NH 2023/24 End of Term Report

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

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

SR Ratings

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

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

Here's the breakdown by race type:

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

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

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

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

A couple of important things to say here:

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

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

Geegeez Syndicate Horses

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

Konigin Isabella

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

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

Coquelicot

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

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

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

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

Sure Touch

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

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

Dartmoor Pirate

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

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

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

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

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

Luna Lux

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

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

*

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

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

Season Summary

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

Matt

Other Recent Posts by This Author:

• A Major New Site Update
• How to Play the Early Days of the Flat Season
• Taking a Flyer on the 2026 Cheltenham Festival
• My 2025 Cheltenham Festival Betting P&L
• Cheltenham Festival 2025: Day Four Preview, Tips