all well backed.
I've got an Irish lad, here with his family, betting with me, having about £80 a race on. He asks for some 15-2 Lily Glitters despite it being 13-2 on my board but as he's been betting with me all afternoon, his loyalty is rewarded and I lay him £60 ew. He's delighted when it wins and as a thank you he gives me a score for a drink when he picks up. I like this guy. I split the twenty with Martin, who is working with me today, as that's the fair thing to do.
We bet without the odds-on jolly in the last but what money we take is for the winner Out Of Focus, so that's no good either. For the second day this weekend, we've just about covered the expenses at the end of the day. A total of 550 miles, ten hours on the road, for a grand profit of around a bullseye. Let's see if Warwick on Saturday and Southwell on Sunday prove any better...
- DM
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Edwardstone_TingleCreek_2022.jpg319830David Masseyhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDavid Massey2023-02-10 11:36:332023-02-10 11:36:33Roving Reports: The Going’s Hard in Places
In this article I am taking a one-off look at chases and, in particular, looking at a key factor for any horse that runs in such races, namely jumping, writes Dave Renham. I am looking at data from 2015 to 2022 which covers eight full seasons and I am looking at both UK and Irish results. The main aim for this article is to try and have a better appreciation of what factors impinge on a horses’ jumping. That might be racecourse related, it might be going related, it might be a combination of these and other factors. Any profit / loss figures have been calculated by using Betfair Starting Price (BSP).
In 2015, both Tony Keenan and the editor Matt Bisogno produced some research in this area - which you can read here and here - and this article will both build on the earlier work and bring it up to date.
I think most racegoers will agree that being able to jump fences is a key requisite to be successful in chase races. Imagine a 3 mile chase where two horses of similar ability race against each other. If horse A jumps cleanly all the way and horse B makes numerous jumping errors, one would expect horse A to win a very high percentage of the time.
The difficulty of jumping fences varies: some courses have more challenging obstacles – the Grand National course at Aintree springs to mind. However, the ‘big’ tracks of Ascot, Cheltenham, Kempton, Haydock, Newbury and Sandown also have more challenging obstacles than the majority of smaller tracks. Clearly it should be more difficult to jump ‘stiffer’ fences, but there are other considerations to take into account, for example, the state of the grass either side of the fence. If the turf is slippery or slightly worn, then regardless of how difficult the fence is to jump, landing cleanly can become more problematic.
We also need to consider that some tracks have more fences than others at certain distances. Did you know, for instance, that the minimum number of fences per two miles is lower at Irish courses than it is at UK ones? As an example of this let us look at two racecourses, one in Ireland (Naas) and one in the UK (Wetherby); and observe the difference when it comes to a two mile chase. Naas first:
You can see that, for two mile races, horses are required to jump two fences in the home straight on the first circuit and then eight fences on the second circuit, giving a total of 10.
Let’s compare to Wetherby now:
Wetherby’s shortest chase distance is actually a furlong less at 1m 7f, but they have to negotiate 13 fences in total; four on the first circuit, nine on the second.
Also, in terms of number of fences, one could argue that courses with a higher concentration of fences closer to the finish might prove more problematic than courses with fewer fences at the business end. Another factor to consider is race type: some courses have more handicap chases than others; some have more races for novices etc. All these factors will play a role of some sort.
As will be becoming clear, there is plenty to consider here. My initial starting point from a stats perspective is to look at individual courses and which are hardest to jump round. To do this I am simply taking the number of chasers at each track and finding the percentage of runners that either fell or were unseated. I have ignored horses that were brought down; I am not saying this is the best or only method to test out which courses are the hardest to jump round, but it is logical, and horses that fall/unseat would have almost certainly produced a jumping error of some sort. Of course the fall may not necessarily be down to poor jumping, it could be down to jockey error. Alternatively it may be down to something I alluded to earlier - landing on a slippery or churned up section of ground. However, the majority of casualties will be down to a mistake / poor jump.
What is so important when doing this type of research is to appreciate that there is often no right or wrong way, no right or wrong answer. Also one needs to be aware that there are potential flaws in any idea/method and, where possible, one should try to address them when sharing the relevant data.
OK, back to the percentages of horses that fell / unseated by course. The UK first:
Aintree tops the list, as I am guessing most expected, and as it did in 2015. The Aintree stats include both chase courses, Mildmay and Grand National, but it will come as no surprise that for the National course the percentage increases to 23% in terms of fallers/unseated riders. For the record it is 24% for the Grand National itself (over the past eight years).
But would you have expected Fakenham to be second in the list? Or indeed Ludlow third? Now I have already mentioned other factors that are potentially in play here, but there are other points to consider as well as these. For example, class of race / horses differ from course to course – that could affect the percentages, as can the speed at which horses approach the fences. The going is another factor as generally it is harder to complete the course when the underfoot is soft or heavy as compared to firmer conditions. Hence courses that have a greater percentage of chase races on softer ground will see the percentages slightly skewed. Races that are run at a quicker pace will probably see more fallers, etc, etc. This is another example of what I meant earlier about being aware of potential flaws in any research of this type. The individual course plays a major role in how easy or hard it is for a horse to jump round, but there are more pieces to this complex puzzle.
Let us compare the above with Irish course data now:
It is not surprising to see Leopardstown near the top, but I wasn’t expecting Listowel to be at the head of the list. What is interesting is if we compare the percentage figures for all UK courses to all Irish courses.
As the bar chart shows, in percentage terms far more horses have either fallen or been unseated in Irish chases as compared to UK ones. One potential reason for this is that Irish races have bigger fields on average. Hence could there be more crowding / less space at certain fences, which could cause horses to make more bad errors that are bad enough to see the horse come down? That’s certain plausible.
Could this be partly down to the going? The reason I posit this is that in Ireland 40% of the chases were raced on ground described as soft or heavy, in the UK the figure was 34.8%. Hence, it seems now would be a good time to compare the fell/unseated percentages by going. The most obvious thing to compare is soft or heavy versus good to soft or firmer. Here are the figures:
Certainly there are more jockeys falling when the conditions are soft or heavy. It may look like a small difference, but due to these figures coming from thousands of races it is almost certainly a material factor. Further, when isolating races on good to firm or firmer only, the fall/unseat percentage drops to 6.2%. This is more evidence that supports the theory.
Let's now go back and dig deeper into the differences with the UK and the Irish data. Earlier we saw that horses in Irish races fell or unseated more often than in UK races, as a result of which I had a theory that any horse that fell or unseated last time out in a chase would perform better next time in the same race type if their mishap occurred in Ireland. The thinking was simple: for whatever reason jumping fences in Ireland appears harder, so horses that had their mishap that side of the Irish Sea may have had more of an excuse than their UK counterparts. Let us see if the stats back up this hypothesis:
OK, so this is the reverse of what I was hoping for! What do I know??! However, the differences at first glance do still look quite powerful.
We need to be aware that punters, as a rule, take last time out performance as a key factor when contemplating any bet. Horses that fall/unseat do not generally get positive attention from punters. Hence an obscure reason of which country the horse fell in a chase last time out will go under the radar of most people.
Not surprisingly, if you flip the idea slightly and just concentrate on which country the chase race was run (after falling/unseating), the stats are remarkable similar:
The stats are virtually the same because most horses do not hop back and forth racing in Ireland one week, then next time in the UK, or vice versa. A few of the better horses do switch occasionally especially for the big festivals or races. However, invariably not many of these horses would have fallen or unseated last time.
Now, of course, these stats may be skewed slightly by the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, Irish chases have bigger average field sizes. This certainly explains the difference in strike rates, but it does not necessarily account for the differences in profit/loss; or, more importantly, the significant difference between the A/E indices. However, once again, when analysing data we need to be aware of any extenuating circumstances that may affect our stats. Also, we need to appreciate that sometimes we simply cannot explain the results, or at least it may be difficult to offer a logical reason why they have turned out the way they have.
So what about distance: is it a case of the longer the distance the more fallers/unseated riders? That makes possible sense as a longer distance means more fences to jump. However, it seems to be that longer distances actually see slightly fewer horses falling or unseating their riders thank shorter trips in percentage terms.
So what could be happening here? A logical explanation is that shorter races are run at a quicker pace; a quicker pace potentially offers up scope for more, or more serious, jumping errors. However, whatever the reason, I must admit I had hypothesised beforehand that longer races would have had the slightly higher percentage.
I mentioned earlier that race type will have a potential effect on the figures so let's review this. One might expect less experienced chasers (i.e. novices) to make more jumping errors than seasoned handicappers, and therefore fall / unseat more often. Here is a look at the fell/unseated percentages across different chase types:
The stats definitely back up the theory; novice and beginner chases have the highest figures; handicaps have the lowest.
