Tag Archive for: Archie Watson

Two-Year-Old Runners on 2nd Start: Part 2

/in /by

This is the second of two articles looking at two-year-old runners (2yos) on their second career starts. The first piece looked at last time out (LTO) performance, LTO course, market factors, sires, damsires and some jockey stats. You can read that here. This one focuses exclusively on trainer data. I have collated stats from UK flat racing for six full years, from 2017 to 2022, and this includes both turf and all weather data. I have calculated profit and loss to Betfair SP (BSP for short), with commission of 5% taken into account.

Overall 2yo second run stats for trainers

I am going to start with a full table with all trainers who have had at least 100 two-year old second starters in the past six seasons. I have ordered the trainers by win strike rate:

 

* C Johnston in 2023; ** Jack Channon in 2023

 

A familiar face heads the list – Charlie Appleby. His 37%-plus strike rate is remarkable but, despite that whopping win percentage, he has failed to make it into blind profit. This is, naturally, because many of his runners start at short prices. Seven other trainers have secured strike rates of 20% or higher with juvenile runners making their second career starts, which again is extremely noteworthy. Just one of these seven in profit though: Hugo Palmer.

In terms of A/E indices Messrs. Palmer, Dods, Dalgleish, Osborne and Tinkler are above the magic 1.00, although Nigel Tinkler, with a strike rate of under 5%, is not a trainer for the faint of heart to follow.

At this juncture it makes sense to compare the performance of trainers' 2yo debut runners with their 2yos having a second run. In the following table I have broken this down by strike rates and A/E indices for each trainer. I have ordered them by trainers who have seen the most improvement in strike rate from first to second start:

 

 

In the final column I have divided the second run win percentage by the debut one to give us a type of Impact Value. I call it a Comparison Strike Rate (CSR) and I also used this idea in the previous article when comparing sire stats. The higher this figure the more improvement the runners show on their second run compared to their debut. I have highlighted any CSR figure of 2.00 or more in green as these are much higher than the average. The CSR figure to bear in mind is 1.52. This is the average CSR figure when looking at the strike rate comparison for second starters compared with debutants; that is, on average a two-year-old is 1.52 times more likely to win on its second start compared with its debut (7.96% vs 12.08% in case you were curious).

Ed Dunlop has a very high CSR figure but that is because his debut runners having won less than 0.6% of the time. His second starters still only win on average once in every 15 or 16 races. Ed Walker, Michael Dods, William Haggas, Hugo Palmer, Charlie Hills, Sir Michael Stoute and Andrew Balding are the group of trainers who I would be expecting to see excellent improvement between first and second runs. Some of their runners should offer us decent value.

Brian Meehan is one specific trainer whose second starters look poor value, especially when comparing the stats to his debut runners. With debutants his A/E index stands at an impressive 1.36, for second starters this drops markedly to 0.76. Eve Johnson Houghton has a similar slide (1.38 to 0.79) which is also worth noting. Ths is essentially saying that Brian and Eve have their two-year-olds ready to fire on day one, which in itself is well worth noting.

 

Distance breakdown: trainer performance in 5f and 6f races

I want to split the trainer data by distance now and for this piece I am combining the sprint distances of 5 and 6f, and then will be looking at races of 7f or further. This is because it gives better sized data sets. So, to start, here are the win strike rates for trainers who have had at least 75 two-year-old second starters over 5f / 6f. I have split the data into two graphs – the first with strike rates of 16% or more:

 

 

William Haggas stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of win record. He also has an A/E index in excess of 1.00 (1.09), as do three others - Michael Dods (1.24), Andrew Balding (1.15) and Clive Cox (1.02). For the record these three have made decent profits to BSP, while Haggas would have just about broken even. Of the remaining trainers, all made a loss bar Tom Dascombe, who made a small profit. Dascombe will be interesting to follow this year in his second season after the move from Cheshire to Lambourn and without the support of Chasemore Farm.

Now for those with strike rates under 16%:

 

 

There are still some relatively decent strike rates here as well, on the left-hand part of the graph at least, although only Keith Dalgleish managed a BSP profit. No trainer in this group had an A/E index of 1.00 or more and, for the record, Richard Hughes and Tim Easterby had the poorest A/E indices (0.64 and 0.54 respectively) with both making significant losses.

