When NH Trainers run two in the same race geegeez.co.uk

Back in July 2021 I shared some research connected with UK flat trainers when they saddled two runners in the same race (which you can read here), writes Dave Renham. In this article I will do likewise with UK National Hunt trainers. Clearly, there are occasions when trainers saddle three or more runners in a race but, to make the research and writing process easier, for this offering I will once more focus on exactly two runners saddled.

It is likely that in the past some punters have been lured by the prices on two runners from the same stable: if one is 3/1 and the other 14/1 the chances are the focus will be on the more fancied runner of the pair. I, for one, have been guilty of this before.

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The data in this analysis has been taken from UK National Hunt races between January 1st 2016 and December 31st 2024. All profit and loss figures have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price less commission. For the shorter priced horse of the pair, I will call this the “first string”, the bigger priced runner will be known as the “second string”.

Overall trainer performance when running two in the same race

Let me first look at trainers who have had two or more runners in the same race on at least 100 occasions (hence at least 200 runners overall). There have been 28 trainers that qualify in the study period using that stipulation:

Below are the combined results of all runners for each trainer (i.e. both first and second string horses). The trainers are listed in alphabetical order:

Not surprisingly, just four of the 28 trainers show a profit when looking at both runners combined. It is unlikely that backing both runners for every trainer in every race is going to make a profit long term as the overall stats clearly show. Indeed, the four in profit owe that accolade to some huge prices going in.

Let us see what happens when we break the data down and compare trainer win strike rates between first and second string runners. The plan is not to compare the raw win percentages with each other, but to add up the winners for each of the two market ranks and work out what percentage of all the winners came from the trainer’s first string (shorter priced runners) and what percentage came from the second string (longer priced runners).

In other words, if we use Donald McCain as an example, he has had 60 winners when running two horses in the same race, of which 45 were his first string runners (75%); 15 winners came from his second string runners (25%).

To show this comparison for each trainer I have split their data into four separate graphs, so as not to overcrowd the pictorial evidence. The orange bar represents first string runners, the blue bar is for second string.

As the graphs show, the stats vary greatly from trainer to trainer. For example, Nigel Twiston-Davies has two percentages that are close together (57.1% and 42.9%) having done particularly well with second strings, whereas Phil Kirby’s figures are poles apart (95.8% and 4.2%). Overall, when combining all 28 trainers, 75.7% of the winners have come from their first string entries, 24.3% from their second string. These figures are almost a carbon copy of those calculated in the flat trainer article back in 2021.

Trainer performance with first string runners

Eight trainers have made a profit with their first string runners and their figures, ordered by BSP profit, are shown in the table below:

Caution is advised regarding the profit figure for Christian Williams as he had BSP winners equating to 165/1 and 179/1, and yes, they were his first string runners despite the high prices! Chris Gordon in contrast has not had any big-priced winners and overall, his record with first string runners is excellent. If you restrict Gordon’s first string runners to those priced in single figures (at BSP) his record reads a highly impressive 29 wins from 82 (SR 35.4%) for a profit of £33.90 (ROI +41.3%).

Paul Nicholls has had over 400 first choice runners in this double-handed context, and his biggest priced first string winner was BSP 13.0 (12/1). Hence his bottom line has not been skewed by numerous scorers at very big odds. If we look at all his first string runners priced BSP 13.0 or less he has secured a healthy profit of £90.23 (ROI +27.2%) from 332 qualifiers. If we look at the Nicholls profit year on year with this subset of runners we see the following:

2021 was the year that produced over half of the profit but even taking that out of the equation the performance and consistency has been excellent. Over the nine years of study, seven have shown a profit.

Phil Kirby’s figures are also not badly skewed by horses winning at big prices. Sticking to a price cap of BSP 13.0 or shorter, Kirby has secured 20 winners from 68 qualifiers (SR 29.4%) for a profit of £24.02 (ROI +35.3%).

Nicky Henderson did not secure an overall profit with his first-string runners but the jockey booking seems to have made a difference. When Nico de Boinville has been riding the Henderson first string, the results read 49 wins from 224 (SR 21.9%) for a profit of £21.67 (ROI +9.7%). When any other jockey has been on board the Henderson figures read 46 from 241 (SR 19.1%) for a loss of £74.80 (ROI -31%).

Dan Skelton is a trainer who has performed extremely well over the past few seasons across the entire National Hunt sphere, but when we focus on his first string runners (of two) in chases his stats make very poor reading. From 95 qualifiers only 11 won (SR 11.6%) for hefty losses of £46.44 (ROI -48.9%).

Trainer performance with second string runners

Five trainers have produced a BSP profit with their second-string runners. Clearly big prices have made the difference here with all strike rates under 8%:

As profits go these should largely be taken with a pinch of salt, but I wanted to share them all the same.

It may be more useful to share a list of trainers with a very poor record with their second string runners, so below are those trainers with the worst returns across the nine year review period:

Based on these figures it seems sensible to all but rule out second string runners from trainers in the above table.

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One trainer whose data has not been shared as yet is Irish maestro Willie Mullins, simply due to him not quite saddling enough UK NH runners to make the cut. For the record his figures for both first and second strings are good with blind profits to BSP for both. His first string runners have secured returns of 26p in the £, his second string runners 28p in the £.

Harry Fry is another trainer who had less than 200 runners of this type overall, but his first string made a blind profit. Indeed, when focusing on these first string runners using the earlier price stipulation of BSP 13.0 or less, Fry has secured 14 wins from 48 (SR 29.2%) for a profit of £26.31 (ROI +54.8%).

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Trainer statistics are used by many punters when contemplating a bet. These stats come in different forms such as course stats, recent form stats (e.g. last 14 days), favourite stats, horses on debut, etc. The ones I have shared in this article generally fly under the radar but, hopefully, you have found them useful for either pinpointing possible value bets or, just as importantly, helping to avoid poor value ones. Unsurprisingly, given the overall stats uncovered in this article, the evidence points firmly towards focusing most attention on the shorter priced first string runners.

- DR