Something I did notice was that in 2022 Beginner Chases were restricted to Irish courses only. No Beginner Chases in the UK that year. I have since noted that at the end of Jan this year (2023) there was a Beginners Chase at Lingfield. I am not quite sure what happened in 2022, maybe Matt knows [I don't, but the fact that there has only been one double-digit field for a UK beginners' chase since 2015 ought to be a part of the reason- Matt]
What about jockeys? They must play some sort of role in all this. I am guessing some jockeys are slightly more adept at getting their horse to jump fences; likewise some jockeys may have a better ability to stay in the saddle when others might tip over. Here are a list of jockeys with their fell/unseated percentages – it gives their overall figure, their figure in handicaps (exc. Novice handicaps) and their figure in ‘all other’ races. To qualify they must have ridden in the last year and had at least 300 rides in handicaps, as well as 300 + rides in other chases combined. They are ordered alphabetical.
For the record, the average figure for fallers/unseated for all jockeys in all races (and indeed all horses) is 7.1%. Several jockeys in the list have an overall percentage of under 5% which I count as a positive - I have highlighted them in green. Just one jockey has a figure over 10% - that is Luke Dempsey who not surprisingly rides in Ireland. Indeed three of the four jockeys with the highest figures primarily race in Ireland (Blackmore, Dempsey and Kennedy). Brendan Powell has the worst record as far as a UK jockey is concerned, so you might be wary in the future if he in on board a suspect jumper.
Another interesting finding is that the more experienced jockeys in chases fell or unseated less often. Jockeys that had ridden in 1000 chases or more (2015-2022) had a percentage fall/unseat rate of 5.7%; jockeys who had ridden 500 to 999 chases had a percentage of 7.1; jockeys who had ridden in less than 500 had a percentage of 7.9%.
MAIN TAKEWAYS
- A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat in Ireland
- A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat on soft or heavy ground
- A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat in Novice chases/Beginner chases
- A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat when racing on the National course at Aintree
- A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat in races of under 3 miles compared to chases of 3 miles or more
- Horses that fell LTO in the UK have appeared to perform better next time than their Irish counterparts
- Sean Bowen, Paddy Brennan, Brian Hughes, Denis O’Regan, Sean Quinlan and Sam Twiston-Davies are the six jockeys with the lowest fall/unseat rate of the more experienced jockeys
- More experienced jockeys tend to have a lower fell/unseated percentage than less experienced ones
To conclude, I hope you have found this an interesting read. It is certainly a different aspect of racing to what I normally write about. I have only touched on a small part of this whole jumping idea, and if enough people comment they would like to find out more, then I’ll happily pen another piece sometime in the future.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/TigerRoll_Nash_830x320.jpg320830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-02-07 11:16:152023-02-07 11:17:38Chases, Jumping, Falling: An Analysis
There was an eight-runner juvenile hurdle race at Leopardstown on Saturday, the opening race on what was expected to be a Willie Mullins obliteration of all other stables over the two days of the Dublin Racing Festival, writes Tony Stafford. In the event, he collected eight of the well-endowed prizes on offer, six at Grade 1 level.
I made his horses’ earnings from the winners alone a total of €755K so, with a bunch of places on top, it would easily have topped a million, although it wasn’t always as planned, as you will read later.
Anyway, returning to Saturday’s opener, Willie’s 1-3 favourite Lossiemouth was expected to build on her easy December wins in a Grade 3 at Fairyhouse and a Grade 2 on this track, adding to a ten-length debut success at Auteuil back in April of last year.
No wonder the filly was the long-range favourite for next month’s JCB Triumph Hurdle and that status is unchanged at 13/8 even though she was beaten by two and a half lengths on Saturday. The main culprit was not the winner Gala Marceau, but rather the interference she suffered on the way round.
We marvel at the Mullins magic, but we should marvel more at the money he can manage to drum up from a host of big name owners ready to join the party. Of the eight in Saturday’s field, six were trained at Closutton in Co Carlow. All six were bought after running in France, none at a public auction.
One of those, perhaps inevitably, was Gala Marceau, the beneficiary of Lossiemouth’s travails but clearly decent in her own right. The most experienced in racing terms of the Mullins sextet, she raced four times on the flat as a 2yo in France, winning her final start by five lengths over 1m1f on heavy ground at Le Croise Laroche, the track that’s only a stone’s throw from Lille station, the intermediary stop of the Eurostar before Paris.
Switched to jumps she won both her hurdles, at Compiegne (€20k) and Auteuil (€30k), the latter by 11 lengths on April 30. The next sight of her was in Lossiemouth’s race on St Stephen’s (Boxing) Day when, receiving 3lb, she was a creditable runner-up although beaten seven-and-a-half lengths. She runs in the colours of Honeysuckle’s owner, Kenny Alexander.
Gala Marceau, unsurprisingly, is contesting second spot in the Triumph market. It’s easy to see the appeal for Mullins and Harold Kirk, his principal French racing talent spotter. Apart from the obvious ability, she’s by Galiway, the sire of Vauban, last year’s easy winner of the juvenile championship at Cheltenham for the Mullins stable and a far from disappointing third in yesterday’s Irish Champion Hurdle.
Lossiemouth had only needed a single run for the attention to be drawn to her and for Susannah Ricci’s colours to appear on her when she made that Fairyhouse debut as an eye-watering (with hindsight) 3-1 shot. It was understandable at the time as the 5-4 favourite Zarak The Brave, another import, and carrying the Munir-Souede double green livery, had already won a race by ten lengths since his transfer to Ireland.
Lossiemouth is a daughter of Great Pretender, sire of Mullins’ Benie Des Dieux as well as the Paul Nicholls pair Greanateen and P’tit Zig, so another desirable stallion for the top echelon of owners to salivate over.
Next home in third was Tekao, also a Mullins inmate, in his case a son of Doctor Dino, sire of State Man and Sharjah as well as French-trained Master Dino and Alan King’s doughty performer Sceau Royal. State Man had a big date yesterday. Tekao raced only once in France, in late April in a flat race over ten furlongs at Lyon Parilly, which he won by three and a half lengths, but basically so easily it could have been 33 and a half.
Transferred to Mullins, he started odds-on for his first two hurdles, finishing third of 22 to very useful Comfort Zone at Navan before opening his account in an 18-runner juvenile at Leopardstown’s Christmas fixture, getting the better of Ascertain.
In finishing third on Saturday, ten lengths behind Lossiemouth, he puts the merit of the first two in context and he was improving on the previous form, as Ascertain was now six lengths behind, four times as far as at Navan.
In fifth we had yet another Mullins horse, Gust Of Wind, who had been the subject of a recent ownership change. He was previously owned outright by Barnane Stud until last month following his sole prior start, on September 29, when he easily won a 21k newcomers’ race at Auteuil. He now runs in partnership with the Hollywood Syndicate. Their Il Etait Temps is clearly very smart, having won by ten lengths in a 15-runner novice at Thurles before running Facile Vega to four lengths at Leopardstown over Christmas and they were due to renew internal hostilities in the big novice hurdle yesterday.
Another by Great Pretender, Gust Of Wind started as the 8-1 third favourite on Saturday and clearly will be expected to win any ordinary maiden/novice that the master trainer wants to send him to next time.
Sixth, 28 lengths behind the winner, came the gelding Cinsa, also carrying notable livery, that of Sullivan Bloodstock. A son of little-known (to me, anyway) Tirwanako, he obviously was spotted running well enough, in fourth some way back in Lossiemouth’s Auteuil debut, to attract the attention of Mr Kirk. A 50-1 shot here, he probably finished where expected as was the case of the complete outsider, Jourdefete, the second Ricci runner.
He too had only a single run in France when 3rd of 10 at Vichy in early May. Miles behind Lossiemouth on his Irish debut, he was a similar distance back here, but don’t be shocked when he starts winning nice races when going into handicaps.
Six horses then, mostly seen and acquired last spring and the interesting thing for me is whether they are allocated by the trainer or whether there’s some sort of in-house negotiation before the ownerships are settled.
Imagine the Riccis, JP, Andy Sullivan and Kenny Alexander bidding away closeted together in a room. Or even separately making sealed bids. Maybe the names simply go into a barrel and the lucky winner gets the horse. Then again, they are all more than lucky and successful enough in life to start with!
Mullins had won three races, all at the top level, on the opening day and added five more yesterday, but he will have been perplexed that his two shortest runners on the day, Blue Lord (1-4) for the Double Greens in the 2m5f Ladbrokes Dublin Chase and, more pertinently, the hitherto untouchable Facile Vega (4-9) in the novice hurdle, were both rolled over.
Naturally, the multiple back-up policy in the Grade 1’s, where hardly anyone else has a hope in face of such strength in depth, meant he still won each of the races.
Blue Lord was comfortably beaten by Gentleman de Mee, the Aintree novice chase conqueror of Edwardstone last April but just ticking over since, while Il Etait Temps wasn’t at all troubled to gain revenge over Facile Vega, but there’s clearly some sort of issue with that long-term banker for his novice hurdle target at Cheltenham.
