Tag Archive for: jamie snowden

Monday Musings: Jamie’s Quiet Ascent

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The jump campaign 2025/26 began half a year and a few days ago but traditionalists, among the trainers especially, still regard the season proper as having begun authentically only at the Chepstow two-day fixture last month, writes Tony Stafford.

The season’s climax (or anti-climax if your name is Skelton) at Sandown late in April merely confirmed what we knew already. If Willie Mullins targets a potential achievement, he has the resources to bring it home. On that last day he sidestepped the first two races on the Sandown card but won three of the other five and broke doughty Dan’s heart once more.

As Gordon Elliott found several times in their domestic battles in Ireland, it didn’t matter how much of a prizemoney advantage he held over Mullins coming to the engine-room of the Irish season, Willie had the tools to do the job – and in style.

It’s worth re-living that final day. Having ignored the opening two races, both incidentally won by Gary and Josh Moore, Mullins’ subsequent hat-trick included the top prize, the £99k to the winner Celebration Chase where South African-owned Il Etait Temps overcame a year’s absence to humble erstwhile two-mile champ Jonbon, with Willie’s Energumene in third place for good measure. Back in home action at Clonmel in midweek, Il Etait Temps had a stroll round for €35k to set his season off in style.

Surprisingly perhaps, the Bet 365 (formerly Whitbread Gold Cup) didn’t fall to any of his ten of the 19 runners. It defiantly went to the Olly Murphy/Sean Bowen team with Resplendent Grey, staving off the first four of the Mullins horde, in so doing signalling both of their positions at the very top of the UK jumps hierarchy.

Murphy was one of 14 domestic trainers supplying 30 of the 51 runners in those five races contested by Mullins; and Willie had the other 20! In all he picked up £287k of the £530k available on the day – or 55%. If Dan still leads his 69-year-old rival going into the final day next year, maybe he can employ a bulldozer to dig up the course overnight. Then, no doubt, they will just switch the fixture to Kempton!

It might still only be the end of the “phoney” phase of the campaign, but Dan Skelton has already sent out 154 individual horses. Between them 46 have collected 57 wins and £888k in prizemoney. I said it was “phoney”, as remembering Armistice Sunday yesterday, when in early 1940 the bombs hadn’t yet started falling on London in what was known as the phoney war.

I’ll tell you how phoney the jumps season has been. Mullins has had just two jump runners here in Britain since he mopped up all that money back in April. Winter Fog, eighth in the Cesarewitch last month, went on to Wetherby for the Grade 2 staying hurdle on Charlie Hall Chase Day and was fourth of five, collecting a paltry £3,650 for his exertions. At Cheltenham, in between those two excursions, Chart Topper pulled up in a Pertemps qualifier.

Anyway, enough of that old suff. Not entirely, as the main thesis of my article – took a while coming, Ed! - as it relates to a chance comment on Sky Sports Racing that, “Dan Skelton is the ‘target’ trainer par excellence”. He’s pretty good, of course, habitually winning those Cheltenham Festival handicap hurdles especially from under the noses of the Irish handicap-doctored brigade.

But I would nominate another UK trainer, Jamie Snowden, as having honed the skill of making long-range plans for his horses. Before starting training in Lambourn in season 2008/09 he was a top-class amateur connected to the Nicky Henderson stable and a regular winner of the Sandown Military races following and during an army career.

On Saturday at Aintree his Colonel Harry returned after ten months off the track to win the Grand Sefton Chase with a patient ride from Gavin Sheehan, reminiscent, to me anyway, of Graham Lee’s wonderful victory for Ginger McCain in the 2004 Grand National on Amberleigh House.

He has inevitably the Coral Gold Cup in three weeks at Newbury as his immediate ambition. The way Colonel Harry finished off Saturday’s race suggests he will have a great chance to win another “Hennessy” as the trainer still calls the race following his victory two years ago with Datsalrightgino.

It took a few years for Snowden to get going as a trainer but single figures became 19 at the fourth attempt and the progress has been steady and impressive since then. After a few seasons in the high 40s he made a significant jump to 62 last term.

That was achieved at a healthy 21 per cent, comfortably better than Skelton (19%) and Mullins (18%) and his prizemoney peaked at £807k. Already he has won 38 races this season from only 130 runs, with 23 individual scores from a mere 57 horses to have run before yesterday.

He’s operating at an almost unthinkable 29 per cent so far this campaign with another 66 runners in the places 2nd to 4th – making it 104 of 130 in the first four.

Snowden has an exhaustive programme of sourcing and developing young horses. He is very mindful of pedigrees and, after deciding and securing horses, he often leaves sales purchases to learn their job for a year in Ireland before bringing them across. His is a stable that deservedly has made it onto the top table in the UK. Watch out – he is only getting better which he had already been doing superbly for years.

The 2025 flat race season ended in something of a whimper at Doncaster on Saturday. It’s nobody’s fault, but for a start there were few enough top riders still around, many taking a holiday after their exertions at the Breeders’ Cup – the season for title purposes ending with British Champions Day at Ascot in mid-October – while others are getting ready for lucrative winter work in Dubai and elsewhere.

It can take a while to get going on the demanding Hong Kong circuit – well two tracks anyway. David Probert and Richard Kingscote, who rode a close 2nd at Sha Tin yesterday, are yet to get off the mark after being there for a while. Not so Hollie Doyle who made an instant impact with an all-the-way winner on the first day of her contract there on a 20/1 shot on Wednesday.

Yesterday she had two second places, both outrunning their outsider odds and with rides in almost every race, you can see she will soon be a fan favourite in the former colony.

Back home, the star turn at Doncaster was undoubtedly Billy Loughnane, although he couldn’t add to his tally of 180 wins. But that, and his runner-up spot in the Jockeys’ Championship behind the remarkable Oisin Murphy, tells the now four-times champion that any lapse in his sometimes questionable concentration is sure to be readily punished.

Such is Loughnane’s momentum, in only his third full season, he could well hit the 200-winner mark after an initial six in 2022, 130 in 2023 and 162 last year. He seems unstoppable, getting rides for many top stables, notably Godolphin. His following is such that level-stakes bets on all his mounts in 2025 has shown a loss of 306 points – indicating that despite his above average ability, his mounts are routinely overbet.

