We’re just about into the final third of the 2023-24 jumps season in the UK and Ireland and the concluding bumper at Fairyhouse on Saturday provided an interesting statistic, writes Tony Stafford. Its winner, the debutant Romeo Coolio, ridden by Mr Harry Swan for the Gordon Elliott team, was the trainer’s 155th victory of the domestic campaign.
This, from the once reviled but now it seems fully rehabilitated and still ebullient handler, was Elliott’s 300th individual runner of the season. It brings his prizemoney tally to €3,274k.
Until the last few days, he had been ahead of his great (and hitherto too-great!) rival Willie Mullins in all categories apart from strike-rate. Willie has had to make do so far with 254 individual horses, but his 168 victories (two at Punchestown yesterday) have careered him past Elliott a shade sooner than usual. By the time we get to May, no doubt, Mullins will I’m sure be back in his usual place at the top of the pile with all those big prizes still to be won. He stands on an interim €3,387K.
Two more were added to the first-time Elliott count at Punchestown yesterday and with lots more buys from the pointing and French fields to come, it might even be feasible to expect an end-of-season accumulation of 400, but let’s play safe and suggests it will be 350, as if that wouldn’t be totally unbelievable.
If Gordon were, say, to be content with just a 20-hour waking day – he should manage four hours’ kip surely! - then he could afford to give each of the three hundred a respectable four minutes of his attention – in between driving to the tracks and speaking to the media, not to mention living of course.
No doubt though, as the season has gone on, there has been a regular in-and-out process so that the horses that favoured summer ground and opposition are sent elsewhere until their optimum part of this year comes around. Or even sold.
Even so, you must reckon on a minimum of 200 boxes either at the main yard, or sprinkled around nearby to accommodate the hordes as they prepare for their races.
Planning programmes, making entries, and generally finding alternative objectives when the weather intervenes as has been the case lately, taxes the ingenuity. In some ways it’s easy. “There are five nice races at Punchestown next week,” he might say, adding “Put those ten in that one, that lot in the next” and so on.
Meanwhile Mr Mullins is doing the same thing at his only marginally less horse-swollen base, and hence the pair go head-to-head in almost every novice, conditions race and Graded event in the calendar. I’ve never forgotten Luca Cumani’s words, however. It might have been at the time he lost the Aga Khan’s horses when, in a pique, HH decided to have nothing trained in the UK. Luca always reckoned it was easier to train a lot of horses than a lesser number. You could find the time of day about them, he argued, as Luca certainly could.
Such is the Mullins/Elliott joint domination that only two other trainers have run more than 100 horses. Third in every category is Henry de Bromhead, who despite his Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle successes has been limited to exactly half as many horses as Elliott – 151. His 62 wins have come from 51 horses, and he’s almost on €1.1million. Almost without exception, UK trainers will be saying, “I should be so limited!”
Gavin Cromwell comes next in the list with 124 horses, €700k coming from 35 individual winners of 47 races. Philip Rothwell (26 from 76) and 34 wins from 353 runners is 5th to show the extent to which the sport across the Irish Sea is dominated by a cartel that has no inclination of going away.
No wonder Elliott bristled at the prospect of any restriction in the number of horses he could run in one race. His 15 of 20 in the Troytown last November might have been only a sample of what is to come given his relentless expansion. The possible limit of four in UK handicaps, especially the Grand National, will be welcome, though not for Elliott – if any of our trainers is equipped to take advantage.
On the flat and over jumps It’s a self-fulfilling numbers game. The two Premier race day cards at Kempton and Warwick on Saturday – to which a decent Wetherby programme was grafted on, drew only the minimal attention of Irish stables.
Mullins with a third and Elliott, a fifth place, had one visitor each, but Joseph O’Brien brought Banbridge to Kempton for the Coral Silviniaco Conti Chase and he beat Pic D’Orhy to remind us that he is indeed still training jumpers. Mullins was 3rd in this with Janidil.
At one time it seemed O’Brien would make a more significant challenge to the big two, but as he has been winning races like the Melbourne Cup (twice) and Group/Grade 1 races in Ireland, the UK, the US and Dubai, the concentration has understandably been more on flat racing.
In the present jumps season, Joseph has run only 36 horses in a total of 80 races and the 14 winners have collected 16 victories. His domestic tally of €311k is respectable in the circumstances. He clearly has quality rather than quantity in mind for the winter game.
One trainer aware of the possibilities offered by the dual Premier fixtures at Kempton and Warwick was Dan Skelton, holidaying in Barbados but still ably backed up by brother Harry, who rode a Warwick double, the former champion jockey and his wife Bridget Andrews among others supervising matters on course.
The numbers game truism holds here, too. Dan Skelton, while not yet in the scale of Ireland’s big two, has still sent 191 different horses to the races this season, easily the most among UK stables. On Saturday 9% of them – viz 16 – were dispatched to the three jumps meetings and they came back to Warwickshire with six winners, one second, four third places, two fourths and a sixth.
Skelton won the Lanzarote at Kempton with 33/1 shot Jay Jay Reilly, making his first run back over hurdles since early 2022. The trainer’s other major victory came with Grey Dawning, the gelding thrillingly going clear of his field in the Grade 2 Hampton Novices Chase at Warwick. Cheltenham beckons for both and many more I would assume from this target stable. His team will be one of the main defences against the onslaught of well-treated Irish “improvers” in many of the handicaps in seven weeks’ time.
It must be a shade frustrating in comparison with what a similar haul would have brought in Ireland or France, that six wins (worth £145k and those other places, yielded 180 grand, given the trumpeting of the new concept). It was still enough to carry him past Nicky Henderson into second slot in the UK trainers’ list.
Skelton’s 70 wins from 457 runners have earned £1,370k so he stands rather more than £200k behind his former mentor and perennial champion, Paul Nicholls. The Ditcheat master, hopefully now back on terra firma after the previous week’s abandon ship call came out in his flooded stable yard, has 72 wins from 306 runs (58 from 151 individual horses) and is just a tick short of £1.6 million.
Henderson has sent out 132 horses – a visitor to Seven Barrows might ask, “Where does he find room for them all?” – and 65 wins from 266 runs and £1,235k in prizes.
An unexpected name in fourth place is Venetia Williams, not that her talent isn’t well chronicled. In a way she defies the numbers element, even if she is comfortably behind the top three at £935k. The million should come. Her achievement is notable as she has sent out only 64 horses, 25 of them winning 38 races. Nicholls, Henderson and Williams are all operating at 24% whereas Skelton is at a relatively modest 15%.
As a one-time associate used to say – and sorry Mr Hatter I’ve used it many times, including here – “Everything is just different numbers.” It is.
The marvel of the Elliott/Mullins and to an extent Skelton achievement is to have control over such an obviously unwieldy model. How does a trainer do morning or evening stables as in the old days? I’ve been at Hughie Morrison’s yard a few years ago and the lad would present his horse as the trainer came along the line, asking how he was and checking limbs to satisfy himself. (Of course, unlike the old days when it was probably a maximum of two horses per lad, the 2020s model required a fair bit of nimbleness on the part of the grooms as they swopped to organise one of their other three or even four further on!)
You could picture Noel Murless or, from an earlier generational, Fred Darling, satisfying himself not only with the horses’ but also the lads’ appearance as he checked them off one by one. Evening stables at Elliott’s must be fun. By the time he gets round the lot, there wouldn’t be much time for a pint.
TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/mullins_elliott_fists.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2024-01-15 05:12:052024-01-14 18:43:39Monday Musings: The NH Numbers Game
For my third National Hunt trainer piece I want to drill down into three of the most successful females currently training, namely Venetia Williams, Lucinda Russell and Emma Lavelle. I will be examining nearly ten years of UK racing data from 1st January 2013 to 31st October 2022. I have used the Geegeez Query Tool to source around 90% of the stats shared in this piece. All profits / losses have been calculated to Industry Starting Price, which the Query Tool uses, but I will quote Betfair SP returns as and when appropriate.
Brief Biographies
Venetia Williams took up her license in 1995. She became only the second female to train the winner of the Grand National when Mon Mome scored at 100/1 in 2009. Venetia is still going strong and this year had two winners at the Cheltenham Festival in the Broadway Novices' Chase and the Kim Muir Handicap Chase.
Lucinda Russell trains in Scotland and has a career tally of over 800 winners and, like Williams, she has been successful in the Grand National, winning that flagship race in 2017 with One For Arthur. The Aintree Festival has been a happy hunting ground in the last two years also, with Ahoy Senor winning the Sefton Novices’ Hurdle in 2021 and the Mildmay Novices’ Chase in 2022.
Emma Lavelle trains near Marlborough in Wiltshire and has produced consistent results year in, year out. Her stable star Paisley Park has won 10 of his 23 starts including three Grade 1 successes and four at Grade 2 level. He is one of three Cheltenham Festival winners trained by Lavelle.
Overall Records
First off, let's compare their respective records by year in terms of strike rate:
As we can see Venetia Williams tends to come out on top from a wins to runs ration perspective each year – she has outperformed the other two in seven of the ten years. Russell tends to have the lowest yearly strike rate figure – this has occurred in eight of the ten years. As can be seen from the graph, each trainer has occasional ups and downs, and this is to be expected. The table below shows the exact yearly strike rates as well as the A/E indices for each year:
Venetia Williams has generally been on the ‘up’ in the last four seasons with very decent strike rates in 2019, 2021 and 2022 and good correlation from the A/E indices.
OK it’s time to dig a bit deeper now, starting with Lucinda Russell.
Lucinda Russell Trainer Profile
Lucinda Russell Performance in NH Race types
By race type here are the splits:
Chase results have clearly been the best from a win perspective; meanwhile, National Hunt Flat races have been a bit of a struggle. It is interesting to note, however, that each way performance (win & placed) has less than a 3% differential between the chase figure (30.4%) and the NH Flat figure (27.6%).
Digging deeper when looking at race type, here are the most useful angles (both positive and negative), from a potential future betting perspective:
Russell has a very good record when sending chasers to Hexham. Of her 230 runners at the Borders track, 46 have won (20%) showing a profit to SP of £68.82 (ROI +29.9%). To BSP the profits increase markedly to £133.87 (ROI +57.7%). The figures are skewed somewhat by a winner whose SP was 40/1 (BSP 79.92), but having said that, Russell has produced profits to SP in seven of the ten years which is impressive
Horses racing in a chase who won LTO are worth avoiding. They would have lost you a whopping 48p in the £ to SP (40p in the £ to BSP)
Favourites in chases have broken even to BSP. Focusing on clear favourites only (not joint favs) would have seen a small 8p in the £ return
Lucinda Russell is not generally one for big-priced winners in handicap hurdles. Horses priced 22/1 or bigger have won just once from 212 runners
Lucinda Russell Performance by Race Distance
Race distance breakdown next:
Looking at the strike rate, returns, A/E indices and Impact Values there is a correlation showing an improvement as the distance range increases. Indeed, backing all her runners to BSP at 3 miles or more would have seen a break even scenario.
Lucinda Russell Performance by Starting Price
Let’s examine starting price now using Industry SP prices. Firstly win strike rates:
As is usually the case, the win strike rates go down as the price bands increase. Odds on shots have fared well from a limited sample, but the Evens to 15/8 bracket have under-performed. When we look at NH trainers as a whole, the win percentage for horses priced Evens to 15/8 stands at over 38%; an absolute difference of 5% for this price bracket - 14% in relative terms - is huge. Russell also under-performs by over 3% (15% relatively) with horses priced 2/1 to 11/4, and by 2.5% (14% relatively) in the 3/1 to 9/2 price bracket. Hence her A/E indices in these three price brackets are lower than one would expect:
It can be said that there has been little value in backing Lucinda Russell runners priced between Evens and 9/2. Knowing this, when we see a Russell runner within this price range, there could be value elsewhere in that particular race.
Lucinda Russell Performance by Course
The Russell stable focus the majority of their attention on just nine courses – Ayr, Carlisle, Haydock, Hexham, Kelso, Musselburgh, Newcastle, Perth and Wetherby. 90% of their total runs have been at these courses, so we have good data sets to examine. Below is a graph comparing chase and hurdle win strike rates.
With better overall chase strike rates, I guess these stats should come as no surprise (chase fields tend to be smaller than hurdle fields, which is an important factor, but not one that fully accounts for these differentials). Only Haydock has seen Russell hurdlers win more often than chasers in percentage terms. Haydock hurdlers from the stable have made a blind profit both to SP and BSP.
We noted the excellent record at Hexham in chases earlier, and it turns out to be the only course that has proved to be profitable backing all runners in all chases. From a negative perspective, Carlisle has not been a happy hunting ground.
Lucinda Russell Performance by Running Style
A look at run style next. To begin with let us see the proportion of runners that fit a specific run style. As you'll probably be familiar with by now, geegeez.co.uk breaks run style into four categories:
Led – front runners; horse or horses that take an early lead; Prominent – horses that track the pace close behind the leader(s); Mid Division – horses that race mid pack; Held Up – horses that race at, or near the back of the field early.
In terms of run style, 18% of Russell’s runners have led early, 29% have taken up prominent positions while the remaining 53% have raced mid division or been held up near the back. Let's examine the success rate of each run style group in terms of win percentage:
Regular readers will not be surprised by this graph: early leaders / front runners have been the most successful group for Russell winning roughly one in every six, whereas hold up horses have been less successful winning around once in every 14 starts.
Looking at Lucinda's front running stats in more detail, it is interesting to note that her record improves as the distance increases:
Front runners / early leaders at distances of 3m+ have been clearly the best performers. Of course, the profits shown in the table are assuming you’d predicted every single front running horse before the race – clearly this is not possible, but it shows the potential value in the yard's front running stayers.
Lucinda Russell Performance by Jockey
Russell currently has two primary jockeys she uses – Derek Fox and Stephen Mulqueen. In 2022, Fox has ridden just over half of all her runners, Mulqueen around a quarter. Here are their overall records going back to 2013:
Fox has the better record of the two both from a strike rate and a returns perspective. Indeed, if betting to BSP the Russell / Fox combination would have yielded a profit of £130.99 (ROI +11.0%). That said, the profit has essentially been down to one 120.09 BSP winner at Aintree last year.
If we examine results for this combination nearer the front end of the market they have actually performed well. Focusing solely on horses from the top four in the betting, Fox has ridden 103 winners from 572 runners (SR 18.0%) losing around 7p in the £ to SP; to BSP that loss would have been turned into a 7p in the £ profit.
