Merchant pulled out all the stops to deny Wimbledon Hawkeye in a thrilling finish to the HKJC World Pool Gordon Stakes in attritional conditions at a gloomy Goodwood.
An impressive winner in the King George V Stakes at Royal Ascot, William Haggas’ improving son of Teofilo was sent off the 6-5 favourite to enhance his growing reputation with a Group Three success.
With the threat of lightning meaning a flag start it was Gary and Josh Moore’s Too Soon who led them along, with the Highclere Thoroughbreds-owned market leader among those held up at the rear of the field along with Aidan O’Brien’s Galveston and Andrew Balding’s recent Sandown winner Windlord.
With the runners edging over to the stands side with the two-furlong pole approaching, it appeared as though James Owen’s Wimbledon Hawkeye would take some reeling in, but Merchant’s jockey Tom Marquand had a brave ally when he needed him, with the colt bridging the deficit to register a nose verdict in the nick of time.
Whether it proves to be at home or abroad, exciting options now await for Merchant, who was bred by Jim Bolger. Doncaster or Paris appears to be the discussion to be had regarding the autumn.
Haggas said: “Tom said he didn’t enjoy the ground, but he kept going and that’s what I like about him the most.
“His temperament is brilliant, he doesn’t give a monkey’s about anything. That is one of his great attributes for the future.
Tom Marquand celebrates after winning the Gordon Stakes (Andrew Matthews/PA)
“They all had to cope with the conditions, it was going to be messy whatever happened with the flag start. He’s only won a nose and James’ horse ran a fabulous race.
“He really dug in well, he’s a very good horse. Desert Hero won this race and then ran in the St Leger and I don’t think he was ever quite the same afterwards.
“I’m worried about stretching this horse out to a mile and six too soon, I think he is really a horse for next year, too. We think he’s very good.
“However, if he didn’t like the ground there then he may not like the ground in France in autumn. I’m not saying the Arc is definitely not going to happen, but it’s not definitely not going to happen either.”
Merchant toughed it out (Andrew Matthews/PA)
Highclere’s Harry Herbert added: “I’m not sure we’ll go for the Leger, the plan – so long as he comes out of this race fine – is to go to York (Great Voltigeur Stakes)
“We’ll see how that goes, if York went well and we had good ground at York we’d see what this horse can do on perfect ground.
“Tom said he was spinning his wheels the whole way, it’s extraordinary that he’s won. If he happened to go through York OK then the trainer has talked more about the Arc, which is quite bold.
“He’s worried about going a mile and six as a three-year-old, he sees him as having a very big future. He’s a master with this type of horse.”
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2.81146582-scaled.jpg12802560Geegeez Newshttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngGeegeez News2025-07-31 13:56:482025-07-31 14:30:16Merchant sets sail for Gordon success at rain-soaked Goodwood
Sky Majesty could be given a second chance in Group One company before the season is out following her Listed success at Naas on Wednesday.
The three-year-old daughter of Blue Point won both a Group Three and a Group Two as a juvenile and was not too far away from the action when eighth in the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot.
Connections felt the prevailing quick ground at the royal meeting was perhaps not to her liking and she showed her true colours back on an easier surface after being sent to Ireland earlier this week, claiming a smart victory in the Yeomanstown Stud Irish EBF Stakes for trainer William Haggas.
Sean Graham, racing manager to co-owner Tony Bloom, said: “We thought she ran well in the Commonwealth Cup, Tom Marquand said she probably wasn’t letting herself down properly on the very quick ground at Ascot.
“Her best run last year, when she won a Group Two, was in France and that was on heavy ground, so we were delighted when the ground was on the easy side at Naas.
“The first couple of races showed a draw bias, you wanted to be drawn high, so we were slightly worried when she was drawn in (stall) two but in fairness to Tom, he got out of the stalls very quickly and I think that made all the difference.”
Sky Majesty was saddled with a penalty at Naas and will encounter similar burdens in races of a similar level, which may push a move towards top-level events when the ground softens.
“She won well there and there are a few options for her now, we’ll wait and see how she comes out of the race and we’d be keen to avoid very quick ground with her again,” said Graham.
“We’re getting rain but nowhere near as much as we need. She carried a 7lb penalty at Naas because she’s a Group Two winner, that makes you want to go for a Group Three but she’d probably still have to carry a penalty.
“We may have to pick and choose where we run her but hopefully she makes into a filly that could run in Group Ones on soft ground at the end of the year.
“We don’t want to get too carried away, but it might have done her confidence a bit of good to get her head back in front again.
“William Haggas is a genius at keeping these fillies ticking over and finding races for them to win so that’s what we hope to do.”
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2.77537168-scaled.jpg12802560Geegeez Newshttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngGeegeez News2025-07-27 11:58:042025-07-27 11:58:04Naas triumph has Sky Majesty camp thinking big
Lake Forest may miss next week’s Qatar Goodwood Festival, with alternative summer targets in the reckoning.
The No Nay Never colt, who is trained by William Haggas, was the winner of the Gimcrack as a two-year-old and runner-up in both the Commonwealth Cup and the Hackwood Stakes in his three-year-old season.
In November last year he claimed a lucrative success in the Golden Eagle at Rosehill, Australia, although this season he is yet to get his head in front across three starts.
He was last seen finishing sixth in the Criterion Stakes at York having started as the favourite, and while he holds entries at Goodwood it is more likely he will work towards an eventual return to the Knavesmire instead.
“He’s grand. He has two entries at Goodwood, in the Lennox on the Tuesday and the Sussex on the Wednesday, but we don’t know if we’re going to take up those entries,” said Sean Graham, racing manager to Tony Bloom, co-owner alongside Ian McAleavy.
“We’re thinking maybe of the Hungerford for him, which is a Group Two, and then the City of York Stakes, which is also seven furlongs and is now a Group One.
“He’s the opposite to (stablemate) Sky Majesty in that he definitely wants quick ground.
“There will be an element of finding his ground so those plans are ground dependent as well.”
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2.73446754-scaled.jpg12802560Geegeez Newshttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngGeegeez News2025-07-25 11:19:372025-07-25 11:19:37Lake Forest likely to be aimed at targets away from Goodwood
William Haggas looks to have a very useful three-year-old in his armoury after Almeraq blitzed the field in the Fergie & Myra Happel Ayr Gold Cup Trial Handicap at Ayr.
The Shadwell-owned Dark Angel colt was making his handicap debut off a mark of 90 as the 2-1 favourite in Scotland and looked at ease as he stalked the early leaders in the six-furlong race.
He made headway at the halfway stage and moved in front at the two-furlong marker before kicking into top gear to breeze clear of his 17 rivals. Almeraq, who has an entry for the Betfair Sprint Cup at Haydock in September, powered to the line to complete a five-length success in the hands of Clifford Lee and enhance his growing reputation.
The four-year-old was slashed in price to 3-1 favourite with the sponsors for the Coral Stewards’ Cup at Glorious Goodwood, although Shadwell racing manager Angus Gold sounded a warning note over Almeraq lining in the big handicap on Saturday week.
“I was impressed with his performance and it’s good to see him come back to what we’d thought he might show,” Gold said.
“We always hoped last year that he would be a nice horse and he just had a few little niggles in the spring, which held William up when they wanted to get going with him.
“The only thing I would caution – I haven’t spoken to William, all options are open – but we’ve taken a long time and been very patient with him.
“Hopefully his future is all in front of him and hopefully in the autumn we will get some decent ground, so I’m not saying he won’t run at Goodwood, but I’d be surprised if he bounced straight back in after being so patient with him.
“It’s only 12 days away so let’s see. We’ll see what the weather does and see how he comes out of this.”
There was a shock in the opening racingtv.com/freetrial EBF Maiden Stakes as Chesham Stakes runner-up Thesecretadversary was beaten by debutant Rochfortbridge (28-1). Fozzy Stack’s colt went off as the 2-13 favourite, but he came out of the stalls slowly and was in the rear for much of the seven-furlong contest.
While Thesecretadversary came to the outside with two furlongs to go, Adrian Keatley’s charge proved too much as the 100,000 guineas buy claimed victory by three-quarters of a length, to leave his trainer eyeing up a tilt at the Acomb Stakes at York.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2.81047957-scaled.jpg12802560Geegeez Newshttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngGeegeez News2025-07-21 16:13:022025-07-21 16:13:02Almeraq powers to hugely impressive victory at Ayr
William Haggas will test the water at Group-race level before the season is out with More Thunder following his narrow success in the bet365 Bunbury Cup at Newmarket.
The winner of two valuable six-furlong handicaps on the Rowley Mile in the spring, the four-year-old was beaten a head by Get It when bidding for his hat-trick in the Wokingham at Royal Ascot last month.
More Thunder was a 6-5 favourite to get back on the winning trail in this £100,000 contest and having been dropped out last by Tom Marquand early on, he was angled towards the stands’ rail to mount his challenge and quickened up smartly to challenge for the lead.
— Newmarket Racecourse (@NewmarketRace) July 12, 2025
Last year’s winner Aalto, a 40-1 shot to successfully defend his crown, bounced back from an uninspiring run of form to make a real race of it inside the last of seven furlongs and the pair flashed by the post almost as one, but it was More Thunder who had his head down where it mattered, with the judge confirming him the winner by a nose.