Another young rider already making an impact is Toby Moore, 17, on the way with three wins (two for Charlie Appleby) from his first 20 mounts. Ryan Moore’s son must be a big candidate for next year’s apprentices’ title, if any bookmaker is brave enough to offer a price.

- TS

Monday Musings: Only The Bold

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I know we’re only halfway through the year; halfway indeed through the decade and barely a quarter into the 21st Century, but I think I’ve just seen the ride of said 100 years, writes Tony Stafford. If you reckon you see one better the other side of 2050, don’t bother try telling me about it, I’ll no longer be here troubling anyone.

My candidate for this purely unbiased accolade was not on show riding the Irish Derby winner – indeed at time of starting this article, the Classic was more than an hour away from being run. I could have a cup of tea and a piece of cake after presenting my case and before sitting down to watch the main event.

The big one here from three jumps only cards – all to the west of the country – was the bet365 Summer Handicap Chase over 3m2f and 20 (to start with) obstacles. Uttoxeter, at 143 miles, was the nearest to London, Ffos Las is 212 miles and Cartmel in the Lake District is 269 miles, for whatever that useless statistic may be worth!

Sometimes it’s only when you’ve backed the recipient of such a ride, especially when the horse comes from out of the clouds as it were, that the degree of amazement is even noticed. I watched Only The Bold, mostly with minimal expectation during the running, purely as it had been my top bet (not supported by cash, I’m afraid) for my From The Stables line in the William Hill Radio Naps table (and, more importantly, for subscribers of a service with the same name, our dear editor being one of the directors).

The horse, a ten-year-old, was having its third run for the Jamie Snowden stable, having shown plenty earlier in its career but suffering from a lack of confidence which brought three consecutive pulled up runs most recently for David Pipe. It happens to the best of them and, sometimes, a change of yard can often be enough to remedy things.

First time for Snowden, Only The Bold was moving well when a mistake halted his progress at Ludlow – resulting in a fourth consecutive “P” on his form line.

But Jamie took heart from that and even more when he rattled home fast but too late into third at Aintree in May. Another two furlongs yesterday and a mark very much down on his peak figure of a couple of years ago meant the near 40 grand first prize had to come to the shrewd Jamie’s notice.

Fifteen horses lined up, soon to be reduced by one from an unseated, and as the leaders - including the Fergal O’Brien-trained Manothepeople - ensured a fast pace, Gavin Sheehan on Only The Bold never looked especially comfortable.

His horse showed little fluency in his jumping and after the first half circuit was firmly among the tailenders. The proximity for a while of the unseated horse didn’t appear to be helping and that might have been why Sheehan took him to the wide outside.

They were in the back three for most of the way, with the jockey manoeuvring widest of all on each of the pretty sharp left-hand bends. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the many new winner-finding formulae available on the internet hasn’t physically tracked the paths of all the runners (it has - Ed.). I guess he would have gone much the furthest but enjoyed the clearest run thanks to Gavin’s steering.

Four from home at Uttoxeter isn’t all that far out, but Only The Bold was still last and on the outside. Then Gavin got going, and on each of the bends you could see his mount running past a few. Coming to two out the Irish-trained Digby had eased past Manothepeople and was still going well and looking impregnable.

A few lengths behind, Only The Bold was being gently switched inside and at the last fence he was within half a length of the not-stopping leader. Now, I was already expecting the miracle to happen, and indeed it did, the Snowden runner showing the better speed while at the same time stopping yet another Irish invader pilfering a hefty chunk of our prize money.

I say pilfering advisedly. Two runs prior Digby had been brought across to Bangor on the back of some ordinary home form and, supported from 40/1 to 22/1, bolted home, a run that brought a question from the stewards. It was accepted after trainer Dermot McLoughlin cited the longer trip as the reason for the improvement.

A win at home over hurdles in between would have boosted expectations and, apart from Only The Bold’s tenacity, Sheehan’s in-race flexibility, and Snowden’s rejuvenation of an apparently lost cause, they would have been on another 16/1 triumph as well as a nice haul of cash.

If you don’t believe me how unlikely it was until the last fence, have a look at the film, but I’m not bothered either way. Eighteen-to-one winners are like rocking horse’s teeth! [26.0 Betfair Starting Price, traded at 140 in running!]

Next, I’m bringing in an event that was run a few minutes after the Irish Derby as up at Cartmel one trainer listed as having only 18 horses in her care in this year’s Horses in Training book, made it two big-race wins on successive days, one in either discipline.

Dianne Sayer and her assistant, the former jumping amateur rider and daughter of the trainer, Emma, were understandably delighted when their Savrola stayed on too strongly for his opponents to win the two-mile Northumberland Vase, consolation race on the flat to the time-honoured Plate, won by Andrew Balding’s Spirit Mixer.

The Vase carried a big cash upgrade from last year and was worth equal to the prize won by Only The Bold at Uttoxeter. Then, yesterday, the Sayers’ Charlie Uberalles went down to Cartmel and took the Oakmere Homes Handicap Chase and its £22k pot, fending off a trio of well-fancied Irish raiders in the process.

At least there was a numerically strong team from the UK vying for the main prizes in the Irish Derby but, predictably, Ryan Moore and Lambourn landed the odds and added to the horse’s Betfred Derby victory at Epsom.

Lambourn did not make all at the Curragh this time; indeed he was unable to as he was challenged on his inside from the early stages by Richard Kingscote on Sir Dinadan, very much the Ralph Beckett stable’s second string as far as the market was concerned. He kept a ridden Lambourn company until well into the straight when the favourite took over. If we had expected him to draw away from that point we were mistaken, as a later challenge came but not from any of the beaten Epsom contenders, rather from much closer to home.

Serious Contender, another of the Aidan O’Brien/Coolmore contingent, was reappearing only ten days after he was beaten from a mark of 92 in one of the Royal Ascot three-year-old handicaps, and he gave favourite backers a serious fright. One trainer I was speaking to last week was suggesting that finishing even tenth in that mile and a half race or in the Britannia over a mile at the fixture meant you were probably a good way ahead of your handicap mark.