All seemed serene as he went along at the head of the field In company with Joseph O’Brien-trained one-time Epsom Derby favourite High Definition. Then, at around halfway, High Definition made a mistake and J J Slevin, the trainer’s cousin, was unable to stay on board, leaving the favourite clear.
But in another case of family fortunes, Il Etait Temps challenged the leader around the bend and, once passed, Facile Vega compounded: “he stopped quickly” said Paul Townend. That left Willie Mullins’ nephew Danny to complete a day’s double initiated on Gentleman de Mee, and augmenting his shock winner on Saturday’s opener, all at the expense of Townend bankers.
Naturally, the concluding mares’ bumper, just a Grade 2 but always a pointer to Cheltenham, had a Mullins winner, Fun Fun Fun, allowed to start at 9/4 but a winner by almost ten lengths. Son Patrick shared the limelight here.
That followed two more Willie Mullins wins. State Man made all at the expense of a gallant Honeysuckle in the Irish Champion Hurdle, the mare just edging Vauban for second, so still creditable enough. State Man is clearly Ireland’s top hope of winning the Champion Hurdle, especially if Nicky Henderson forgets to declare Constitution Hill on the day.
We got our first sight of State Man in the UK at last year’s Cheltenham Festival when he started 13-8 favourite in a field of 26 for the County Hurdle and won smoothly. That was the prelude to four consecutive wins at the top level, climaxed by the easy defeat of the dual champion and national heroine yesterday.
State Man showed up over here with a rating of 141 after second place in a juvenile hurdle at Auteuil in May 2020, then after a 19-month absence, a fall in a maiden hurdle at Tramore and a bloodless romp at odds of 1/7 at Limerick.
That County Hurdle entry proved a nightmare scenario for the official and he must still be having palpitations, not just over him, but also another potential bloody nose at that fixture, which was only narrowly averted. He needed the help and courage of fellow Irish hurdler Brazil, once at Ballydoyle, who gave Gaelic Warrior 8lb and a short head beating in the juvenile handicap hurdle.
The handicapper had awarded Gaelic Warrior a figure of 129 and all he had to work with to arrive at it were three runs within just over six weeks at Auteuil the previous spring. He hadn’t won any of them, so when this season started Willie Mullins had a handy novice to go to work with.
Raised only 5lb for the Fred Winter Hurdle run, Gaelic Warrior won his maiden hurdle at rustic Tramore by 86 lengths and a conditions race at Clonmel by 15 lengths. When he appeared for his second handicap, supporting the Festina Lente Charity, and now off 143, itself highly charitable in the circumstances, it was no shock that in a 17-runner handicap, he started odds-on.
Needless to say he won, picking up the €88k prize with aplomb and completing a consolation double on the day for Paul Townend. He has entries in the two novice races next month and I doubt Mullins will favour the County Hurdle with what must be a new figure of at least 155, but we do like to bend over backwards for the invaders.
A Supreme success would catapult him alongside State Man for next year. In the meantime, when the weights for the handicaps come out, I will be scouring the lists, seeking out the least plausible Willie Mullins horse in anticipation of a small early wager, knowing it will start a short-priced favourite – as long as it’s the right one!
For all last week, owners, trainers and punters were hoping that Cheltenham’s richly endowed and numerically enhanced nine-race card would go ahead, writes Tony Stafford. It did, although it was a close-run thing as the weather only chose to relent the night before.
It might seem churlish to suggest it, but probably one or two trainers (maybe more), their horses’ owners and many of the racegoers that filled the stands, might in retrospect be wishing it hadn’t.
There was £605,000 to be carved up and the big guns were out in force, none bigger than Willie Mullins, who had been celebrating reaching 4,000 career wins earlier that weekend.
His Energumene, owned by Brighton FC chairman and fearless punter Tony Bloom, was expecting to sweep up another fat cheque for winning the Clarence House Chase. The Grade 1 event was added to the card after Ascot’s cancellation as the frost extended its second embrace of winter tentacles the previous Saturday.
With only five to beat and with the most obvious of them, Edwardstone, having bailed out early in his previous race when unseating Tom Cannon at Kempton, it seemed very unlikely that Energumene would not be enhancing his already formidable Rules record of 10-1-1 from a dozen career runs.
The 2022 Queen Mother Champion Chaser, beaten on debut in a bumper on his first run for Mullins in early November 2019, had since gone unscathed until his sole defeat over jumps in the corresponding race to Saturday’s, in its proper home at Ascot a year and a week earlier.
Energumene had led that four-horse affair from the outset but could not hold off the forensically timed challenge by Nico de Boinville on Shishkin. The biggest disappointment for me of the entire Cheltenham Festival 2022 was Shishkin’s apparently inexplicable failure to run his race as Energumene gained his revenge in style.
Shishkin, the favourite that day as he had been in all except one of his races before Ascot last year, simply didn’t go a yard, pulling up.
He has raced only once since, finishing a tired third to Edwardstone in the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown in early December and much has been made of his non-appearance in the list of entries for the Queen Mother Champion Chase this year, although a supplementary can be made if circumstances change.
Saturday’s market chose to forget Edwardstone’s subsequent lapse at Kempton, preferring to point to his Arkle (for novices) success at last year’s Cheltenham Festival. For most though, while this had the appearance of a match race even though half a dozen pitched up, it looked rather one-sided.
Now though the pair are inseparable in the market for this year’s Queen Mother at around 2/1 each. Which of them won on Saturday? Well, neither. In that eventuality, one or both must have failed to finish for one reason or another? No, both completed, Edwardstone coming to take the lead on the run-in and then being outstayed and headed close home while Energumene ran a listless race in third, six-and-a-half lengths behind.
What could possibly have beaten them? The spoiler of their private battle was Editeur Du Gite, a 14/1 shot trained by Gary Moore, that had been supplemented for the race following his taking advantage of Edwardstone’s exit to win the Desert Orchid Chase and £57k on the second day of Kempton’s Christmas meeting.
There, he set off ahead under non-claiming 3lb claimer Niall Houlihan, and with everyone expecting him to come back, he kept stretching the lead in that Grade 2 contest, winning by 13 lengths from the Skeltons’ Nube Negra.
Grade 2 races are one thing; Grade 1’s against a Willie Mullins champion are quite another. When Houlihan again stepped away in front on Saturday – in a way stealing Energumene’s frequent thunder - again nobody took much notice.
The lead wasn’t too excessive as they came down the hill with the race heating up and the main contenders still in touch, but suddenly the favourite wasn’t moving like a winner. The same wasn’t true though of Edwardstone, and after they jumped the last with the Alan King horse in full flow, the outcome seemed to be a 1.01 Betfair certainty.
Edwardstone duly went past his rival after the last fence, but could not shake him off and Editeur Du Gite battled back to get up close home with his rider never resorting to the whip. Editeur Du Gite has now won six of his 16 chases, three of them around Cheltenham in five attempts. He’s down to 5/1 for the big race, but the market may have over-reacted to that one run.
Alan King seemed happy enough at the outcome and even Mullins was sanguine, but then you can afford to be when you’ve already trained 4,000 winners. Even Mark Johnston can only point to a hundred or so more than 5,000!
The next setback for two more big fancies for the Cheltenham Festival came in the three-mile Cotswold Chase when Dan Skelton’s Protektorat, so upwardly mobile over the past year, and the 2022 Grand National winner Noble Yeats, were expected to dominate.
Instead, it was a pair of Northern chasers prepared by female trainers that took the first two places. For much of the race Ahoy Senor was prominent along with the ever-popular Frodon and Bryony Frost, but then in mid-race he seemed to lose interest and dropped into midfield.
As he marked time, the Ruth Jefferson eight-year-old Sounds Russian swept round on the outside and went for home. Protektorat still looked an obvious threat in second coming down the hill but Noble Yeats had looked sluggish all the way round and was still some way back. Protektorat coud only go on from there at one pace and, as they turned for home, Ahoy Senor and Derek Fox rallied and went on to a hard-fought success. Sounds Russian was a creditable runner-up while Noble Yeats motored up the hill to get within a length of the second at the line.
Emmet Mullins and the Waley-Cohen family, trainer and owners of the Grand National hero will hope when he comes back to Cheltenham in March, they will go a better gallop and there will be more of them – mostly from Ireland no doubt – to make it a truer test. My preference for a bet on him, even though he will have a massive weight, is in the Grand National. Only an eight-year-old, I believe he’s a clone of Red Rum and Tiger Roll and could win at least three of them.
Okay, a couple of short ones had been turned over, but surely now the punters could look forward to the Cleeve Hurdle and a fourth successive victory in the three-mile test for the wonderful Paisley Park. Now an 11-year-old, Andrew Gemmell’s star was still sprightly enough to win the Long Walk Hurdle, another major jumps race salvaged from Ascot, this at Kempton on Boxing Day.
The received wisdom is that Kempton is an easy track and one where you would not expect Paisley Park’s stamina to be as effective as elsewhere, but as the others died at Kempton, he just kept galloping and won easily.