Haggas said: “I need to watch it again, but for me they didn’t go fast at all and he struggled to get momentum. I think he’s better going fast and Tom came in and said ‘if you run him over this trip again, they need to go hard’. Six furlongs, he feels, is his best trip.”
More Thunder holds big-race entries in major handicaps and Pattern races and it is clear his trainer is keen to see him compete in Group One company at some stage.
William Haggas at Newmarket on Saturday (Joe Giddens/PA)
When asked if he had thought about running in the July Cup later in the afternoon, Haggas added: “We considered it strongly, but we also wanted to go up to seven furlongs at some stage and this was an opportunity to do so.
“That is why he came here, but we will have a crack at a six-furlong stakes race. He just needs pace this horse, but in six-furlong Group races, you’ll see in the July Cup, they don’t go slow!
“He could run in another handicap, but I think he deserves a shot at a good race now.”
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2.80975126-scaled.jpg12802560Geegeez Newshttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngGeegeez News2025-07-12 14:39:282025-07-12 14:39:28More Thunder holds on for Bunbury Cup glory
More Thunder will be given the chance to gain compensation for his Royal Ascot near-miss in Newmarket’s bet365 Bunbury Cup on Saturday.
Although campaigned at a mile and a quarter when trained by Sir Michael Stoute last season, the four-year-old has thrived back down in trip since joining William Haggas this term, winning his first two starts of the season over six furlongs.
He agonisingly missed out on a hat-trick of victories at the distance when a head away from Wokingham glory at the Royal meeting, with connections feeling now is the right time to gradually increase the colt’s yardage to seven furlongs.
“I think he will go for the handicap, the Bunbury Cup,” said owner Saeed Suhail’s racing manager Philip Robinson.
“I think the seven furlongs will help him and it looks to me like that will be his best trip. We will get to find out and then know where we go from there.
“He was flying at the finish at Ascot and in another stride would probably have got there.”
More Thunder is as short as 2-1 for Saturday’s £100,000 handicap on the July course, while he also holds an entry for Group events in the coming weeks including the Curragh’s Romanised Minstrel Stakes on July 19 and the HKJC World Pool Lennox Stakes during the Qatar Goodwood Festival.
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Only a dramatic shake-up to the envisaged King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes line-up is likely to tempt connections of Merchant from the path already mapped out for the exciting colt.
William Haggas’ Royal Ascot winner saw the form of his King George V Stakes success enhanced when runner-up Serious Contender chased home Lambourn in the Irish Derby, but the Merchant team are at present resisting the temptation of a return to Ascot for their Group One feature on July 26.
“It’s really exciting and as we know it’s pretty stiff form,” said Harry Herbert of owners Highclere Thoroughbred Racing.
MERCHANT becomes our 12th Royal Ascot winner!
The son of Teofilo storms home to win the King George V Stakes with Tom Marquand in the saddle for trainer William Haggas 🏆
“I’m a great believer in you never say never and if you have the entry then you can consider all options, but I couldn’t envisage him running in the King George unless Calandagan suddenly couldn’t go and a couple more fell by the wayside.
“If you had Aidan O’Brien’s dual Derby winner leading the betting, then that’s something that might lead to another conversation but for right now the plan is to go to Goodwood.”
With King George thoughts on the back burner, Merchant’s route is likely to be as previously outlined, with the John Pearce Racing Gordon Stakes at Goodwood on July 31 setting up a possible visit to York during the Ebor Festival.
Tom Marquand aboard Merchant after winning at Royal Ascot (John Walton/PA)
Herbert added: “The plan is to go for the Gordon Stakes and play it one race at a time and if he happens to win there and depending on how he comes out of it, we’ll probably then head to the Great Voltigeur (August 20) and take it from there.
“He’s a high-class colt and like all these horses, it will all depend on how they develop on during the season and fingers crossed he’s going to be a pretty important beast.”
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2.80714084-scaled.jpg12802560https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png2025-07-01 13:38:072025-07-01 13:38:07Merchant camp planning to stick to Goodwood route
Lake Forest could be in line for a quick return to action in the Al Basti Equiworld Criterion Stakes at York on Saturday.
The William Haggas-trained four-year-old was most recently seen finishing fifth in the Queen Anne on the opening day of Royal Ascot, where he was beaten less than three lengths in a field of 10.
He is a prior Knavesmire winner, taking the Gimcrack as a two-year-old, and may now head back to the scene of that victory for the Group Three Criterion, formerly run at Newmarket’s July course.
“The way the race was run at Ascot just didn’t suit him, they went slowly and then about four furlongs out they just blasted for home,” said Sean Graham, racing manager to co-owner Tony Bloom.
“He was caught in no man’s land, but he wasn’t even beaten three lengths and I thought it was a decent run. It was a proper Group One with some very good horses involved. He’s entered for York on Saturday and William is thinking of running him.
“He’s a tough, hardy horse and he likes the quick ground – we’d like to get another run into him before the weather changes.”
Lake Forest’s last victory came in the Golden Eagle at Rosehill in November, where he defeated Jerome Reynier’s Lazzat by half a length in a field full of top-level horses, earning the best part of £3million for first place.
Lazzat was also at Royal Ascot, advertising the form of their prior meeting with success in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes.
“In the race he won in Australia there were eight or nine Group One winners. He’s got the form in the book there, he just needs to reproduce that run,” Graham said.
“The key to the horse is he needs a strong, evenly-run pace, the prize-money is very good at York for a Group Three so hopefully they’ll all run and there’ll be a true gallop in the race.”
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There are three festivals a year I get really excited about, writes Dave Renham. The Cheltenham Festival and Glorious Goodwood are two; and the third, which is soon to be upon us, is of course Royal Ascot. Around this time last year I looked in detail at the big 1-mile handicaps at the meeting - you can catch up with that piece here. This year I am concentrating on the Group 1 races.
Introduction
There are eight Group 1s run at the Royal meeting and they are as follows:
As would be expected, there is a good mix of different race distances and conditions although there is only one Group 1 race at a distance beyond 1m 2f, the Gold Cup.
In this article I am looking back on the last ten years of these Group 1 contests, trying to find any snippets that may help us when tackling the races this year. Profit and losses have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price (BSP) less 2% commission.
Royal Ascot Group 1s by Market Rank
Let me start by examining the market. I have ranked the runners based on BSP, which is the most accurate way of doing it. Further, it eliminates almost all of the ‘joint’ market positions.
These races have definitely been market-friendly with the top three betting positions each producing a blind profit. Those fourth in the Betfair betting lists have performed poorly but due to the modest sample we can perhaps assume this is an anomaly. Regardless, it seems that the top three in the betting are the ones to concentrate on.
Group 1 Favourites at Royal Ascot
Narrowing in on favourites, below are the Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB) figures for each individual race to help give a better overview of favourite performance in specific races. For the record the average PRB figures for favourites across the eight races combined stands at 0.76.
There has been quite a variance with Gold Cup favourites performing best, and by some margin. Their actual performance in the Gold Cup has been as follows:
During the ten year study period the Gold Cup favourite secured five wins, two seconds, a third and two fourths, so no BSP jolly has completely bombed out.
Royal Ascot Group 1s: Top 3 Market Ranks
If we undertake the same type of PRB analysis across the top three in the betting, the graph generally becomes more even:
The St James’s Palace has the highest figure now with the Gold Cup a close second. Nine of the ten winners of the St James’s Palace came from the top three in the betting (four favourites, three second favs, two third favs).
Conversely, of all the races the Commonwealth Cup has seen fancied runners struggle the most. Favourites have won three of the last ten Commonwealth Cup renewals, but there were no wins for second favourites (two wins for third favs). Quite a few horses that were in the top three of the betting have bombed out with 10 of the 30 failing to finish in the top ten, three of them being favourites.
It should be noted that the four winning Commonwealth Cup favourites in the past decade more than paid for the other six losing jollies, returning a profit of 2.55 units at BSP.
Royal Ascot Group 1s by Last Time Out (LTO) Position
The second area I want to look at is recent performance and specifically LTO finishing position. Here is a breakdown of performance by last day finishing position (I have grouped all horses together that finished fifth or worse LTO):
The BSP profit for those that finished third LTO has been totalled skewed by the 140.0 BSP winner Khaadem. LTO winners do look the group to concentrate on with over half of the 80 winners having also won on their most recent start. If we combine LTO winners with a position in the top three in the betting, then we see some excellent results: 36 winners from 115 runners (SR 31.13%) for a profit of £30.50 (ROI +26.5%); A/E 1.14.
It is also worth keeping an eye out for LTO winners that won by at least a length in the race prior to Ascot. These runners have scored 18.9% of the time (30 wins from 159) for a profit of £29.13 (ROI +18.3%).
Royal Ascot Group 1s by Last Time Out (LTO) Race Class
Onto looking at the class of race LTO. Here are the splits:
As we would expect horses that ran in Group 1 company last time have won most often. Those that raced in Group 3 or Listed Class LTO have been profitable, but both have been skewed by very big priced winners going in. Still, Royal Ascot is a meeting where horses fairly consistently win at massive odds.
LTO winners that contested a Group 1 race have actually offered poor value despite a strike rate of close to 30%. The 51 qualifiers lost over 28p in the £ if backing them to repeat the Group 1 win at Royal Ascot.