William Haggas, not afraid to run Group 1 horses in handicaps, won the race with Merchant off 90. He went up to 103 last Tuesday and, with his nearest victim then getting so close to the Derby winner in the Irish Derby, he’ll get another jump. I doubt Haggas or the owners, one of Highclere’s syndicates, will mind. If a deal hasn’t already been done, he’ll be on his way before long for a nice few quid.

The last 50 yards or so of the Irish Derby was extraordinary. As the winner edged away from his stablemate, it was only then that Lazy Griff, under William Buick got running for Charlie Johnston and Middleham Park Racing, losing one spot on his Epsom runner-up position. He again had the better of Epsom third Tennessee Stud by a neck while Sir Dinadan was another neck away fifth and Green Impact a nose back in sixth.

That last gasp effort made a €100k difference to the Middleham Park shareholders, but up front another one-two in an Irish Derby brought a heady €950k to the home team. It was O’Brien’s 17th Irish Derby victory, his first coming in 1997. Surely no top-level race anywhere in the world can ever have been so dominated by one stable over such a length of time.

- TS

Monday Musings: Pauling’s Triple Salvo

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It’s tough to sneak into the leading trainers’ groupings pretty much anywhere in the world, writes Tony Stafford.  In the UK and Ireland, the same few names finish atop both the flat and jumps tables year on year, and on the flat, certainly, it takes an upstart, such as George Boughey, and a massive intake of horses and major owners to break into the top ten.

He had 163 horses listed for last year’s campaign which brought tenth place in the table, but ironically fell 33 wins short of the 136 of the previous year. That earlier explosion was the catalyst for the massive increase in George’s string.

In jumping, the top ten have a familiar look about them both in Ireland and the UK. We know it’s Mullins, Elliott and De Bromhead with few recent encroachers making the list in Ireland, although Emmet Mullins has the look of somebody who can be making his way higher up the standings. Helps when, like Gordon Elliott, you train a Grand National winner early on and Mullins (E) did just that with Noble Yeats two years ago.

In the UK, apart from Olly Murphy and Joe Tizzard, neither of whom started from scratch, there’s nobody else. Ollie had considerable family buying power from the start, and Joe took over lock stock of father Colin’s team. Gold Cup wins and the memory of them have kept Joe in the limelight and dad is still around when needed. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose, as the French say.

Higher up, indeed sandwiching now the hitherto private battle at the top between Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson, is Dan Skelton, who also needed the start provided financially by show jumping father Nick, and the schooling for several years as assistant to Nicholls.

When brother Harry gets off a winner, and no doubt probably also one that didn’t run up to expectations, he has no hesitation in declaring potential upcoming races for the horse, whether Dan is there or not. This is a family operation par excellence and nicely bedded in now.

The other perennial challengers for the title cannot be there for ever you would think. Nicholls at 61 has so much drive and ambition that one would hardly think he would be reducing his energies towards training jumpers; indeed he has been recruiting at the top end of the market for the partnership headed by the considerably older (even than me!) Sir Alex Ferguson.

Henderson, despite being 73 is similarly unlikely to be withdrawing from the daily grind as long as he has horses of the calibre of Constitution Hill, Shishkin and Jonbon in his care. However well or otherwise that high-profile trio fares at Cheltenham next month, he has the four-year-old Sir Gino as the horse likely to become his eighth winner of the Triumph Hurdle and, if he wins, all the future that status predicts.

Given the depth of competition, especially after a spell where a decent proportion of the better meetings have succumbed to the weather, it must have been rare indeed for a stable outside the top echelon to land a hat-trick of winners on a single Premier Raceday card.

At Ascot on Saturday, Ben Pauling had five horses entered, two in one race. Neither of those got the call, although first string Bad would have done if not on the wrong end of a heads-up, heads-down winning-line dance.

The other three individual representatives all scored, for a combined treble return of 730/1. If Bad, the naughty boy who had his head up at the wrong time, had instead been on better behaviour, the resulting four-timer would have stretched to 4,020/1. All four horses were ridden by Ben Jones, benefiting from the absence through suspension of first jockey Kielan Woods.

Big Ben, he’s well over 6ft, rather than the jockey, and his owners collectively won £78k for linking a novice hurdle, Pic Roc, 11/2, beating a Nicholls hotpot; the Grade 2 Reynoldstown Chase – fast-track often to Cheltenham glory – Henry’s Friend, completing his own hat-trick, 13/2; and a handicap hurdle with Honor Grey, 14/1, a horse coming back from almost two years off. Bad’s race was very tough, too.

In the middle of the time since departing Nicky Henderson’s yard, where he had been joint assistant along with Tom Symonds, Pauling had a couple of campaigns when his horses were afflicted by viral problems. Last season’s tally of 80 wins, almost double his 2021/22 score, suggested that the worrying period was behind him.

Pauling will need another 24 in the remaining nine weeks of the present term to match that, and a couple of hundred grand in prizes to pass the earnings figure. He would have been much nearer it had jump racing not lost so many fixtures to the weather.

Nevertheless, standing in the table on 11th place and with £728k doesn’t have anything near the impact that his all-televised Saturday Ascot trio (and a near-miss) undoubtedly had. Many more people watch ITV racing on a Saturday than the number that assiduously study the Racing Post stats I would imagine, let alone buy the ‘paper every day.

Pauling has invested shrewdly in his future, moving a few years ago to the Naunton Estate, 20 minutes by car from Cheltenham and close to Nigel Twiston-Davies. The Paulings bought a property which adjoined a golf course, and which is now part of the family business.

It necessitated redirecting a couple of the holes to accommodate one of the gallops, but now it’s as though – apart from the stable area looking so spic-and-span – the yard had been there for decades.

You would think, golf-loving owners with runners at the Festival (or not!) might be checking in next month for nine holes and breakfast before making the last leg to Prestbury Park. Saturday was a landmark day in his development The seven entries in the early-closing races might not have the look of potential winners but you can be sure that when the handicap entries come out, he will be one of the UK trainers aiming to make the sort of impact that Dan Skelton has done in recent seasons.