The ‘top takeaways’ for Lucinda Russell will be collated at the end of this article, along with those from the other two trainers.
Time now to examine the stats for our next eminent female tranier, Emma Lavelle.
Emma Lavelle Trainer Profile
Emma Lavelle Performance in NH Race types
Race type is the first port of call once more:
We can see almost identical strike rates in chases and hurdles, with ROI figures also similar. National Hunt Flat races have made a profit but a 66/1 winner has skewed the figures somewhat. Even without that bomb, she'd have almost broken even at SP.
Emma Lavelle Performance in Chases
Let's look at some of the strongest stats (both positive and negative) specifically for chase races:
Younger chasers completely outperform older chasers as this table clearly shows:
Five- to seven-year-olds do best and backing all of them blind would have broken even to BSP. 8yos have performed reasonably, but once we get to nine or older performance is poor with just 14 successes from 242 runners (SR 5.8%);
Class 1 and 2 chases have been a struggle – just 18 wins from 234 runners (SR 7.7%). Losses to SP stand at £90.92 (ROI -38.9%). Losses to BSP have been around the 30% mark;
Worcester has been a happy hunting ground in chases with 12 wins from 44 (SR 27.3%). Profits to SP stand at £30.87 (ROI +70.2%); to BSP this edges up to £47.08 (ROI +107%);
Horses making their chase debut have won just over 23% of the time breaking even to SP (+6p in the £ to Betfair).
In terms of hurdle races – the strongest stat has been when focusing on shorter distances. Hurdle races of 2m1f or less have provided 39 winners from 182 (SR 21.4%) for a small SP profit of £9.86 (ROI +5.4%). To BSP this increases to +£44.17 (ROI +24.3%).
Having ended this section looking at race distance let us next look at the distance stats across all race types.
Emma Lavelle Performance by Race Distance
Here are the splits:
We can see that as the distance increases the performance seems to dip a little. Chases at 2m1f or less, like the hurdle races, hit a win SR% of over 20%. It is National Hunt Flat races that bring the overall win strike rate down for shorter distances. In terms of 3m+ both chases and hurdles hit the 12% mark – chases at 12% exactly, hurdles 12.2%.
Emma Lavelle Performance by Starting Price
Market data is next on the agenda – a look at win strike rate first:
These are better figures overall when compared to Lucinda Russell, especially in the 2/1 to 11/4 and 3/1 to 9/2 brackets. Unsurprisingly, the A/E indices look much healthier overall too:
If you had backed all Emma Lavelle runners priced 9/2 or shorter you would have won 27% of the time losing just 3p in the £ to SP. To BSP this edges to a positive return of nearly 5p in the £. It seems therefore a good tactic to focus on the better fancied runners from the stable.
Emma Lavelle Performance by Course
We noted earlier that Worcester + chases has been a good combination. Let us look at the win strike rates in all races across courses where Lavelle has saddled at least 50 runners:
There is a big variation from track to track – the premier tracks at Newbury, Ascot and Cheltenham have three of the lowest four strike rates. Combining these courses has produced just 19 wins from 272 runners (SR 7.0%) equating to losses of 62p in the £ to SP. To BSP these losses are still steep at 57p in the £. Some of the most competitive NH racing is seen at these courses and swerving Lavelle runners at all three of these would seem to be a sensible move by and large.
There are much better results from courses such as Newton Abbot, Doncaster, Stratford and Worcester – the yard has hit 20% or better at all four of these. Indeed focusing on these courses and sticking to runners priced 9/2 or shorter we see some excellent results:
All the profits shown are to Industry SP; to BSP returns have been around 10p in the £ higher. These seem to be four courses to look out for when Lavelle sends a runner there especially if the horse is fancied.
Emma Lavelle Performance by Running Style
In terms of run style 15% of Lavelle’s runners have led early, 35% have taken up prominent positions while the remaining 50% have raced mid division or been held up near the back. Here are the success rates of each run style group in terms of win percentage:
It's the same old pattern we see time and time again – front runners / early leaders are by far the most successful winning close to one in every four, followed by prominent runners. Horses racing further back early (mid div / at the back) have won roughly just one in every ten starts.
Sticking with Lavelle front runners, these have excelled in hurdle races, winning 30% of the time; chase front runners have won just under 21% of the time. This is unusual as front runners in chases have a higher strike rate than front runners in hurdle races when considering all trainer data as a whole.
Emma Lavelle Performance by Jockey
Lavelle currently employs three main jockeys – Tom Bellamy, Adam Wedge and Ben Jones. All three have had 100+ runners for Lavelle since 2013 and their overall records are shown below:
All three have strike rates in excess of Lavelle’s overall strike rate, which stands at 14.3%. All have decent A/E indices and two of the three have made a blind profit. It should be noted though that Bellamy has ridden over 72% of Lavelle’s runners in 2022. One additional Lavelle/Bellamy stat worth noting is that when they have teamed up on favourites they have won 21 races from 46 (SR 45.7%) for a SP profit of £6.35 (ROI +13.8%). This increases to returns of 20p in the £ to BSP.
Two trainers down, one to go – it’s Venetia Williams turn next:
Venetia Williams Trainer Profile
Venetia Williams Performance in NH Race types
We will first look at Venetia's record in different race codes:
Williams has a reasonable record in National Hunt Flat races from a smallish sample. In terms of chases versus hurdle races there has been a much stronger performance in chases, with losses in such races of less than 10p in the £ to SP, while to BSP this is limited to just 1p in the £. Chases provided a four percent higher strike rate to boot. These races look a good starting point for further digging.
Venetia Williams Performance in chases
Firstly let us look at Venetia's chase performance by year – for this I will compare her yearly A/E indices:
As we can see, eight of the ten years have seen A/E indices over 0.90 which shows good consistency, performance dipping below that threshold only in 2015 and 2016. In six of the ten years you would have made a BSP profit backing all Williams chasers blind.
Handicap versus non handicap chases next. Generally she has far more runners in handicap chases as this table shows:
The ROI is much better in handicaps compared to non-handicaps which is useful considering the sample sizes.
Here are some more chase facts and stats worth knowing about:
Chasers priced 11/4 or shorter have provided 158 winners from 424 runners (SR 37.3%) for a profit of £13.64 (ROI +3.2%) to SP; profit to BSP of £26.11 (ROI +6.2%);
Perhaps it is no surprise seeing the previous stat that chasing favourites have done well. They have won 36% of the time producing returns of 5.5p in the £ to SP, 8.8p in the £ to BSP;
In terms of age, younger chasers have done better. Horses aged seven and younger have won 184 races from 881 (SR 20.9%); horses aged 8 or older have won 154 from 1193 (SR 12.9%). The younger brigade have just sneaked into BSP profit across those 881 races;
Female chasers have a good record with 45 wins from 221 (SR 20.4%) showing a very small profit to both SP and BSP;
Horses that won last time out do well when trying to repeat that win in a chase, with 81 wins from 352 (SR 23.0%) for a break even situation to SP; to BSP these runners would have secured a profit of £55.56 (ROI +15.8%).
