Tag Archive for: Rebecca Menzies

Rebecca Menzies has big-race options for Boomslang

The Scottish Champion Chase and the Ladbrokes Trophy are among the options under consideration for Boomslang following his impressive victory at Musselburgh on New Year’s Day.

The eight-year-old has won three of his first four starts over fences for Rebecca Menzies, with a successful Irish raid at Downpatrick in October followed by a narrow defeat at Newcastle and another victory at Carlisle.

He stepped out of novice company for the first time in the valuable Auld Reekie Handicap Chase in Scotland – and having gone up 7lb to a revised mark of 132 off the back of a near five-length verdict, bigger targets await.

Menzies said: “We were delighted with Boomslang and he’s obviously improving away all the time, which is great.

“The ground was unusually soft for Musselburgh on New Year’s Day and that probably suited him over two and a half as we know he stays well. It was a nice prize to win.”

The £100,000 Scottish Champion Chase over the same course and distance as his most recent success is an obvious target on February 1, but Menzies also has one eye on a possible return to three miles and even bigger prize at Kempton three weeks later.

Boomslang gets a wash down at home
Boomslang gets a wash down at home (Rebecca Menzies Racing)

“He could go back to Musselburgh for the Scottish Champion Chase, but if we did get Musselburgh quick ground it might be worth putting in an entry for three-mile handicap on the same day,” she added.

“That race is worth quite a bit less, but if it was good ground it would probably suit him better and you could maybe go to Kempton with him after that.

“He seems to take his racing well and looks a better horse going right-handed at this stage.”



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Emotional winner for Rebecca Menzies at Sedgefield

There were emotional scenes in the Sedgefield winner’s enclosure on Tuesday, after Imperial Rule carried the colours of the late John Wade to victory at his local track.

Wade saddled over 200 winners from his County Durham base before retiring in 2016. He later handed over the reins to Rebecca Menzies, who recently sent out the 400th winner of her burgeoning career.

Wade died aged 80 last month and a minute’s silence was held before racing in both his honour and that of George Reveley, widower of former leading trainer Mary Reveley.

Imperial Rule was a 7-1 shot for the Racing Supports Graham Lee superstar-auctions.com Novices’ Handicap Chase and finished with a flourish under a well-judged ride from Ross Chapman to score by four and a half lengths.

“It’s brilliant to win a race that was named for John and has been switched for Graham. Graham Lee actually said the other night ‘there’s one rule in racing, there are no rules’, and I think that just sums that up. He (Imperial Rule) pulled it out of the bag when it mattered,” Menzies told Sky Sports Racing.

“We need to celebrate what John has done for northern racing and what he’s done for all of us. To keep training winners in his colours is an absolute honour.”

In early October Menzies surprised Wade by sending a small team of runners to Downpatrick and sponsored a race in his honour, and the plan came to fruition, with Wade on hand to see Edgewell carry his silks to victory in the Rebecca Menzies Racing 40 Winners And Counting For John Wade Handicap Chase.

Edgewell’s success was the second leg of a double on that card for the team, with Boomslang earlier making a successful debut over fences for Wade’s close friend Maria D Myco.

Edgewell with connections at Downpatrick
Edgewell with connections at Downpatrick (Michael Graham/PA)

Menzies added: “John and Maria have some lovely horses at home, young horses as well that haven’t made the track yet. Hopefully we can keep training those and see those horses through, I’m sure that’s what John would have wanted.

“He wanted winners and always wanted winners at Sedgefield. We had a really fun-filled season planned out, Downpatrick was the start of it and we had all sorts of stuff planned for him.

“I think he was definitely there urging that horse down to the last and hopefully we can continue to do him proud.

“I’m absolutely delighted to win a race named after another complete legend in Graham Lee. They are two such massively influential people in my career, so to train the winner of that race means even more.”



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Menzies hails ‘inspirational’ John Wade

Rebecca Menzies has paid a heartfelt tribute to her landlord and mentor John Wade after the former trainer died at the age of 80.