Another former Nicky Henderson assistant was making a mark last week at Sandown, and as he described it, “it was a wonderful day for me in my own little world”.

The self-effacing trainer responsible for those words was Jamie Snowden and, looking again at the list of trainers, he stands 14th coming up towards £600k.

Why his “own little world”? Jamie had just followed winning the Grand Military Gold Cup at Sandown three weeks earlier with Farceur Du Large, over the same course and with the same ex-Irish horse, in the Royal Artillery Gold Cup.

A former soldier, Jamie had tried in vain to win either race since his retirement as an amateur jockey, having claimed both races  from the saddle four times. He might say it was his own little world, but I used to love going to both days’ racing in the old days, always meeting up with my old pal, the late Broderick (The Cad) Munro-Wilson.

He used to ride his own horses in those races and the other two military events that now are offered to professionals, from the 1970’s, and his style of riding always amused the experts in the stands.

Munro-Wilson always loved Sandown and rode loads of winners there. I think he was a territorial rather than a career military member and made his money in the City. He had one unbreakable theory about Sandown: “You jump the Pond (three out) and however well your horse is going, take a pull! Seeing how he got horses to rally up the hill when seemingly having lost their race, with arms, legs, and anything else he could bring to the party moving at full pace, remains in my memory after all these years. As an aside, Sally Randell, who is Fergal O’Brien’s partner and assistant, was one of the very good riders around Sandown and she didn’t start riding in races until she joined the army.

Farceur Du Large was the object – I assume – of some very thoughtful planning. The upper limit for qualification for the two races – both weight-for-age events – is 130, a mark the nine-year-old had dropped to from a peak of 136. He had been owned by Gigginstown House Stud having run unsuccessfully in the Irish and Midlands Grand Nationals along with the Galway Plate. Off since that race, Jamie had him primed for the Grand Military.

Appreciating the drop in class, steady pace and the effective riding of Major Will Kellard, he romped home for RC Syndicate II before reappearing under a partnership of 12 Regiment Royal Artillery and RC Syndicate.

The Rules in my early days, when literally many hundreds of men resplendent in immaculate uniforms would stroll the lawns and enclosures, were strict. Gradually, to qualify as owners, leases became the way to go and it seemed that even anyone who had ever eaten their breakfast egg with soldiers just about qualified.

Whatever the future of Farceur Du Large, he has allowed Jamie Snowden to tick off a large item on his wish list. A winner with You Wear It Well at Cheltenham last year, he hoped for a pre-Festival warm-up win for her at Haydock on Saturday, but she made one bad jump that stopped her in her tracks. That left Coquelicot to pick up 2nd and 6k, making this column’s editor happy that he had made the dash back from a skiing holiday, arriving just in time.

 - TS

Monday Musings: Snowden’s Gino Beats the Snow

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I remember many years ago, walking out of my office in Fleet Street to be greeted by a healthy, or rather unhealthy, fall of snow, writes Tony Stafford. It was just before Christmas and that winter racing was decimated.

Some years we escape snow until well into the New Year and the jumps season appears to continue largely without meaningful interruption. With global warming and all that, you would have thought temperatures at the end of November would be temperate enough.

But here we were on the opening weekend in December, with the far north of England suffering large deposits of the white stuff, causing the formality of the cancellation of the Fighting Fifth Hurdle. With it evaporated the chance for Gosforth Park’s jumps adherents to get a second view of the great Constitution Hill as he sets off on his ceremonious way to a repeat Champion Hurdle, only three and a bit months from now.

My fear is that such an early start to freezing and snowbound conditions could set in for quite a while. With still three weeks to go to the shortest day, there is so little time in the mornings to address frozen tracks, so inevitably more meetings will be lost.

Yesterday’s unfortunate abandonment of Southwell’s all-weather (sic) card because of frozen hailstones must make the BHA wary of too many panicked extra flat or jumpers’ bumpers fixtures. Carlisle’s jumps card yesterday meanwhile was little short of a fiasco with 18 non-runners, mostly due to travel problems that reduced a 40-horse card almost in half. Three matches hardly made for value for money for racegoers.

Nicky Henderson was relieved to hear that the Fighting Fifth Hurdle was preserved – added to the Tingle Creek Chase card at Sandown next Saturday.  It wasn’t all positive in compensational terms for the Seven Barrows trainer though, as Shishkin’s planned attempt at rehabilitation in the undercard featured Rehearsal Chase is apparently unlikely to be rescheduled.

It was more than something of a cliff-hanger before Newbury’s superb, effective deployment of frost covers and the three hours it takes to lay them – just an hour to remove them – that enabled both Friday’s and Saturday’s cards to proceed.

With snow in the north, how appropriate was it that the Lambourn trainer Jamie Snowden – pity the Welsh mountain isn’t spelt correctly! – took the biggest slice of the 250 grand on offer for the Coral Gold Cup. In its days as the Hennessy, Betfair and Ladbroke before its present identity, it has always been one of the races that trainers and owners most wanted to win and clearly nothing has changed.

Snowden had two runners, both second-season chasers, in the race - the Ayr Grade 2 winner from last year Datsalrightgino, and last year’s Paddy Power Gold Cup hero Ga Law - as the local trainer chose the most valuable chase handicap of the season at his home track to explore his pair’s stamina.

Over the years, I’ve always maintained that the perfect formula for the Hennessy was a seven-year-old in the lower half of the handicap and in its second season’s chasing. Thatsalrightgino fulfilled all three requirements. Stablemate Ga Law, whose career has revived splendidly after a near two-year injury hiatus, is a year older.

Six of Saturday’s 20 runners were age seven, including the first three home. Datsalrightgino was a 16/1 shot, getting the better of a splendid tussle from the final fence with the Irish gelding Mahler Mission (15/2) with the Jonjos’ Monbeg Genius a respectful six lengths behind after running out of puff from the final fence.

