Anthony Honeyball enjoyed a first career treble at Fontwell on Sunday. Pic Steve Davies/ Racingfotos.com

Starting 2025 on the Front Foot

As we approach the end of another year, which for me seems to have gone even quicker than previous years, many of us will be examining our betting ledger and working out how we can improve in the next twelve months, writes Dave Renham. We need to understand what has worked, and what hasn’t, and tweak accordingly.

As January 1st, 2025 looms, I am sure there will be an optimistic feel across the punting community, as there will be amongst much of the training ranks, too. In this article I want to see if I can find any key trainer patterns that have occurred in the first two weeks of the year going back to 2017. To assist, I have carefully harvested trainer data from Jan 1st to Jan 14th, for the past eight years. Who starts the year quickly? Who has a Christmas hangover? I wasn’t sure if I would find anything useful but if one doesn’t dig, one doesn’t find out!

Profits/losses have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price (BSP) less 5% commission.

Overall Trainer Angles

Let me first look at the trainers with the 20 best strike rates (to qualify – 60 runners minimum):

 

 

Positive Trainer Angles

It was a surprise to see Sue Smith top the list when you consider her overall 2017-2024 strike rate stands at 11.2%. She averages only 8 to 9 runners per year in these first two weeks but nevertheless in five of the eight seasons her strike rate has hit 30%+, and two of the other three were over 20%. 2024 was a poor year by her standards with just one winner from 13, but she hit the post with a BSP 12.48 shot who finished 2nd and she had a close-up 3rd at huge odds of 73.80.

These findings encouraged me to look at Sue Smith’s record by month going back to 2017. Below is a graph plotting strike rates, both win and each way, by month. I have grouped May to September together as each month within this bracket had modest to small sample sizes, as well as basically being the ‘off’/summer season.

 

 

From my perspective this graph illustrates three things – firstly, how clearly the whole of January (not just the opening two weeks) stands head and shoulders above the rest. Secondly, that the stable takes time to come to hand at the start of each season but by December there is improvement, and this is carried through to February before it starts to tail off slightly once more. Thirdly, the form of the stable from May through to November is modest at best and I would be wary of backing any runner during this period. Before moving on, it should be noted that since the end of October 2024 Sue Smith has teamed up with Joel Parkinson so when looking for runners/results on Geegeez from that stable, you now need to look for ‘J Parkinson + S Smith’.

Going back to the first table, the Geegeez-sponsored yard of Anthony Honeyball lies in second place in terms of strike rate. It should be noted though that the last couple of years has seen a dip in success; overall, however, there are excuses as he has saddled fewer fancied runners in that time frame. If we focus on horses that were in the top three of the betting, these first two weeks of the year have been excellent for the Honeyball stable. This subset of runners has won 16 times from 36 qualifiers (SR 44.4%) for a BSP profit of £23.00 (ROI +63.9%).

Nicky Henderson lies in third place and has been consistently hitting strike rates of over 23% in six of the eight years. Only 2022 saw a really below par effort when he had just two winners from 30 (SR 6.7%). The horses to focus on for Henderson in these first two weeks are, as with Honeyball, those that started in the top three of the betting. These runners have won 53 of 143 starts (SR 37.1%) for a profit of £21.33 (ROI +14.9%).

Brian Ellison is another who has performed well in terms of wins to runs during the first two weeks of the year. Any runners at Sedgefield would have required close scrutiny thanks to eight wins from 15 but, typically, there is no Sedgefield meeting scheduled for the first two weeks of 2025! However, there is another strong Ellison stat that will have relevance which focuses on horses that finished in the top five LTO. These runners have won 13 of the 48 races (SR 27.1%) in early January for a profit of £67.89 (ROI +141.4%). It should also be noted that over the rest of the year runners from his yard that finished in the first five LTO have won 17% of their races, well below this 27.1% figure.

The start of January does seem to ignite the Ellison fires because his form in November and December is traditionally poor. Below is a graph comparing the A/E indices for the Ellison stable for the whole of January (not just the first two weeks) with November and December.

 

 

For the record, his strike rate in November over the past eight seasons has been 6.6%, for December 8.5%, but for January 21.9%.