Wade saddled over 200 winners from his County Durham base before retiring in 2016. He enjoyed notable success in the 2011 Grimthorpe Chase with Always Right, who went on to finish third in that year’s Scottish Grand National.

Menzies, who became Britain’s youngest trainer in 2013 aged just 24 after taking over the reins at the Brandsby yard of Gold Cup-winning trainer Peter Beaumont, made the move to Wade’s Howe Hills stables three years later and recently sent out the 400th winner of her burgeoning career.

Edgewell with connections at Downpatrick
Edgewell with connections at Downpatrick (Michael Graham/PA)

Earlier this month Menzies surprised Wade by sending a small team of runners to Downpatrick and sponsored a race in his honour, and the plan came to fruition, with Wade on hand to see Edgewell carry his silks to victory in the Rebecca Menzies Racing 40 Winners And Counting For John Wade Handicap Chase.

Edgewell’s success was the second leg of a double on the card for the team, with Boomslang earlier making a successful debut over fences for Wade’s close friend Maria D Myco.

Menzies said in a statement: “It is with great sadness and shock that we share the news that John Wade passed away overnight.

“John meant and will always mean so much to us, not only as our landlord but as an owner, our biggest supporter, our inspiration in so many ways and most importantly our friend. Along with his lifelong friend Maria, they both have been instrumental in the success we have enjoyed and shared as a team since we came to Howe Hills many years ago.

“Our lives are stronger and better by knowing John and his presence will live on with us for the future as we continue to work hard, to gain more success in the sport that he loved.

“We are so grateful that we enjoyed a very special day at Downpatrick last week, with both John and Maria enjoying a winner each in their own colours. John said it was a fantastic day and the best he could of hoped for and we say back, it was the least we could do for you.

“John knows we will uphold his standards and integrity as we look forward to many more years at Howe Hills with success and a performance he would be proud of. We know without him we wouldn’t be where we are now and he will be sorely missed.”



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Rebecca Menzies celebrates ‘brilliant day’ for owner John Wade

A plan to surprise owner John Wade came to fruition when Rebecca Menzies pulled off a successful raid at Downpatrick last week.

The plot was hatched when Wade told Menzies he would be visiting Northern Ireland for several days and she should therefore avoid entering any of his horses in England while he was away.

As Wade is the owner of Howe Hills, the stable from which Menzies operates, and also owns several horses in the yard, the trainer decided to sponsor a race on the Downpatrick card in his honour and enter several horses.

The surprise was foiled slightly when Wade checked Friday’s cards to make sure no horses had been entered in England in his absence, but the rest of the plan was a great success as two of the four runners won.

The first to oblige was Boomslang, who took the Denvir’s Of Downpatrick Beginners Chase for Wade’s close friend Maria D Myco, after which Edgewell followed suit to take the Rebecca Menzies Racing 40 Winners And Counting For John Wade Handicap Chase for his owner.

“John Wade is our landlord and he has quite a lot of horses in training with us. He’d planned months ago that he was going to go and meet his friends from Northern Ireland and a few of his friends from London were also coming to meet him,” Menzies explained.

“He mentioned to me not to enter his horses while he was away, in England that is, but he didn’t say anything about Ireland!

“We planned it all out and entered some horses, four of which were his and one of which was owned by his lifelong friend Maria D Myco, who was going along with him.

“It was all kept secret until two nights before, he was looking on his iPad because some of his other trainers had made entries at Hexham and he saw the name of the Downpatrick race.

“He spoiled his own surprise, but it was still good because we managed to get to two days before without him knowing and then the stars aligned with two winners.

“It was great, the ground ended up being perfect and the races cut up a bit, they had a hospitality box and we sponsored the last race.

“Speaking to him when he got back, he said it was a brilliant weekend. He mentioned when he won a Listed race at Ayr with one of his other horses, Return Ticket, he brought a lot of friends that day and a lot of them hadn’t been racing before.

“He reckoned Ireland was as good as that day, it was a brilliant day for him and he was absolutely buzzing.”



