The Logic of Sports Betting: Book Review

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They speak a different language in America and that applies equally to betting with their money-lines, parlays and points spreads, writes Tony Keenan.  However, it doesn’t mean bettors over there have nothing to say to punters on this side of the Atlantic. Widespread, legalised sports betting is in its infancy in the US but the country has been quick to latch onto it, aided no doubt by having a well-developed gambling culture in Nevada since the 1930s; and a relatively new book ‘The Logic of Sports Betting’ provides an insight into how things are done stateside.

Written by poker player Ed Miller and sports betting modeler Matthew Davidow, the book has three parts. The opening section deals with how the US sportsbooks operate before the second part looks at betting markets in more detail with the final segment discussing strategies for finding good bets. This article will be less a straight review of the content than a look at the application of the ideas therein to UK and Irish racing, translating the suggestions to a different type of betting.

The early part of ‘The Logic of Sports Betting’ deals with the maths (sorry, math!) of the markets and the difference between the value of points and percentage edge. American odds are expressed differently, with plus and minus figures, but the argument is the same. The authors point out that percentage edge value is more important than points value. If you back a horse at 12/1 and it goes off 7/1 (let’s assume that 7/1 is a hard 8.2 on the exchanges and thus a true price rather than a drifting 11.5) you have beaten the market by five points and 4%, a 12/1 shot being 8% of the market, a 7/1 shot being 12%.

That’s a good bet clearly but not as good as the even-money shot that goes off 8/11, again assuming true prices; you have beaten the market by less than a third of a point but with 8% of an edge, the even-money shot being 50% and the 8/11 shot 58%. This is easy to see in the American markets that are typically two-way affairs, sides in a handicap mainly or a points total, but less so for racing punters typically facing ten or more options in a race.

But it could be a reminder of the value of shorter-priced horses, be it in the win or place markets. The front end of the market is sometimes scorned by racing punters – who wants to be that most banal of bettors, the favourite backer? – but there are plenty of good bets to be had there and they are typically easier to get on than those at bigger prices.

Much is made in the book of zero-hold markets which means a minimal overround and how bettors can achieve these by creating zero-hold synthetic markets, referring to searching out prices that reduce the overround on offer; on one level that is just basic advice to take the best price but it’s a little more complicated than that as they explain how to find bets across similar markets that are not properly correlated to each other.

This is difficult over here with so much uniformity of pricing, particularly on something like Irish racing, and the point is made that ‘if every sportsbook has the exact same price on a market, that’s bad for you as a bettor.’ I did think of another simple application of this, however, and that is finding a horse you hate in a race for whatever reason, be it ground, trip, attitude or whatever, and opposing it strongly as this in effect is taking out a chunk of the market. If not quite saying it cannot win, you are at least viewing it as under-priced and every now and then there are horses that are hard to back at any price. We don’t really have a culture of hating horses here, at least not in the media of which I am part, there being no luck for slagging someone’s prize possession; but, as punters, being negative can produce an edge and thus good bets.

On the subject of good bets, Miller and Davidow have a bit to say on how many of those a bettor should be having. We may all want to have brilliant bets all the time, where the price is wrong and the edge is huge, but for them such selectivity is overrated; we should also be having the good bets and the half-decent bets too with the smaller edges. They are also believers in the idea that the best bets have multiple components built into them; for instance, you may have a time-based case for a horse along with a niche trainer angle and a track bias argument baked in too.

‘Attack surface’ is a prominent concept in ‘The Logic of Sports Betting’ and refers to the wide array of betting opportunities that are available across the vast majority of sportsbooks these days; there are so many markets on offer that they are basically impossible to monitor correctly. The authors are believers in betting where the bookmakers are weakest and in America that means away from the main points spread, money-line and totals markets and instead playing in the derivative markets like player propositions.

Over here, that might mean ignoring the major races and main markets and instead going down the grades and into the side markets like place only or without the favourite/s. The reality is that many of the big players will not be as interested in these markets, mainly because they can’t bet in them to scale, which leaves opportunities for the smaller punter as the betting firms drive for more and more content which in turn creates more opportunity.

As to bad bets, the book argues against making anti-correlated bets where even if you win you will also lose in many scenarios. They give an example of having two bets on teasers (an American bet that allows bettors to manipulate the points spread in their favour in the multiple bet) where only a narrow window allows you to win both bets; for example when the bettor thinks one team will win but the other will keep it close; but the reality is that over time that outcome happens rarely and certainly not enough to justify two bets.

I find I often do this in racing by having too many bets in the same market in the same race: if you have four win bets, only one can actually win and it might be better to try and settle on one or two horses, allowing that multiple runners can be overpriced in a big field.