 

Distance breakdown: trainer performance in races of 7f or further

There are 10 trainers who have secured a strike rate of 16% or more in these longer distance races:

 

 

Charlie Appleby strikes at a preposterous close to 40% and backing his runners would have seen you break even to BSP. Here are these trainers' A/E indices which give us a better indication of overall value:

 

 

Hugo Palmer, Archie Watson and the Charlton stable have figures above 1.00 and they are trainers who, over 7f or more, I think we should keep on the right side (more often than not).

At the other end of the scale, these are the trainers with lower strike rates over 7f+. As there are quite a few I’ve put their results in tabular form rather than in a graph.

 

 

Andrew Balding’s bottom line looks impressive but he had a 232.24 BSP winner in 2020 which accounts for most of his profit. Having said that, even without that outlier, Balding still made a positive return. The three trainers at the bottom – Richard Fahey, Sir Mark Prescott and Tim Easterby - are trainers I think should be swerved with 2yo runners at 7f or beyond when making their second start.

Before moving on there are a few points worth making.

Firstly, Clive Cox has a vastly contrasting distance record: over sprint distances his second starter strike rate is 21.9%, over 7f+ it is just 8.8%. A/E indices also have a chasm between them at 1.02 vs 0.60.

Secondly, Richard Fahey has a similar bent to his stats with much better sprint results: strike rates of 15.6% compared to 6.9%; A/E indices of 0.88 to 0.59.

And third, Roger Varian’s stats are somewhat remarkable from the point of view that his strike rate has been exactly 20% for both distance groups and his A/E indices are almost identical, too, at 0.67 and 0.68.

 

Market breakdown: trainer performance with top three in the betting

As we know, profit figures can be easily skewed by big priced winners. Hence it makes sense to analyse trainer data where it is a more level playing field – or at least where we can perform a fair price comparison. Here are the data for trainers when their 2yo second starters have figured in the top three of the betting. A minimum of 75 runs has been used as the cut-off point:

 

 

It seems right that Charlie Appleby hits a small profit considering his overall figures.

Any trainer with an A/E index of 0.90 or more I feel can be considered much more a positive than negative when it comes to their more fancied runners. Ten trainers have achieved that, of which six have edged into profit. These are Charlie Appleby, the Johnston yard, Archie Watson, Team Crisford, Hugo Palmer and Tom Dascombe. The other four - William Haggas, Charlie Hills, Clive Cox and Richard Fahey - made losses and only Cox had losses of worse than 7 pence in the £.

On the other side of the coin, Saeed bin Suroor’s record is surprisingly poor with qualifiers from the top three in the betting – a win rate of roughly one in six, but losses close to 30p in the £ and a very poor A/E index of 0.56.

So far in this article I have looked at more general trainer stats – but now I want to focus in on a few specific trainers starting, not surprisingly, with Charlie Appleby.

 

Individual Trainers with Second Start Two-Year-Olds

Charlie Appleby

We have seen already that Charlie Appleby has an impressive overall strike rate, but this does not mean he is a money making machine for punters. If only it was that simple! Strike rate is important but betting is essentially about getting a value price - having 50% of winners at 10/11 keeps you in the game but loses you money, whereas 15% of winners at 8/1 means long losing runs but wins you money. Such is the challenge for us punters: winners, or profit?

From my personal experience it is harder to find value with short prices and this is why one cannot just blindly back Appleby runners, or indeed almost any other short-priced 'no brainer' angle. This is perhaps neatly illustrated when we breakdown Appleby’s profit with horses from the top three in the betting. As the previous table showed, these runners did make a small 5p in the £ profit for him. However, all the profits came from horses second and third in the betting. These combined to produce returns of just under 26p in the £, whereas favourites lost just over 4p in the £.

I have dug deeper into the Appleby stats and one angle that does stand out is jockey based. I touched upon jockeys in the first of these articles when I compared second starters that were ridden by the same jockey who had ridden them on debut, with those who have seen their jockey change. As a general rule I found that horses ridden by the same jockey outperformed those which were not. For Appleby this bias is pronounced as the table shows:

 

 

William Buick has been responsible for 72 of these 103 ‘same jockey’ runners. His strike rate was 45.8% and backing these runners would have returned you £16.06 (ROI +22.3%). James Doyle has had an even better strike rate albeit from a much smaller group of runners. He had a success rate of 52.2% (12 win from 23) for returns of 19p in the £. Hence any 2yo second starter from the Appleby yard who is ridden for the second time by either Buick or Doyle is a horse that potentially offers some value.

We have seen good consistency before with Appleby runners and his second starters seem no exception. They have proved versatile by going / ground conditions as the graph below shows:

 

 

All the strike rates are above 30%; it should be noted that the highest one (tapeta) is from a small sample (7 wins from 15) so this may be artificially high.