Now on a track he does clearly enjoy, with a Stayers’ Hurdle to go with his trio of Cleeve’s, surely he would make it four. In Dashel Drasher, he had an inveterate pacemaker to ensure a good gallop and that 10-year-old was joined in his role by the upgraded handicapper Botox Has.
As they grouped up going down the hill, Paisley Park was in touch having raced more fluently than usual in the early stages of the race, but Dashel Drasher, showing plenty of dash, quickly looked to have them cooked. And then came an unexpected challenger and not Paisley Park. It was French six-year-old, Gold Tweet, equally adept at hurdles and chases in France, but never yet over three miles, who sprinted up the hill under Johnny Charron to give Gabriel Leenders an unexpected training success at 14/1.
Charron was having his first ride in the UK, but he is a star turn in France where he won the Grand Steeple Chase in 2022. Leenders says he may now be tempted to get the owners to supplement Gold Tweet for the Stayers’ Hurdle but said: “It’s expensive and we’re not rich,” seeming to forget that Saturday’s race carried a first prize of almost £40,000 and owners, trainer and jockey will cop most of that.
It’s nice that sometimes, pre-conceived ideas are confounded. We too easily take the established order as permanent. In racing it is permanent, until they go to post again and as all punters know, any horse can be beaten and at the same time massive-priced animals can win, especially in 2023! What a refreshing day to see a few fresh faces picking up the big pots!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Shishkin_ClarenceHouse.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-01-30 16:57:442023-01-30 16:57:44Monday Musings: Trials and Tribulations
I am writing the introduction of this article at roughly the midpoint of my research. Hence the style of this piece will be slightly different to my usual framework as normally I have finished the research and number crunching before I start to pen. Regular readers of my articles on Geegeez will know that I often produce a series of articles on a particular topic, but this is a 'standalone' piece.
Now, I would love to have been given a pound for every hour of horse racing research I have done in my life. If totalled up, that money would run into thousands upon thousands of pounds. Fortunately my research has been very varied in terms of what I have researched as well as how I have researched it. That has clearly been a good thing, as using different approaches and/or studying different themes or ideas has helped me to stay curious and motivated. I know from experience that as soon as the research becomes a drag, the likely resulting article is not going to be one of my best.
My research has changed beyond recognition from the late 1990s when I started. Back then, virtually all of my racing work was connected with draw research and especially draw biases. I wrote, or co-wrote, four books in those early years, but it is more the manner of how one researches which has changed so much. In those days, the internet was in its infancy and racing programs were rare. Hence I spent many an hour pouring over my Superform Annuals gathering the draw data I required, initially using pen and paper and numerous exercise books before moving onto basic spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel.
Clearly going through race by race, page by page, then writing down the relevant data or inputting it to excel took time. A lot of time. I lost count of the occasions I was still working at two in the morning; how I was able to get up for work at around 6.30 am is beyond me – it would certainly be beyond me these days! However, there were (and still are) significant advantages to this slow data gathering process. Primarily, this is because you do get a real ‘feel’ for the data you are collating, rather than pressing a button and being presented with the raw stats breakdown.
The first ‘game changer’ for my (and many others') racing research was Racing System Builder (RSB) – this came in CD form and once installed on your PC you had a huge array of variables that you could test either in isolation or in combination. You could create systems and the like to your heart’s content. It was also so quick – a press of a button and several years’ worth of data was collated in seconds. Unfortunately, from my draw research perspective, it was far from ideal as it split the draw into quintiles (fifths). I split the draw into thirds. However, in terms of becoming familiar with other potential research options it was fantastic.
As the years passed racing programs became more widely available as well as websites offering online research options. These programs gave more scope to research different ideas, or combinations of ideas, and with most of my articles being stats based, I could test so many more theories and gather a wider variety of data. So I analysed weight in handicaps, sire data, the effect of the market and of recent form, days since last run, last time finishing position, trainers, jockeys etc, etc. Articles could be researched relatively quickly – all I needed was an idea and the correct filters on the racing program. From there I would collate the data, interpret it and transfer it into the pieces. Obviously they still needed a bit of text and context which I added around the ‘numbers’.
I still research the majority of my articles in this fashion, but for this offering I will be combining the ‘old’ with the new. In other words, I’ll be partly using online databases, but also going through individual races one by one to pull out additional data I require. Not only that, I am going to walk you through exactly how I did it and how I tried to interpret it. Because, who knows, you might like to try something similar yourself!
RESEARCH STARTING POINT
Let me explain my initial thinking in terms of what I wanted to research. As a fan of run style and the draw I wanted to include those components. I also wanted to examine some of the speed rating data Geegeez uses, as well as studying anything around potential market bias. Having decided upon those four key areas, I set about deciding which type of races I would examine. I figured it would be a good idea to stick to similar races so I chose the following rules:
All weather races in UK
Handicaps with exactly 8 runners
Sprint races only (5 & 6f)
Races run round a bend
The last rule meant that I could include four courses - Chelmsford, Kempton, Lingfield, and Wolverhampton. The only difference in those four to be aware of is that Kempton is the only right handed course. However, I did not perceive this to be a problem.
AIMS OF THE RESEARCH
The aim of my research was to try to find an edge of some kind, which is the same aspiration each time I embark on some new research. Unearthing a killer angle is not always going to happen and, as a researcher, you need to be able to deal with that. Even if I do not find anything ‘earth-shattering’, the chances are I will uncover some worthwhile angles even if they may not quite be the "holy grail" life-changing ones we all dream about.
GATHERING THE DATA
I mentioned earlier that my research would involve a combination of quick database-generated research and the slow 'old school' race by race approach. I decided to study four years of results going from January 1st 2019 to 31st December 2022. That gave me roughly 190 races to start with. 190 races felt like a manageable number as I was going to need to study each one individually as well as reviewing the database output.
In order to get the vast majority of the data I required, I set the necessary parameters on two databases, one being the Geegeez Query Tool, in order to get all the runners from each race into an excel spreadsheet. This gave me my starting point as, once done, I had several columns of key info for each runner such as date, price, finishing position, course, distance, etc. However, there were still three columns missing that I needed, these being some specific run style (pace) data, draw positions and some Speed Rating data.
Speed Ratings Data
The Speed Ratings I was to be using are the Peter May ratings. These can be found in the daily racecards (in the column 'SR') as well as being available to back check in the Query Tool. To gather this info I used the Query Tool to firstly find all the top rated runners, then the second top rated, and finally the third top rated. I then assigned these positions to the relevant horses in the spreadsheet.
Run Style / Pace Data
For the run style data I wanted to find the top three horses in terms of their pre-race run style/pace total from their previous four runs. To find what I needed I clicked on a race result, and once the result came up I then clicked on the ‘PACE’ tab. From there I ordered them with highest totals first – an example of what I mean is shown below looking at the 8:20 race at Kempton on 17th March 2021:
In this example, Phuket Power was top ‘pace’ rated with 13, Spring Romance second on 11 and Capote’s Dream third on 10; thus I labelled these three horses 1, 2, 3 respectively on my spreadsheet. Now, as you can see there were a couple of horses that had a ‘U’ figure. This occurs occasionally when it is unclear from the in-running comments what pace number should be assigned to a specific run. For these horses I double checked different sources, or even watched the start of the relevant race so that I could add the right figure. In this example, the two horses with ‘U’s did not gain enough extra points to move into the top three. You can also see the speed ratings column (SR) I mentioned earlier in the screenshot in the furthest column on the right.
There are times when you get horses with identical four race pace totals, which means it is potentially difficult to get a ‘top three’. An example of such a race is this one from Wolves run on the 5th January 2021:
As you can see, once ordered, four horses are tied in second with 13 pace points. My method to sort out which horse comes where is one I have always used. I compare the horses with the same score (in this case, four horses) starting with the last run (LR) as this is arguably the most relevant. In this example, Alsvinder and Bellevarde score 4, the other two score 3. Hence, Alsvinder and Bellevarde are the two horses that will fill the second and third pace spots as they score the highest on the most recent (and, for me, most important) run. To determine which way round these two came, I then looked at second last run (2LR) and compared their scores. Alsvinder scored 2, Bellevarde 3, so that meant Bellevarde was second rated and Alsvinder third. It is amazing how many races had joint firsts, seconds or thirds in the pace totals, so however you decide to split these 'same score' horses, you need to stick your method every time.
In terms of collating these pace/run style scores, I ignored any race where four or more runners did not have four recent pace figures such as the following race:
The four horses at the bottom, namely Bailey’s Afterparty, Anatiya, Night Narcissus, and Highest Ambition, did not have the required number of runs. Hence I did not add pace scores for this particular race to the spreadsheet and it was not included in any pace/run style calculations. This is simply my personal choice, but I think it makes sense to ignore this type of race at least from a pace and run style perspective.