Venetia Williams Performance by Race Distance
Here is the breakdown by race distance but this time I am splitting into chase and hurdle results as they differ somewhat:
In terms of chases, Venetia Williams has her highest strike rate in the shortest distance band, and her lowest strike rate in the longest distance band. Having said that, the A/E values are all between 0.91 and 0.97. Hurdle wise, we see similar strike rates across the board, but slightly better value it seems as race distance increases. Once again, though, it shows that chases are the races that we should probably concentrate on the most.
Venetia Williams Performance by Starting Price
Market data now and win strike rates first:
Williams has a surprisingly low odds on strike rate, coming in at under 49%. However, the Evens to 15/8 bracket has a high figure, as does the 2/1 to 11/4 range. Indeed, backing all Venetia's runners between Evens and 11/4 would have seen you break even to SP, and earn just under 3p in the £ to BSP.
The A/E indices now:
Here is confirmation of what was mentioned above, with strong A/E indices for runners sent off between Evens and 11/4. Bigger priced runners (14/1 and up) are definitely worth avoiding – they would have lost you 43p in the £ to SP; 28p in the £ to BSP.
Venetia Williams Performance by Course
On to course stats now and here are the win strike rates for all courses where Williams has saddled at least 100 runners:
If we take the highest and lowest strike rates out, the percentages across the other courses are not too dissimilar. There are five courses where the A/E index has hit 0.95 or higher; these being Hereford (1.29), Ascot (1.20), Ludlow (0.97), Haydock (0.95), and Newbury (0.95).
I would say that Williams is a trainer who seems to target the race rather than the course.
Venetia Williams Performance by Running Style
In terms of run style, 22% of Venetia runners have led early, 39% have taken up prominent positions while the remaining 39% have raced mid division or been held up near the back. I would surmise that she is more aware than Russell and Lavelle of the importance of a position at, or near, the front early in a race.
The win percentages for each run style group are shown in the graph below:
The pattern is what we have come to expect generally, but in percentage terms her results mirror those of Emma Lavelle almost exactly. Hold up horses and mid div runners have poor records.
If we drill into her front runners in chases her strike rate hits 26.1% and if your crystal ball for predicting front runners was in tip top condition, these runners would have returned a profit of £191.59 to £1 level stakes (ROI +41.3%) – and that was to Industry SP! To BSP add another 25p in the £ to this. Hence a Venetia Williams front runner in a chase is a potential gold mine.
Venetia Williams Performance by Jockey
Williams relies mainly on Charlie Deutsch, but both Hugh Nugent and Lucy Turner are jockeys she does use from time to time. Here are their stats:
5lb claimer Lucy Turner has performed very well and shows a fair profit. However, that surplus would be obliterated if you took out her 40/1 Cheltenham festival winner, Chambard. Deutsch starting riding for Williams in 2015 but had just 11 rides that year. Since then he has ridden 100 times or more for the stable in six of the seven years; the other year he rode 85 times. Here is a year by year breakdown of his win strike rate for the stable:
Strike rates have been fairly consistent as the graph shows. However, breaking his performance down by race type gives us some interesting results:
Results in chases have been by far the best, breaking even at SP; and, while there have been a very limited number of National Hunt Flat races, comparing chases to hurdles we see a huge difference.
Main Takeaways
Let me finish by focusing on what I think are the key stats from each of the three trainers.
Lucinda Russell Positives and Negatives
Emma Lavelle Positives and Negatives
Venetia Williams Positives and Negatives
And that's it for this piece: three trainers for the price of one, and bundles of key takeaways.
Next time it is the turn of the Irish and a certain Mr William Mullins.
When Matt sent a survey out to Geegeez members in January he got some interesting and refreshing responses, writes Dave Renham. In this article I will combine trainer angles with system research, two areas that surveyed members wanted to see more of.
A system based approach using trainer data / patterns is a tried and tested formula which has long been very popular with many punters. Indeed, in the first article of this series I shared a John Gosden system that had been successful on the flat in recent years. In this article my focus is going to be on National Hunt racing where I'll be looking for profitable trainer systems within this sphere.
I am going to look over the long term studying UK racing trainer data from Jan 1st 2009 to Dec 31st 2021. If trainers have proved profitable over such a long time frame then we have a potential system to use. From there, though, we may need to drill down further to try and determine the likelihood of an angle continuing to perform well. Of course we cannot know what the future will bring results wise and, as all of us are aware, past results may not be replicated in the future. So, with those messages in place, let’s start:
Rebecca Curtis – ‘Close’ season system
Rebecca Curtis started training in 2008 and quickly established herself as a trainer to keep a close eye on. In 2012 she had 47 winners from 189 runners which equates to a strike rate of 24.9%. Also in 2012 she had the first of her five Cheltenham Festival winners when Teaforthree won the Diamond Jubilee National Hunt Chase. Everything continued smoothly until 2017 when she split from her bloodstock agent, Gearoid Costelloe. That year she struggled, mainly due to losing roughly 50% of her horses. By 2019 she was back on track hitting a yearly win strike rate of 26.4%, but since Covid in March 2020 the performances from the stable have dipped again.
However, despite the more recent ups and downs, Curtis has continued to produce the goods in the warmer months. Focusing on May to August, the Pembroke-based handler has been consistently impressive all the way back to 2009. So our first trainer system to look at reads:
Trainer Rebecca Curtis
National Hunt UK racing – May 1st to August 31st
These are the annual strike rates for this micro angle:
At first glance the chart line may look a little volatile but the strike rate has exceeded 20% in all bar two years (2009 and 2016). It should also be noted that she had no runners in 2020 (due to the pandemic). Even last year, when she had a very modest overall 12 months, she still managed a strike rate of 29.4% making profits to BSP of £23.05 to £1 level stakes (ROI +135.6%).
From 2009 to 2021 the overall system results were:
A highly impressive bottom line and we know the strike rates have been decent year in, year out – so let’s look at the annual BSP profit figures:
Overall, then, it's nine winning years and only three losing ones, which is pleasing to see – consistency is something that we should all look for in systems.
Breaking the data down like this does highlight that 2016 must have had a huge priced winner or two. In fact it was a just one winner that after Betfair commission would have paid a remarkable 155/1. Thus, the original bottom line of +£220 to £1 level stakes does not look quite as impressive now. It is important to realise that big priced winners can skew results markedly and potentially turn a system on its head. Using Query Tool, the A/E metric will help here, and this - along with other metrics used extensively on geegeez.co.uk - is explained in more detail in this post.
All things being out in the open now, I would still hope this system has potential for the future. Even without that huge priced winner the figures remain solid. My biggest concern in reality is whether Rebecca Curtis will have the ammunition to produce such positive results in the future, but of course nobody can answer this.
That said, if you had focused only on Curtis runners that started clear favourite you would have witnessed 47 winners from 78 runners giving an exceptional strike rate of 60.3%. They have naturally proved extremely profitable securing profits of £35.33 at BSP to £1 level stakes (ROI +45.3%). These market leaders also produced profits in all but one year. Adapting the system to focus just on favourites may be a way to go for some of you. (For the record, Ms Curtis has also saddled six qualifying joint-favourites, two of which won, giving a small profit also).
Before moving on, it is interesting to note that Peter Bowen, a trainer Curtis worked for prior to securing her own license, also has a good long-term record with his runners in the ‘close’ season. His overall performance from 2009 in the months of May to August reads:
Like Curtis, one big-priced winner in 2018 (220/1 after commission) has clearly helped. However, even removing that winner from Bowen's figures, the overall bottom line still looks rosy. I am more circumspect about Bowen, though, because if you take out that big priced winner and look at the more recent years 2014 to 2021, he has only made a small profit. Further, in 2020, he had just one winner from 63 starters! Now, of course, Covid really impacted the 2020 season for many, so that may just be a blip, but it is/was a big blip.