Here are some additional Charlie Appleby stats, both positive and negative:

  1. Appleby 2yo debut winners have a relatively modest record when running for the second time. They have backed up this win just 14 times from 60 (SR 23.3%) for a loss of £25.02 (ROI -41.7%).
  1. The value in terms of debut performance has come from horses that finished 5th or worse on debut. On second starts Appleby has secured 19 winners with these runners from 58 (SR 32.8%) for a profit of £10.59 (ROI +18.3%).
  1. At the highest level (Class 1 races) Appleby's runners on second start have won just 7 from 41 (SR 17.1%) for a loss of £18.07 (ROI -44.1%).
  1. Second time runners returning to the course where they debuted have done well, scoring nearly 50% of the time. 16 wins from 33 (SR 48.5%) have created a BSP profit of £17.36 (ROI 52.6%).
  1. Appleby has done well when sending second starting 2yos to Newmarket. He has been rewarded with 24 wins from 53 (SR 45.3%) for a healthy profit of £19.48 (ROI +36.8%).

 

Richard Hannon

I have chosen Richard Hannon next as he has had the biggest number of second starters in the past six seasons.

The eagle eyed of you would have seen already that his record in sprint events is better than 7f+ races; specifically, he has a strike rate of 17.3% for sprints compared to 10.6% for longer races. Here are some other Hannon second starter stats I would like to share.

  1. Just like Appleby, having the same jockey on board that rode the horse on debut has been a plus. These horses have won 37 of their 224 starts (SR 16.5%) for a small profit of £11.29 (ROI of 5.0%); the record of horses with new / different jockeys is 53 wins from 450 (SR 11.8%) for a loss of £73.50 (ROI -16.3%).
  1. 2yos returning to the track within two weeks of their debut have a surprisingly good record. 40 have won from 244 (SR 16.4%) for a healthy profit of £90.27 (ROI +37.0%). Amazingly, Hannon has made a profit with these runners in five of the six years which shows good consistency.
  1. Horses that finished first or second on debut have a good record with 26.1% of them winning on their second starts (35 wins from 135) for a profit of £40.06 (ROI +29.9%).
  1. Hannon has scored nearly 41% of the time with second time starter favourites, making the smallest of profits, £1.93 (ROI 1.8%).

 

Richard Fahey

Another Richard and another trainer who has had a decent number of runners. His overall strike rate with second starters stands at just under 13% and I have found a handful of useful stats – positive, negative and neutral.

  1. Clear favourites for Fahey have secured 33 wins from 73 2yo second starters (SR 45.2%) for a profit of £11.68 (ROI +16.0%).
  1. 2yos that won on debut have proved profitable on their second starts thanks to a strike rate of 17.9% producing returns of 56p in the £.
  1. Second starters who race at Beverley have scored 26.5% of the time (13 wins from 49) for a break even scenario.
  1. Having the same jockey on board as on debut has once again seen a big difference in performance, just as we saw with Appleby and Hannon runners. Fahey horses retaining the same jockey for the second run have won 19.8% of races (A/E index 1.06); those horses whose jockey has changed have won just 8.4% of their races (A/E index 0.60).
  1. Second starters racing on all weather tracks have a poor record with only 7 wins from 104 (SR 6.7%). Losses have been steep at 54p lost for every £1 staked.
  1. 2yos that have had their second start in September or later in the year look worth avoiding. Just 11 wins from 153 (SR 7.2%) for a loss of £67.11 (ROI -43.9%). For the record, if the horse was not favourite or second favourite Fahey saw just 3 wins from 121 runners.

 

Other trainers

Here are some individual stats that I have unearthed related to other trainers:

  1. Andrew Balding has an excellent record with horses that finished 1st, 2nd or 3rd on debut. On their second starts they have gone onto win 25 times from 89 (SR 28.1%) for a profit of £31.68 (ROI +35.6%). Balding has secured profits with these runners in four of the six years.
  1. Kevin Ryan has reverse stats compared to Balding. Horses that finished in the first three on debut would have lost a whopping 46p in the £ if backed blindly on second start.
  1. Sir Mark Prescott has sent 99 2yo second starters to all weather tracks, and only one has managed to win.
  1. Tim Easterby has a dreadful record with horses running again within two weeks of their debut, with just one win from 104 runners.
  1. William Haggas has a good record with 2yos that have dropped in class since their debut. He has secured a 34.2% strike rate thanks to 26 winners from 76. These runners have returned a profit of £9.84 (ROI +12.9%).
  1. Karl Burke is another trainer that does particularly well when retaining the same jockey who rode on debut – 36 wins from 150 rides (SR 24%) for a profit of £45.34 (ROI +30.2%).