Draw
For the speed ratings and the pace run style data I was simply interested in the top three – this was due to the vast amount of extra time it would have taken to add in all the remaining five individual hierarchy positions per race. As a researcher, I sometimes have to make sensible decisions in terms of how much time I am actually willing to spend researching something: input for output and all that. However, draw wise it did not take me too long to add the stall positions for each runner into the spreadsheet. I was able to do it in eight groups starting with draw 1 and moving up the draws to finish on draw 8. Essentially eight lots of copying and pasting draw data into a spreadsheet and just matching it up to the relevant race/horse. In terms of Excel, once I had all the draw data pasted in, it was merely using the ‘sort’ function to match each horse up to each draw. The beauty of Excel is that some of the basic functions are really useful from a research perspective; of course, I use more sophisticated functions and formulae as well, which makes it a package that ideally suits my research needs.
Market Data/Bias
For the market data I used the Betfair exchange starting prices (BSP) which I already had in the original starting spreadsheet. From here I sorted them and assigned a market position from 1 to 8 to each runner in each race. It made sense to use BSP because it typically avoids horses having the same price, as would be the case if using Industry SP. Market Rank is something that is easy to check on a database like the Query Tool, but I wanted to be able to combine 1sts, 2nds and 3rds and see whether there were any patterns that may help in pinpointing potential straight forecast and tricast type options. It would be unlikely as these types of exotic bet are clearly in the bookmaker’s favour, but as someone who has often used such wagers in draw-biased races in the past, I thought it was at least worthy of investigation. In fact, I wanted to check forecast and tricast results for all four of the key areas I was researching.
NUMBER CRUNCHING
With everything I needed now in the spreadsheet it was time to start crunching the numbers. When I get to this point I am obviously hoping to find some golden ‘nuggets’, but I am humble enough to realise that the percentages are not in my favour in terms of uncovering something with gilt-edged profit written all over it.
Draw
First stop was to look at the draw. Below are the win strike rates (blue) and the each way strikes (orange) for each draw/stall position. I have accounted for non-runners; so, for example, if the horse drawn 1 was a non-runner, then the horse drawn 2 would become draw 1, etc.
I have added two lines of best fit (the dotted ones) to show the trend. Horses drawn closer to the inside do have an advantage over those horses drawn wider. Now of course, this fluctuates from course to course and from distance to distance, but as a general rule, on turning sprint tracks a lower draw is preferable due to its position closer to the inside rail.
The BSP profit/losses and returns are shown in the table below:
This table clearly illustrates that the two widest draws have delivered the poorest returns. It is perhaps only what one might expect to find as a researcher, but it is nice when the numbers match the theory. Horses drawn 2, 3 and 4 have all secured a small profit to BSP and, ultimately, the focus draw-wise in these races should probably be on the four lowest stalls. Clearly, horses drawn 6 have actually produced the biggest BSP profit but, with winners at 95.0, 44.0 and 36.0, these figures are skewed somewhat. Whenever you look at profit and loss, it is a good idea to check the prices of all the winners in each respective group.
Looking at the intra-race exotic bets now, I decided to check out forecasts (CSF) and exactas combining horses drawn 1, 2 and 3; for tricasts and trifectas I combined the horses drawn 1 to 4.
Both forecast and exacta options would have produced virtually identical losses – around £140 to a £1 stake if perming the three lowest draws in each race in a full cover permutation (six bets in total). This would equate to losses of roughly 12p for every £1 bet. As far as tricasts and trifectas were concerned there was a big difference in the overall bottom line as one race saw the following result:
As you can see at the bottom of the screenshot the trifecta paid £3292.20, the tricast considerably lower at £1584.32. Overall, perming the lowest four draws in all 189 races in a full cover perm (24 bets) would have seen the trifecta in profit to the tune of 22p in the £ (ROI 22%); tricasts would have produced losses of 27%. This specific race with its trifecta payout perhaps illustrates why these types of bet can lure punters in. A huge payout is always a possibility and of course these types of bets can be wagered with relatively small stakes if you wish (eg. 10p a line would be an outlay of only £2.40 per race). My view is that in general they are a fun bet rather than a serious one, but having personally won £20k on a tricast back in 2004, these exotic bets are worth considering, especially if you feel you have a potential edge. However, you will almost certainly need a big win or two to make it pay over the longer term.
BSP Market Rank
Moving away from the draw, my next port of call was to look at BSP Market Rank. Here are the win percentages for each market position (1 = favourite, 2nd fav, etc):
We can see a familiar sliding scale here, with favourites winning close to one in every three races. Of course, strike rates are all very well but punters need to see the bottom line; so here are the profit and loss figures at BSP:
The top three in the betting have combined to effectively break even. The outsiders of the field have proved the most profitable thanks in the main to a 61.08 BSP winner.
On the exotic bet front perming horses from the front end of the market is generally a route to the poor house. Perming the bigger priced runners requires the patience of a saint, coupled with the requisite good luck. Also, as I have mentioned in many previous articles, the problem with any market based bet is that we do not exactly know what their final prices are going to be. Obviously we can back as late as is humanly possible, but even then we may not be completely accurate in terms of what we are attempting to do. For the record, the three biggest priced runners filled the first three places in just one of the 189 races, which would have yielded a humongous profit, but more about that particular occasion a bit later...
Run style
Run style / pace is next on my agenda. I wanted to examine the performance of the top three pace scoring horses (as discussed earlier). We know that run style/pace is key, especially in sprints, but of course these pace scores are based on the last four runs, not the actual race in question. One would hope that if a horse has shown early pace in recent races then there is a good chance of that happening again, but of course horse racing is not an exact science, so this is not a ‘given’. Here are the records of the top three scoring horses from the pace tab:
A 95.0 winner was the main reason for the 2nd top rated profit, but what I did notice was that, as a group, the top three pace rated horses outperformed the horses pace ranked 4th to 8th. The average win percentage when combining the top three pace scoring horses was 14.7% (81 wins from 552 runners); the average win percentage for horses ranked 4th to 8th was 11.2% (103 wins from 920 runners).
Sticking with the top three pace rated runners from each race, I compared the 5f handicap results with those for 6f handicaps. My expectation / theory is that they should be slightly more successful at the shorter trip. Here are the stats:
The 5f runners have produced a better win strike rate which backs up my theory, but the 6f runners have produced a better profit. However, that 95.0 winner I mentioned previously was from the 6f group, so this perhaps validates another of my long held theories even more: 5f races offer the strongest run style/pace bias of all the flat distances.
In terms of forecasts, exactas and the like, perming the top three pace rated runners in straight forecasts would have seen you effectively break even. Perming the top two instead (known as a reverse exacta/forecast) would have seen a 22p in the £ profit for exactas, a small 2p in the £ loss if going the CSF route. Trifectas/tricasts when perming the top four pace rated runners would have shown big losses equating to roughly 45p in the £.
Peter May Ratings
The final area to look at is the Speed Ratings data/results. As with pace/run style my focus was the top three speed rated runners in each race. Here are the results:
There are no prizes for guessing where that 95.0 priced winner popped up! Now, although the top two rated horses did not make a profit, on the plus side their strike rates were above the norm. With eight runners in a race, the average strike rate for each of the runners given a level playing field is 12.5% (12.5 x 8 = 100). So to have strike rate around the 18% mark is quite decent for all that the ROI is still in negative equity.
Perming the top three speed rated horses in forecasts made a small 5p in the £ profit over the 186 races that were rated; exactas though produced a loss of around 11p in the £. Tricast / trifecta perms of the top four speed rated produced a phenomenal overall profit across the four years of around 60p in the £ thanks mainly to this result:
This was the race I mentioned earlier regarding the three biggest BSP priced runners filling the first three places. As you can see, there was a massive payout for both the trifecta and the tricast of over £5,500 and, as the racecard below shows, these horses were not only in the top four of speed ratings, they were actually the top three speed rated:
This result is a second example of why some punters do like these types of bets. What is there not to like about getting £5,500 return from a £24 bet; or, to smaller stakes, a £550 return for a £2.40 stake?
The four key areas have now been studied but before winding my work up, I thought it might be interesting to combine certain factors together to see what would results they would have brought.
COMBINING TWO FACTORS/AREAS
Speed Rating / Pace
I wanted to check out what happened when a horse had both the highest speed rating in the race and the highest pace total from their last four runs. Unfortunately there were only 31 horses that matched this criteria. However, six did win creating a profit to BSP of £7.66 (ROI +24.7%). I decided to expand this to horses that had one of the highest two speed ratings coupled with one of the two highest four race pace totals. This gave me 108 qualifiers of which an impressive 28 won (SR 25.9%). To BSP they would have made you a profit of £26.15 to £1 level stakes (ROI +24.2%). This was highly satisfactory, especially considering there was only one double-figure priced winner (BSP 15.5). Also, a further 20 horses hit the post finishing second.
It is clear that 108 horses from 108 races is a relatively small sample, but it does offer some impetus to expand this idea by looking at other 5f and 6f handicaps on the turf as well.
