Tag Archive for: Rex Dingle

NH Jockey Profiles: The Younger Generation

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It is the turn of the younger up and coming riders to come under the spotlight in my series on National Hunt jockeys, writes Dave Renham. For this piece I have used a variety of data collection tools and as with the previous five pieces the profits/losses quoted are to Industry SP; I will quote Betfair SP when appropriate. I will be analysing a more recent National Hunt data set for UK racing than in the earlier articles, in this case starting from 1st Jan 2019 and running to 25th Dec 2023.

In the fifth article in the series, I highlighted Charlotte Jones and her overall record with trainer James Moffatt, so she seemed a good starting point for this one.

Charlotte Jones

Let's look firstly at her overall record in the past five years:

 

 

These stats are extremely impressive. To BSP, Jones's profits soar to £509.30. She has made a profit to SP in four of the five years, with the other one breaking even. To BSP every year has been profitable. It is worth stating that she has had some big priced winners, which naturally skews profits and returns somewhat. However, she has been profitable and consistent even when focusing on the front end of the market. The table below include results from all horses priced 6/1 or shorter broken down by year:

 

 

Every year has been profitable, and comfortably so, which considering the price bracket is very impressive. Her overall A/E index for these 6/1 or shorter runners stands at 1.54 which is outstanding.

Let me now look her record by trainer. We know her record with Moffatt is excellent, and the Cartmel-based trainer provides most of her rides. The table below compares her record with Moffatt against all other trainers combined.

 

 

On first viewing, this is some contrast. However, we need to put the ‘all other trainers’ data in more context as only five of those rides were on horses priced in single figures, and just three were in the top three in the betting. Further, there are only 35 runners compared with 301 for Moffatt.

Jones primarily rides in the north and, as stated, Cartmel is her local track. At the Lake District venue she has ridden 25 winners from 95 (SR 26.3%) for a small SP profit of £4.08 (ROI +4.3%). Hexham is a course where she has an even better record thanks to 11 wins from 31 rides (SR 35.5%) for a profit of £9.82 (ROI +31.7%).

Before moving on, Jones managed to ride five winners in a row in November 2023 – three on the 10th November and two on the 11th. Not many jockeys achieve that feat. Hopefully she will get more opportunities in the coming months and years. (STOP PRESS – the day I was writing this up, Boxing Day, Jones had two rides at Aintree for Moffatt, and both won at 13/2 and 6/1 respectively).

 

Danny McMenamin

Danny McMenamin was Champion Conditional Jockey in the 2020-21 season. He rode out his claim in February 2021 and since then he has continued to impress. Below is a breakdown of his win and each way strike rate by year:

 

 

As the graph indicates there has been no drop off since riding out his claim at the beginning of 2021, and 2023 was one of his best years. Indeed, his last six rides before Christmas produced four winners, at 9/1, 9/2, 10/11 and 5/2, and one second at 10/1.

In terms of trainers Nicky Richards provides McMenamin with the most rides, and below the table shows trainers who have used him 75 times or more since 2019:

 

 

Three of the four trainers are in the black in terms of profits, even to SP. And even the negative SP ROI with Richards goes into profit at BSP to the tune of £27.18 (ROI +10.0%). Riding for Ann Hamilton has produced some excellent results – a strike rate close to 30% is outstanding. Not only that, but considering he is 0 from 16 with horses priced 20/1 or bigger means focusing in on the rest gives 23 wins from 64 (SR 35.9%) for a profit to SP of £43.72 (ROI +68.3%); to BSP it is +£75.42 (ROI +118.5%).

In terms of courses, McMenamin has ridden at least 50 times at nine different venues. Below shows the win and each way strike rates at all of them:

 

 

As you can see, his record is consistent / similar across all of them. Hence at this early stage in his career there is no stand-out course for which to keep an eye out.

Before moving on, Danny McMenamin has a good record on clear favourites, with a  strike rate of 41.1% (62 wins from 151) for a small SP profit of £16.70 (ROI +11.1%). To BSP this improves a smidge to +£23.54 (ROI +15.8%).

