Tag Archive for: trainer change

When Horses Change Stable: Part 2

/in /by

This is the second of two articles looking at horses that have switched stables on the flat, writes Dave Renham. The first article looked at horses’ first run for a new yard, while this one examines the second run from that new stable. We’ll call them TC2 (Trainer Change 2nd Start).

As I mentioned last time, the one stipulation is that the switch is from a horse that has been running on the flat and not National Hunt. This is mainly because there are some dual-purpose horses that switch yards each year from a dedicated National Hunt stable to a flat stable.

The data has been taken from the last ten full years (2015-2024) of flat racing in the UK (turf/AW) and all profit and loss has been calculated to Betfair SP with 2% commission applied on any winners. This is also the first article where the A/E indices (Actual versus Expected) will be based on BSP not Industry SP.

To recap, the last article noted that all horses that have had their first run for a new trainer having switched stables scored 8.2% of the time and actually made a blind BSP profit of £732.49. This equated to a 4.65% return on investment. Unsurprisingly, these overall figures included some horses winning at huge prices: there were 12 winners that paid 100.0 or bigger ‘on the machine’ with the majority lying between 100.0 and 200.0. The two biggest winners, however, were enormous at 429.02 and 503.82. Having said all that backing all 100.0+ qualifiers actually showed a loss of £279.72 (ROI -11.2%).

All TC2 Runners

So how about all horses having their second start for a new stable. Are the overall figures similar? Let’s see:

 

 

Despite a slightly better win strike rate, we see fairly steep losses. Most of these losses have been incurred by the genuine outsiders and, if we ignore the 2153 horses that started 100.0 or bigger at BSP we get much closer to parity:

 

 

The returns now show a small loss of just over 1½ pence in the £, and if we further restrict all qualifiers to those priced BSP 20.0 or shorter we hit profit:

 

 

These runners on roughly once in every six starts and returned a profit of just under 5p for every £1 staked.

TC2 Runners Sent Off Exchange Favourite

Sticking with the betting market let’s now focus on Exchange favourites.

 

 

These figures are very similar to the ones we saw for first-time switchers – but while those runners made a small profit of just under 2p in the £, the second start cohort produced a small reverse of a penny in the £.

Let’s next compare the annual performance of these BSP favourites by examining their ROI%.

 

 

As we can see there is a bit of a mixed bag, but this is to be expected based on an average of 130 qualifiers per year. There were three poor years (2018, 2019 and 2021), two profitable years (2015 and 2020), and five years that have been close to breaking even, albeit all showed a small loss.

There are a few angles where horses having their second run for a new trainer have made a profit when starting as favourite. These are:

  1. Favourites in non-handicaps won 90 races from 190 (SR 47.4%) for a profit of £27.55 (ROI +14.5%).
  2. 2yos when starting as market leader won 24 races from 54 (SR 44.4%) for a profit of £17.60 (ROI +32.6%).
  3. Favourites racing in Class 1 or 2 company won 25 of 79 starts (SR 31.7%) for a profit of £12.50 (ROI +15.8%).

TC2 Runners Sent Off Exchange 2nd or 3rd Fav

Next, let’s now combine second and third favourites to see how they fared.

 

 

As we can see a nominal profit has been achieved. It is interesting to note that 2yos sent off second or third favourite made a profit (as we saw earlier when 2yos started favourite). This cohort of runners won 23 races from 88 (SR 26.1%) for a healthy profit of £36.37 (ROI +41.3%); A/E 1.57. The profit was solid in both nursery handicaps and non-handicaps.

Before moving on, it should be noted that 2yos having their second start for a new trainer having switched yards perform really poorly when not in the top three in the betting. This group of runners won less than 3% of the time (12 wins from 421) for a hefty loss of £196.62 (ROI -46.8%); A/E 0.70.

TC2 by Last Time Out Finishing Position

Next, I would like to look at last time out (LTO) performance in terms of finishing position on most recent start. Here are the results for horses that finished in the first three LTO:

 

 

Horses that finished second on their most recent start (their first run for their new trainer) did particularly well, but LTO winners also nudged into profit. Horses that finished fourth or worse LTO scored just under 6% of the time and lost over 12p in the £.