After finding this interesting and potentially profitable idea, it seemed to make sense to combine the ‘top two’ from different areas from now on. Would any other combo get close to those impressive figures?
Speed Rating / Draw
Horses drawn 1 and 2 that were also one of the top two speed rated runners occurred in 111 races. Of these 23 won (SR 20.7%), but they produced a BSP loss of £13.55 (ROI -12.2%).
Speed Rating / Market Rank
Horses first or second in the betting that were also top two in the speed ratings produced the following numbers – 49 wins from 153 qualifiers (SR 32.0%) for a small BSP profit of £14.56 (ROI +9.5%). This is another area I want to investigate further.
Pace / Draw
What about combining draws 1 and 2 with the top two pace rated horses? This partnership produced 98 qualifiers of which 19 were successful (SR 19.4%). A small loss of £1.02 was made equating to 1p in the £.
Pace / Market Rank
Looking at the top two in the betting who were also in the top two of the four race pace ratings, these runners won 29 times from 103 starts (SR 28.2%) for a minute profit of £1.92 (ROI +1.9%).
Draw / Market Rank
Onto the last pairing now. Horses drawn 1 and 2 that were either favourite or second favourite combined to score 33 times from 122 runs (SR 27.0%) for a small loss of £7.34 (ROI -6.0%).
"Top four combo"
My final stat to share is when a horse was in the 'top two' of all four of the sections at the same time; that is, horses from the top two in the betting, drawn 1 or 2, first or second in the speed ratings and having the highest or second highest last four race pace totals. Not surprisingly I suppose, there were only a handful of qualifiers, 14 to be precise. But... eight of those 14 did win! Profits of £10.28 would have been achieved equating to returns of around 73p in the £. The chances of this type of strike rate and performance being maintained is unlikely to say the least, but it's worth keeping an eye on!
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Well, this has been quite a journey for me and a long one at that. Having to go through race by race is hard work, but ultimately I think the research uncovered some interesting findings. Not only that, it has inspired me to do some more digging around these themes, albeit it will no doubt be rather slow digging!
Before I finish I should mention that all BSP profits and losses have taken a 5% commission into account, as that gives the truest reflection of real life returns using that medium.
Until next time,
Dave Renham
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/optimalcomplexitytheory.jpg320830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-01-25 16:53:392023-01-25 19:12:57Dave Renham: A Window into My World of Racing Research
When Matt was kind enough to ask me to write these articles last year, we couldn't think of a name we could file them all under. Until Matt came up with "Roving Reports", that is, which seemed to fit the bill nicely. I rove around, I report on what I've seen and done. Easy.
I've decided that works fine in the summer, but the cold snap means this is most definitely an un-roving report, coming mainly as it does from my runs to Southwell and back this January. That's not my fault, of course. Plan A was to go to Lingfield for the Winter Million last weekend and take in Ascot on the Saturday for the Clarence House. That went west pretty quickly, and so Plan B was to go to Revesby Point-to-Point, near Boston in Lincolnshire, on the Saturday, drive to Hunstanton after and do Fakenham on the Sunday.
That plan looked quite a rosy one. There were no problems at Revesby, I was informed, and videos coming from the track of the clerk's stick going easily in to the turf and of the race cards being printed off all looked most promising.
Indeed, so confident was I of it going ahead that, when offered 4-5 about the fixture being on by David Johnson at Southwell one day last week I immediately shoved two £20 notes in his hand. By Friday morning he knew he'd done his money; by Friday afternoon he had my forty quid safely in his pocket after an inspection at the track revealed a small shaded area where the frost hadn't come out, and it was off. Another twenty minutes after that Fakenham's Sunday card bit the dust. £40 worse off and now with nowhere to go. The good lady suggested Saturday might be a good time to go buy a new sofa, which we badly need. We did, and I'm now considerably worse off than the forty notes I lost to Dave, although I can at least look forward to sitting down and not getting a broken spring up my backside.
So it's been Southwell that's kept the show on the road for me this month and, as ever, I've worked all the fixtures for Rob and the S&D firm. The attendance at these fixtures has been like chalk and cheese. The afternoon fixtures haven't been so bad, and there are enough punters around, albeit usually to small to medium money, to make it worthwhile. The night fixtures are a different animal, though. Last Wednesday (the 18th) was about as bad as it got. An initial small crowd dwindled as the evening went on, and I didn't strike a single bet for the last two races. In total I took 28 bets on my joint for the whole evening. 27 of those bets were small bets, and one was a bet of £1000 each way on one that was unplaced, giving me an average bet size for the night of £86. This, as I've said before, is the problem as a bookmaker at these meetings, there's not enough money to work around a big bet when you take one, so you just lay a bit off and get the prayer mat out. On this occasion, they were answered, but we aren't always so lucky.
However, the night before, the Tuesday, was incredible. Again a smallish crowd but the money was flying around thanks to about half a dozen punters who turned up out of the blue and just fancied having a go. They all wanted The Tron each-way in the second, and did no damage as it came second, but the fourth race was one of the liveliest heats I've seen in a while. First the money came for the winner, Nolton Cross, with a £100 and then a £200 bet in early, then they couldn't get enough of Blow Your Horn, with a £1000, a £400 and three £200 bets all taken. Rob can't keep pace. "Stop laying it!!" he yells across the ring at me. I remind him after I'm just the slave pitch and not the one controlling the price of it...
Anyway, it never looks like winning and despite laying the winner twice, we get out of jail on the race. Not often you lay £300 worth of bets on an 11-2 winner and call it a good result, but there we go. A trip to the paddock for the novice, up next, reveals the 4-11 jolly isn't anything to be frightened of, and that gets a good striping which is just as well, as we get that beat too. The punters have one last crack at getting it back on the short-priced Walking On Clouds in the next and when that's sunk, so are they. It's been a good night for the books, less so if you're on the other side of the fence.
Sensibly, we only bet the last ten minutes for the night meetings at Southwell. By that I mean if the race is off at 7pm, say, we won't go up with prices until 6.50pm. There's simply not enough people around to justify standing about for half an hour between each race, and this enables us to have a cup of tea, a loo break, and a chat about the next and what we fancy. This can result in some dangerous talk - see earlier about me losing £40 to Dave in an idle moment - but mostly it's all good-natured banter about how well/badly the evening is going. It's also about what flavour the tea-bar soup is, with tomato-and-something usually favourite, although curried parsnip is a shorter price with each passing fixture. I think we've had it five times in January already, and there's still a week to go.
Tonight, as I write this (Tuesday) we've another evening meeting. Sellers at 40 regarding how many bets I take could well be in clover come half eight.
Look, Cheltenham are, and I quote, "fairly hopeful" of racing on Saturday. So I'll see you all there, yes? If it's off, we might be looking for some chairs to go with the sofa...
- David Massey
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/CheltenhamFestivalBookmakerOffers.jpg320830David Masseyhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDavid Massey2023-01-25 09:36:302023-01-25 22:25:39Roving Reports: The Rover Returns to Rolleston
One week nearer Armageddon, or as UK trainers have come to call it, the Cheltenham Festival, and those trainers have just endured another week without any NH racing, writes Tony Stafford. Hereford last Monday went ahead and now Ffos Las on Monday looks hopeful, but with only 50 days to go, spirits in those jumping yards could hardly be at a lower ebb.
Take Gary Moore. Situated due south of London, between Brighton and slightly further Lingfield, he was looking forward to gorging himself on the fabulous riches made available in the second Winter Million extravaganza offered by the often-maligned Arena Racing Group at Lingfield.
The first and third days, last Friday and this Sunday, interspersed with a flat card on the Saturday, which did go ahead as planned, were to provide a string of valuable races and Moore had fancied runners in most of them.
The Friday abandonment as frost gripped the country for the whole week, stretched the Sunday card to nine races. It offered obvious chances for fast-improving Haddex Des Obeaux, a scintillating winner at Doncaster last time out; emerging long-distance handicap chaser Movethechains; and stable favourite Goshen, who seems to have found his true metier as a three-mile hurdler.
Moore had made his frustrations known after the first long frozen spell in the south and southeast, that one accompanied by a heavy one-shot snowfall that refused to go away. Trainers had already endured the hottest (and driest) summer on record making working on grass gallops almost redundant for much of the year, even in places as well-endowed with them (and permanent staff to maintain them) as Newmarket.
Then, when the ground on the tracks started to become acceptable to even the most ground-dependent jumpers, along came Mr Frost to halt their progress.
So here we are with only 50 days to the Festival, and Moore and also Kim Bailey, who was denied a run both at Ascot on Saturday in the Clarence House Chase and Sunday at Lingfield with Two For Gold will now be looking to Cheltenham next Saturday. The Clarence House has been added to the card to make it another nine-race programme. Hopefully it will enjoy better luck with the weather than Lingfield, and Kim has also described the season so far as “brutal”.