Jamie Snowden was full of praise for his jockey Gavin Sheehan who waited in the pack with his mount before making his move near the inside and challenging at the vital moment. One fellow jockey that might not have been quite so chuffed was Tom Cannon, due to ride Datsalrightgino until Newcastle’s abandonment enabled Snowden’s regular rider to change direction. A share of £142k doesn’t crop up too often for even the top jumps riders.

The bookmakers would presumably have accepted forecasts and tricasts on the race, and I recently joined with my vote against the affordability checks – funnily enough from a Nicky Henderson email.

It takes 30 bets for a six-horse straight forecast combination and £120 for a full-cover £1 tricast. The bookies’ version of the two paid not extravagantly generous with respectively £129 and £859 for a £1 stake, The Tote version was close to twice as productive with £230 for the Exacta and £1,539 for the Trifecta. Of course, I forgot all about it.

Thirty-one years ago, I found what I thought to be the handicap certainty of all time. Datsalrightgino carried 10st7lb on Saturday, 5lb more than the Peter Beaumont-trained and Mark Dwyer-ridden Jodami, who had slipped into the 1992 race with 10st2lb.

He started favourite but could not cope with the gutsy Ferdy Murphy runner Sibton Abbey, who was 21lb out of the handicap. In a preview of the race three decades later, the first two came six lengths clear of third-placed The Fellow, trained in France by Francois Doumen. The winner was owned by Geoff Hubbard and ridden by Adrian Maguire, the best jump jockey never to win the championship. Blame Richard Dunwoody and then A P McCoy for that.

All three (among five in the race) that year were also seven-year-olds and the runner-up, amazingly, went on to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup just over three months later. I’ve never actually asked Mark Dwyer all the times we’ve met since, “What went wrong?” merely because when he shakes your hand, it stays shaken for minutes afterwards. Such a question might cause permanent injury! I’ll check again when I see him at the Tattersalls mares’ sales sale tomorrow when seven-figures will be a feature of the Sceptre section during the afternoon.

After his Gold Cup win, Jodami returned in 1994 and finished runner-up to The Fellow. You could say the form stood up and no doubt Saturday’s will, too, though whether Snowden will be thinking Gold Cup is another question.

Jamie Snowden may be a less high profile member of the jump trainers’ firmament, but he certainly knows how to exploit the material in his yard. Last season You Wear It Well went through the grades and impressively won the mares’ novice hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. The way she resumed her winning ways by beating a Nicky Henderson hotpot in Listed company at Wetherby suggests the big prizes will continue to come her way.

Formerly for a brief time in the Army, but long enough to qualify for the Military races at Sandown, where he was a multiple winner of the two top races, Snowden had a year as a pupil assistant to Paul Nicholls before spending three years as Henderson’s assistant trainer and amateur rider. You could hardly ask for better schooling than that.

Over the 15 years since taking out a licence, Jamie has developed to the level where he routinely trains between 40 and 50 winners (his best in 2021-22) and last season he passed the £700,000 mark in earnings for his horses, easily his best. These are exciting times ahead.

There are also exciting times – not that they’ve been short on them already – for the Geegeez syndicate mare, Coquelicot. When this column’s editor reminded me last Monday of his invitation to join him at the Horserace Writers’ lunch in London later today, he neglected telling me the seven-year-old mare would be returning to action in Listed company at Kempton that afternoon.

Usual result, she made all and won pulling away for a six-length margin over odds-on shot Kateira. In winning that race she was overturning a 10lb ratings deficiency, and her 127 mark is sure to go up by at least a few pounds in tomorrow’s updated list.

If it still leaves her a little short of, for instance, You Wear It Well, on 140 after her Wetherby success, I’m sure the always-adventurous Anthony Honeyball would not be averse to a tilt  at the younger lady as the season progresses. They would need to come a bit nearer to three miles with the Snowden horse though, for that to happen.

- TS

Trainer Profiles: Fry, Lacey, Newland, O’Brien, Snowden

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In this the final Trainer Profiles article for the time being, I am examining the training record of five trainers that I have yet to study in the series. I will be looking at ten years of UK racing data from 1st January 2013 to 31st December 2022, the majority of which can be sourced by members using from the Geegeez Query Tool. All profits / losses have been calculated to Industry Starting Price and Betfair SP data will be shared where meaningful, also.

As I will be looking at several different trainers, each individual piece will focus on what I perceive to be their most important areas – highlighting where possible key positives and negatives. Let’s get cracking...

Harry Fry

Harry has been training in Dorset for just over a decade having taken out his license in October 2012.

Harry Fry Yearly Breakdown

Let’s look at Fry's yearly breakdown by win strike rate first:

 

 

The trend as a rule is downward, although 2022 did see a bounce back, perhaps as a result of settling in to his new training premises. Below are the combined strike rates and BSP returns comparing the first five years with the second five years.

 

 

2023 will be quite informative in terms of whether the 2022 improvement can be replicated.

 

Harry Fry Time of Year Breakdown

Sticking with the ‘time’ theme, Fry’s record has been much better in the main months of the National Hunt Season (November to March) as the table below shows:

 

 

There is a definite edge in strike rate, return on investment, Actual/Expected and Impact Values for the November to March period.

 

Harry Fry Performance by Market Rank

A look at some market data now, and here are the Fry figures for market position:

 

 

We can see a clear drop off once we get to 5th or bigger in the betting market, part of which is the fact that this group incorporates fifth and 15th in the markets depending on field size. Meanwhile, focusing on the top four of the betting, returns have been a solid 8 pence in the £ when betting to BSP. It looks best therefore to concentrate on Fry runners that are near the head of the betting market.

 

Harry Fry Performance by Run Style

In terms of run style Fry tends to the follow the pattern of the average trainer as this chart shows:

 

 

Roughly 52% of his runners race front rank early (led/prominent); 48% for mid/back pack runners. Not surprisingly though, the win percentages play out as we have seen in every previous piece:

 

 

If we had been able to predict when a Fry horse would take the early lead we would have been quids in. If... Note also the very poor returns for hold up horses.