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Trainers with older runners (4 and up)

In this sixth and final piece in the trainer performance by age jigsaw, I will be looking at the how trainers have fared with their with older runners, specifically those aged four and upwards. As with the previous articles in the series I have used UK flat racing data from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2021 giving us six full seasons to examine. The results include turf and all weather racing.

I have used the Geegeez Query Tool once more for all  data analysis, and all profits / losses have been calculated to Industry Starting Price, although as we know these figures will be improved using either BOG, early prices or the exchanges.

Let us start by specifically looking at trainer performance with four-year-olds only.

General trainer performance with 4yo runners 

Many top trainers lose their stable stars at the end of their 3yo campaign, usually to stud or to race overseas, but a few top quality animals continue domestically into their fourth year.  Here are the top 20 trainers in terms of strike rate with their 4yo runners (minimum 150 runs). The data include both handicap and non-handicaps. It should be noted that the vast majority of races that 4yos compete in are handicaps:

 

 

There is a smattering of profitable trainers here; six to be exact. This includes the Gosden stable, and they have also secured the highest win strike rate. Nine of the 20 have achieved an A/E index of 1.00 or more suggesting that their runners have been good value as a whole. While on the subject of A/E indices, here are the remaining trainers who have achieved an A/E index of over 1.00.

 

 

That's another 15 trainers, making 24 in total. The chart includes several names we have not seen too often before and I would put many of these in the underrated trainer category.

Before digging into some of the individual trainers in more detail I want to look at a different measure of 4yo performance. To wit, I am going to focus on the top ten trainers in the table and look at the percentage of their runners that won at least one race as a 4yo. The reason for doing this is that some trainer figures can be skewed a little if they have winners of multiple races in their yard. To calculate this we take the number of a trainer’s 4yos that won at least once as a 4yo and divide it by all the horses that ran as a 4yo; that gives a decimal and then we multiply it by 100 to give the percentage. Here are the findings:

 

 

Four trainers have secured percentages in excess of 50% with Chris Dwyer hitting a very impressive 75%. It should be noted Dwyer has only had 24 individual 4yo runners in total but for 18 of them to win at least once is very impressive. Of the six that didn’t manage a win as a 4yo, five made the frame at least once. William Haggas is close to the 60% mark which, considering he has saddled 126 four-year-olds in the study period, is impressive. At the other end of the scale, Charlie Appleby’s and Team Crisford’s figures are lower than expected.

Now, of course, these figures could also be skewed if several 4yos in a stable have run just once or twice in the season. However, looking at the overall data, most trainers have similar spreads when it comes to number of runs for their horses.

 

Individual Trainer Performance with Four-Year-Olds

Moving back to individual trainers and their overall performance, let me drill down first into the performance of John and Thady Gosden. Here are some key stats:

  1. If you had backed all Gosden 4yo runners at Betfair SP the profit would stand at £73.24 equating to returns of 18p in the £.
  2. Their female 4yo runners have performed exceptionally well with 36 wins from 126 runs (SR 28.6%) for a profit of £54.97 (ROI +43.6%).
  3. In Group 1 races, the Gosdens have saddled 12 winners from 48 for an excellent 1 in 4 strike rate; in Group 2 contests this improves to 15 wins from 43 (SR 34.9%) showing a profit of £32.66 (ROI 76.0%).
  4. The best performances have been at distances of 1m2f or more where they have secured a 26% strike rate and returns of 9p in the £.

 

The Gosden stable has shown good consistency with their 4yos and this is illustrated when looking at their performance at different courses. Their win SR% are shown below (minimum 15 runs):

 

 

All tracks bar Newmarket have figures of 20% or higher. Chelmsford is a clear leader thanks to 7 wins from 16.

A look at William Haggas now and his strongest stats:

  1. Amazingly, his male and female runners have hit exactly the same win strike rate% of 21.4%.
  2. 4yos that have started favourite for Haggas have delivered with 65 wins from 174 runners (SR 37.4%) for a profit of £21.77 (ROI +12.5%). His second favourites have also proved profitable returning just under 15p in the £ from a 23.5% strike rate.
  3. Haggas is not one for sending 4yo runners to the front that often but when he does they have won 34% of their races (17 wins from 50).
  4. He has struggled a little at the very elite level with 0 winners from 19 in Group 1 races, although five did place. He has a better record when the level drops to Class 3 races or below; here he has secured 56 wins from 176 (SR 31.8%) for a healthy profit of £37.41 (ROI +21.3%).