Royal Ascot Group 1s by Days Since Last Run (DSLR)
It is time to see whether the timing of the last run before Royal Ascot makes a difference. It should be noted this data does not include French, American or Australian runners as I do not have facility to check those. However, it still applies to over 90% of Ascot runners. Here are my findings:
As the table shows, I have included 50 to 240 days as a single group simply because there are very few runners within that grouping, and their performance has been poor. I wanted to help highlight the difference between that group and the group absent 241+ days (or eight months-plus).
The biggest cohort had a run between 22 and 35 days prior to Ascot and their results have been positive given the overall context. To give a broader overview let me share the PRB figures for each ‘days off track’ grouping:
These figures correlate with the win strike rates. The figures for 22 to 35 days and 241 days+ are clearly best. Finally in this section, below is the ten-year performance in Royal Ascot Group 1s of horses from the top three in the betting by days since last run:
Again, this points to the same two groups (22 to 35 days; 241+ days) as the areas in which to focus from a positive perspective. They would have offered punters very good value over the past ten years.
Royal Ascot Group 1 Trainers
The final area I will consider is that of trainers although it should be noted that data is limited. There are a handful of trainers who have saddled at least 20 runners in Royal Ascot Group 1s in the last ten years, and they are shown in the following table:
It is important not to take these figures (especially big profit lines) too literally due to the sample sizes. It is probably more prudent to look at the PRB values to give a better general indication of how each trainer's horses have run:
William Haggas, despite having just one winner from 24, has an excellent PRB figure so it looks like he has been somewhat unlucky in recent years. He has endured five second places, as well as four thirds and five fourths. Haggas looks a trainer that may offer some placepot/ each way value at the very least next week.
By contrast, Roger Varian’s runners have really struggled although a good proportion of his charges have been bigger prices. Indeed, Charyn, in last year's Queen Anne Stakes is Varian's sole Royal Ascot G1 winner to date. There are sure to be more in future but his seem a little over-bet.
Other trainer titbits to share include the fact that Aidan O’Brien's 13 Group 1 winners in the past decade have all been ridden by Ryan Moore (from 61 rides). All other jockeys riding for O'Brien are a combined 0 from 43 since 2015, although again most of these runners were outsiders. Sticking with O’Brien it seems best to concentrate on those starting favourite or second favourite. They have combined to produce 12 of his 13 winners (from 34 qualifiers) returning a small 2p in the £. Finally, albeit from a very small sample, the Gosden stable has had four winners and four placed runners from just 13 runners aged four.
Summary
The Group 1 races at Royal Ascot are the races that owners, trainers and jockeys covet the most, although any win at the Royal meeting is huge.
In terms of the Group 1s, the most fancied runners - those in the top three in the betting - have fared much the best. Don’t be put off by horses having their first run in more than eight months (241+ days) and we might also consider a break of 22 to 35 days (three to five weeks) as more of a positive than a negative.
A last day win is preferable to other finishing positions and a last time out win coupled with a top three position in the betting market has been a very strong positive. From the training ranks, William Haggas appears to have been quite unlucky in the past decade and certainly I’ll be popping a few of his runners in my placepots at the very least. Aidan O’ Brien runners are worth noting if starting in the top two of the betting and particularly when ridden by Ryan Moore.
Wishing you the best of luck with your Royal Ascot Group 1 wagers.
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Kyprios_MojoStar_Stradivarius_GoldCup_Ascot2022.jpg319830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2025-06-09 12:35:212025-06-09 12:35:21Royal Ascot 2025: Analysing The Group 1 Races
Popular veteran Hamish proved the fire still burns bright by coming out on top in a thrilling three-way tussle for the BetGoodwin Tapster Stakes at Goodwood.
The William Haggas-trained gelding had won 12 of his 24 previous starts, with eight of those victories coming at Group Three level.
Making his first appearance as a nine-year-old, having been off the track since landing a Listed prize at the Curragh in November, Hamish was an even-money favourite in the hands of Tom Marquand and while he proved difficult to handle before the off, he was as his usual professional self during the race itself.
German Derby winner Palladium, making his first appearance for John and Thady Gosden after winning his only start over hurdles for Nicky Henderson, put up a bold show from the front, while his stablemate Military Academy was also right in there pitching in the closing stages of the mile-and-a-half Listed contest.
— Goodwood Racecourse (@Goodwood_Races) June 8, 2025
There was little to choose between the Gosden pair and Hamish racing inside the last half-furlong, but it was the latter who found most for pressure in the rain-softened ground to prevail by a neck from Military Academy, with Palladium just a head further behind in third.
On his pre-race antics, Maureen Haggas, assistant to her husband, told Racing TV: “He sat on a car the other day, apparently! I was away for a day, ‘Tinks’ (Andrew Tinkler) rode him and he was very apologetic the next day that he’d wrapped him around a car and a gate post!
“We introduced a pony after he ran at Goodwood two years ago and he’s been pretty good everywhere until today, where he was absolutely appalling again! The tack fell off about four times, eventually we managed to get it on and keep it on and once he was moving he was fine.
“He was pretty naughty at the start, but he has been crying out for a race for a long time and he needs soft ground. He’s been ready to go since the John Porter which was the middle of April, so he’s just pretty bored now and needed a day out.”
Maureen Haggas rides Hamish almost every day at home (Mike Egerton/PA)
She added: “He’s not the easiest at home in that he can only go certain places, so you can’t even vary his exercise because there’s only two canters that he will ever go on. He likes routine, but he has got a little bit bored and he’s not the sort you can take for a day out either as that blows his brains.
“He still feels great. I ride him every day and he doesn’t feel like a nine-year-old, just the last two weeks you can see him looking at me saying ‘what on earth are we doing this for’. It’s good he’s had a day out to remind him what it’s all about.”
The Owen Burrows-trained Waardah (7-1) powered clear to claim top honours in the other Listed race on the card – the Weatherbys/British EBF Agnes Keyser Fillies’ Stakes.
The three-year-old won on her Sandown debut in September and while she had since finished out of the places at Newmarket and Southwell, she looked to relish this step up to a mile and a quarter, finishing strongly under Callum Rodriguez to seal a two-and-three-quarter-length verdict.
Owen Burrows was delighted with the victory of Waardah (Mike Egerton/PA)
Burrows said: “She’s always been a filly we liked and hoped she could do something like that.
“I’ll be honest, I half pencilled her in for Sandown next week in a handicap, but I saw the forecast and thought it would be worth giving her an entry in this and luckily the rain came.
“I think soft ground is probably important to her. She won first time up last year on soft ground and didn’t run bad over a mile next time when she didn’t really handle Newmarket’s undulations.
“Coming to somewhere like here, that is always in the back of your mind, but she relaxed well and got into a nice rhythm and I thought the further she was going the better and if anything Callum said he struggled to pull her up, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we go a bit further again at some stage.
“We’ll just have to see what our summer weather does, but she’s certainly one that going into the autumn we should have a bit of fun with.”
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/273232713-scaled.jpg12802560https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png2025-06-08 17:00:362025-06-08 17:00:36Hamish shows plenty of heart for Tapster triumph
After the thrills and many spills of the Cheltenham Festival attention now turns to the start of the turf flat season, writes Dave Renham. Saturday 29th March is the starting date this year and the crowds will descend on Doncaster for a card that includes the first big handicap of the season, the Lincoln. In this article I am going to look at some early season trainer form and trends. Data are taken from 2019 to 2025, although in 2020 there was no flat racing in the early part of the season due to Covid.
Selected Trainers: First Ten Runs
We see in the racing press plenty of stats connected with a trainer’s recent form, be it the last seven, 14 or 30 days, or their last ‘x’ number of runs. For some punters this information is really important and forms an integral part of their selection process. With that in mind, one question I am keen to address in this article is connected with recent trainer form. I want to try and establish whether the first few runs of the season from a particular stable is indicative of how their runners perform up to the end of April. Also, I will be looking at whether a similar level of performance each year is achieved by trainers up to the end of the first full month of the season. I just would like to clarify that the data shared in this piece has been collated starting from the day of the first turf flat meeting through to the 30th April in each season.
In order to make this piece manageable I have decided to focus on a selected group of trainers who tend to have a good number of entries in the early weeks of the season. This includes some of the big guns, namely Charlie Appleby, William Haggas and John/Thady Gosden.
My starting point was to work out the PRB (Percentage of Rivals Beaten) figures for each trainer over their first ten runs of each season. I felt that using the PRBs would be the most accurate way of determining how well a stable was performing over those ten runs. Clearly, I could have used win strike rate but over such a small sample size we could potentially get a blurred picture of how well the horses are actually running. Here are my findings.
N.B. I have combined the figures for the Johnston stable although of course Charlie Johnston is now in sole charge:
Early Season Trainer Form: Selected trainers' PRB figures
Before doing a comparison with their records up to the end of April for each year, the table does highlight that we cannot guarantee exactly how well each stable will get out of the blocks each season. Taking Richard Hannon as one example, in 2023 his first ten runners of the turf season hit a PRB of only 0.46, but last year in 2024 it was up at a huge 0.83. Likewise, the Johnston stable has seen wide variances with three PRBs below 0.35 and two hitting 0.65 and above. Now of course ten runs is a small sample but by using PRBs it does give us a better idea of the very early form of a specific stable compared with other metrics. I believe the numbers shared in this table also help to highlight that each year is different and even if stables traditionally start the season quickly, there will be years that for whatever reason things will progress more slowly. And of course, vice versa.