 

Harry Fry Individual Stats (positive/negative)

Here are some of the strongest stand-alone stats that I have found for Fry:

  1. Four courses have seen a strike rate of 25% or more (minimum 50 runs) – these are Exeter, Newton Abbot, Uttoxeter and Kempton. All four courses have made profits to BSP; Kempton and Exeter have significant profits to both SP and BSP, the former returning 98p in the £ to BSP, the latter 52p. Conversely, Chepstow has not been a happy hunting ground with just 7 wins from 65 (SR 10.8%)
  1. Horses making their debut have won 39 races from 184 (SR 21.2%) for an SP profit of £30.07 (ROI +16.3%). To BSP this increases to +£59.04 (ROI +32.1%)
  1. Horses switching to NH racing from the ‘level’ are rare from this stable. However 35 horses have come from turf or all weather flat races last time, with only three winning
  1. Last time out winners have scored an impressive 32.4% of the time (133 winners from 410) returning 5p in the £ to SP, increasing to 12p to BSP
  1. Horses returning to the track after a break of nine weeks or more have a decent record – 136 wins from 635 (SR 21.4%). A 17p return to BSP

 

Tom Lacey

Tom started training in 2012 but it was not until 2017 that he sent out more than 100 runners. In the past three years that number has been over 200 each year. He has been profitable to BSP in five of the last seven years going back to 2016.

 

Tom Lacey Performance by Course

A look at some course data first and, specifically, at the win percentages / strike rates across all tracks where Lacey has sent at least 40 runners.

 

 

Huntingdon stands out, with 13 wins from 44 for an SP profit of £32.32 (ROI +73.45%). To BSP this increases to £41.81 (ROI +95.0%). For the record, in handicap hurdles at the course, he is an impressive 7 from 21 (SR 33.3%) with winners at 9/4, 7/2, 9/2 (twice), 7/1, 9/1 and 16/1.

 

Tom Lacey Performance by Distance

Distance splits next for Lacey:

 

 

These figures suggest that his record in shorter races is slightly worse. Profits in the 2m2f to 2m6f group are decent especially as the biggest priced winner was 25/1 and not something massively outlying. The 3m+ runners would have snuck into profit if using BSP. In terms of strike rates, the 2m2f+ runners as a whole are at or around 20% which is notably better than performance at the shortest distances.

 

Tom Lacey Performance by Jockey

 Jockey wise, here is a comparison of Lacey's use of professionals versus claiming riders:

 

 

There are virtually identical strike rates and the profit/loss figures are fairly similar. Hence, there is no need to put off if a claiming jockey is on board; indeed, it is possible the market slightly undervalues that angle.

There are three main jockeys Lacey currently uses and here are their stats:

 

 

The figures for Burke, certainly in terms of returns, are very poor - and well below the other two. It is worth noting that, like Dunne, Sheppard has been profitable to BSP. Sticking with Sheppard, his record in handicaps is excellent (strike rate of just above 20%). These races would have generated a 14p in the £ return to SP, 33p to BSP. In non-handicaps, his strike rate has been just 12.4%.

 

Tom Lacey Individual Stats (positive/negative)

Some further statistical nuggets for Tom Lacey are below:

  1. Horses priced 28/1 or bigger from the yard are 0 from 120, with just 11 placed
  1. Horses from the top five in the betting have combined to break even at starting price
  1. Horses making their debut have won 22 races from 141 (SR 15.6%) for a minimal SP profit of £3.31 (ROI +2.4%). To BSP this increases to +£36.07 (ROI +25.6%)
  1. Horses running less than three weeks since their last run have provided 58 wins from 259 (SR 22.4%) for an SP profit of £79.64 (ROI +30.8%); BSP +£121.24 (ROI +46.8%)

 

Dr Richard Newland

Richard Newland was a GP before he switched to training horses in 2006/07.

 

Dr Richard Newland Yearly Breakdown

Dr Newland has had plenty of success but this graphic shows a clear recent downturn in fortunes:

 

 

As we can see, in six of the first seven years (2013 to 2019) he managed a win percentage of over 20%. However, the last three years have seen strike rates between 15.9% and 12.8%. I have looked at various profitable angles in a bid to find ones that have held up OK in the past three years, but I could find only one.

 

Dr Richard Newland Last Run

The one area where he has continued to be profitable is with runners who failed to complete the course last time out. That is, horses whose previous form figure is a letter not a number; for example horses that fell (F), were pulled up (P), etc. Splitting up and comparing 2013 to 2019 with 2020 to 2022 we get the following results:

 

 

The strike rate has dropped but Newland has produced similar profits in the last three years to the previous seven. Whether this is a type of runner that punters should continue to follow is up for debate, but clearly Newland has been quite adept at getting these horses to bounce back.

As a rule I would be wary of backing Newland runners at the moment. Hopefully 2023 will see a resurgence.

 

Fergal O’Brien

Irish-born O’Brien started training in 2011 and in 2019 he moved to his current stables near Cheltenham. In October 2021, he joined forces with Graeme McPherson and, in 2022, finished 6th in the trainer’s championship, his highest position to date. O'Brien has one of the more interesting twitter accounts, and you can follow the team here. [Incidentally, you can - and should! - follow geegeez on twitter here]

 

Fergal O’Brien Yearly Breakdown

Let me start by looking at O’Brien’s yearly breakdown by win strike rate:

 

 

From 2016 to 2022, six of the seven years have seen very similar figures (only 2018 saw a dip); hence there is a good chance the yard will hit around the 17-19% mark again in 2023.

 

Fergal O’Brien Performance by Course

Racecourse data is next on the list to examine. Here are the tracks where he sent at least 100 runners. I have ordered by win strike rate:

 

 

There is quite a range of results here, with five courses managing a blind SP profit. A further five courses are in profit to BSP (Bangor, Market Rasen, Uttoxeter, Worcester and Southwell). Kempton has the lowest strike rate, not helped by a National Hunt Flat race record of just 1 win in 25.