 

Bryan Carver

Bryan Carver first caught my eye at the end of 2019 / beginning of 2020 when he rode six winners out of eight including an 883/1 treble at Exeter on New Year’s Day 2020. Since then, he has ridden out his claim at the beginning of April 2022 and now plies his trade mainly in the South of England, Wales, and the Midlands. Just 7% of his rides in the past five years have been in the Northern part of England or in Scotland.

The small stable of trainer Chris Honour has provided him with the most rides during the period of study and below are his stats with all trainers for whom he has had at least 50 rides:

 

 

The A/E indices are all above 1.00 which indicates value, and his record with these four trainers is better than compared with all other trainers for whom he has ridden. Combining these other trainers together gives the following figures:

 

 

I think Carver has been a little unlucky not to get a real break with one of the bigger stables since riding out his claim. Luck plays a part in any walk of life as we know; it would be a shame if Carver ends up as a journeyman type of jockey in my view.

Here are three additional stats for Carver worth sharing:

  1. When riding clear favourites he has secured 42 wins from 105 (SR 40%) for an SP profit of £8.77 (ROI +8.4%). To BSP the profits edge up to £13.88 (ROI +13.2%).
  1. He has ridden at Exeter more than anywhere else and his record there is excellent. He has had 18 winners from only 86 rides (SR 20.9%) for an SP profit of £56.75 (ROI +66%). To BSP his profits reads £80.54 (ROI +93.7%).
  1. He has a good record in races of three miles or more, performing best in these longer races compared to other distance groups as the graph below indicates:

 

 

This is an unusual jockey trend based on the stats of the jockeys analysed in previous articles. In these three-mile+ races he has secured a blind profit to SP returning 23p in the £, and his A/E index stands at a solid 1.03. One would have also made good profits betting his mounts each way in such races. It should also be noted that he made solid profits in these 3-mile+ races when focusing solely on runners from the top three in the betting market. Those figures read 25 wins from 98 (SR 25.5%) for a profit to SP of £16.19 (ROI +16.5%).

 

Rex Dingle

Rex Dingle announced himself to the racing world when winning on the 25/1 shot Indefatigable in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap hurdle at the 2020 Cheltenham Festival. He is currently riding primarily for Anthony Honeyball and Chris Gordon, and let me start by looking at his overall record since the beginning of 2019:

 

 

This is a very solid record and to BSP he has made a small profit of £28.85 (ROI +2.7%).

My next port of call is splitting Dingle's win and each way stats up by year and this is shown in the graph below:

 

 

What immediately catches the eye is the dip in 2021. This coincides with when he was no longer able to claim his 3lb allowance. It had been at the end of December 2020 when he rode out his claim and clearly the next 12 months were a difficult adjustment. In fact, the start of 2021 was particularly difficult with just 7 winners from 100 rides (SR 7%) between January and April. The rest of 2021 began to show an uptick with 15 wins from 121 (SR 12.4%), while it should also be noted that the final eight months of the year saw 31% of his rides making the frame compared with just 17% during the first four months.

In terms of trainers there are three trainers apart from Honeyball for whom Rex has had at least 50 rides. The splits are shown below:

 

 

A one in five strike rate for Honeyball is impressive despite not quite getting into SP profit. His record for Paul Webber is poor, but Webber’s overall strike rate going back to 2019 is only 5.4% which helps explain Dingle’s figure.

The partnership with Honeyball has been particularly potent at Fontwell with 14 winners from 51 (SR 27.5%) for an SP profit of £5.14 (ROI +10.1%). This pairing has also performed extremely well when the horse has been clear favourite. Under these circumstances Honeyball and Dingle have combined to win 35 from 75 (SR 46.7%) for a profit to SP of £11.66 (ROI +15.6%); to BSP this increases slightly to £15.42 (ROI +20.6%).

Looking at Dingle’s record for all trainers, it is worth checking out his record in handicaps compared to non-handicaps. These results may surprise a few:

 

 

It is rare for jockeys to score more regularly in handicaps, but Dingle certainly has. The difference between the two race types is significant. While it is true that Dingle had a handicap winner priced 80/1, of all the horses priced over 25/1 in handicaps this was his only success from 58 runners. Hence when taking these bigger priced runners into account this sole winner does not skew the profit figures that much in reality. The non-handicap figures are quite poor especially the bottom line – this is very likely a function of riding for shrewd trainers who like to get their horses competitively handicapped.