Paul Nicholls – Claiming jockeys in hurdle races
Paul Nicholls has been one of the top National Hunt trainers since the turn of the century but making profits from his runners is easier said than done. Top trainers are by definition unable to fly under the radar and finding value can be tricky. However, one area where Nicholls has performed relatively well is with horses ridden by claiming jockeys. Since 2009, Nicholls has used claiming jockeys on 1513 horses, of which 308 have won (SR 20.4%). Backing all these runners would have shown a loss to BSP but only £15.98 which equates to just a penny in every pound wagered. Compare this to his runners ridden by professional jockeys which would have lost £243.95, equivalent to losing 4p in the £.
Thus, claiming jockeys look a potential route to profits. Here is the system I have come up with:
Trainer Paul Nicholls
Hurdle races
Horse ridden by claiming jockey
Jockey has ridden the horse before
I chose hurdle races simply because there ought to be less chance of an inexperienced jockey falling. In addition I felt that if the jockey had ridden the horse before it would probably be a plus given these riders' general greenness. Again, I have very few rules in the system which hopefully avoids the dreaded back-fitting issue. The overall results from ’09 - ‘21 are in the positive range:
A strike rate of just over one in four and returns of 27p in the £ is a really good outcome. Let’s see how consistent the system would have been by looking at the annual strike rates first:
For this type of system we are more likely to see a volatile strike rate year to year but, as can also be seen, the figures have been stronger in recent years. Six of the past eight seasons have seen a strike rate in excess of 29%.
All well and good, but what of the bottom line? Below, we are looking at BSP profit to £1 level stakes. Looking at ROI% would be far too volatile due to sample size.
There have been nine winning years and four losing ones; but, since 2013, that reads eight winning years and only one losing year. The overall placed percentages are slightly above what I would expect which offers a further layer of confidence.
Sticking my neck out here, I would expect this system to prove profitable over the next five years, assuming nothing changes drastically within the Nicholls set up. The system has been relatively consistent with a decent overall strike rate; the trainer is one of the best in the business and the system has not been skewed due to big priced winners.
Venetia Williams – Chasers coming off a break
Venetia Williams has consistently been more successful with her chasers compared to her hurdlers over the years. Her overall strike rate in chases going back to 2009 stands at just under 16%; in hurdle races this drops to around 12%. In addition to this, for years now I have noticed that Ms Williams' horses seem to be fit regardless of how long they have been off the track. Hence I have devised a system that can take advantage of this. The rules are:
Trainer Venetia Williams
Chases
Horse off track for five months (150 days) or more
I have chosen five months or more because that is roughly the break between the official end of the NH season in late April/early May and when the next season starts to get into full swing around late September/early October. [For the record, if I had chosen six months instead the figures would be very similar]
In terms of days therefore the five months equates to a break of more than 150 days. The overall results from 2009 look strong:
The yearly results are consistent, too – nine winning years, three losing ones and one that broke even. Indeed, two of the three losing years occurred in 2009 and 2011 so, since 2012, there has been just one year producing negative returns.
More positives can be found when we examine the prices of the winners. The pie chart below breaks down the 87 winners into Betfair SP price brackets.
As is shown, the vast majority of winning prices were at the shorter end of the market. 23 winners were 4.00 (3/1) or lower, while 60 were 10.00 (9/1) or lower. Just five winners were bigger than 20.00 BSP (19/1), and the two biggest priced winners were both under 40/1 BSP. This again helps explain why results have been consistent over the years.
Runners off a long layoff is an underused pattern for some punters. However, there are some trainers, like Venetia Williams, who are able to make a break more of a positive than a negative. It is interesting to note that Ms Williams has made profits at all distance ranges as the table below shows:
Strike rates are similar across the board, but the biggest returns by far have been in the longest distance races (3 miles or more), returning nearly 88p profit for every £1 bet. Yes, the strike rate has been marginally higher in that group, but I think this is more an example of punter bias. I think many punters are put off backing horses that are running at long distances after a decent length break. Their thinking, (which is logical), is that they surely won’t be fit enough to be competitive in a really long contest. Hence the prices available become slightly higher than they should be due to that lack of betting interest. Venetia Williams is clearly adept at getting horses fit and that gives us betting opportunities that represent value.
Other potential system ideas to look into further
I have looked above in some detail at three potential systems that I think could and should continue to be profitable for the next few years. To finish, I want to share four more potential systems that you, the reader, might want to use, or indeed to dig around a little deeper:
Anthony Honeyball – Lower Class races
Anthony Honeyball, whose yard is sponsored by geegeez.co.uk, is a trainer that has performed extremely well in lower grade races in recent years. Focusing on class 5 or 6 races only, Honeyball has secured a strike rate of 23.5% (105 wins from 446 qualifiers) showing a profit to £1 level stakes of £148.14 which equates to returns of 33p in the £. There were eight winning years out of 13, while ten of the 13 seasons saw a strike rate of 20% or more.
Henderson has produced decent profits since 2009 with horses making their debut in a hurdle race: 78 winners from 201 runners (SR 38.8%) is remarkable. BSP profits stand at £94.49 to £1 level stakes (ROI +47.0%), and eight of the last ten years have shown a profit.
In particular, keep an eye on the shorter priced runners: horses which were sent off at 3.5 (5/2) or less on Betfair have produced 53 winners from 83 runners (SR 63.9%) for a profit of £30.71 (ROI +37.0%).
David Pipe – winners returning within 10 days
David’s father Martin was one of the first trainers to realise that National Hunt horses could return to the track after a very short break and perform well. David has continued to some extent in his father’s footsteps, certainly in terms of success, although not perhaps in volume of runners. When David Pipe winners return to the track within 10 days, their strike rate has been close to 40% with returns of around 31p in the £. There have been ten winning years from 13, but in recent years qualifiers per season have been in single figures. Hence this system will not make you fortunes, but when a runner crops up it commands close scrutiny.
If you want to increase the number of runners, Pipe’s record with winners returning to the track within 20 days is decent also.
Gordon Elliott – handicap hurdle races
Gordon Elliott is a trainer who has excelled in handicap hurdle races since 2009. He has saddled 93 winners from 459 runners (SR 20.3%) showing a BSP profit of £167.99 (ROI +36.6%). A couple of biggish priced winners have made up roughly half of these profits, but it is interesting to note his record if we ignore any horse priced greater than 20.0 (Betfair price).
Doing so means the figures are not hugely skewed in any way. Focusing on these runners (shorter than 20.0) sees Elliott's record read 89 wins from 374 (SR 23.8%) for a profit of £108.59 (ROI +29.4%). That is comprised of nine winning years out of 13 with three of the losing years producing extremely small losses.
It is worth noting that Elliott's record in Ireland in handicap hurdles is much poorer. As an aside, and maybe a point worth further research, the vast majority of his handicap hurdlers in the UK ran in Ireland last time.
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I hope you have enjoyed this article and fingers crossed the systems shared will continue in the same profitable way. Nothing is guaranteed but I remain hopeful!