 

MAIN TAKEAWAYS

Below is a summary of my main takeaways from this article; but there may be stats above that are far more important to you, so keep that in mind!

  1. Ed Walker, Michael Dods, William Haggas, Hugo Palmer, Charlie Hills, Sir Michael Stoute and Andrew Balding all enjoy much higher strike rates on second starts compared to debut runs.
  1. Brian Meehan and Eve Johnson Houghton are two trainers whose second starting 2yos offer relatively poor value, especially when comparing second runs to debuts.
  1. William Haggas, Michael Dods, Andrew Balding and Clive Cox have good records with 2yo second runs in 5-6f races. In contrast, Tim Easterby looks a trainer to avoid.
  1. Hugo Palmer, Archie Watson and the Charlton stable do well in races of 7f or more with their second starters.
  1. Charlie Appleby, the Johnston stable, Archie Watson, the Crisford stable, Hugo Palmer and Tom Dascombe have good records with second starters when in the top three in the betting. Saeed bin Suroor has a particularly poor record with these fancied runners.
  1. Charlie Appleby runners have a very good record when the same jockey who rode on debut rides on the second start. In particular, look out for William Buick and James Doyle. Appleby also does well with horses that finished out of the first four on debut, as well as horses that ran at Newmarket.
  1. Richard Hannon does well with horses that return to the track within two weeks of their debut. He also does well with debutants that won or finished second on debut.
  1. Richard Fahey second starters that start clear favourite have a strong record. On the negative side, avoid second starters if racing on the all weather, or if racing after August.

 

There is a fair bit to get your teeth into in this article and hopefully it has started to point you in the right direction, as well as steering away from some treacherous paths. For those readers who do not generally bet in 2yo races, I hope this, and the previous three articles, may have changed your mind.

- DR

Two-Year-Old Runners on Debut: Part 2

/in /by

This is the second in a two-parter looking at two-year-old (2yo) debut runners, writes Dave Renham. The first part - which you can read here - looked at market factors, gender, sires and damsires. This concluding half hones in on a plethora of trainer data. I have collated data for UK flat racing for six full years from 2017 to 2022, and this includes both turf and all-weather. I have calculated profit and loss to Betfair SP (BSP), with commission of 5% taken into account.

 

Overall 2yo debut stats for trainers

I am going to start with a full table of trainers who have had at least 75 two-year old debut runners in the past six seasons. I think it is important to share as much raw trainer data as possible. I have ordered the trainers by win strike rate:

 

* C Johnston from 2023; ** Jack Channon from 2023

 

Any trainer from Eve Johnson Houghton upwards deserves credit, with ten of those eleven in profit as well as having a decent strike rate. Sticking with strike rate, Charlie Appleby stands head and shoulders above the rest and I will be digging deeper into his stats later in the piece.

 

2yo debutants in 5f races

I want to split the data by distance so I am looking at the minimum trip first. There are fewer 2yo races over 5f compared to six and seven furlongs, so that does need to be taken into account. Here are win strike rates for those trainers who have had at least 50 debut runners over 5f:

 

 

There are three trainers with excellent strike rates of over 20% (Archie Watson, Clive Cox and the Johnston stable); at the other end of the scale Tim Easterby is a pretty dismal 1 from 118. Not surprisingly Watson, Cox and Johnston have all made a blind profit with their runners to BSP. Having said that, I would personally be a little wary about Watson as the last three seasons have been less good than before with only three winners from 27 (admittedly he has had a few near misses).

Another trainer worth mentioning is Michael Bell. He did not have enough runners to qualify for the graph above, but of his 39 juvenile debutants over five furlongs, 10 won (SR 25.6%) for a BSP profit of £17.41 (ROI +44.6%).

 

2yo debutants in 6f races

Up an extra furlong now to three-quarters of a mile, or six furlongs if you prefer. Again, a trainer must have saddled a minimum of 50 qualifiers to appear in the table. Here are all the trainers who qualify, this time in tabular form:

 

 

As can be seen, the profit / loss figures are all over the place – you only have to look at the stats for Jamie Osborne to see that. Just one decent priced outsider winning can turn a very poor run of results into a profitable set.