 

Onto a few of the other trainers now and their strongest stats:

  1. Grant Tuer is an impressive 24 from 44 (SR 54.5%) with favourites. Backing all of them would have seen a profit of £26.97 (ROI 61.2%).
  2. Sir Michael Stoute has an excellent record on the all weather – 26 wins from 70 runners (SR 37.1%) producing returns of 24p in the £.
  3. Saeed bin Suroor has made a small 5p in the £ profit with horses priced 8/1 or shorter. Longer priced runners (above 8/1) have lost over 64p in the £ due to just 2 winners from 88.
  4. Chris Dwyer has saddled 12 winners from 46 runners when using 3lb claiming jockeys. They have produced a profit of £43.88 (ROI 95.4%). Also it should be noted that seven different 3lb claimers have secured at least one win. Hence these figures are not skewed by one jockey.
  5. William Knight has a decent record on the all weather hitting a win rate of slightly better than 1 win in 5. He is 8 from 18 at Wolves and 5 from 11 at Newcastle.

 

Individual Trainer Performance with Five-Year-Olds and upwards

Moving up in age now let's look at all runners aged five and older. Only trainers with 200+ runs have been considered. Here are the top 20 in terms of win strike rate:

 

 

As we get into the realms of more exposed and generally less elite horses, we see quite a few new trainers on the list when compared to previous tables in this series of articles. Making a profit however, is hard to come by as one would expect. Just two trainers were in profit at SP across the six year period, and both were barely in profit at that. It is, however, good to see ten trainers with A/E indices of 1.00 or more, implying they might offer value.

Roger Varian leads the table but he has made significant losses of around 32p in the £.

John Quinn has the best record as far as returns are concerned and these are some of his stronger stats:

  1. Quinn has made all his profits in turf races (returns of 16p in £). In all weather races he has had losses of 30p in the £.
  2. Shorter distances of 7f or less have produced the best overall performances with 48 wins from 256 runners (SR 18.8%) for a profit of £71.62 (ROI +28.0%).
  3. He has a 23% strike rate in non-handicaps; 11% in handicaps.
  4. Jockey Jason Hart has ridden over half of Quinn’s older runners securing a return of 16p in the £ over 260 rides.

 

It needs to be appreciated that horses aged five and older, especially handicappers, are typically not going to be the most consistent animals. Although if we look at Quinn’s yearly win strike rates they are all similar except for 2021, where his runners probably over-performed compared with previous seasons:

 

 

I thought it may be interesting to compare trainer performance when we split the older runners into two age bands – 4yos & 5yos, and 6yos and older - comparing Win% (SR%), A/E indices and Impact Values. To qualify a trainer needed at least 100 runners in each age band.

The right hand columns compare the 4 & 5yo Win% data with the 6yo+ Win% data by creating a ratio of one to the other. The greater the number above 1.00, the more 4 & 5yos are favoured; the smaller the number below 1.00, the more 6yos and older are favoured. Any A/E value of 1.00 or more has been highlighted in blue. I have also highlighted any win ratio of 1.4 and above or 0.7 and below. These ratios help to highlight where there is a significant difference in the Win SR%:

 

It is worth noting that both Derek Shaw and Rebecca Menzies have achieved A/E indices of 1.00 or more in both age bands. That is high achieving in this context. William Knight was close also with figures of 1.1 and 0.99. Meanwhile, Jane Chapple-Hyam’s strike rate for four- and five-year-olds is double that of her six-year-old and up group. She is the only trainer to attain a win ratio% of over 2.

And that brings the final curtain down on this trainer series. Hopefully you have found some nuggets within the six ‘episodes’ that will aid your betting and produce some additional profits. For me, it’s time to start some new research on a different aspect of racing. Until then, you'll find links to the other five articles below; and may I wish you the very best of luck with your punting.

- DR



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