TC2 by Gender

It’s time to review any impact the sex of the horse has on performance. In the last piece I showed how male horses tend to slightly outperform females when analysing all races, winning roughly 1.12 times as often. To create this figure, I divided the male win strike rate by the female win strike rate in all flat races over the past ten years. That was, and still is, our benchmark. When we looked at the figures for horses switching stables and racing for the first time this figure increased to 1.27. Do we see a similar widening of the gender gap with the second time start figures?

 

 

The male strike rate is nearly 2% higher than the female one and this equates to winning 1.22 times more often. This is still comfortably above the average figure of 1.12, but a little down on the 1.27 mark for first time switchers. It seems logical to assume that a fair percentage of female horses may still not have totally settled into their new surroundings.

Before looking at trainer angles, I would like to share some LTO Industry SP price data. Horses that started 6/1 or less LTO have produced solid looking figures:

 

 

A modest 2p in the £ loss for all such qualifiers. If we focus on those that had also raced within 30 days we get to a near break-even stuation.

TC2: Trainer Angles

Onto trainers now which may provide the most worthwhile findings for many readers. Below is a list of all trainers that have run at least 80 qualifiers:

 

 

Two trainers noted in the first article for having a decent record with horses having their first run for the stable have fared well again, namely Kevin de Foy and David Loughnane, although Loughnane has performed less well in the last few seasons. His record has tailed off since 2020. Of the other trainers, Iain Jardine, who made a profit from a low strike rate last time, has improved that strike rate to over 12% and hit a profit once again.

Two trainers that stood out positively last time, Mick Appleby and Archie Watson, performed less strikingly on second start for the yards, although both have still produced good strike rates.

Mick Appleby has done brilliantly with horses that finished second LTO – these runners won 18 races from only 46 runners (SR 39.1%) for a profit of £22.62 (ROI +49.2%).

Going back to Kevin de Foy he has hit an excellent strike rate of over 21% and his returns are not skewed by any horses winning at huge odds (his biggest priced winner was BSP 19.13). If you ignore his LTO winners (who did connections a favour obviously on their first start for the yard) his record improves slightly to 14 wins from 68 (SR 20.6%) for a profit of £40.22 (ROI +59.1%).

In the first piece it was noted that Richard Fahey had underperformed significantly with his new recruits on their first start. However, his record on their second start is much better. In that context, he improved the strike rate from just above 7% to nearly 13% and such runners edged into profit. However, as with David Loughnane, his record was better in the earlier part of the ten-year time span.

Jane Chapple-Hyam just failed to make the list in my first article as she did not have quite the required number of runners. Here she does make the cut and has a very solid overall record. However, she did have one huge-priced win which accounts for all of her profit figure. Having said that, horses that started in the top four of the betting performed well for her with 11 of the 33 winning (SR 33.3%) and a tidy profit of £24.89 (ROI +75.4%).

David O’Meara has a very similar record with horses having their first or second runs for him having switched stables. One positive stat to share with those having their second start is that horses which finished 2nd, 3rd or 4th LTO are worth noting. They won 19% of the time (23 wins from 121) for a profit of £41.28 (ROI +34.11).

Trainers to generally avoid with horses having their second run for the yard are Charlie Wallis and Philip Kirby: both have very poor records.

Trainers: TC1 vs TC2

I thought it would be useful to make a trainer comparison between horses having their first starts for a yard with their second, beginning with win strike rate. I have highlighted in green the better figure of the two unless they are within 1% of each other:

 

 

Taking this group of trainers as a whole, most of them have similar strike rates for both groups. Attwater, Fahey, G+J Moore, Watson, and Stuart Williams have the biggest differentials.

Now I am going to compare the A/E indices which helps to determine ‘value’. This time I will highlight in green any A/E index which is 0.30 bigger than the other figure which is a significant difference for this particular metric:

 

 

For six trainers, horses having their first run for the stable proved considerably better value than when making their second start. The six were Mick Appleby, Julie Camacho, David Evans, Ivan Furtado, David Loughnane and Archie Watson.

Five trainers enjoyed the reverse scenario with second runs for the stable producing much better value than first runs. This quintet comprised Michael Attwater, Mick and David Easterby, Gary and Josh Moore, Rebecca Menzies and Stuart Williams.