Richard Hannon has comfortably secured the most winners, but he has had the most runners over this trip. Four of the six study years have actually turned a profit, with only one poor year which was 2020. Hannon's profits have come from maiden races rather than novice events and he has recorded a 19% win strike rate in the month of May. In fact his winning percentage when combining May, June and July results is almost double that of his August to December figure (13.9% versus 7.2%).

 

2yo debutants in 7f races

Onto to 7 furlongs now. The data is based on 50 runs minimum once more and the focus is on the trainers with the highest win percentages:

 

 

Charlie Appleby remains head and shoulders above the rest, but one other stat that stood out was for the Johnston stable. Their record in June in 7f races has been excellent with 14 debut winners from 49 (SR 28.6%) for a BSP profit of £40.41 (ROI +82.5%). Not only that, 12 further horses were placed. I am wondering if this is down to excellent race placement: June is the first full month of 2yo 7f races and many of the big juvenile stars of the future tend to be seen later in the season. Hence the standard of 7f races in June are likely to be weaker in quality compared with later in the year.

Before moving away from the June Johnston data, it is worth sharing that 12 of his winners figured in the top three in the betting from 32 runners returning an impressive over 90 pence in the £.

 

2yo debutants in 1m+ races

A look at the longest distances now. The furthest distance a two-year-old runs is 1 mile 3 furlongs and that has only occurred twice in the last six seasons. Just over 70% of races at 1 mile or more are actually raced at a mile.

Let’s look at the trainer splits (50 runs or more):

 

These are the only trainers to qualify, mainly because longer distance races for 2yos are less common. Indeed, there are nearly twice the number of 7f races compared to races of 1 mile and up.

Charlie Appleby again tops the table to make it a clean sweep at distances from six furlongs to a mile, so now it is time to dig deeper into his record with 2yos making their racecourse debut.

 

Charlie Appleby's 2yo Debutants

To begin with let us look at the yearly breakdown in terms of win percentage / strike rate:

 

 

As the graph shows he has struggled to maintain those staggeringly high figures from the first three years in the review window. However, the figures for 2020 to 2022 are still pretty darn good.

I want to look at jockey data now; William Buick and James Doyle are the two riders Appleby uses the most as the table shows:

 

 

As punters, these type of findings are clearly important. Buick and Doyle have scored twice as frequently when compared to all other jockeys that have ridden 2yo debutants for Appleby. Clearly we should focus our attention on the mounts of Buick and Doyle only.

In terms of price, most of Appleby’s runners are at, or near, the head of the market. I have split his results by different Industry SP price bands but with the results calculated once again to BSP.

 

 

The table suggests that the very shortest priced runners are poor value. From this past data it seems better to focus on horses that are likely to be priced between 13/8 and 7/1.

Here are some other Appleby stats I would like to share:

  1. 2yo debutants over 5f are rare which is why he did not appear in the 5f stats earlier. However, from his 20 5f runners, an amazing 13 won (SR 65%) for a BSP profit of £26.95 (ROI +134.8%).
  2. Appleby has a similar strike rate with male and female runners – male runners have won just over 28% of their starts, females just under 27%.
  3. He does not send that many runners out early in the season. However, if we combine April and May data he has secured 22 victories from only 51 first starters (SR 43.1%) for a profit of £26.48 (ROI +51.9%).
  4. He sends more debutants to turf courses (245 versus 99) but again has similar strike rates. On turf it is 28.6% and on the sand it 26.3%. The A/E indices are almost identical as well (0.91 and 0.92).

 

Trainers and 2yo debutants in the top three in the betting

Moving away from a specific focus on Charlie Appleby now, I want to examine trainer records when their debutants start in the top three in the betting. This avoids big-priced winners skewing the profit and loss figures. It also makes it a relatively fair comparison between the trainers. I have used 50 or more runs once again as my qualifying mark:

 

 

I find this type of table illuminating. Considering the prices (96% of all the qualifying runners were single figure prices), any trainer in profit has fared extremely well. The top five in terms of strike rate - Appleby, Charlton, Watson, Bell and Cox - have secured a profit, and I feel these trainers are worth noting this season when one of their runners is in the top three of the betting.

At the other end of the scale, Andrew Balding has a really poor record: of his 18 favourites just one has prevailed. In Balding's defence, the stable is very much known for horses improving through their early starts. His runners won just 8.2% on debut in the six-year study period, but that shot up to 17.4% on second start, 22% on third start and 26% on fourth start. Not strictly 'on topic' but worth noting.