Also added to the normal run of January fare at Prestbury Park is the Glenfarclas Cross-Country Handicap Chase, expunged from its normal December slot owing to the aftermath of the dry summer, but now apparently all – or most! – is well.
The BHA forecast going for the Cross-Country course on Sunday morning was good to soft, soft in places, frozen in places. The BBC Weather forecast for Cheltenham this week promises minus 4 for Monday night, plus 1 for Tuesday and plus 2 for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
It cannot be a certainty that all the frozen bits will have been expunged by Saturday morning, especially with an 11.40 a.m. start for the Triumph Hurdle Trial, with day-time temperatures not expected to be higher than plus 7 at any time this week. We do have, though, around 105 minutes’ extra daylight now compared with the shortest day just over five weeks ago to help the thawing process.
Of course, mention of the Triumph Trial reminds me of that day in 1986 when Tangognat won the corresponding race in my (now David Armstrong’s) colours, though he got well stuffed in the Triumph itself. It was some (not much) consolation that Brunico, which I originally bought in a package deal from Malcolm Parrish, and had a share in when he won on debut at Windsor for Rod Simpson, was a fast-finishing second for Terry Ramsden to 50/1 shot Solar Cloud, ridden by Tangognat’s twice successful rider Peter Scudamore, now claimed by David ‘the Duke’ Nicholson.
Talking of Rod and Terry, a few weeks back I was chatting to my seafood business-owning friend Kevin Howard, who said one of his regular customers, Denis Rankoff (apologies Denis if Kev got the name wrong!), had been an owner with Simpson “ages ago” and Kevin thought I might be interested in meeting him.
A couple of weeks ago, I called in for some jellied eels and on a very quiet Sunday there was just one other (and also venerable) gentleman there and it turned out to be the said Mr Rankoff. He told me he had been more involved with greyhounds, preferring to be, as he termed it, a “big fish in a small pond” rather than be consumed in the ocean of horse racing, so he didn’t stay long in the business and wasn’t much interested in it either.
“I had a couple of nice wins but when you added it all up, the losers more than outweighed the winners, so I sold my horse and that was that”, said Rankoff..
Of all the horses, the one that won him his money later had a rather big involvement with me, Terry Ramsden and David Wintle, to whom we moved him on, purchasing him out of the Simpson yard. At the time Wilf Storey was making hay with another horse from the Parrish consignment, Santopadre, exiled from Rod with the instruction: “shoot him”, a comment also reserved for Seram, the companion in the box from Lambourn to Co Durham the same day.
The Simpson exhortation did come to pass for poor Seram who almost got Chris Grant killed first day on the gallop when aiming straight for another horse, but Santopadre was actually very talented, winning three in a row, each time carrying plenty of Ramsden money. And, after the third win, by 15 lengths with a double penalty at Wetherby (for two seller/claimer wins), his blue and white colours too. He finished a close fifth in that same Triumph Hurdle, not lasting up the hill as well as the better stayers in a fast-run race.
As I said, Wilf had been winning races with Santopadre, and Fiefdom, and the bookmakers were beginning to panic at the prospect of another Storey gamble, so a plot was hatched. Ramsden bought Topsoil and switched him to David Wintle while we suggested to Wilf that he might want to buy something very moderate but enter him for the same race as Topsoil, and somehow convince the bookies this “secret” horse was the “buzzer”.
He found one from Bob Johnson, Kenny’s father, and the race was also identified, on January 3, 1986, a selling hurdle at Haydock Park. On the strength of his recent winners, Wilf opened an account with one of the major firms with a substantial limit and 45 minutes before the race, fortuitously the first on the card, marched down to the rails and put the whole lot on his horse Darwina.
We had looked closely at the race beforehand and could see only one possible danger, a John Jenkins horse, so Terry’s plan was a big win bet and a forecast. As the time of the race approached, Topsoil and the Jenkins runner were close in the market with Darwina just a shade longer, the firmness encouraged by the fact that Peter Scudamore was booked. He’d ridden Tangognat to success in the New Year’s Day 4yo hurdle at Cheltenham just two days earlier.
The race went pretty much to script. In those days you couldn’t watch, so on the phone we heard as Topsoil got the better of his obvious rival by three-parts of a length with 25 lengths back to the third and Darwina pulled up before halfway. Peter smiled when in the paddock he was told, “you get paid, win or lose!” Darwina was given back to Bob Johnson straight after and Terry, presumably expecting an easier win, asked: “What went wrong?” He expected certainties to win like one!
Back to this weekend, Cheltenham offers a total of £605k for its nine races which also include a £100,000 Paddy Power-backed handicap chase over 2m4f and the three-mile Cleeve Hurdle with 70 grand in the offing. The Triumph Trial, like the big race itself, after many years still supported by JCB, is worth £80k.
Doncaster also are scheduled for Saturday and there’s another £263,000 to be divvied up there. These are the days trainers and owners of good horses need to have to shoot at. Meanwhile, the Irish usually fare much better on the weather front and of course their prizemoney, even for the most mundane card, puts ours to shame, but that’s another story entirely.
TS
Further to my article last week concerning the death of my friend Roger Hales, his funeral will be at Gorleston (near Great Yarmouth) Crematorium at 11.30 a.m. on Monday, February 20.
In some ways this is a dangerous post. In it I will attempt to answer the question, "which factors should I consider in which races?"
It's "dangerous" because different people use different things for different purposes. What works for me may very well not work for you; and what works for you works for you!
Nevertheless, one of the biggest problems with a horse racing form product like Geegeez Gold is overwhelm, that feeling that there's just too much stuff and not knowing where to start or where to end.
In what follows, then, I will share my preferred factors for given race types or situations. Again, they may not be right for you, but at least I hope they will provide some food for thought and perhaps some starting points if you're not sure where to begin right now.
The key to avoiding overwhelm is not to use too many variables. Start with one, build on to two or three, and then pause for thought. The way I tend to do things is that I will look at a race through the prism of a certain factor. What I mean by that is that, for example, if I'm looking at a five furlong sprint on a turning track, I know that I want to be with the early pace setter. If there's no early pace setter in the race I'm going to look to see if there's a possible prominent runner from an inside draw, and if there's no such horse, I'm probably going to move on to another race.
If there is a front runner, that horse becomes the focus of my attention and then I'm going to use more traditional form methodologies to support or refute the horse's case. By "traditional form methodologies" I mean things like form on the going, in the class, at the distance, recent form, trainer form, and so on. It's hardly rocket science, but the key is that I have a single angle in, and if that angle is not satisfied I'm probably going to pass the race. There are, after all, always a lot of races to look at.
In each case I'm starting from a position of asking the question, what do I know, or what do I think I know about this race? In a race with older horses that all have an exposed level of form I can know quite a lot about the race before it happens: for example, I can know the likely shape of the race in terms of the pace, and run style of the horses, I can know about trainer form, horse form, which parts of the track might be suited given the distance and going, and so on. These are races I personally like a lot because they have bundles of information and, crucially, very few gaps that need to be guessed at.
But what about races where there is little horse form information? Well, even here, although we don't know anything about the horses especially because they haven't run or they haven't run much before, we still have information about their pedigree, the trainer, jockey, and the track; and it is that information that comes to the fore in situations like this.
So let's consider some race setups and the key factors that I personally would engage in each one.
Maiden and novice races
In maiden and novice races, we're often dealing with horses that have either very little or no previous form. When horses are making their debut, we should look to the sire and especially to the trainer and the trainer's performance with first-time starters. Some trainers have their horses ready to go on the first day while others like to bring their horses on slowly, giving them an education from race to race in the early part of their career.
It also helps to know some general statistics about lightly raced or unraced horses. For example, two-year-old and three-year-old horses having their first ever start win at about 7.4%. But that same group of horses win at about 12% on their second run. So we can expect the average horse to step forward markedly from first to second start.
Within that overall statistic there are, of course, myriad different individual trainer statistics. Win strike rate in maiden and novice races is in large part down to the quality of the horses in question. So it is that the likes of Gosden, Appleby and Haggas have a huge advantage over some of the smaller, less well-patronised, trainers in those early races when the very best thoroughbreds race against more workaday types.
And, even within the top trainers, there are differences. Charlie Appleby wins with debutants 23% of the time - that's more than three times the average; and he wins with second time starters 33% of the time. Meanwhile, John Gosden (and son, Thady) wins at about 1 in 6 on debut and slightly better than one in four on second start.
Those win strike rates are much higher than the average for all trainers but naturally such information is known by the market as a whole and value can be hard to come by.
But knowing the average for the cohort can help us to look for those trainers who win more often than that average but are slightly more under the radar. Some examples of first time out trainers who perform better than one might expect include Ger Lyons, Paddy Twomey, Paul (and Oliver) Cole, Jane Chapple-Hyam, Tom Clover and Richard Spencer.
Backing all debutants from these yards since 2018 would have returned a profit of 334 points at an ROI of close to 50% to starting price. Now of course hindsight is 20/20, but these names are not especially fashionable and their debutants can be expected to continue to pay their way going forwards.