Regular readers will know of my interest in the impact of run style and, in this article, six National Hunt trainers come under the spotlight as I look for running style patterns which might lead to profitable angles, writes Dave Renham. The trainers in question are Paul Nicholls, Nicky Henderson, Jonjo O’Neill, Donald McCain, Venetia Williams and Alan King. I have looked at data between January 1st 2015 and December 31st 2021, seven years in total.
Before I start in earnest, however, a quick recap of running styles for all new readers and how Geegeez can help with understanding them.
The first furlong or so of any race sees each horse take up its early position and soon the horses settle into their racing rhythm. Normally these positions do not change too much for the first part of the race. The position each horse takes early can be matched to a running style - www.geegeez.co.uk has a pace section on its racecards that highlights which running style each horse has taken up early in a race. There are four run style groups, as follows:
Led – horses that take the early lead (the front runner). In National Hunt racing you generally get just one front runner, but occasionally there may be two or more horses disputing the early lead;
Prominent – horses that track close behind the leader(s);
Mid Division - horses that take up a more midfield position;
Held Up – horses that are held up near to or at the back of the field.
These running styles are assigned a numerical figure ranging from 4 to 1; Led gets 4, Prominent 3, Mid Division 2 and Held Up 1. Having numbers assigned to runners helps greatly with analysis as you may have seen in previous articles.
Run Style Analysis: All races
To begin with, let's take a look at all National Hunt races combined, breaking down the running styles of all horses for each of our six trainers. Connections, most notably the trainers, can clearly have a significant influence on the running style of their horses: most will give instructions to their jockeys before the race telling them how they would prefer the horses to be ridden.
Below, the table shows which percentage of each trainer's runners displayed one of the four running styles. I have included the figure for ALL trainers (1527 trainers combined!) as the 'control':
As can be seen there is quite a contrast; both Alan King and Jonjo O’Neill are clearly largely averse to sending their runners into an early lead. In contrast Donald Mc Cain, Venetia Williams and, to a lesser extent, Paul Nicholls seem happy to send a decent proportion of their runners to the front early.
In terms of their success with early leaders / front runners – all of them exceed 20% when it comes to strike rate (see graph below). For the record, 20% is the average winning figure for front runners in all National Hunt races.
Henderson and Nicholls have a simply stunning record with front runners – a strike rate for both of pushing 40%. Now I have mentioned before that if as punters we had access to a crystal ball pre-race to see which horse would be taking the early lead, it would be a license to print money. Here are the hypothetical profit/loss figures for the front runners of the six trainers to once again prove that point:
Combining all trainers in the list would have yielded an SP profit of £394.91 to £1 level stakes. Now, as we know, predicting which horse is going to take the early lead is far from an exact science. However, with some detailed analysis of the trainers in the race, as well as the horses concerned there will be opportunities to maximise our chances of nailing down the likely front runner.
Run Style Analysis: Chases
I have noted in previous pieces that front runners in chases make the biggest profits in terms of National Hunt racing, so let us see how our six trainers perform in these races. Here are their win strike rates with front runners in chases. In the table I have included their All races front running SR% to facilitate comparison:
Similar figures for each trainer although Alan King’s figure drop about 5%.
And here are the hypothetical profits from identifying and backing these front runners in chases over the course of the seven years in the sample:
All six trainers would have been in profit to SP – a combined profit of £350.38 to £1 level stakes indicates why chases are so ‘front runner’ friendly.
I have also looked at the percentage of their runners which displayed a front running style in chases – as with the All Race data I shared earlier, two trainers (King and O’Neill) are far less likely to send their charges to the front early:
It still staggers me every time I see trainers that send a low percentage of their runners to the front early. Just one in twelve of Jonjo O’Neill’s runners goes into an early lead in a chase. However, when they do, they win nearly 25% of the time (one race in four). Compare this to his record with hold up horses in chases. Nearly 45% of all Jonjo O’Neill’s runners in chases are held up early – but just 11% go onto win. It’s nuts! [For all that there might be other reasons for holding certain horses up on some occasions - Ed.]
Hold up horses do not perform well in chases either – to illustrate this here are the chase records of the six trainers with their hold up runners:
The summary on hold up horses is low strike rates and huge losses all round. This group will, of course, include a subset of no-hopers though, in relation to such high profile trainers, there will be fewer of these than for most other handlers.
Run Style Analysis: Hurdle races
Generally speaking, hurdle races do not offer as strong a front running edge as chases, but it is still preferable to lead early compared with other running styles.
With that in mind, let us review the hypothetical profits from our trainers' front runners in hurdle races:
Some good strike rates for Nicholls, Henderson and King, but not the wall to wall profits seen in the chases analysis.
It is noticeable that, as a whole, the six trainers send out a smaller proportion of front runners in hurdle races as compared to chases. This will be in part due to typically smaller field sizes in chases then in hurdles, but that doesn't fully account for the differentials. The graph below illustrates:
Alan King has sent just less than 4% of his hurdlers into an early lead despite these runners scoring 35% of the time. As a comparison, his held up runners (which account for 37% of all King's hurdlers) won just 13% of the time.
Run Style Analysis: Full Summary
To conclude, I'd like to share the individual trainer win strike rate data across all four running styles in different race types. I have included National Hunt flat races, too. These races do not give front runners as strong an edge although they still perform better than any of the other three running styles.
The table below gives a very clear picture as to why run style is so important. It shows the significant edge front runners have overall; it also shows that prominent runners perform far better than horses that race mid division or are held up.
- Dave Renham
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/NavajoPass_BuveurdAir_UnibetChampionHurdleTrial_Haydock_2021.jpg319830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2022-01-10 12:17:142022-01-10 12:17:14Run style analysis of a selection of National Hunt trainers
At the age of 25 back in 1978 Kim Bailey took over the training licence from his father Ken at their family farm in Brackley, Northamptonshire, with the experience of having learnt his trade from three training greats, Humphrey Cottrill, Tim Forster and Fred Rimell, writes Tony Stafford. In 1995 he enjoyed the almost unthinkable achievement of winning both the Champion Hurdle, with the novice Alderbrook, and the Gold Cup with Master Oats.
Until Saturday they had been the only Grade 1 wins on his card. Now, 26 years later and in his 43rd year as a trainer, the still-boyish Bailey, greatly to his own surprise, can refer back to a wonderful performance by the nine-year-old, First Flow. After an end-to-end battle he emphatically saw off reigning Champion Two-Mile Chaser Politologue in Ascot’s Clarence House Chase.
Kim Bailey has, over the years, gone through a number of transformations and training locations as well as a major domestic upheaval and a Henry Cecil-like slump. That must have caused this consummate horseman to question whether he should continue to pursue his career.
Throughout, Bailey has always had the respect of his fellow professionals, even in the darkest days. The same was true of course for the future Sir Henry before the arrival of Frankel and the subsequent great loyalty – hardly surprising one might say – of Prince Khalid Abdullah. The recent passing of Prince Khalid could have significant implications for the future of many of the present-day’s leading Flat-race trainers.
Bailey’s own darkest years came in the first decade of the present century when in the four seasons between 2004 and 2008 he won respectively only six, six, nine and finally three races. Those three in 2007-8 came from 131 runs and produced earnings of a little over £29,000. Nowadays he characteristically has one of the higher strike rates, operating at close to 18%. Less than three per cent must have given him kittens!