The A/E indices are shown in the table but I think it worth graphing them as well to see which trainers have been the best ‘value’ according to this metric:

 

 

The seven trainers with the highest A/E indices are also the seven trainers with the highest strike rates (albeit not perfectly in the same order). The trainers with the lowest five A/E indices (all under 0.65) are the trainers that fill the bottom five places in the strike rate order. As a general rule, you would expect to see that type of correlation with strike rates and A/E indices, but it does not always happen like that.

 

Trainer Jockey combinations with 2yo debutants

Earlier we saw the importance of jockey booking when looking at Charlie Appleby debutants. Well, there are a couple of other trainers where we find similar stats. Firstly Archie Watson:

 

 

Oisin Murphy has not ridden for Watson for over a year due to his suspension, but it is clear from this data that if he, Danny Tudhope, or Hollie Doyle especially is on board then a good run is expected. The 11.1% figure for ‘All other jockeys’ is poor in comparison.

Likewise when we examine the Gosden stable we see a similar pattern. Robert Havlin has ridden 220 of the 512 2yo debutants and his win record far outstrips the rest:

 

 

There is a huge difference in A/E indices, too, with Havlin at an impressive 1.07 and all other jockeys combining to average out at 0.76. The final stat to mention here is that Havlin / Gosden runners have proved profitable over the 220 debut rides to the tune of 34p in the £ at Betfair SP.

 

Trainers and Courses for 2yo debutants

Data is a little limited here so I would not go headlong into backing every combo in the table. However, I still want to share the most impressive course stats for some trainers. The vast majority have produced a six year profit and all bar one have produced a strike rate of 20% or more. The one that did not was close to that mark (19.35%) and, due to a good sample size (62 runs), I thought it was worth including:

 

 

This table is a bit of a 2yo debut Trainer Track Stats, to use Matt's previous trainer-based report terminology. Personally, during this upcoming season, I will be taking note of any of these combinations that have secured a double figure number of wins – I will not back them blind, but I will look at the relevant runners in some detail in order to determine whether I would deem them to a potential bet or not. The Gosden / Yarmouth combo is one I will certainly look out for.

Before I finish, let me summarise some of the key stats this article has highlighted:

 

MAIN 2yo DEBUTANT PART 2 TAKEWAYS

  1. Charlie Appleby has by far the highest win percentage and he is consistent across all race distances. His 13 wins from 20 runners in 5f races is arguably the highlight despite the smaller sample size.
  2. In 5f races the stables of Archie Watson, Clive Cox and Charlie Johnston have the best strike rates of those with 50+ runners over the six-year period.
  3. Over 6f Charlie Appleby and the Crisford stable are the only ones to have secured strike rates in excess of 20%.
  4. The Johnston stable has had an excellent record in the month of June in 7f races.
  5. Over 1 mile+ Charlie Appleby, Ralph Beckett and the Gosden stable have the strongest looking stats.
  6. Charlie Appleby, Roger and Harry Charlton, Archie Watson, Michael Bell and Clive Cox are trainers who have secured good strike rates with 2yo debutants from the top three in the betting. In addition they have all secured individual profits.
  7. Saeed bin Suroor, Sir Michael Stoute, Charlie Hills and Andrew Balding have poor records with 2yo debut runners which start in the top three in the betting. All are famously patient trainers.
  8. Charlie Appleby does twice as well with juvenile debutants when either William Buick or James Doyle are on board when compared with all other jockeys.
  9. Archie Watson and Hollie Doyle, and the Gosden stable with Robert Havlin are positive trainer / jockey combos.
  10. There were 12 wins from 41 2yo debutants from the Gosden stable making their racecourse bow at Yarmouth. These runners have produced profits of over 92p in the £.

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I hope you have found the two articles on 2yo debutants useful. I certainly enjoyed uncovering these interesting angles. 2yo debutants will now take a back seat, editorially speaking, with my attention switching to 2yos on their second starts. That is next on the agenda for researching and next week I will be sharing my findings with Geegeez readers.

Until then...

- DR

Trainers and Run Style: Part 3

/in /by

This is the third article in a series in which I have been looking at run style bias in relation to trainers, writes Dave Renham. In this piece, I'll drill down looking specifically at trainer data from two-year-old (2yo) races. As with the previous articles (read them here and here) I have looked at 8 years' worth of data (1/1/14 to 31/12/21) and included both turf and all weather racing in the UK.