The final comparison I will make is with the PRB figures (Percentage of Rivals Beaten). I would expect these figures to positively align to some extent with the win strike rates. I have highlighted in green any PRB that is 5% (0.05) higher than the other. Here are the splits:

 

 

For most trainers the win strike rates and the PRB figures align quite well. For example, Watson’s figures of 0.57 and 0.51 highlight the much better performance with first time starters for the stable. Likewise, we have seen that the Moore stable has performed far better with horses having their second start for the stable having switched yards, and the 0.33 vs 0.44 PRBs back this up. There are several more good examples of this including for Caroll, Chapple-Hyam, M+D Easterby and Menzies to name but four. The one real outlier is David Evans whose PRBs are completely the reverse of his strike rates.

Using different metrics for comparisons for individual trainers does help us understand the numbers better and gives us a better overall feel for the data.

*

So that wraps this piece, and the two-part trainer change series, up. I hope they have been both useful and interesting. These two articles should give us plenty of pointers to help in our quest to make long-term profits from racing. Until next time…

- DR

When Horses Change Stable: Part 1

/in /by

In my next two articles I am going to look at horses that have switched stables on the flat, writes Dave Renham. This one will look at the first run for a new yard, and the next one will examine the second run for new connections. The one stipulation is that the switch is from a horse that has been running on the flat (i.e. not National Hunt). This is mainly because there are some dual-purpose horses that switch yards each year from a dedicated National Hunt stable to a flat stable.

The data has been taken from the last ten full years (2015-2024) of flat racing in the UK (turf/AW) and all profit and loss has been calculated to Betfair SP with 2% commission applied on any winners.

All Trainer Changes

Let's start by looking at all horses having their first run for a new trainer:

 

 

Overall, stable switchers made a profit to BSP but of course these figures are skewed by some very big prices going in. The strike rate is around one win in every 12 so we are relying on enough big prices winning for us to cancel out the numerous losing selections. Below I have shown how these figures have fluctuated year on year in terms of profit/loss to £1 level stakes to BSP:

 

 

The journey to the overall 732 unit profit has not been a smooth one, to say the least. It seems clear that we need to be far more selective in our approach.

Trainer Change: Market Factors

Let's now examine market factors in terms of the more fancied end of the market, starting with stable switchers that started favourite on their first start for a new yard. For market rank I am using Betfair Exchange prices, so the Exchange market leaders. Here are the results:

 

 

Favourites have just edged into profit which is always good to see. Splitting favourites into non-handicap versus handicap we get the following results:

 

 

There have been far more handicap switchers than in non-handicaps, and that group has provided the profits. Handicap favourites have also secured a decent A/E index of 1.00.

Next, let's combine second and third favourites to see how they fared.

 

 

We have similar figures here with a very small profit being achieved. It's worth breaking down by race type once more:

 

 

We again see a similar scenario here with second/third favourites in handicaps making a decent profit. The non-handicap results are actually quite poor with losses of over 16 pence in the £.

If we now combine the handicap results for those horses that started in the top three in the betting on their first start after switching stables, we get the following yearly splits:

 

 

The table shows seven winning years out of ten with the last six years all seeing a BSP profit.

Trainer Change: Last Time Out (LTO) Performance

I would like to look at last time out performance next in terms of a horse's finishing position on its most recent start. Here are the findings:

 

 

We have similar strike rates for those that finished first, second or third LTO. As you might expect, this drops considerably for horses that finished fourth or worse. LTO winners were profitable, but it is the bigger prices that have made this happen. Those LTO winners that were priced 18.0 or bigger at BSP produced 26 winners from 454 runners (SR 5.7%) for a profit of £377.15 (ROI +83.1%). Once again if we restrict things to just handicap races these figures improve to 24 wins from 385 (SR 6.2%) for a profit of £399.30 (ROI +103.7%).

Trainer Change: Gender of Horse

Time to compare the sex of the horse next. Male horses tend to slightly outperform female horses, winning roughly 1.12 times as often. To create this figure, I divided the male win strike rate by the female win strike rate in all flat races over the past ten years. That is the benchmark. The win strike rates for first time switchers are as follows:

 

 

When dividing these strike rates, we get a figure of 1.27. This suggests perhaps that male horses settle more quickly in their new surroundings compared with female horses.

There is also a big difference between the two in terms of profit and loss too:

 

 

Based on the figures, it does seem that male horses are a far better bet than females when having their first run for a new trainer.

It is also worth noting that female runners have performed better when having at least a month at their new yard before running again. Female stable switchers that returned to the track within 30 days lost 36 pence in the £ with an A/E index of 0.71; those which were rested 31 days or more would have lost you less than 2p in the £ with an A/E index of 0.91.