Selected Trainers: To End of April
Let's now take a look at the annual PRBs for each trainer covering the start of the turf flat up to the end of April. Essentially, for most years this equates to roughly the first five weeks of the season.
Early season trainer form: up to end April annually
As might be expected, fluctuations year by year in the PRBs are now less pronounced due to the much bigger datasets, although two of Charlie Appleby’s figures differ quite markedly - from 0.81 in 2022 down to 0.63 in 2024. Likewise, the Gosden stable saw a big difference between their 2019 figure of 0.71 and their 2023 one of 0.51.
Now that we have these two sets of figures we can try to address the earlier question of whether the first few runs of the season from a particular yard are indicative of how their runners will perform up to the end of April. In order to do this, I have picked out some of the trainers to analyse in more detail.
Specific Trainers: Early Season Form
Charlie Appleby
If we look at Charlie Appleby’s performance with his first ten runners in 2019, 2022 and 2024 we can see he has quite well aligned PRB figures (0.62, 0.64 and 0.66). In 2019 and 2024 he maintained a similar level of performance up to the end of April hitting 0.66 and 0.63. However, in 2022, his PRB figure for the longer timeframe soared to 0.81. That year he had 23 winners from 55 runners up to April 30th equating to a strike rate of just under 42%. From those similar starting PRBs in 2019 and 2024 he managed a longer-term strike rate of 29.2% and 29% respectively. It is difficult to say why those early five or so weeks of 2022 panned out so well for the stable compared with 2019 and 2024 when they started off in the same vein. It perhaps underlines how challenging it can be to predict future trainer form based on a smallish sample of runs.
Mick Appleby
Next for the microscope is Mick Appleby. The graph below shows the comparison:
Mick Appleby: early season form, 2019-2024
The graph shows that Appleby has been consistent in terms of overall performance in the weeks up to April 30th (the orange line) - four of the five years saw PRB figures within a very small band ranging from 0.44 to 0.46. In 2022 he did have a better overall start to the season hitting 0.53 over those first few weeks, and that year he had started fast with a 0.63 figure for his first ten runners. The 2023 season saw an even better start with a 0.66 10-run figure, but that form tailed off quickly ending up at 0.46 for the longer time frame. Looking at this data tells me that the first ten runs of the year for Mick Appleby would not necessarily have given us a good guide to how the next few weeks would have panned out for his runners.
Going back to his PRB figures for all runs up to 30th April, despite having similar ones, the correlation with the win strike rates is not completely ‘positive’ as the graph below shows:
Mick Appleby: early season win strike rate comparison
Yes, the best year was 2022, (16.1%), which correlates with the highest PRB figure of 0.53, but there is a big variance between 2019’s strike rate of 14.3% compared with 2023’s 3.2% figure. This is despite having very similar PRB figures in those two years (0.44 and 0.46 respectively).
As with all metrics, any single one does not necessarily give us the best picture. Clearly in 2019 and 2023 the Appleby runners were generally running at the same level overall – the PRB figures show that. However, in terms of winning races 2019 saw many more winners than 2023.
This type of number crunching is an excellent reminder of why racing can be difficult to profit from. Let’s imagine for example we back 20 horses to win in one month, if all of them run really well but all finish second, we still would have lost all 20 bets.
Andrew Balding
Next is Andrew Balding. Again, I have graphed the comparison between the PRB of the first ten runners with that of all runners to the end of April each year.
Andrew Balding early season form: comparison of first 10 runs with all to end April
2021, 2022 and 2023 mirrored each other with both the 10-run PRBs and the all runs to end of April PRBs very close together. In 2019 and 2024 we saw a similar pattern, with the stable flying out of the blocks in those first 10 runs and then slipping back to more normalised figures based on a larger sample.
When looking at those early weeks of the season up to the end of April, Balding does tend to perform at a similar level year on year. If we look at his win strike rate from the start of the season up to the end of April, we can see that in four of the five years they were between 17 and 19%:
There is positive correlation between the PRB figures and the win strike rate in those four years. We saw earlier with Mick Appleby that we don’t always get that positive correlation, and for Balding the 2022 figures paint a similar story. That year saw a lower strike rate despite a similar PRB figure to other years. This highlights once again why it is a good idea, where possible, to look at more than one metric when analysing a set of results in order to get a broader and better overview.
Tim Easterby
Tim Easterby has a lot of runners but his overall strike rate year on year is quite low, both early in the season and taking the season as a whole. Hence his first 10-run PRB figures are the lowest of the trainers mentioned taking the five years as a whole. 2022 saw a poorer start than usual but, by the end of April, he had pulled back to very similar five-week figures as achieved in other years.
Looking at his PRBs for those early weeks up to the end of April, we can see that there is only 0.04 between the highest and lowest ones. Essentially, at the beginning of the season, Easterby has followed a similar pattern every year with similar outcomes. Not surprisingly his win strike rate up to the end of April each year has been low as the table shows:
Tim Easterby early season win strike rate
Personally, I rarely back Tim Easterby horses even if they appear to have ticks in several boxes. For me, finding good value in his team is tricky. On the plus side, his patterns of performance rarely surprise us.
William Haggas
William Haggas has had very consistent longer-term PRB figures (up to the end of April) ranging from 0.60 to 0.67 over the five different years. His PRBs for the first ten runs are more varied as we would expect given the smaller sample size. However, it seems that, year on year, runners from the Haggas stable perform in a similar fashion. Again though, the win percentages up to the 30th of April have varied much more as the table shows:
William Haggas early season metrics
As we can see, the two highest PRB figures of 0.67 in 2019 and 0.64 in 2023 did not produce the two highest win rates. In fact, they produced the lowest win rates by some margin. 2019 was definitely unlucky for Haggas in those first few weeks as they had 12 second places from their 42 runners that year. Against that, Haggas had only six winners hence the 14.3% strike rate. We talk about luck in racing, and regardless of how good a punter one is, luck and variance are ever-present, sometimes massively.
I would not worry too much about what sort of numbers Haggas posts after his first ten runners this season. We can be fairly confident that his team over the first month or so will run to a similar level to previous years. Whether they win at around 27% or 14% I cannot say, but for readers that back any of his, let’s hope it is nearer 27!
Richard Hannon
For Richard Hannon I want to compare the two sets of PRB figures side by side as I did for Mick Appleby and Andrew Balding.
Richard Hannon early season PRB figures
The orange line represents the longer-term figures up to the end of April and, aside from the 0.47 figure for 2022, the rest lie between 0.51 and 0.59 showing that Hannon's runners perform at roughly the same type of level at this stage of the season year on year.
What I find interesting is the difference between the first 10-run figures for 2023 and 2024, which was huge. 2024 was his best start at a massive 0.83 PRB, 2023 was his worst at just 0.46. However, by the end of the first month although 2024 ended up ‘better’ in PRB terms, the gap was quite small at 0.06 (0.57 v 0.51). Indeed, looking at the win percentages for these two years there was less than 2% in it. 2023 saw a 10%-win rate, 2024 stood at 11.8%.
This is another reminder that looking at a handful of races may not be as important or as useful as some punters/pundits may think; and I am not just talking about the first ten starts of the year. It is essentially the same thing when looking at any 7-day trainer form snapshot throughout the season when a trainer has had ten runners or so during that period. Is that really a reliable enough sample on which to judge how the next few weeks are going to go for the yard in question?
Charlie Johnston
The final yard I want to look in more detail at is that of Charlie Johnston (and its recent incarnations), formerly run solely by father Mark, then by Mark and his son Charlie, and since 2023 by Charlie on his own. Here are the two sets of PRBs:
Charlie Johnston / Johnston yard early season form
I mentioned earlier the huge variances in their opening 10-run figures (the blue line), but despite that the longer term PRBs are all in the same ballpark lying between 0.50 and 0.57. I don’t think the performance of the first ten runners will be that relevant again this year when it comes to predicting what will happen in the subsequent weeks to the end of April. However, we can be fairly sure how they will perform over the longer five-week time frame.
*
Selected Trainers: Win Strike Rates to end April Annually
To finish off let me share the win strike rates for all trainers for each of the five years based on their runners from the start of the turf season to the end of April:
Selected trainers: early season win strike rates 2019-2024
These percentages can vary markedly year on year, as I meantioned earlier when looking at the performance of the Haggas yard. Luck plays its part for all trainers every year, be it good luck or bad. A few bobs of the head in a finish can make a big difference to the win rate; hopefully Geegeez members will be on the right end of tight finishes more often than not!
That is almost it for this week but for before closing I will put my head on the block and predict the win strike rates and PRBs for all of the stables mentioned in this article from the start of the Doncaster Lincoln meeting this year to the end of April. Here goes:
Projected early season win percent and PRB figures for selected trainers
Hopefully, most of these projections will be close to their mark.
Until next time,
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/charlieappleby2-1.jpg320830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2025-03-26 05:29:552025-03-26 08:53:01Early Flat Season Trainer Form
A friend called yesterday afternoon and asked, “What are you going to write about? Dettori? Coolmore? My choice”, he said, “would be the King and Queen Camilla, how they fully and seamlessly followed the example of the late Queen, treating Royal Ascot with fitting respect.” He could have added, even down to owning a winner and having the joy of the Duke of Kent presenting the trophy to them, writes Tony Stafford.