With second time starters, Messrs. Appleby, Gosden and Haggas lead the way again but are, unsurprisingly, unprofitable to follow blind. However, Keith Dalgleish, Martyn and Freddie Meade, and to a lesser degree Hugo Palmer have been very interesting handlers to watch out for with once raced horses.
Here on geegeez.co.uk, our Trainer Snippets report has buttons for '1st Start' and '2nd Start':
And you'll find this information inline in the racecards under the 'trainer' icon:
Note also the Impact Value column, IV, which shows in this example that Owen Burrows is approximately two and a half times more likely (2.62x to be precise) to win with a second time starter than the average. That's good to know.
Single age group handicaps
Handicaps for horses of a single vintage, e.g. two-year-old handicaps (also known as nurseries), three-year-old only handicaps and, over hurdles, four-year-old only handicaps, are notoriously tricky races. To be honest, I tend to leave them alone as far as possible because, in terms of what we know, we just don't know enough. Well, I don't at any rate.
These races tend to have lots of horses who are capable of better than they've shown so far and whose trainers may or may not be adept at placing them to best effect on their first or second starts in a handicap. That is usually, though not exclusively, in a single age group handicap like one for three-year-olds only. But, as with the novice and maiden races, if we know what the cohort average strike rate is we can use that to extrapolate against individual trainers.
Using the Impact Value metric we discussed in the previous section, an IV of one implies a trainer wins as often as the average; and a number below one suggests they win less frequently than the average. So that means a number above one implies a trainer wins more often than the average. (You can - and should, in my opinion - read more about these metrics here).
Whereas with a horse's first and second lifetime starts they tend to improve their win chance on the second occasion, horses that are running for the first time in a handicap actually win slightly more often than horses running for the second time in a handicap.
Indeed if you had backed all horses making their handicap debut since the beginning of 2018 in 2-year-old only and 3-year-old only handicaps at Betfair SP you would have won 700 points for an ROI of 5%, over nearly 14,000 bets! Incredibly, backing horses running for the second time in a handicap in those same race categories would have yielded almost 1% positive ROI, again at Betfair SP. Always look twice at a horse making his first or second start in a handicap.
That same report, Trainer Snippets, and the same buttons - though this time with the 'Race Type Hcap' option selected - will give you some interesting contenders to consider. In this example, Andrew Slattery wins a little better than twice as often as the average with handicap second time starters, so his horse Clever Capall needs closer review.
Here's the inline racecard representation of the same snippet:
Notice how the HC2 indicator brings it to our attention that the horse is second time in a handicap.
Sire angles
In novice and maiden races, and also handicaps when there is little form, it can be useful to review the profile of the horse's sire. This will often reveal whether conditions are favourable, especially if the horse is encountering a different distance today or is running on ground towards the extremes of going.
There are many tools you can use on Geegeez to help with sire angles. The easiest to access is Instant Expert. Change the dropdown that says 'horse' to 'sire'. Then see what shows itself in the viewport.
In this example, we might be apprehensive about the chance of the second favourite, whose sire Recorder is 0 from 25 on standard going in the last two years.
Looking at the inline racecard form behind the 'breeding and sales' icon, we see Recorder's two-year all-weather record is actually an even more moderate 0-from-41 when factoring in all going conditions:
Chronograph, the son of Recorder in question, actually did run well on debut - finishing third - and we already know that Hugo Palmer horses improve from first to second run and can be worth following on their second run. So in this case we have mixed messages and it's up to you, the punter, to decide which information is more material. Ultimately, if you're not sure, be guided by what you consider to be a price that reflects the risk associated with the negative statistic(s) you've unearthed and still leaves some margin: if you don't like the price, it's a pass.
If you want a single digest of all sire information on a given day, our Sire Snippets report is the place to go. Here, we can see that it looks as though progeny of Al Kazeem may be somewhat underrated by the market...
Who is the leader?
It is hard to overstate the value of early pace in races. Getting an early lead in a race, especially if uncontested, is a huge advantage. Watch out for, and mark up, any horse that looks to have a chance of getting an easy early lead. I have spoken about this before in this post.
In the table above, '4' equates to 'Led', '3' to 'prominent, '2' to Midfield and '1' is held up. It is pretty unambiguous about the advantage of being in the front. The data in the table relates to all runners in the last five years: UK and Ireland, flat and jumps, handicaps and non-handicaps. The A/E and IV columns show the advantage that those horses which lead generally have.
It is crucial to try to understand which horse will lead in its race, though this is not necessarily a straightforward task, and often we simply won't know. But the value of trying to predict the early leader is one of the most crucial elements of horseracing form study, regardless of race code, distance or any other factor.
To understand if a horse has a chance to get an early lead, review the in-running comments at your chosen form book. Here at geegeez, we categorize run style in four different groups: led, prominent, midfield, and held up. The favoured group is 'Led' followed by 'Prominent', with 'Midfield' and 'Held up' generally, though not always, of less interest.
As a time-saving alternative to reviewing in-running comments, use a pace map. Needless to say, we have highly configurable pace maps for all British and Irish races on this site. Here is an example, where there is also a colour overlay illustrating where the best historical combinations of draw and run style have been. Green is good!
In this race, one might expect Betrayed, drawn in stall one and with little obvious pace contention around him, to make a bold bid. We can see from the colour 'blobs' at the top that 'Led' has been a favourable run style; and the table below that further articulates the fact.
The pace map itself has been sorted by draw ('Dr' column) and is being viewed across the average of the last four runs for each horse. It is in 'Heat Map' mode, the other views being data (a number grid of 1's, 2's, 3's and 4's) and graphic (same as heat map but without the colour overlay).
Group and Graded races
The best races, Class 1, includes Listed, and Group/Grade 3, 2, and 1 races: Group races on the flat, Graded races in National Hunt. These are often contested by at least a subset of improving unexposed horses whose ability ceiling is not yet known. In such races, a maligned and consequently frequently overlooked metric is the good old 'Official Rating'.
Indeed - and don't tell those private ratings boys - backing all of the top two (plus joint-top/joint-second) official ratings horses in Class 1 races (Listed, G1, G2, G3) since the start of 2020 would have returned almost 200 points at Betfair SP at a return on investment of nearly 6.5% across close to 3000 bets. With a strike rate of 22%, this is a classic no brainer angle that, at the very least, will keep you in the game longer and without much pain. Obviously, using it as a starting point for further study is the suggested way to play.
[Incidentally, this angle has also made a BSP profit at five of the last seven Cheltenham Festivals and is +56.38 at starting price during that time]
**
I wanted to keep this post a little bit shorter than my usual long rambling affairs, so I'll stop there. As you can see, each different race type has different factors that I consider to be of the most importance. You may disagree, and that's fine of course: it's the name of the game.
But the point I'm trying to make is that, in any given race situation, I am not using a hundred factors; I may only be using two or three. But in different race types they will be a different two or three. Consequently, I never feel overwhelmed.
And, as I've mentioned many times previously - most recently here - if you choose the right races, rather than trying to look at all of them, or the ones the bookies want you to look at, you will give yourself the best chance. If you want to know more about choosing the right races, have a look at "The Price is Wrong", a little three-part exercise that you might find fun, and potentially helpful.
So those are my thoughts, now it's over to you. Which factors do you consider most important in specific race types? Leave a comment below, and share what you know. And if you want me to research something, also leave a comment and I'll do what I can if I have access to relevant data.
Matt
p.s. don't forget, if you fancy recording a little screen share of how you use Geegeez Gold, we're looking to publish some of your approaches on the blog. More info here >
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/SnowLeopardess_Aintree2022.jpg319830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2023-01-18 13:29:182023-01-24 23:04:00Avoid Overwhelm: Material Factors, by Race Type
In the first of a new and occasional - maybe very occasional if nobody else wants to share what they're doing! - series, we free up the stage for a Geegeez Gold subscriber 'show and tell'. This inaugural episode features Gold user Rob Bayliss talking about how he combines various elements of the service to find value bets.
Before I virtually hand over to Rob, could we showcase your Gold experiences? To appear in this slot on site, you'll need to record a video of between five and twenty minutes duration, with screen capture and clear audio. Free screen capture software (you press a button and it records your screen) is available here. (I use the paid version of this software)
Simply upload your video to the web (Screencast-o-Matic has a button to upload to their cloud servers) and send us a message with the video link and a line on what you do and why.
We can't guarantee to use all videos, but if you have an angle you're happy to share and can produce a short(ish) recording of how/why you do things the way you do, there's a great chance we'll be able to use it. And thanks in advance, really looking forward to seeing how you make Gold work for you!
Right, enough said, over to Rob...
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/goldnuggets.jpg320830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2023-01-16 16:34:562023-01-16 16:35:24Over To You, #1
geegeez.co.uk uses cookies to improve your experience. We assume that's OK, but you may opt-out from the settings. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