Scottish trainer Sandy Thomson is yet another trainer who has traditionally started the year well, hitting close to a 23% strike rate. He has fared particularly well at Ayr and here are all his runners catalogued. To make things stand out the winners are in red, the placed horses in orange.

 

 

His record at Ayr in the first fortnight of the year is eight wins from 21 (SR 38.1%), with a further four placed. Profits to BSP stand at £12.33 (ROI +58.7%). As can be seen there are no big wins skewing the results, indeed the biggest winning BSP was just 7.00. There are two meetings scheduled at Ayr for early January so keep your eyes peeled for any of his runners.

Thomson has also done especially well in handicap races winning 15 of the 59 contests (SR 25.4%) for a profit to the machine of £15.87 (ROI +26.9%). Again, no big winners to skew the profits. Not only that, if you focus in on stable jockey Ryan Mania only in these handicaps the record improves to 12 wins from 31 (SR 38.7%) for a profit of £29.74 (ROI +95.9%). Thomson does look a trainer to keep an eye on in these two weeks, especially handicappers ridden by Mania, or any runners at Ayr.

Olly Murphy is another trainer with a good strike rate and excellent returns. What particularly impressed me was that he has had winners at 19 different courses and drawn a blank at just seven others. He has sent a sole runner to four tracks – Fontwell, Ffos Las, Plumpton and Sedgefield - and all four won. Murphy is also three from three at Bangor. Of those seven courses without a winner he has sent single figures in terms of runners to each. For the record, he has only had two runners at Kelso, three at Southwell, four at Wincanton and five apiece at Taunton and Donny, six at Chepstow and eight at Kempton.

Negative Trainer Angles

On the flip side, there are some trainers who seem to have a hangover from Christmas as the New Year starts. Kim Bailey is in this camp having sent out just 11 winners from 115 (SR 9.6%) for hefty losses of £78.07 (ROI -67.9%). The prices of his horses have been similar to those in any other period of the year, indeed 60% of his runners were in the top four of the betting. Digging deeper, if we ignore bumper races and focus on chase and hurdle races only Bailey’s record looks even worse – just seven wins from 99 (SR 7.1%) for losses of £78.64 (ROI +79.4%).

I felt it worthwhile to look at Bailey's monthly strike rates (both win and each way) as with Sue Smith earlier, to see how January as a whole fits into his overall monthly profile.

 

 

As with Sue Smith I combined the summer months (May to September) as one. January as a whole (not just the first 14 days) has been comfortably the worst month; not only the win strike rate but the each way strike rate too. The A/E index for January is down at 0.61 and losses were 24p in the £ worse than the second worst month.



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Sometimes, as we know, trainer stats can be skewed due to prices / market position etc. Below, then, is a table of Kim Bailey’s monthly performance with horses from the top three in the betting:

 

 

As might have been expected based on the previous evidence, January’s performance is the worst. Compare that with the outstanding October record where the strike rate is basically double that of January with returns of nearly 50p in the £.

Looking at monthly data for trainers can be useful, especially as some do seem to display clear patterns. Bailey is one such handler, starting the season strongly in October and keeping that going into November as well. A slight dip in December is followed by a bigger blip in January after which he recovers with solid months from February to April. It seems the months of May to September are less important to the stable.

David Pipe is another trainer who has struggled to kick start the New Year with a high level of success. He has saddled just 13 winners from 154 runners (SR 8.4%) for a BSP loss of £75.20 (ROI -48.8%). One subset of his runners that have performed particularly poorly are his runners aged 8 or older, which collectively recorded just one win from 62 (SR 1.6%) for losses of over 82 pence in the £.

Of these runners less than half of them were bigger than 10/1 Industry SP, so it’s not as though they were all outsiders – far from it. A couple more negatives for Pipe in this period relate to individual courses: at Taunton he is 0 from 27, and at Plumpton one from 20 with nine of the remaining 19 runners failing to complete the course. Plumpton has two New Year meetings scheduled, for the 5th and 14th January 2025, and I personally will not be backing any Pipe runner regardless of how strong other factors may be.

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I hope this article will contribute to you getting a head start as we tackle the first days of 2025. Beginning the year strongly from a punting perspective can offer us more confidence to tackle the year as a whole, so good luck with your betting and may I wish you a Very Happy New Year.

- DR

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