The Racing Post statistics for each trainer includes a section at the bottom entitled Big Races Won. Between March 2002 and November 2012, a full decade, none of the Bailey winners qualified for entry in that section.
In more recent times, he has built up his business again at a modern farm in Andoversford, 15 minutes or so from Cheltenham. A great adherent to modern technology, he was moving around his snow-covered 70-strong yard on Sunday morning, reflecting by video on the previous afternoon’s exploits by one of three chasers that could be lining up in the top races at Prestbury Park in six weeks’ time.
As he progressed with his commentary, all the time he was sharing the credit, principally to David Bass, whose opportunist ride on First Flow he described as “one of the best rides I’ve ever seen”. Also earning his gratitude were various key members of his staff. If ever there was a benevolent boss, it is Kim Bailey, who stresses that any success achieved by Thornfield Farm is very much a team effort.
That attitude will undoubtedly bring loyalty from the staff and he certainly has managed to keep a number of owners, among them First Flow’s, Tony Solomons, with him over many years. “Tony was one of my first owners all those years ago and I’m so happy for him. First Flow was not an expensive buy and he’s done so well for us,” says Bailey.
He certainly has. Saturday’s win for First Flow was his sixth in succession and his tenth in all from only 16 races over obstacles. The race was worth a few bob short of £60k and represented a nice early birthday present for his owner.
Tony rarely has more than a couple of horses in training but the retired banker also had tremendous success in recent years with the staying Flat handicapper, Nearly Caught. That smart gelding, trained by Hughie Morrison, won nine races and was placed 15 times.
His last win, as an eight-year-old, came on his final appearance when he easily won a Newmarket Listed race from an official rating of 107. That was his fourth Listed win, to which he could add a Group 2 victory at Deauville as a six-year-old. All of his five stakes wins and eight places came in his final three seasons’ racing.
While Bailey had some sparse years where major races were concerned, that could not be said of 2020 when he earned seven entries in that category. First Flow is joined by Imperial Aura and Vinndication as fellow high-class performers and Bailey hopes all three will make it to the Festival.
He regards Vinndication as a potential Gold Cup candidate. The eight-year-old is still lightly-raced and although he has yet to win going left-handed, he ran a blinder when only two lengths behind Cyrname in the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby when starting out the present campaign at the end of October.
Bailey aimed him at the Ladbroke (ex-Hennessy) Handicap Chase at Newbury the following month and the gelding was still very much in contention when unseating David Bass five fences out (his only non-completion) under a big weight. The trainer hopes he will be able to prepare him in time to participate.
Until Imperial Aura’s unexpected early exit from his Kempton Grade 2 target a couple of weeks back he had been carrying all before him, adding two nice wins to his Cheltenham Festival novice handicap chase victory in March. Another eight-year-old, like his two stablemates he also has an enviable win ratio, seven from 12.
Nothing succeeds like success. From the dark days Bailey has now put together seven highly rewarding seasons, all bar last term’s 32 (for obvious Covid) reasons bringing between 43 and 61 wins and at least £400k in earnings.
With £450,000 already this term and more than three months to go, he could even get close to the £696,000 of the extraordinary Master Oats/ Alderbrook campaign when he had 72 wins from 312 runs, especially if things work out at the Festival.
It is hard not to be excited by First Flow, but one other horse produced an even more eye-opening performance the same afternoon. The Venetia Williams-trained and Rich Ricci-owned Royale Pagaille turned the Peter Marsh Chase at Haydock Park into a rout and must be followed over a cliff for the rest of the season and beyond.
This race has had a proud heritage since its inception in 1981, with its early winners including the three Cheltenham Gold Cup victors, Little Owl, Bregawn and The Thinker. Jodami made it four a decade later, while its best recent champion has been Bristol De Mai, also a three-time winner of the Grade 1 Betfair Chase over the same course and distance.
Royale Pagaille was bought as an experienced four-year-old by French agent Guy Petit out of the Francois Nicolle yard in November 2018 at Arcana for €70k. He had won one of ten starts, a minor hurdle race at Pau, although he did have plenty of experience over fences after that victory.
Sent To Venetia, it was more than a year before he saw a British racecourse and his two runs last season before racing was summarily curtailed were hardly earth-shattering. First, in a two-runner Chepstow novice chase he found the 150-rated Vision Des Flos predictably too good, trailing home almost ten lengths behind. Then, in a three-runner chase at Huntingdon he was miles behind the lower-rated pair Equus Secretus (Ben Pauling) and Lies About Milan (Fergal O’Brien) who fought out a close finish over the near three-mile trip. Those performances gave little inkling of what was to come.
Hence when Royale Pagaille reappeared for this season at Haydock on December 2, the son of Blue Bresil was the 11/1 outsider in a four-runner novice chase over two miles and five furlongs. He confounded those odds, very easily coming from the back to draw clear of the Kim Bailey-trained favourite Espoir De Romay, who carried a 5lb winner’s penalty.
After that, on the second day of Kempton’s big Christmas meeting, his winning margin of just over three lengths might not have been extravagant, but the style of the victory off his revised mark of 140 was such that the chase handicapper raised him 16lb to 156.
At no stage on Saturday did it appear likely that Royale Pagaille would have any difficulty in defying his new mark, travelling and jumping with utter authority. Conceding 20lb to the proven staying handicappers Just Your Type and Potters Legend, he was already a long way clear of the pair at the last fence in the heavy ground and it seemed as though Tom Scudamore could have doubled the eventual victory margin of 16 lengths over Potters Legend had he wished.
That suggests to me the chase assessors will struggle to keep his new mark below 170 and at the present rate of progress, further improvement could easily be forthcoming. That already takes him right into the top echelon of chasers. For the record, in its 41-year history the Peter Marsh Chase has never been won by a horse younger than seven, Royale Pagaille’s age.
Bookmakers are quoting Royale Pagaille for four races at the Festival, but if he was mine I would find it difficult to disregard the big one. There are many instances of trainers thinking their emerging horses are not quite ready but with the number of pitfalls that can assail them, those delaying plans often prove fruitless with the horses never actually making it to a later Gold Cup. And this one already has eleven chase starts to his name, so is hardly an inexperienced novice.
I’m suggesting you take the 12-1 (unless you can get better) for the Blue Riband of the meeting. If you prefer to be safe, he is 8-1 non-runner no bet.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FirstFlow_ClarenceHouse_2021.jpg320830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2021-01-25 09:14:442021-01-25 09:14:44Monday Musings: Two Major Contenders from Left Field
As I’ve alluded to in previous articles I would consider myself more of a flat game specialist, writes Jon Shenton. However, with the onset of winter and the monumental battle of wills around when to put the heating on, perhaps you could argue that my timing is less than impeccable in terms of becoming a contributor to Geegeez.
Data are data, though – and in some ways the fact that I’m not invested so much in the history, the characters and the equine stars of the show arguably means I can be more objective about what I’m looking at. In other words, the data can speak for themselves. Every day is a school day and I’m hopeful that I can build some profitable and interesting angles to keep things ticking over during the cold, dark months when I’m wrapped in a blanket because I’m too tight to fire up the boiler!
In this article, I will try to unearth a bit of early season value with regard to the winter game. That said, and as a starter concession, I still can’t work out officially when the National Hunt season starts.
