This is the fifth article in a series on jockeys and here I’ll helicopter out to a more general perspective, writes Dave Renham. I will include data from some of the jockeys I have already looked at but will mainly introduce many new names and plenty of new stats.

As previously I have analysed National Hunt data for UK racing from 1^st January 2016 to 31^st October 2023. For this piece I have used a variety of data collection tools and, as with the previous four pieces, the profits/losses quoted are to Industry SP. I have quoted Betfair SP when appropriate.

All Races

Let me first share a table for all races looking at the jockeys who have the top 25 win strike rates. Jockeys who have appeared in the series to date are highlighted in green (minimum rides 800):

 

 

As the table shows, the UK jockeys on whom I’ve undertaken a deep dive are all in the top ten (top nine, to be precise). Paddy Brennan lies fourth in the table with one of the best ROI%s and a decent A/E index. He did not make the ‘cut’ for the first four articles mainly because he has ridden a lot less this year. To give you some perspective from 2016 to 2019 he averaged 470 rides a year; in 2023, at the time of my data collation at the end of October, he had ridden only 152 times. Therefore, it looks like he will barely reach 200 rides this year. It may be, then, that after around 25 years riding, Brennan is starting to wind down somewhat. Having said that, the last four seasons have seen an improvement in win success after poor campaigns for him in 2018 and 2019.

 

 

Maybe he has decided to try and ride quality over quantity as he sees out his latter years in the sport.

Aidan Coleman and Gavin Sheehan are both in top eight in the table in terms of strike rate. Coleman, at the time of writing, was still not back from a nasty injury, but he is hoping to back in the saddle before year end (though time is running out for that). One interesting stat for Aidan Coleman is that his strike rate is much higher when he rode the same horse last time out – 19.7% to be precise. When he did not ride the horse LTO this drops to 14.5%. There is also a difference in terms of ROI% of 9% (in favour of the 19.7% group).

Gavin Sheenan has one of the better ROI percentages at just under 10% losses (10p in the £), and to BSP you would have made a blind profit backing his runners to the tune of £167.87 (ROI +5.7%). He has had a couple of big BSP priced winners, but if you limit his rides to a BSP of 12.0 or shorter, he has still made a BSP profit £104.04 (ROI +5.7%). He has certainly offered punters some value in recent years. Sheehan also mirrors the stat I shared for Coleman whereby when he had ridden the horse LTO his strike rate has been 20.3%; if he did not ride the horse LTO it drops markedly to 13.2%.

Riding the favourite

Time to look at the jockeys who have performed best when on the ‘jolly’. To qualify they need to have ridden the favourite at least 70 times; again, I am sharing those with the top 25 strike rates:

 

 

David Maxwell has the higest strike rate but has proved costly to follow. He has primarily ridden in hunter chases for Paul Nicholls or Philip Hobbs. However, the contrast in results between the two is stark as the table below shows:

 

*Hobbs now trains with Johnson White

 

The Maxwell / Hobbs combination with favourites has fared extremely well, whereas the partnership with Nicholls has been surprisingly poor.

Looking at the main group of jockeys that make up the top 25, 16 of them have made a profit to SP which is impressive. To BSP this moves up to 18 with a further two hitting the break-even point. Jonathan Burke has proved profitable to SP returning nearly 18p in the £; this increases to 26p if using BSP. He has an outstanding record when riding a favourite for Harry Fry winning 18 of 33 for a strike rate just shy of 55%.

Considering that he has ridden over 900 favourites, Harry Cobden has done well to sneak into a miniscule SP profit. To BSP his profit on all favourites stands at £40.97 to £1 level stakes (ROI +4.3%).

 

Racecourse Angles

I would like now to look at some course data now. Here, I have looked at jockeys that appeared in the top three for win strike rates most frequently across all individual courses. Minimum 60 rides at each course to qualify.

 

 

The two Harry's, Cobden and Skelton, are in the top three jockey strike rates at 13 different courses each, which is impressive. Most of the big guns are near the top as you would expect. From a punting perspective, though, the jockeys who feature once or twice may potentially fly under the radar from a wagering perspective. Indeed, of the 16 jockeys that appear only once, 14 of them made a blind profit to SP, and all but one made a profit to BSP. The graph below shows the BSP profit for each jockey/course combination:

 

 

The only jockey of the 16 with losses to BSP was Sean Quinlan at Hexham (not shown in graph).

It is unlikely that these course/jockey combinations will continue to make such impressive profits, but it does show the power of perhaps steering clear of the obvious – betting against the crowd is often a good policy.

Trainer Angles

Like myself, many punters are fans of jockey/trainer partnerships, and I want to again look for potential ‘under the radar’ tie ups. In the graph below, you can see the top ten jockey/trainer combinations in terms of A/E indices. These figures are indicators of value – anything above 1.00 is considered value:

 

 

All of these jockeys have had at least 100 rides for the trainers in question and they must have combined at some point this year (2023), too. Lee Edwards riding for Adam West has produced the highest A/E index at 1.80. The breakdown of results for the pair reads 21 wins from 135 (SR 15.6%) for an SP profit of £110.33 (ROI +81.7%). To BSP the figures read +£158.79 (ROI +117.6%). Four of the past five years (2019-2023) have been profitable to SP and before then (2016-2018) Edwards rode just five times for West making yearly data effectively irrelevant.

Of these ten combinations, nine have made blind profits to SP, and all ten were profitable to BSP. Perhaps the most potent combination certainly since 2019 has been when Charlotte Jones has ridden for James Moffatt. The yearly breakdown is shown in the table below:

 

 

The last five years have produced good profits each year and although 2023 looks slightly less impressive, as I am writing this up in mid-December, Jones has had 14 more rides for Moffatt since collating the data for this article of which six have won.

It is also worth sharing the Jones/Moffatt record with horses priced 10/1 or shorter at Industry SP – this stands at 55 wins from 197 (SR 27.9%) for an SP profit of £89.21 (ROI +45.3%). Hence, although they have combined for a few big priced winners, they have also proven to be extremely successful with shorter priced runners too.

A look now at the top ten trainer/jockey pairs in terms of strike rates (100 rides minimum):

 

 

Only three of the ten have secured a profit to SP, but successful trainers and jockeys are popular with punters so obviously bookmakers are very wary, too. Hence getting value prices is not going to happen too often. In terms of BSP both Henderson/De Boinville and Richards/ Hughes have proved profitable.

The Frost/Nicholls combination has secured SP profits in six of the eight years with one breaking even. Only 2022 showed a loss but that has been reversed again in 2023 thanks to an excellent strike rate of around 28%. Also look out for when Frost was on the horse last time out as well. Her record when repeating a ride on the same Nicholls horse reads 48 wins from 172 (SR 27.9%) for a profit of £79.31 (ROI +46.1%). To BSP this improves to +£111.37 (ROI +64.8%).

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So, there we have it. I've tried in this article to offer a selection of useful stats that you can put to work as we move into 2024. On that note, may I wish all Geegeez readers a very Happy Christmas and New Year.

- DR