My preference though, only locked in my mind a few minutes after 6pm yesterday, was one that got away. All week, until Thursday at 10am, a small trainer based in Newmarket was convinced he had in his stable the winner of the Golden Gates Handicap, penultimate race on Saturday.
The unfortunate thing for Dylan Cunha, though, a South African with just under a year behind him as a trainer in the UK, was that the 10-furlong Round Course allows only 16 runners in races as against 20 at a mile-and-a-half.
With a few minutes to go, we spoke, and he said: “It’s not looking great, Johnston and Appleby haven’t declared yet” – but then they did and Dylan’s hopes for Silver Sword and a £50k first prize evaporated in a trice.
He did have yesterday’s one-mile Sunday Series race at Pontefract as back-up, but a ten grand winning dividend hardly makes up for five times that as well as the kind of publicity a win at the meeting would mean to a small stable.
“It’s been very hard to convince UK owners of what we are capable”, he said in an earlier chat before we got to know each other better. “Most of the horses have a South African ownership element at least and all we can do is show on the racecourse that we are up to the job.”
The same goes for Greg Cheyne, 46, ten times a top five rider in South African and twice runner-up there. An experienced rider with more than 2,000 wins to his name and who has moved to the UK to take up a job as pupil assistant to William Haggas.
He’s not the usual pupil assistant, the type sprinkled around Newmarket especially, from “good families” often with ownership and breeding in the family tree, much like Haggas was in his early days and even before.
I’m sure I’ve told this story before. William, now 63, was at school when at the time I used to speak every night to Michael Dickinson who was still riding. He’d come in from his nightly sauna when father Tony’s plans percolated through his head as the steam ebbed away the excess pounds from that spare, long frame.
The Dickinson trinity of dad Tony, mum Monica and son Michael were for a time almost the equivalent of a 70’s version of Willie Mullins and trained, among other very good horses, Silver Buck for William’s mother Christine Feather. The young master Haggas, apart from being a star cricketer that Fred Trueman once declared as a future Yorkshire captain, also kept a close watch on affairs at Gisburn in Lancashire, the original Dickinson base before the move across the county line to Harewood near Harrogate in West Yorkshire.
One evening Michael came on the phone. Always a little hyper, this time he neglected the usual greeting of “now then”, instead launching into a furious tirade saying: “That little so-and-so William Haggas keeps phoning me from Harrow telling me how to train his mother’s horses!”
A Cheltenham Gold Cup and two King Georges at Kempton were to fall to Silver Buck as well as fourth in the Famous Five Michael Dickinson Gold Cup of 1983. His was a long, honourable career which ended with a stable accident when still in his prime the following year.
By that time, Haggas had already moved to Newmarket, as pupil assistant for two years with fellow Old Harrovian Sir Mark Prescott and then four with John Winter before starting training in his own right in 1986. Thirty-seven years on, he is of course one of the acknowledged masters of his craft, working alongside wife Maureen, daughter of Lester Piggott.
Anyway, I digress, Dylan and Greg went north to Pontefract yesterday rather than south-west to Ascot the day before. The market was unequivocal, Silver Sword being backed down to 13/8 favouritism. If you need to know a little of Dylan’s talent, consider this about the Group 1-winning handler during his time in South Africa where he was one of the leading trainers. Silver Sword, an 11 grand December 2021 yearling had two runs in August last year early in Dylan’s UK training career and the result each time was catastrophic, at least for the trainer.
Apprentice Grace McEntee had the misfortune to be on the already gelded grey son of Charm Spirit for whom the comment on debut at Chelmsford was “dwelt, refused to race” and then, at Newbury 18 days later, “slow away, soon hung left, refused to race.”
Now what can you do after that? Well Dylan took him home, gradually instilling confidence so that by October he was ready to show more conventional reaction to training, finishing fifth of 11 as a 250/1 shot at Newmarket before three weeks later getting his first place with a second of 13 at Lingfield. Thus he could be sent away at the end of his juvenile career with reputation restored – to a degree!
Project forward to the February sale at Newmarket and I was having a cup of tea with my pal John Hancock, bloodstock insurer extraordinaire, and another friend, Michelle Fernandez, and knowing I edit a couple of sites every day, Trainers Quotes and From The Stables, she thought I might like to meet this trainer she had got to know. “He might be one for your site, he’s South African.”
I asked her to find out from him before he came over whether he knew Bernard Kantor, a friend who was the joint-founder and long-time boss of Investec Bank, sponsors of the Derby for quite a few years, sharing the podium with Her Majesty and the winners of the great prize. He is now retired.
Dylan Cunha came over and said: “You asked if I knew Bernard Kantor. I trained for him and we had plenty of winners together. In fact, one of his horses probably was most responsible for my coming over here as he had looked like a potential champion but had serious problems. I was so disillusioned I decided to call it a day and came to England a few years ago.”
He agreed he would join the Trainers Quotes team and told me that day about this grey gelding he had that was going to be a big part of his year. By April, Silver Sword had won very easily at Southwell and the plan was the London Gold Cup at Newbury in May. When you have one or two nice horses, you need the luck to hold and a couple of days before the race the horse had a small setback and Newbury was off.
Instead, turning out at Epsom, the gelding was second to a smart John and Thady Gosden performer on an interrupted preparation and that convinced him he would win at Royal Ascot.
Early in the week, when I wondered whether he would get in on his mark of 86 – up 4lb for Epsom – he said, “84 and 83 got in last year, so we should be all right.” History will show he wasn’t.
The best thing about the decision to run over an inadequate trip of a mile was the stiff nature of the Pontefract track, and having broken well from stall two, he soon had the two leaders covered and the punters who had shortened his price during the day never had a moment’s anxiety. Pulled to the outside by Cheyne, he took control just over a furlong out, drew clear and then had time to be eased. The winning margin was just over three lengths under 9st10lb joint top-weight. If they had another two furlongs to go, the margin could probably have been trebled.
Before yesterday’s race, still disappointed about missing Ascot, Dylan told me of a valuable ten-furlong race at his local course that is already on his radar. The Bet365 Handicap over ten furlongs for three-year-olds is a 0-105 that opens day two of the July meeting. That race carries a similar prize to the Golden Gates and he should have no fears of making the cut, especially as he’ll be into the 90’s by then.
I’m thrilled for this hard-working handler, and another winner with Ascot connections also pleased me greatly on Thursday. You won’t find the name Paradise Row on the list of Ascot winners, but part-owner Jonathan Barnett and trainer William Knight were in a box watching the progress of that three-year-old filly when she ran at Chelmsford, a few minutes after 150/1 shot Valiant Force had carried football agent Kia Joorabchian’s colours to victory in the Norfolk Stakes.
Barnett is also a major football agent, and founder and Chairman of ICM Stellar sports, race sponsors every year at Chester. Rather less ebullient than the boss of Amo Racing, he watched as his filly battled home to a first career success at the Essex track. With a few friends around him and his trainer to cheer her home, it felt like a Royal Ascot winner. I agree with her handler that bigger things await this Zoffany filly as she gains experience, maybe even a run in one of the handicaps at next year’s Royal meeting. After all, dreams in racing can come true!
TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DylanCunha.jpg320830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2023-06-26 07:13:152023-06-26 07:13:15Monday Musings: Compensation for Dylan
This is the second of two articles looking at two-year-old runners (2yos) on their second career starts. The first piece looked at last time out (LTO) performance, LTO course, market factors, sires, damsires and some jockey stats. You can read that here. This one focuses exclusively on trainer data. I have collated stats from UK flat racing for six full years, from 2017 to 2022, and this includes both turf and all weather data. I have calculated profit and loss to Betfair SP (BSP for short), with commission of 5% taken into account.
Overall 2yo second run stats for trainers
I am going to start with a full table with all trainers who have had at least 100 two-year old second starters in the past six seasons. I have ordered the trainers by win strike rate:
* C Johnston in 2023; ** Jack Channon in 2023
A familiar face heads the list – Charlie Appleby. His 37%-plus strike rate is remarkable but, despite that whopping win percentage, he has failed to make it into blind profit. This is, naturally, because many of his runners start at short prices. Seven other trainers have secured strike rates of 20% or higher with juvenile runners making their second career starts, which again is extremely noteworthy. Just one of these seven in profit though: Hugo Palmer.
In terms of A/E indices Messrs. Palmer, Dods, Dalgleish, Osborne and Tinkler are above the magic 1.00, although Nigel Tinkler, with a strike rate of under 5%, is not a trainer for the faint of heart to follow.
At this juncture it makes sense to compare the performance of trainers' 2yo debut runners with their 2yos having a second run. In the following table I have broken this down by strike rates and A/E indices for each trainer. I have ordered them by trainers who have seen the most improvement in strike rate from first to second start:
In the final column I have divided the second run win percentage by the debut one to give us a type of Impact Value. I call it a Comparison Strike Rate (CSR) and I also used this idea in the previous article when comparing sire stats. The higher this figure the more improvement the runners show on their second run compared to their debut. I have highlighted any CSR figure of 2.00 or more in green as these are much higher than the average. The CSR figure to bear in mind is 1.52. This is the average CSR figure when looking at the strike rate comparison for second starters compared with debutants; that is, on average a two-year-old is 1.52 times more likely to win on its second start compared with its debut (7.96% vs 12.08% in case you were curious).