As ever a reminder that analysing past performance is no guarantee of future spoils; but, as a minimum, it should help in generating ideas and approaches for evolve our knowledge and therefore our betting skill.
Let’s start with a broad-brush approach evaluating National Hunt runners by trainer during the months of October and November. This time all the data have been crunched using the Query Tool on this very site, any runners on or after 7th October 2018 are not included.
The table above displays trainers ordered by the best return on investment (ROI) at starting price (SP). Encouragingly, there are nine of them returning over 10% without diving any deeper.
Top of the tree and first cab off the rank is Henry Oliver, the Worcestershire-based trainer who is returning a very substantial 61% over the period in question: it’s stating the completely obvious but that’s worth more than a quick glance. First stop is to check the context of this apparent seasonal bounty, it may be that Mr Oliver is an all year-round cash cow.
If you backed every Oliver NH runner from January 2012 you would have a neat 5% return to SP with 90 winners from 534 bets. Not quite ‘cash cow’ status but there are certainly worse ways to put your money on the line. The below graph shows how the 26.7 points of profit is split by month.
First thing to note is that, like a number of NH trainers, the summer months are fallow for Oliver’s charges. December aside, Oliver is operating at a profitable level over the winter months and I wouldn’t put you off tracking all stable runners over the core NH season so certainly a trainer to follow.
However, we started searching for early season value and clearly November sticks out like Brian Blessed playing hide and seek, returning 94% profit to ROI. The 20% October ROI is worth noting, too.
Trying to dive deeper into those autumnal runners, evaluating variables such as obstacle type, race class, horse age or date of recent run doesn’t generate anything of real material value. If you’re nit-picking, Oliver’s horses are 0/11 for runs greater in distance than 2m 6f in those months and 5/58 overall, something to keep an eye on.
The last metaphoric hurdle is to understand the consistency aspect of the performance.
The table below shows Oliver’s October/November runs by year. Maybe a little streaky but scintillating performance in 2013, 2015, and in particular 2017, with a bit of a washout in 2016. Only one losing year though (excluding 2018 thus far for hopefully obvious reasons) means that this is solid enough to go on the list!
Suggestion: Back all Henry Oliver runners in October/November at 20/1 or less
The second luminary of the list is Fergal O’Brien, who quite simply has the best (in my opinion) and most entertaining twitter profile of all of the trainers, well worth a follow (@FOBracing) if you’re active on that medium. The stable contains relative household names such as Chase The Spud, Cap Soleil, and their first Grade 1 winner Poetic Rhythm to name but three of them.
There is no doubt the yard has impressive credentials and performance has been very strong over recent years. If you backed every single stable runner at SP from January 2012 you’d walk away with 3.7% more cash than you invested.
I think there are angles aplenty when it comes to O’Brien, most of which are for another day but with specific reference to the early season view there are a couple of options to home in on for profit. The first is National Hunt race code
All profitable, which is nice. The pertinent angle for me though is his performance in bumpers, where O’Brien has nearly double the volume of winners than expected with a 186% return to boot. Yes, the sample size is small, but within the data there are ten winners from horses making their debut (from 22), indicating that the yard gears up to get quality horses (or horses ready to win) out on the track in the months of October and November. Generally speaking, the later in October, the better as the record is 1/11 from the 1st-16th.
Profit in relation to hurdles and fences is quite small over those two months; however, if we zoom in a little closer there is a quite telling split in monthly performance, again it looks like the stable is peaking in November.
It’s not an absolute rule, and certainly doesn’t mean that a horse on the track on the 1st November is in different shape to one on 31st October, but it does indicate generally that as we start heading towards the big November Cheltenham meeting, the O’Brien yard picks up pace and is a definite one to follow closely.
Suggestion 1: Back all O’Brien NHF runners in late October/November at less than 20/1 SP
Suggestion 2: Back all O’Brien Chase and Hurdle runners in November at less than 20/1 SP
Moving to the trainer in the bronze medal position in the opening table, Harry Whittington: the Lambourn-based outfit is growing rapidly, currently housing nearly 50 horses with an increasing number of runners per year. I like these yards that are growing, it often means they’re on an upwards trajectory and are worth closer review.
First port of call is checking the race type in the table below, a small number of runners but the bumper aspect doesn’t look entirely compelling so I’m happy enough to exclude and keep a watching brief.
Again, evaluating the profile of Whittington’s hurdle and chase runners across the whole year gives an interesting picture in terms of P&L. The graph below shows that very same P&L by month to a £1 level stake, it’s fair to say that Q4 looks quite compelling – another yard that’s fast out of the blocks for the new season.
If we analyse the October to December runs in terms of race class as a differentiator there is a further shard of light to assist profitable punting.
The basement C5 races are easy enough to ignore in punting terms, most of them crossing over with the NHF group we already discounted; the Class 1 & 2 are less straightforward, particularly if the yard’s expansion means they may be knocking on the door of the higher echelons of the racing ladder. Here and now I’d be inclined to back the C3 & C4 horses and track the C1/2 runners for signs of improvement or add to a shortlist to back on their relative merits.
Suggestion: Back all Harry Whittington’s October, November and December Chase/Hurdle runners at less than 20/1 in Class 3 or 4 races.
The final trainer I’m going to run through from the initial table is Venetia Williams, largely due to her volume of runners: to deliver a 17% ROI across 440 runners in the months of October/November from 2012 onwards is impressive and merits closer scrutiny. That’s not to say all of the other trainers are not worthy of further investigation and I’d definitely be inclined to sharpen the focus on Messrs Pauling and Keighley in particular. Have a play on QT yourself and maybe post anything of interest (or otherwise) in the comments below.
Returning to Venetia Williams, the Grand National-winning trainer has a profitable record during the months in question, but the below table tells a stark tale. Clearly, Williams has a knack for getting her cavalry of chasers ready early in the season
Again, if we look specifically at the month, the record in November is much stronger than that of October.
Perusing the “Venetia” page at her website www.venetiawilliams.com the following sentence caught my eye:
“Since then Venetia's career has flourished. Never one to expose her horses to the high risk of summer ground, each year Venetia can be seen with the big Saturday winners during the core NH season”
There is a common belief that Williams’ runners love soft turf, and the statement above also seems to indicate a preference to avoiding the risks associated with summer ground. On Geegeez we like facts to back up a theory, so the table below shows Venetia’s chase runners in November by official going.
While there is confirmation that Williams’ runners prefer a softer surface, it is worth noting that the stereotyped ‘hock deep’ runner from this yard fares less well than those encountering merely ‘winter ground’, i.e. good to soft or soft.
There is one mild concern with the overall angle though, namely 2017 performance, showing a loss of 28%, this is also on the back of a moderate 2016. It could be this angle has run its natural course, albeit I will be adding it to my own armoury this November. Williams had a very quiet spell last winter, alluding to a potential problem in the yard so I’m just about happy enough to strike a line through 2017. This is one for keen observation though.
Oh, and incidentally the Saturday assertion in the quoted sentence does have a degree of credence too.
Suggestion: Back all Venetia Williams November Chasers on Good to soft or softer ground with a 20/1 or less SP (with caution)
- Jon Shenton
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/HenryOliver.jpg320830Jonny11https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngJonny112018-10-10 10:44:102019-02-04 10:17:04NH Season Fast Starters
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