 

Jonjo O’Neill, Jr.

Jonjo is the son of the trainer Jonjo O’Neill, Sr., and was the conditional Champion in the 2019/20 season. Here is his overall record since the beginning of 2019:

 

 

Jonjo Jr. has averaged nearly 400 rides a year which makes him one of the busier jockeys on the circuit. Let us see a yearly breakdown of strike rate both to win and each way:

 

 

O’Neill saw a small dip in success the year after losing his claim (2021), and since then he has nudged back up a little. As a 3lb claimer he won 20% of his races, compared with 15.6% since riding without that weight allowance.

I want to split his performance now by race type. It should be noted that he has also had two spins in hunter chases which are not shown.

 

 

A similar performance level has been achieved across the board, but his NH Flat record shows the best strike rate and a near break-even scenario at starting price. These figures are not skewed by big priced winners. For his father, the NHF strike rate hits 19.4% (26 wins from 134) with a small return of just under 8p in the £ to boot.

In terms of trainers, 72% of O’Neill, Jr. rides have been for O'Neill, Sr., and the only other significant trainer in terms of rides has been Colin Tizzard, who is now retired. His strike rate for O’Neill Senior is 17%, for all other trainers combined this drops to 12.6%.

I want to finish by looking at Jonjo Jr's course data, restricting it to courses where he has had at least 60 rides. The win strike rates are shown in the graph below.

 

 

As can be seen the performance varies markedly from course to course. Four tracks (Carlisle, Huntingdon, Southwell, and Warwick) have yielded strike rates above 22%. Of these, three have turned an SP profit – Carlisle, Huntingdon, and Warwick. Indeed, at Warwick O’Neill has been in profit in all five individual years. Hence, Warwick is a course to note whenever he has booked rides there. In contrast, six courses have seen win strike rates below 11.5%, with three of these under 7%.

O’Neill is in his mid-20s so could easily have another 20 years in the saddle. It will be interesting to see how he progresses in the years to come.

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The five jockeys discussed in this piece are worth keeping a close eye on over the coming months and years. It will be interesting to see which, if any, of them will make it to the very top of the National Hunt riding tree.

- DR

 

Monday Musings: Crossing Borders

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You might not have noticed, but the British flat turf season ended with a whimper, as they say, on Saturday – on the Tapeta surface at Newcastle rather than on the swamp that was Doncaster, writes Tony Stafford. The end-of-season highlight, the November Handicap, sponsored by whoever they can drum up these days, was a denuded affair of half a field compared with its heyday, not that Brian Ellison or the owners of Onesmoothoperator minded as they picked up 36k of Virgin Bet money.

The last actual turf meeting to be completed had been Newmarket a week earlier and it wouldn’t have needed much creativity to suggest to trainers and owners that a decent turf surface there would still have been more likely than anywhere else in the country and could accommodate 20 runners with ease. The horses that turned up had presumably been geared up for a big race opportunity on autumn (or worse) grass and that’s what they could have got at HQ.

Instead, in addition to Newcastle, we had Aintree in the north-west and Kelso in Scotland over jumps, with Wincanton in the West Country and an all-weather card at Chelmsford in deepest Essex. There was again a mystifyingly small field for the first go over the Grand National fences this season in the not-so-Grand Sefton which attracted just eleven.

Meanwhile down at Wincanton, Paul Nicholls had a field day, sending out the first four winners before Anthony Honeyball spiked his guns winning the main race, the Badger Beer, with Blackjack Magic and then going on to complete a double, both with Rex Dingle in the saddle, this time on Good Look Charm.

Nicholls was still happy enough having swept up the other two main prizes, the Elite Hurdle, for the umpteenth time, with Rubaud, and the Rising Stars Chase with Knappers Hill.

I’d been wondering about the definitions of the United Kingdom, Great Britain and the British Isles before offering today’s quiz question. Bearing in mind Nicholls and his Wincanton four-timer, I ask, which trainer sent out most winners in the UK on the Friday and Saturday of last week?