Ed Dunlop has a very high CSR figure but that is because his debut runners having won less than 0.6% of the time. His second starters still only win on average once in every 15 or 16 races. Ed Walker, Michael Dods, William Haggas, Hugo Palmer, Charlie Hills, Sir Michael Stoute and Andrew Balding are the group of trainers who I would be expecting to see excellent improvement between first and second runs. Some of their runners should offer us decent value.
Brian Meehan is one specific trainer whose second starters look poor value, especially when comparing the stats to his debut runners. With debutants his A/E index stands at an impressive 1.36, for second starters this drops markedly to 0.76. Eve Johnson Houghton has a similar slide (1.38 to 0.79) which is also worth noting. Ths is essentially saying that Brian and Eve have their two-year-olds ready to fire on day one, which in itself is well worth noting.
Distance breakdown: trainer performance in 5f and 6f races
I want to split the trainer data by distance now and for this piece I am combining the sprint distances of 5 and 6f, and then will be looking at races of 7f or further. This is because it gives better sized data sets. So, to start, here are the win strike rates for trainers who have had at least 75 two-year-old second starters over 5f / 6f. I have split the data into two graphs – the first with strike rates of 16% or more:
William Haggas stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of win record. He also has an A/E index in excess of 1.00 (1.09), as do three others - Michael Dods (1.24), Andrew Balding (1.15) and Clive Cox (1.02). For the record these three have made decent profits to BSP, while Haggas would have just about broken even. Of the remaining trainers, all made a loss bar Tom Dascombe, who made a small profit. Dascombe will be interesting to follow this year in his second season after the move from Cheshire to Lambourn and without the support of Chasemore Farm.
Now for those with strike rates under 16%:
There are still some relatively decent strike rates here as well, on the left-hand part of the graph at least, although only Keith Dalgleish managed a BSP profit. No trainer in this group had an A/E index of 1.00 or more and, for the record, Richard Hughes and Tim Easterby had the poorest A/E indices (0.64 and 0.54 respectively) with both making significant losses.
Distance breakdown: trainer performance in races of 7f or further
There are 10 trainers who have secured a strike rate of 16% or more in these longer distance races:
Charlie Appleby strikes at a preposterous close to 40% and backing his runners would have seen you break even to BSP. Here are these trainers' A/E indices which give us a better indication of overall value:
Hugo Palmer, Archie Watson and the Charlton stable have figures above 1.00 and they are trainers who, over 7f or more, I think we should keep on the right side (more often than not).
At the other end of the scale, these are the trainers with lower strike rates over 7f+. As there are quite a few I’ve put their results in tabular form rather than in a graph.
Andrew Balding’s bottom line looks impressive but he had a 232.24 BSP winner in 2020 which accounts for most of his profit. Having said that, even without that outlier, Balding still made a positive return. The three trainers at the bottom – Richard Fahey, Sir Mark Prescott and Tim Easterby - are trainers I think should be swerved with 2yo runners at 7f or beyond when making their second start.
Before moving on there are a few points worth making.
Firstly, Clive Cox has a vastly contrasting distance record: over sprint distances his second starter strike rate is 21.9%, over 7f+ it is just 8.8%. A/E indices also have a chasm between them at 1.02 vs 0.60.
Secondly, Richard Fahey has a similar bent to his stats with much better sprint results: strike rates of 15.6% compared to 6.9%; A/E indices of 0.88 to 0.59.
And third, Roger Varian’s stats are somewhat remarkable from the point of view that his strike rate has been exactly 20% for both distance groups and his A/E indices are almost identical, too, at 0.67 and 0.68.
Market breakdown: trainer performance with top three in the betting
As we know, profit figures can be easily skewed by big priced winners. Hence it makes sense to analyse trainer data where it is a more level playing field – or at least where we can perform a fair price comparison. Here are the data for trainers when their 2yo second starters have figured in the top three of the betting. A minimum of 75 runs has been used as the cut-off point:
It seems right that Charlie Appleby hits a small profit considering his overall figures.
Any trainer with an A/E index of 0.90 or more I feel can be considered much more a positive than negative when it comes to their more fancied runners. Ten trainers have achieved that, of which six have edged into profit. These are Charlie Appleby, the Johnston yard, Archie Watson, Team Crisford, Hugo Palmer and Tom Dascombe. The other four - William Haggas, Charlie Hills, Clive Cox and Richard Fahey - made losses and only Cox had losses of worse than 7 pence in the £.
On the other side of the coin, Saeed bin Suroor’s record is surprisingly poor with qualifiers from the top three in the betting – a win rate of roughly one in six, but losses close to 30p in the £ and a very poor A/E index of 0.56.
So far in this article I have looked at more general trainer stats – but now I want to focus in on a few specific trainers starting, not surprisingly, with Charlie Appleby.
Individual Trainers with Second Start Two-Year-Olds
Charlie Appleby
We have seen already that Charlie Appleby has an impressive overall strike rate, but this does not mean he is a money making machine for punters. If only it was that simple! Strike rate is important but betting is essentially about getting a value price - having 50% of winners at 10/11 keeps you in the game but loses you money, whereas 15% of winners at 8/1 means long losing runs but wins you money. Such is the challenge for us punters: winners, or profit?
From my personal experience it is harder to find value with short prices and this is why one cannot just blindly back Appleby runners, or indeed almost any other short-priced 'no brainer' angle. This is perhaps neatly illustrated when we breakdown Appleby’s profit with horses from the top three in the betting. As the previous table showed, these runners did make a small 5p in the £ profit for him. However, all the profits came from horses second and third in the betting. These combined to produce returns of just under 26p in the £, whereas favourites lost just over 4p in the £.
I have dug deeper into the Appleby stats and one angle that does stand out is jockey based. I touched upon jockeys in the first of these articles when I compared second starters that were ridden by the same jockey who had ridden them on debut, with those who have seen their jockey change. As a general rule I found that horses ridden by the same jockey outperformed those which were not. For Appleby this bias is pronounced as the table shows:
William Buick has been responsible for 72 of these 103 ‘same jockey’ runners. His strike rate was 45.8% and backing these runners would have returned you £16.06 (ROI +22.3%). James Doyle has had an even better strike rate albeit from a much smaller group of runners. He had a success rate of 52.2% (12 win from 23) for returns of 19p in the £. Hence any 2yo second starter from the Appleby yard who is ridden for the second time by either Buick or Doyle is a horse that potentially offers some value.
We have seen good consistency before with Appleby runners and his second starters seem no exception. They have proved versatile by going / ground conditions as the graph below shows:
All the strike rates are above 30%; it should be noted that the highest one (tapeta) is from a small sample (7 wins from 15) so this may be artificially high.
Here are some additional Charlie Appleby stats, both positive and negative:
Appleby 2yo debut winners have a relatively modest record when running for the second time. They have backed up this win just 14 times from 60 (SR 23.3%) for a loss of £25.02 (ROI -41.7%).
The value in terms of debut performance has come from horses that finished 5th or worse on debut. On second starts Appleby has secured 19 winners with these runners from 58 (SR 32.8%) for a profit of £10.59 (ROI +18.3%).
At the highest level (Class 1 races) Appleby's runners on second start have won just 7 from 41 (SR 17.1%) for a loss of £18.07 (ROI -44.1%).
Second time runners returning to the course where they debuted have done well, scoring nearly 50% of the time. 16 wins from 33 (SR 48.5%) have created a BSP profit of £17.36 (ROI 52.6%).
Appleby has done well when sending second starting 2yos to Newmarket. He has been rewarded with 24 wins from 53 (SR 45.3%) for a healthy profit of £19.48 (ROI +36.8%).
Richard Hannon
I have chosen Richard Hannon next as he has had the biggest number of second starters in the past six seasons.
The eagle eyed of you would have seen already that his record in sprint events is better than 7f+ races; specifically, he has a strike rate of 17.3% for sprints compared to 10.6% for longer races. Here are some other Hannon second starter stats I would like to share.
Just like Appleby, having the same jockey on board that rode the horse on debut has been a plus. These horses have won 37 of their 224 starts (SR 16.5%) for a small profit of £11.29 (ROI of 5.0%); the record of horses with new / different jockeys is 53 wins from 450 (SR 11.8%) for a loss of £73.50 (ROI -16.3%).
2yos returning to the track within two weeks of their debut have a surprisingly good record. 40 have won from 244 (SR 16.4%) for a healthy profit of £90.27 (ROI +37.0%). Amazingly, Hannon has made a profit with these runners in five of the six years which shows good consistency.
Horses that finished first or second on debut have a good record with 26.1% of them winning on their second starts (35 wins from 135) for a profit of £40.06 (ROI +29.9%).
Hannon has scored nearly 41% of the time with second time starter favourites, making the smallest of profits, £1.93 (ROI 1.8%).
Richard Fahey
Another Richard and another trainer who has had a decent number of runners. His overall strike rate with second starters stands at just under 13% and I have found a handful of useful stats – positive, negative and neutral.
Clear favourites for Fahey have secured 33 wins from 73 2yo second starters (SR 45.2%) for a profit of £11.68 (ROI +16.0%).