Trainer Change: Individual Trainer Records

I am sure the most interesting data for most readers will be the individual trainer results. Below is a list of all trainers that have run at least 100 qualifiers, ordered by win strike rate:

 

 

16 of the 27 in this list proved profitable to BSP and I would like to focus on a few of them, starting with Mick Appleby.

Appleby’s strike rate of close to 19% is exceptional considering his overall strike rate for all runners is just over 11%. He seems to have a knack of getting the best out of his new recruits first time out. Below is a graph detailing his profit and loss by year:

 

 

Seven winning years, two losing years and 2023 effectively hitting a break-even scenario. It should be noted that a good chunk of these profits occurred between 2015 and 2019. However, Appleby has still proved profitable overall in the past five years although to a lesser extent as the market cottons on.

Appleby is not one for turning his new recruits out again quickly after acquiring from another yard: only 11% of them have returned to the track within 30 days. This policy of having longer with the horse before its first run for the stable has proved to be a good one.

Do take note of Appleby runners that drop back in distance. This cohort has provided him with 35 winners from 161 qualifiers (SR 21.7%) for a profit at Betfair SP of £138.25 (ROI +85.9%). One key attribute in a trainer is being able to pinpoint the exact best distance that a horse should run: Mick seems very good at this.

Kevin de Foy is a relatively new trainer on the block but his figures are very solid, hitting close to one win in every five runs. He has done particularly well when his runners have started as favourite – 10 wins from 23 (SR 43.5%) for a profit of £8.74 (ROI +38%). Like Appleby he is not a fan of turning his new recruits out quickly, with just five of his 112 runners racing within the first month. Indeed, his record with those runners off the track for 150 days or more is highly impressive. They have won 10 of the their 43 starts (SR 23.3%) for a profit of £19.76 (ROI +46%).

David Loughnane has produced a solid 15% win rate with horses new to his yard, and they have performed particularly well when having their first stable start on the all-weather. This cohort won 16 of 89 starts (SR 19.8%) for a healthy profit of £35.15 (ROI +39.5%). That improves further if restricting runners to those that stick to the all-weather having raced LTO on a non-turf surface as well. These runners have scored 13 times from 53 (SR 24.5%) for a profit of £45.35 (ROI +85.6%). There has been one negative and that is horses aged five or older. They have won just twice from 33 starts (SR 6.1%) and lost 40p in the £. Loughnane has a far better record with his three- and four-year-olds who both have win strike rates of over 17%.

Archie Watson has secured the best strike rate of all the trainers in the table hitting close to 23%. He has been extremely consistent with his win percentage being 19% or higher in every year since 2017. For the record he was 0 from 6 in 2016 and had no qualifiers in 2015. He has been profitable in every year bar one since 2018 with the losing year (2019) producing only small losses of under 4p in the £.

One of the strongest stats Watson has is when he books Hollie Doyle to ride his new recruits. This combo has provided 16 winners from just 47 runners (SR 34%) for a BSP profit of £85.26 (ROI +181.4%). A second very strong stat, arguably even stronger than the Doyle one, is when his new runners race after a break in excess of 300 days. These runners have won an amazing 48% of the time (12 wins from 25) for a mouthwatering profit of £55.89 (ROI +223.58).

Below is a graph highlighting all trainers with 100+ runners that have secured an A/E index of over 1.00 suggesting their runners have offered punters value. Not surprisingly perhaps Appleby, de Foy, Loughnane and Watson are all there:

 

 

In terms of trainers with poor records, perhaps the most surprising is Richard Fahey. In fact, he has not had a winner on first switching to his yard since June 2020, a run of 36 consecutive losers. There are a few very poor stats for Fahey including his turf record of just 4 wins from 80, and his record with female horses which stands at 1 win from 32.

Other stables to be cautious about on first start after a switch seem to be Stuart Williams and the Moore's, Gary and Josh.

**

I think I've unearthed plenty of useful stats in the research to date. Some of my favourites include:

  1. Trainer change runners in the top three in the betting in handicaps have produced solid long-term profits
  2. Male horses running first time for a new yard have performed far better than female horses
  3. Trainers Mick Appleby, Kevin De Foy, David Loughnane and Archie Watson all have very good records with trainer switch runners
  4. Trainers Richard Fahey, Gary/Josh Moore and Stuart Williams have poor records on their first run for the yard

In part 2, I will be sharing my findings on how trainer change runners fare on their second starts for their new yards. See you next time.

- DR