The answer: Gordon Elliott, who provided 11 of the 14 winners at the two-day Down Royal meeting. Benefiting from a minimal representation from Willie Mullins, he had the first four on Friday and the last two after missing the fifth. Then on Saturday, he could not improve on his first five, despite having an odds-on chance in the last of seven races that day.

His tally there equalled his entire score of 11 more on Irish (non-UK) tracks over the previous 14-day period. Down Royal is close to the town of Lisburn, in the Six Counties, and situated around 40 miles from the border with the Republic whether you are travelling south or south-west as the border meanders its way across to the sea.

Of course, all the Down Royal stats apply to Irish racing. Its meetings, and those of Downpatrick, the other (and jumps only) Irish racecourse are staged under the Rules of Irish racing and all their statistics are included in the Irish returns. Many of the top domestic English, Scottish and Welsh jumps stables get a decent portion of their better imports though from the flourishing Northern Irish point-to-point field.

If the successes of Elliott and Nicholls tell you anything, the top stables have been stocking up avidly over the past 12-18 months and are going to be more formidable than ever. £300,000 plus is not unknown for a smart point-to-point prospect and, even then, success is not assured.

To illustrate that observation, three former Irish point winners lined up for yesterday’s finale at Ffos Las. Two that cost 100 grand and 85k respectively finished miles behind the Isabel Williams-ridden (and sourced at the sales) Followango. She paid 8k for the Evan Williams-trained five-year-old and owners W J Evans Racing could increase that probably by at least ten-fold if they wanted to leave the risk to someone else!

Gordon Elliott’s rehabilitation seems to have been largely achieved following the embarrassment of that infamous picture on his gallops. Talent will out as they say, though whether the major owners who decided to leave will ever return is another matter. But training is never plain sailing as he will be quick to admit. Yesterday’s nine runners at Naas, so back home in Ireland, produced no wins and just a couple of consolation second places.

The flat season may be over, the awards having been handed out a while ago at Ascot, but several trainers and jockeys have still been aiming at some of the major prizes available elsewhere. I’m not sure how Hollie Doyle is after unseating from her mount at Fukushima racecourse in Japan yesterday, while Ryan Moore would have been happier if the mare Geraldine, second choice for the Queen Elizabeth II Cup at Kyoto, had done better than finish in 5th place.

He has the consolation of the rider’s share of 85k, one tenth of the winner’s prize won by Christophe Lemaire on the favourite Brede Weg in this race for 3yo and up fillies and mares.

And the Melbourne Cup last Tuesday week had been a frustration for Simon and Ed Crisford as their former inmate Without A Fight collected the multi-million first prize having previously narrowly denied their present high-class performer West Wind Blows in the Caulfield Cup.

West Wind Blows, again ridden by Jamie Spencer, turned out on Saturday in the TAB Champion Stakes at Flemington but despite starting favourite for the £1 million plus first prize, could fare no better than 9th of 11. Prizemoney went almost all the way down but stopped at £33k for eighth!

There was a trio of UK jockeys riding in yesterday’s Group 2 at San Siro in Milan. The Crisfords targeted the race with hat-trick scorer Poker Face, ridden by James Doyle, while Archie Watson had two representatives with Oisin Murphy and Luke Morris doing the steering on Roman Mist and Brave Emperor respectively.

Once again, the Crisfords were disappointed, Poker Face started odds-on but the honours and the £100k pot went to Watson and Morris, with Brave Emperor striding to a four-length success over the favourite. The second Watson runner Roman Mist was denied third by a short head.

The Paddy Power Gold Cup and Greatwood Hurdle are the big races to anticipate next weekend as the jumps season now gets into full flow. The Paddy Power looks too complicated at this stage, and I’d like to see the first lot of acceptances later today before starting to formulate an opinion.

But I’m more than happy to put forward a tip for next Sunday’s Greatwood Hurdle. I always have a great respect for anything that Dan Skelton shows up with and can understand why his Knickerbockerglory is prominent in the market.

However, I was so impressed with the way Punctuation won going back on the flat at Doncaster, after a long layoff for Fergal O’Brien. That powerful win suggested he’d improved since his highly successful jumping stint last winter. Punctuation for me.

- TS