Perth heads the list from a strike rate perspective, and if you combine all Scottish courses together (Ayr, Kelso, Musselburgh and Perth) they have combined to produce 57 winners from 201 runners (SR 28.4%) for an SP profit of £41.51 (ROI +20.7%); to BSP this edges up to £52.16 (ROI +26.00%). Any O’Brien runner heading that far north is worth at least a second glance. His biggest priced winner in Scotland has been 10/1 so this means there have been no huge prices skewing the stats. The trainer's twitter account is fond of "Perth pints" - and we punters should be fond of Perth punts, too!

Now, let's split the course stats into hurdle and chase output. The table below compares strike rates and A/E indices. With a ‘par’ A/E index for all trainers at around 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:

 

 

Bangor, Huntingdon and Perth are the three courses that have both A/E indices above 1. Huntingdon chase results are particularly strong, as are Bangor’s. On the negative side, Stratford chase performance has been very poor from a win perspective at least (2 wins from 52).

 

Fergal O’Brien Performance by Distance

Let's look at the distance data next:

 

There seems to be a bias against the longer races of three miles or more. For the record, chase and hurdle results of 3m+ have been very similarly flatter than shorter trips.

 

Fergal O’Brien Performance by Jockey

Here are the five jockeys who had 50 or more rides in the past ten years, and rode for the stable in 2022:

 

 

Paddy Brennan stands apart, edging into an SP profit from nigh on 2000 rides. To BSP you would have secured a ten-year profit of £357.05 (ROI +17.9%). The last two seasons, though, have seen small losses to BSP, despite solid strike rates of 21.1% and 23.1% respectively. Clearly, the market is cottoning on.

 

Fergal O’Brien Individual Stats (positive/negative)

  1. Horses wearing a tongue tie only (no other headgear) have secured a strike rate of just over 20% for SP returns of 3.5p in the £. This increases to nearer 20p in the £ to BSP
  1. Horses making their debut have won 52 races from 279 (SR 18.6%) for a SP profit of £39.87 (ROI +14.3%). To BSP this increases to +£121.84 (ROI +43.7%)
  1. On front runners Paddy Brennan has won 88 races from 247 runners (SR 35.6%). Backing all such runners would have made a huge profit to both SP and BSP
  1. Front runners who were in the top three in the betting have won 34.4% of races; hold up horses from the top three in the betting have won just 19.7% of their races

 

Jamie Snowden

Jamie Snowden worked with Nicky Henderson for three years before going it alone in 2008. Despite having a relatively small, but growing, yard Jamie has had a steady stream of winners in recent years.

 

Jamie Snowden Yearly Breakdown

Win percentage by year kicks off the Snowden analysis:

 

 

Despite the 2020 blip (Covid may be part of the reason), in general we see a sound improvement after the first three seasons (2013-2015). Time to dig deeper:

 

Jamie Snowden Breakdown by Race Type

Race type is the first port of call:

 

 

Runners in Hunter Chases are extremely rare, but maybe he should have more! Joking aside, the main race types have similar strike rates (and Impact Values, to mitigate for field size differential), though hurdle races have seen quite significant losses. This similar strike rate pattern is seen in numerous areas for Snowden, who appears to be an extremely consistent trainer; so let’s look at the more niche area of run style.

 

Jamie Snowden Performance by Run Style

Snowden appears to have an appreciation of the importance of early pace with nearly 23% of his runners taking or contesting the lead, while nearly 42% of his runners track the pace. The pie chart below shows his full breakdown:

 

 

The Held Up percentage is well below the norm for most trainers, again demonstrating that Snowden understands the significance of run style.

The win percentages for each run style group are shown in the following bar chart:

 

 

These figures are even more pronounced than normal. Hold up horses have a quite appalling record. Clearly these runners must be avoided unless there is very compelling evidence to the contrary. Front runners win a shade better than one race in every four, which is very impressive.

 

Jamie Snowden Individual Stats (positive/negative)

As I mentioned earlier, Snowden has very ‘even’ looking stats – there are only a few ‘stand out’ snippets (mainly negative) and these are listed below:

  1. Class 1 races have proved difficult. Just 6 wins from 129 with steep losses of 68p in the £ to SP, 64p to BSP
  1. 3yos have won just 1 in 43 races
  1. Female runners have had a slightly higher win percentage than male runners and they would have made a small profit of 3p in the £ if betting to BSP
  1. Horses upped in class by two class levels or more (e.g. Class 5 to Class 3) have a poor record, winning just 4.3% of the time (7 wins from 162 runs)

 

Summary: Main Takeaways

Here are the key positives and negatives that this article has uncovered across the quintet of trainers analysed:

 

 

I hope you have enjoyed the articles in this trainer series. If there is anything you would like me to research and write about, please leave your suggestions in the comments. I will do my best to accommodate you.

Thanks for reading!

- Dave Renham

Monday Musings: Anightinlambourn

/in /by

When the Ben Pauling-trained mare Anightinlambourn battled bravely up the Cheltenham hill to win her third chase from her last four starts for the Ben Pauling stable, it might have been seen as an omen, writes Tony Stafford. Certainly so, that is, by two handlers (unlike Ben) who train in the Valley and who had fancied later runners on that middle Saturday of the big Paddy Power Gold Cup meeting.

The first has been a licence holder for almost four decades since the 1984-5 season and, before that, assistant to a great champion for another six of his ten years’ training apprenticeship. The other, who has had his yard in Lambourn for 11 years, has spent it honing a method where jumping-bred animals are produced and developed with the principal, nay almost single-minded, aim of turning them into high-class steeplechasers.

The first of our two heroes, as heroes they are, is Oliver Sherwood, Grand National-winning trainer, and now in his late 60’s and happily free of the malignant cancer that threatened to curtail his life last year. Now the smile is back, the drawn features are a vague, lost figment of the imagination and winners are rolling again.

From an Essex farming family, Oliver is the son of hunting enthusiast Nat and brother of Simon, General Manager and Clerk of the Course at Ludlow and, for a never-to-be-forgotten while, rider of the peerless Desert Orchid, on whom he won ten races, nine in succession before the grey fell at Aintree in their last race together.