The focus is all race types (handicaps and non-handicaps) and all distances. I have not used a 'field size' restriction this time as around 95% of 2yo races had six or more (my usual cut off) runners anyway. I have explained the phrase 'run style' in the first two articles of the series but for new readers here is a very quick recap.

Run style is concerned with the position a horse takes up early on, usually within the first two furlongs of the race. Here on geegeez.co.uk run style is split into four categories as follows:

Led (4) – essentially those runners that get to the lead early
Prominent (3) – horses that track these early leader(s)
Mid Division (2) – horses that settle mid pack in the early stages
Held Up (1) – horses who begin their race near, or at the back of the field

The number in brackets is the run style score that is assigned to each section.

Run style is often linked with the word 'pace' because the early pace shown by horses in a race determines their early position. Hence, the words 'run style' and 'pace' are often used essentially meaning the same thing, though some commentators feel 'pace' is more associated with speed than racing position: this is why we differentiate. Each Geegeez racecard has the last four run style/pace figures for each runner within a table on the 'Pace' tab. That looks like this:

 

2yo horses may often have fewer data as some would not have run four times (indeed Clear Day in the example above has run only three times). This, hopefully, is where the trainer run style data shared below will prove its worth.

To help with this piece I have primarily used the Geegeez Query Tool – a tool that is available, and potentially game-changing, for all Gold subscribers. I then used my Excel knowledge to help crunch and interpret the data gathered.

Which trainers' two-year-olds led early most often?

To begin with, let us look at which trainers saw their 2yos take the early lead the most (in percentage terms). I have included trainers who have had at least 200 such runners over this 8-year period:

 

 

To offer some sort of comparison, the average percentage of all 2yo's that lead early stands at 14.6%. The trainers with the highest percentages are certainly worthy of further analysis.

(Charlie &) Mark Johnston

It is no surprise for regular readers to see Mark Johnston at the top of the pile, as we've previously discovered his modus operandi is typically to send horses forward. Nevertheless, it is an incredible statistic that more than 40% of his 2yos have led early. Mark is training with his son, Charlie, from the current season so it will be interesting to see if anything changes. I doubt it, but it is a good idea to keep an eye on such things. [Editor's note: at time of writing, the father/son Johnston team have led with 25 of 49 two-year-old runners, 51%, so little has changed at this stage]

Let's look at the Johnston stable breakdown in terms of percentage distribution across all four run styles:

 

 

Almost four out of every five of their 2yos either race prominently early or lead. To show how this bucks the general trend, compare Johnston’s stats to the overall 2yo run style stats for all trainers:

 

 

The real differences lie either end in the ‘led’ and ‘held up’ sections. This clearly illustrates how differently Johnston thinks about run style. If we look at individual years, we can see the percentage of his runners that lead has been consistent throughout:

 

 

The range, 36.1% to 46%, shows his methods have changed little over time.

In terms of race distance, we can see that in general it does not matter too much in terms of how likely a Johnston 2yo will lead. The breakdown is as follows:

 

 

It is only when we get to races beyond a mile that we see the percentage drop; even then, it is still very high when compared to other trainers.

The following table, sourced from the Pace Score section on the Query Tool, shows perhaps why the Johnston stable tend not to hold their 2yo (or indeed any age) runners up:

 

 

Hold up horses have been successful for the Johnston team just 5.5% of the time, with losses equating to just under 67 pence in every £1. That's not good for punters and, more materially from a training perspective, not good for owners. Meanwhile, early leaders won 26% of the time (incredible for owners) and would have made a profit if we had successfully decided upon which of his 2yos would actually lead (awesome for clairvoyant punters).

Archie Watson

Archie Watson is second in the standings when it comes to percentage of 2yos that took the early lead during the sample period. The most striking stats I found were when I looked at his record with 2yos that started favourite or second favourite (see below):

 

 

The differences are quite mind blowing. When we combine his 2yo's sent off in the top pair in the betting and that were held up or raced mid-division early, they produced just six winners between them from 62 runners; this equates to less than 1 in 10 winning. Watson's 2yos which led early and were top two in the betting won on average more than four times as often, at a 43% clip.

Which trainers' two-year-olds led early least often?

As we have seen earlier in this series, not all trainers are keen for their runners to take an early lead. Below is a list of the trainers with the lowest percentages in terms of horses that led early:

 

 

The eye is immediately drawn to James Fanshawe: just 1 of his 203 2yos have led early. It should be noted that Fanshawe has a relatively small crop of 2yos each year but, even so, this is remarkable. It is also worth noting that if a 2yo Fanshawe runner has raced prominently they have won 18% of the their races; compare this to the 4% win strike rate for his held up 2yos.