2yos that won on debut have proved profitable on their second starts thanks to a strike rate of 17.9% producing returns of 56p in the £.
Second starters who race at Beverley have scored 26.5% of the time (13 wins from 49) for a break even scenario.
Having the same jockey on board as on debut has once again seen a big difference in performance, just as we saw with Appleby and Hannon runners. Fahey horses retaining the same jockey for the second run have won 19.8% of races (A/E index 1.06); those horses whose jockey has changed have won just 8.4% of their races (A/E index 0.60).
Second starters racing on all weather tracks have a poor record with only 7 wins from 104 (SR 6.7%). Losses have been steep at 54p lost for every £1 staked.
2yos that have had their second start in September or later in the year look worth avoiding. Just 11 wins from 153 (SR 7.2%) for a loss of £67.11 (ROI -43.9%). For the record, if the horse was not favourite or second favourite Fahey saw just 3 wins from 121 runners.
Other trainers
Here are some individual stats that I have unearthed related to other trainers:
Andrew Balding has an excellent record with horses that finished 1st, 2nd or 3rd on debut. On their second starts they have gone onto win 25 times from 89 (SR 28.1%) for a profit of £31.68 (ROI +35.6%). Balding has secured profits with these runners in four of the six years.
Kevin Ryan has reverse stats compared to Balding. Horses that finished in the first three on debut would have lost a whopping 46p in the £ if backed blindly on second start.
Sir Mark Prescott has sent 99 2yo second starters to all weather tracks, and only one has managed to win.
Tim Easterby has a dreadful record with horses running again within two weeks of their debut, with just one win from 104 runners.
William Haggas has a good record with 2yos that have dropped in class since their debut. He has secured a 34.2% strike rate thanks to 26 winners from 76. These runners have returned a profit of £9.84 (ROI +12.9%).
Karl Burke is another trainer that does particularly well when retaining the same jockey who rode on debut – 36 wins from 150 rides (SR 24%) for a profit of £45.34 (ROI +30.2%).
MAIN TAKEAWAYS
Below is a summary of my main takeaways from this article; but there may be stats above that are far more important to you, so keep that in mind!
Ed Walker, Michael Dods, William Haggas, Hugo Palmer, Charlie Hills, Sir Michael Stoute and Andrew Balding all enjoy much higher strike rates on second starts compared to debut runs.
Brian Meehan and Eve Johnson Houghton are two trainers whose second starting 2yos offer relatively poor value, especially when comparing second runs to debuts.
William Haggas, Michael Dods, Andrew Balding and Clive Cox have good records with 2yo second runs in 5-6f races. In contrast, Tim Easterby looks a trainer to avoid.
Hugo Palmer, Archie Watson and the Charlton stable do well in races of 7f or more with their second starters.
Charlie Appleby, the Johnston stable, Archie Watson, the Crisford stable, Hugo Palmer and Tom Dascombe have good records with second starters when in the top three in the betting. Saeed bin Suroor has a particularly poor record with these fancied runners.
Charlie Appleby runners have a very good record when the same jockey who rode on debut rides on the second start. In particular, look out for William Buick and James Doyle. Appleby also does well with horses that finished out of the first four on debut, as well as horses that ran at Newmarket.
Richard Hannon does well with horses that return to the track within two weeks of their debut. He also does well with debutants that won or finished second on debut.
Richard Fahey second starters that start clear favourite have a strong record. On the negative side, avoid second starters if racing on the all weather, or if racing after August.
There is a fair bit to get your teeth into in this article and hopefully it has started to point you in the right direction, as well as steering away from some treacherous paths. For those readers who do not generally bet in 2yo races, I hope this, and the previous three articles, may have changed your mind.
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/DapperValley_RichardHannon2yo_winner_Newbury.png319830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2023-05-02 06:45:392023-05-02 06:45:39Two-Year-Old Runners on 2nd Start: Part 2
By this time next week it will all just about be done, writes Tony Stafford. The 2022 flat limps on for another three weeks after Saturday’s Champions Day at Ascot, but William Buick will have collected his first Champion Jockey trophy and Baaeed will probably have brought his career-ending tally to 11 from 11 – three behind Frankel – and be ready for a glittering career as a stallion.
If we thought the deaths in recent times of Prince Khalid Abdullah, Frankel’s owner-breeder, or Hamdan Al-Maktoum, who never lived to see his best-ever horse race, would mean a curtailment of two of the three giant Arab racing and breeding teams, evidence last week in Newmarket, both on the track and at the yearling sales, would have confounded that view.
Much was made of the first sales purchase by Hamdan’s daughter, Sheikha Hissa, of an expensive yearling; and then on Saturday, Chaldean, bought as a yearling by Prince Khalid’s successors for 550,000gns from Whitsbury Manor, won the Dewhurst Stakes. That made it four wins in five career starts and enough to stake his claim as champion juvenile of the year.
As Ryan Moore prepared to ride Coolmore’s Aesop’s Fables in that race he made little secret of the fact he expected the other Juddmonte contender, the home-bred Nostrum, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, to prevail.
Ryan would have been surprised had he been in the stands rather than on the back of the Aidan O’Brien runner on his way to the start to see the lack of confidence in Nostrum in the face of sustained support for Chaldean. The Andrew Balding horse was ridden by 51-year-old Frankie Dettori, able to take advantage of the Group 1 meeting exemption from on-going riding bans.
The Italian had been on board when Chaldean won the Group 2 Champagne at Doncaster in emphatic fashion last time out and he must have been worrying that he might not be fit to take the ride when he made an unscheduled flying dismount three furlongs from home in the opening Zetland Stakes: his Gosden-trained ride, Liftoff, clipped heels and fell. Rarely has there been a more appropriately named casualty.
Frankie said as he was still hot after his exertions in the big race he felt all right, but that those half-century old bones might be suffering a bit the following morning. Reprieved as he was, once he drove Chaldean to the front after a furlong, he was never going to let go, quickly seeing off Nostrum and Richard Kingscote before the last furlong. Here, Royal Scotsman proved a more resolute challenger, and the winning margin over the Jim Crowley-partnered and Paul and Oliver Cole trainee was just a head.
While the three days of Tattersalls Book 1 were never dull, it was still very much a private party between Godolphin and Coolmore, only relaxed to let in the next level of buyers when they condescended to leave the stage to the rest.
Suffice to say that the near 400 yearlings that found new owners over the piece, did so at an average of almost 300,000gns with plenty exceeding a million quid and one at £2.8 million. The total aggregate was £125 million. Tatts can count themselves satisfied at their commission on that first part; look forward to a less dramatic but also far from negligible Book 2, today to Wednesday, leaving Books 3 and 4 to mere mortals in the second half of the week.
Of course, then we have the December Sale, featuring top-class racing and breeding fillies and mares at the end of next month and into the first days of December. One of the busier young men at the sale last week was Ollie Sangster, son of Ben and Lucy and grandson of the late Robert.
He was seeking out potential owners and yearlings to join in his new venture training from one of the smaller yards at the spectacular Manton Estate, previously owned by his grandfather and, on his death, his sons. Now the property of Martyn Meade, who trains there in conjunction with his son Freddie at one end of the farm, while Brian Meehan continues having been on site for two decades, Ollie will have use of those wonderful downland gallops. As the backdrop to his entire life so far, no wonder he is excited at the prospect.
Ollie has done all sorts of jobs in the racing and breeding business considering his relative youth, but the last three years have brought plenty of excitement as he owns a minor share in the top-class filly Saffron Beach.
He shares the Jane Chapple-Hyam-trained four-year-old with his mother and James Wigan. It’s a real family affair as Jane is his step-aunt. Congratulating him on managing to get a piece of such a smart filly, he said, “I was in her from the start.”
The records show Saffron Beach changed hands as a foal for 55,000gns and since then she has won six of her 13 starts, two at Group 1 level and total earnings of £805,000. A daughter of the exciting young sire New Bay, she has been a late addition to the December sale and I reckon she is guaranteed to be one of the most desired lots on offer, almost certainly well into seven figures.
Ollie’s father Ben has, over the past few years, re-centred his Swettenham Stud breeding interests close to Manton House which remains his family home. He hopes that if Ollie’s training project takes off, he might have to find a new base for the mares and young stock.
A final note on the Newmarket Future Champions meeting which, apart from high-class two-year-old races, also included a cash-depleted Cesarewitch. Club Godolphin stepped in as sponsors otherwise what would it have been worth? As it was, £103,000 to the winner for such a major race was a disgrace, considering that was only one-third the amount the winner received four years previously.
There was yet another Irish winner, but this time not for Willie Mullins who had switched his better stayers to the Irish Cesarewitch the weekend before. Handicap ace and recently banned and reinstated Charles Byrnes was successful with the 147-rated hurdler Run For Oscar, who strolled home under David Egan more than three lengths to the good from the Hughie Morrison pair of Vino Victrix and star hurdler Not So Sleepy, who was adding a third place to two fourths in 2019 and 2020.
They provided a joint 72 grand to the Morrison owners. Second and third in 2018 would have brought 138k, almost twice as much. Only 21 horses, rather than a ballot-requiring 32, bothered to turn up, while the reinvigorated Irish Cesarewitch, worth seven times as much as last year, carried a similar payout to the winner as ours had been in 2018. Willie Mullins didn’t win it, that race going to Aidan and the three-year-old Waterville, who got up late to beat the Mullins pair Echoes in Rain and Lot Of Joy.