It’s almost 25 years since such as Large Action, owned by Brian Stewart-Brown, helped Sherwood onto the top table of jump trainers alongside his fellow former Fred Winter assistant, Nicky Henderson. More recently he won the 2015 Grand National with the eight-year-old Many Clouds for his main patron, the late Trevor Hemmings, Mr Aintree in succession to Ginger McCain, Red Rum’s trainer.

Halfway between those times, a young army officer was serving in Iraq, but he emerged from that experience with a resolve. Jamie Snowden had always been interested in riding and horses. It was as a serving officer that he managed to weave a reputation as the best military rider of his era. His frequent wins at the Grand Military meeting at Sandown every March made him the ideal man to trust to build a betting bank for the Cheltenham Festival the following week.

It helped that at this point he spent time as an assistant with Paul Nicholls, who provided some of the Sandown winners and he was also a prolific winner of point-to-points.

Later he joined Henderson, a while after Charlie Longsdon had left to start training and it was for Charlie that Snowden partnered the winner of the most valuable race of his riding career. He had ridden the 10-year-old gelding Kerstino Two to three wins in succession – the horse’s first three starts after coming under Longsdon’s care – and they finished in the money the next twice.

Then, on January 6, 2007, at Sandown Park, they lined up for the £25k to the winner Ladbrokespoker.com Handicap Chase. They won by three lengths with Mr J Snowden claiming five pounds making the most of that military races experience to beat the 9/4 favourite, Preacher Boy, ridden by a certain A P McCoy. Then in turn came Noel Fehily, Tom O’Brien, Seamus Durack, Ruby Walsh, Paddy Merrigan, Daryl Jacob (claiming 3lb), and Charlie Studd. Paddy Brennan, Sam Thomas and Timmy Murphy all pulled up in completing the rollcall.

Both Longsdon and Snowden had moved on by the time Ray Tooth’s Punjabi had joined Henderson and, while he was winning his Champion Hurdle and a couple of Irish Grade 1 races, Ben Pauling and Tom Symonds had filled the role as joint-assistants.

By then, Jamie, with the serious riding just about out of his system, had set up at Folly House in Upper Lambourn. By Saturday at Cheltenham, I make it he had trained a total of 335 domestic winners, and Jamie Snowden Racing Ltd has completed the clean sweep of training winners at every UK jumps course.

Win number 335 was the most valuable prize and easily the race with the biggest prestige of his career to date. It was the £90k to the winner Paddy Power Gold Cup, the feature of the entire three days, which he took with well backed 5/1 shot Ga Law.

As befits an army man, the road to the Paddy Power was planned with (almost) military precision – he did think that maybe three weeks between a comeback after 600 days off and running back in such a big race might entail the risk of the dreaded “bounce”. Well, the only bounce was the way Ga Law jumped the formidable Cheltenham fences under Johnny Burke and they had more than enough to hold off the challengers coming up the hill.

For a six-year-old on only his ninth career start, this was an exceptional performance and the French-bred gelding, like all Jamie’s carefully sourced young horses, has a pedigree to match his ability.

Johnny Burke was also on our other equine star of the show and when I say star, I have no doubt that is exactly what Queens Gamble is destined to be. She had already shown herself to be well above average on her only previous start, also at Cheltenham at the April meeting, when I think it’s fair to say she caught her trainer slightly unawares, for as he says he never fully winds up his bumper horses on their debuts.

Queens Gamble is a daughter of Getaway from a winning mare which the owners raced with Jessica Harrington. She in turn was a daughter of Hawk Wing, favourite for both the 2,000 Guineas and Derby of 2002 but second in turn to stable-mates Rock Of Gibraltar and High Chaparral, although he did win Group 1 races at two, three and four.

He didn’t produce anything like the 137-rated horse he was by the time of his retirement, but he was always slightly quirky and the fact he eventually was sent as a stallion to Korea tells its own story.

If Queens Gamble looked good last April, on Saturday the performance was even better as this is always a high class mares’ bumper. She drew easily eight lengths clear of the previous winner of the race, the unbeaten (in three) Fergal O’Brien mare Bonttay and the rest of a deep field.

As with Frankel late in Sir Henry Cecil’s career, and this year Desert Crown, the Derby winner for Sir Michael Stoute, there is no reason why Oliver Sherwood should not take charge of the best he’s had in his later years as a trainer, such is his wealth of experience and career-long success. All that’s missing really is that title!

I certainly remember calling him something in his riding days, way back in the early 1970’s. Then, the Sporting Chronicle was the northern-based racing daily in competition with the Sporting Life, the main paper in the rest of the country. Both had naps tables and I was in the Chronicle list.

Coming to the Kempton pre-Cheltenham meeting – the competition ended a few weeks later – I had a long lead in the 70-strong field, but halfway through the meeting, I thought I recognised a name of one of the winners.

The horse was called Balmer’s Combe, ridden by Oliver Sherwood. It won at 66/1 (having opened at 14’s!) and sure enough the tipster in fourth, Teddy Davis of the Chester Chronicle, had made it his nap. I only ever saw him at the big meetings and, obviously, at Chester, and it wasn’t until that May when I asked him about it.

"It was all a mistake", he said. "I was told Oliver Sherwood would have a winner that day. It was trained by Fred Winter, but then it became a non-runner. He’d picked up a spare ride on a no-hoper, trained by Richard Mitchell, so I assumed that must be the horse. There were a couple of non-runners and a few fallers, so he won!" I couldn’t hold it against Teddy who was a lovely old boy, obviously long gone; but that Sherwood!

Having expected a big run from Queens Gamble, on whom Johnny Burke didn’t need to be as vigorous as on Ga Law, I was delighted when she came up the hill clearly in a class of her own. She’s the real deal!

There was predictability about the rest of the day, notably an Irish double initiated by the well-backed Banbridge, who floated over the fences and cantered clear for Joseph O’Brien in the competitive Arkle Trial for novice chasers. Then there was a trademark gamble landed with ease by Tony Martin via Unanswered, living up to his name in a one-sided stayers’ handicap hurdle.

The Irish, as ever, are coming, but two stout Englishmen based in Lambourn will be doing their utmost to see them off this winter, in a race or two at any rate.

- TS