Some other well-known trainers appear in this table: the likes of Marcus Tregoning, Roger Varian and Roger (joined now by son Harry) Charlton to name but three. The Charlton data is worth expanding upon. Firstly let me breakdown his 2yo runners in terms of percentage of run style across all four run styles, as we saw earlier for Johnston:

 

 

A huge chunk of his 2yos tend to be held up, and nearly 65% of them have not been pushed up with or close to the pace early. Now look at the strike rates for each run style category:

 

 

It is the pattern we should all expect by now, but it begs the question why does Charlton hold up 43.8% of his 2yos when only 8.5% of them go on to win? Likewise why does he send just 8.4% of his 2yos out into an early lead when a huge 32.7% of them win? In general, it is likely to be that the Charlton runners may be incapable of getting to the front early, or that they are raced with at least one eye on the future; but the pattern is clear. Perhaps further schooling at the starting stalls might be beneficial.

Trainer run style averages

In order to give us a more complete picture, I have produced trainer run style averages, in exactly the same way that I did in the first article. To recap, I simply add up the Geegeez pace points for a particular trainer's two-year-olds and divide the total by the number of runners. The higher the average the more prominent the trainer’s horse tends to race. I have looked at overall pace averages rather than breaking down by handicap v non-handicap figures. The reason for this is that 79% of all 2yo races are non-handicaps. Also it saves some space!

For the record, the trainer run style average for all 2yos is 2.29. Have a look for your favourites below.

 

 

I have mentioned before that how you deploy these averages is personal choice. In 2yo races, especially when the horses have not run many times before, I believe the data can prove very useful. Let me give an example of a 2yo race run in April of this year.

 

 

As can be seen from the Geegeez PACE tab, only three of the horses had previously run and only once each. If we look at the trainer run style averages it looks likely that the Johnston runner will lead:

 

 

As the result below shows below, the Johnston runner Beautiful Eyes did lead, and also went onto win:

 

 

It is interesting to note that Karl Burke had the second highest number in the run style average table for this race, and his horse raced prominently and came second. Of course, the run style of all 2yo horses are not always going to correlate with the trainer averages. However, these averages can help us build up the most likely scenario of how the early stages of a race are going to be run even when horses have never raced before.

Here is a second example of a race from earlier this year, again it occurred in April:

 

 

Once again there was very limited run style/pace data from previous races to help form a picture of how the race may pan out in the early stages. The trainer run style averages for this contest were as follows:

 

 

Archie Watson comfortably had the highest run style average at 2.98, with David Evans earning the second highest. As it turns out the runners from these two trainers disputed the early lead and finished 1st and 2nd.

 

 

As I mentioned earlier this ‘prediction’ method won’t always work, but it is a useful starting point, particularly in 2yo races (or other race types where there is little no previous form).

Run style and market rank

To finish with I want to combine market rank with run style for the 2yo data from 2014 to 2021. The following graph looks at the percentage of runners that took the early lead in relation to their market rank:

 

 

What is clear from this strong correlation is that either market factors influence the running style of certain horses, or the running style of certain horses influences the market. Favourites led early in nearly 27% of all 2yo races in the eight year study period, almost double the average figure for early leaders of 14.6%. Horses occupying the next two places in the betting led in just over 20% of races but, as can be seen, once we get to horses outside of the top six in the betting, getting to the early lead was not easy for this group (less than 8% of them managed it).

This should come as no surprise. Less fancied horses in general are going to be slower than fancied horses, certainly over the full race distance; so it makes sense that this scenario is quite likely to occur early in the race as well as at the finish line. Of course, there will be occasions when an outsider is ahead of the favourite in the first furlong because trainer habits will have an effect or because the market has simply miscalculated the ability of a horse. Sometimes those horses will remain in front at the end of a race: shocks happen! But those are the exceptions.

Combining trainer run style data with market rank looks a potent combination. All Geegeez Gold users have the opportunity to dig even deeper than I have by looking at individual trainer run style statistics combined with market rank inside the Query Tool. To give you a taster, here are the top ten trainers in terms of percentage of runners which led early when sent off favourite (to qualify - 30 favourites minimum):

 

 

So Robert Cowell and (Charlie &) Mark Johnston favourites led more than half the time: that could be useful to know!

That's all for this episode. Please leave any comments, questions or thoughts below.

- DR

p.s. the next instalment of this series contains some of my most detailed research ever - stay tuned!