With the wonderful Kyprios apparently done for now, and Stradivarius finished – don’t worry Bjorn Neilsen isn’t looking for food banks yet, he sold a Frankel yearling last week for 2 million gns – Trueshan is left as the top candidate for the British Champions Long Distance Cup. At least, that was, until Aidan decided against running pre-race favourite Waterville at Newmarket and now has Ascot in mind for the improving young stayer.
While the jockeys’ title race finishes at Ascot, the trainers’ championship continues to the end of the year. But, the Vertem Futurity the following weekend at Doncaster apart, all the action for the big stables will be overseas.
Charlie Appleby’s remarkable winning spree in recent weeks has got him back a few quid in front of William Haggas. We can expect Baaeed to pick up the £737k for the Champion Stakes but if last year’s Derby winner can follow him home and Modern Games can pick up the £623k in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes – Inspriral will be tough of course – it might not be quite all over. It probably is though, in all consciousness!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Chaldean_Dewhurst2022.jpg320830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2022-10-10 06:46:022022-10-10 06:46:03Monday Musings: Almost, but not quite, done
In this sixth and final piece in the trainer performance by age jigsaw, I will be looking at the how trainers have fared with their with older runners, specifically those aged four and upwards. As with the previous articles in the series I have used UK flat racing data from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2021 giving us six full seasons to examine. The results include turf and all weather racing.
I have used the Geegeez Query Tool once more for all data analysis, and all profits / losses have been calculated to Industry Starting Price, although as we know these figures will be improved using either BOG, early prices or the exchanges.
Let us start by specifically looking at trainer performance with four-year-olds only.
General trainer performance with 4yo runners
Many top trainers lose their stable stars at the end of their 3yo campaign, usually to stud or to race overseas, but a few top quality animals continue domestically into their fourth year. Here are the top 20 trainers in terms of strike rate with their 4yo runners (minimum 150 runs). The data include both handicap and non-handicaps. It should be noted that the vast majority of races that 4yos compete in are handicaps:
There is a smattering of profitable trainers here; six to be exact. This includes the Gosden stable, and they have also secured the highest win strike rate. Nine of the 20 have achieved an A/E index of 1.00 or more suggesting that their runners have been good value as a whole. While on the subject of A/E indices, here are the remaining trainers who have achieved an A/E index of over 1.00.
That's another 15 trainers, making 24 in total. The chart includes several names we have not seen too often before and I would put many of these in the underrated trainer category.
Before digging into some of the individual trainers in more detail I want to look at a different measure of 4yo performance. To wit, I am going to focus on the top ten trainers in the table and look at the percentage of their runners that won at least one race as a 4yo. The reason for doing this is that some trainer figures can be skewed a little if they have winners of multiple races in their yard. To calculate this we take the number of a trainer’s 4yos that won at least once as a 4yo and divide it by all the horses that ran as a 4yo; that gives a decimal and then we multiply it by 100 to give the percentage. Here are the findings:
Four trainers have secured percentages in excess of 50% with Chris Dwyer hitting a very impressive 75%. It should be noted Dwyer has only had 24 individual 4yo runners in total but for 18 of them to win at least once is very impressive. Of the six that didn’t manage a win as a 4yo, five made the frame at least once. William Haggas is close to the 60% mark which, considering he has saddled 126 four-year-olds in the study period, is impressive. At the other end of the scale, Charlie Appleby’s and Team Crisford’s figures are lower than expected.
Now, of course, these figures could also be skewed if several 4yos in a stable have run just once or twice in the season. However, looking at the overall data, most trainers have similar spreads when it comes to number of runs for their horses.
Individual Trainer Performance with Four-Year-Olds
Moving back to individual trainers and their overall performance, let me drill down first into the performance of John and Thady Gosden. Here are some key stats:
If you had backed all Gosden 4yo runners at Betfair SP the profit would stand at £73.24 equating to returns of 18p in the £.
Their female 4yo runners have performed exceptionally well with 36 wins from 126 runs (SR 28.6%) for a profit of £54.97 (ROI +43.6%).
In Group 1 races, the Gosdens have saddled 12 winners from 48 for an excellent 1 in 4 strike rate; in Group 2 contests this improves to 15 wins from 43 (SR 34.9%) showing a profit of £32.66 (ROI 76.0%).
The best performances have been at distances of 1m2f or more where they have secured a 26% strike rate and returns of 9p in the £.
The Gosden stable has shown good consistency with their 4yos and this is illustrated when looking at their performance at different courses. Their win SR% are shown below (minimum 15 runs):
All tracks bar Newmarket have figures of 20% or higher. Chelmsford is a clear leader thanks to 7 wins from 16.
A look at William Haggas now and his strongest stats:
Amazingly, his male and female runners have hit exactly the same win strike rate% of 21.4%.
4yos that have started favourite for Haggas have delivered with 65 wins from 174 runners (SR 37.4%) for a profit of £21.77 (ROI +12.5%). His second favourites have also proved profitable returning just under 15p in the £ from a 23.5% strike rate.
Haggas is not one for sending 4yo runners to the front that often but when he does they have won 34% of their races (17 wins from 50).
He has struggled a little at the very elite level with 0 winners from 19 in Group 1 races, although five did place. He has a better record when the level drops to Class 3 races or below; here he has secured 56 wins from 176 (SR 31.8%) for a healthy profit of £37.41 (ROI +21.3%).
Onto a few of the other trainers now and their strongest stats:
Grant Tuer is an impressive 24 from 44 (SR 54.5%) with favourites. Backing all of them would have seen a profit of £26.97 (ROI 61.2%).
Sir Michael Stoute has an excellent record on the all weather – 26 wins from 70 runners (SR 37.1%) producing returns of 24p in the £.
Saeed bin Suroor has made a small 5p in the £ profit with horses priced 8/1 or shorter. Longer priced runners (above 8/1) have lost over 64p in the £ due to just 2 winners from 88.
Chris Dwyer has saddled 12 winners from 46 runners when using 3lb claiming jockeys. They have produced a profit of £43.88 (ROI 95.4%). Also it should be noted that seven different 3lb claimers have secured at least one win. Hence these figures are not skewed by one jockey.
William Knight has a decent record on the all weather hitting a win rate of slightly better than 1 win in 5. He is 8 from 18 at Wolves and 5 from 11 at Newcastle.
Individual Trainer Performance with Five-Year-Olds and upwards
Moving up in age now let's look at all runners aged five and older. Only trainers with 200+ runs have been considered. Here are the top 20 in terms of win strike rate:
As we get into the realms of more exposed and generally less elite horses, we see quite a few new trainers on the list when compared to previous tables in this series of articles. Making a profit however, is hard to come by as one would expect. Just two trainers were in profit at SP across the six year period, and both were barely in profit at that. It is, however, good to see ten trainers with A/E indices of 1.00 or more, implying they might offer value.
Roger Varian leads the table but he has made significant losses of around 32p in the £.
John Quinn has the best record as far as returns are concerned and these are some of his stronger stats:
Quinn has made all his profits in turf races (returns of 16p in £). In all weather races he has had losses of 30p in the £.
Shorter distances of 7f or less have produced the best overall performances with 48 wins from 256 runners (SR 18.8%) for a profit of £71.62 (ROI +28.0%).
He has a 23% strike rate in non-handicaps; 11% in handicaps.
Jockey Jason Hart has ridden over half of Quinn’s older runners securing a return of 16p in the £ over 260 rides.
It needs to be appreciated that horses aged five and older, especially handicappers, are typically not going to be the most consistent animals. Although if we look at Quinn’s yearly win strike rates they are all similar except for 2021, where his runners probably over-performed compared with previous seasons:
I thought it may be interesting to compare trainer performance when we split the older runners into two age bands – 4yos & 5yos, and 6yos and older - comparing Win% (SR%), A/E indices and Impact Values. To qualify a trainer needed at least 100 runners in each age band.
The right hand columns compare the 4 & 5yo Win% data with the 6yo+ Win% data by creating a ratio of one to the other. The greater the number above 1.00, the more 4 & 5yos are favoured; the smaller the number below 1.00, the more 6yos and older are favoured. Any A/E value of 1.00 or more has been highlighted in blue. I have also highlighted any win ratio of 1.4 and above or 0.7 and below. These ratios help to highlight where there is a significant difference in the Win SR%:
It is worth noting that both Derek Shaw and Rebecca Menzies have achieved A/E indices of 1.00 or more in both age bands. That is high achieving in this context. William Knight was close also with figures of 1.1 and 0.99. Meanwhile, Jane Chapple-Hyam’s strike rate for four- and five-year-olds is double that of her six-year-old and up group. She is the only trainer to attain a win ratio% of over 2.
And that brings the final curtain down on this trainer series. Hopefully you have found some nuggets within the six ‘episodes’ that will aid your betting and produce some additional profits. For me, it’s time to start some new research on a different aspect of racing. Until then, you'll find links to the other five articles below; and may I wish you the very best of luck with your punting.
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/johngosden_churchilldowns_BreedersCup2018_830x320.jpg320830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2022-08-29 07:52:042022-11-10 11:57:57Trainers with older runners (4 and up)
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