For Miller and Davidow, market resistance (i.e. when a horse is drifting) is something to be taken seriously and they do not believe in betting into it. For them, if you’ve had a bet at 7/1 and it moves to 7/2, you’re on a good bet with the only issue being that you could have had another play at 6/1 which would also be good. Striking that same bet at 7/1 on a horse that is now 16/1 is conversely a bad bet and we shouldn’t be going in again as it merely compounds the error. I go back-and-forth on this issue and drifters certainly do win in racing, the reason for the drift sometimes being significant, other times meaningless, but they do make a good point that if a bettor always tops up on a drifter they will finish up having their biggest plays on bets that are, by definition, bad.

- TK

Form Profiling: Five to Follow in 2020

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When racing resumes there will be a focus, understandably, on two-year-olds, first season sires, trainers who perform well with horses off a layoff, and of course the Classic generation. Plenty of what happens in those spaces will be less predictable than normal due to the coronavirus-enforced later start. This article eschews those staples of the current content vista in favour of another hardy perennial, a horses to follow list.

Back yon - about eight or nine years ago, I think - I worked with a great guy called David Peat, who was mad about horse profiles. He had written books on the subject, he had a subscription service dedicated to the subject, and he and I ended up co-producing a product/service around the idea.

The concept was, and still is, simple: where everyone else is looking at what's new during spring time, horse profiling requires a body of work to exist in the form book already. Its currency is exposed horses, those who have run scores of times and have shown an affinity for a specific set of circumstances.

As well as highlighting five such horses which might pay their way in 2020, I'll also attempt to show how easy it is to create these for yourself. There are scores of these horses to find and, as an extra bonus, I'll include some further races - chock full of profile types - that I've yet to research: perhaps some of the more community-spirited readers will take up my challenge to add a comment with their findings for a given horse off the list. Right, let's get to it...

Dapper Man

Age: 6
Trainer: Roger Fell
Career record: 10/52
Turf Record: 9/40
Turf Handicap Record: 9/37
Highest winning OR: 80
Current OR: 82
Win Profile:

10/10 6-12 runners

10/10 April to July

9/10 5f (all of last nine)

9/10 blinkers (other win in cheekpieces, 0/24 no headgear)

8/10 Good to Firm

Led in all of last six wins (3 of remaining 4 when racing prominently)

Notes

A great example to begin with, Dapper Man is a five furlong speedball. He likes to get out and stay out, and he's hard to catch when he does. Trainer Roger Fell has managed the gelding's form cycles brilliantly in the last two seasons: in 2018, Dapper Man won five times - beginning off a mark of 60 before achieving a high of 86 (top winning rating was 76); and in 2019, he won four times on the spin from marks between 72 and 80.

What is noteworthy is that in between those early summer winning sprees, Fell had got Dapper Man's mark back down from 86 to 72. After his final win last year, he was rated 89 and is now on 82. I suspect his trainer will want a few more pounds back before striking again, so expect to see the blinkers left off and a couple more runs on slower ground if he can. Once this lad gets back to around 75 he'll be dangerous.

Combining optimal conditions - handicaps of 12 or fewer runners, April to July, 5f, good to firm, and blinkers - Dapper Man is 7 from 10, 2 further places, and +28.41 at starting price. I'd be wary of the April to July element this term given the break in racing, but the other components look important.

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Waarif

Age: 7
Trainer: David O'Meara
Career record: 8/41
Turf Record: 7/32
Turf Handicap Record: 7/30
Highest winning OR: 96
Current OR: 97
Win Profile:

8/8 Class 2-4

8/8 turning tracks (0/9 on straight tracks, though has run well)

7/8 1 mile

6/8 Good or Good to Firm (has also won on polytrack and heavy)

Last five wins off rating between 92 and 96

Notes:

Bought from Ireland after a Dundalk maiden win in October 2016, it was a year before Waarif made his debut for David O'Meara and not until June 2018 - 13 starts later - that he got off the mark for his new trainer. It was worth the wait, however, as victory came in the Carlisle Bell, a valuable handicap at the Cumbrian track. That seemingly opened the floodgates as he won a further three of his next five starts to end 2018 with four victories and a mark of 100.

2019 began in the Lincoln off that lofty perch but it wasn't until he'd dropped to 92 that he scored again, on his fifth run of the season. That was a steadily run ten furlong contest which probably rode more like a mile, and was his only non-mile victory. Further scores from marks of 96 and 95 followed. Although it may be nothing more than coincidence, Waarif has yet to win for O'Meara prior to his fifth start of the season.

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Redarna

Age: 6
Trainer: Dianne Sayer
Career record: 8/26
Turf Record: 8/24
Turf Handicap Record: 8/23
Highest winning OR: 84
Current OR: 90
Win Profile:

8/8 7f to a mile (6 x 7f, 2 x 1m)

7/8 Ayr or Carlisle (4 x Ayr, 3 x Carlisle)

5/8 Good to Soft (also won once each on on Good, Soft, and Good to Firm)

4/8 Cheekpieces (plus 2 further places)

Notes:

It's difficult to know whether this steadily progressive handicapper needs to drop a little in the weights. The gelding ran arguably his best race when second in a decent Ayr handicap last September, his final start of 2019. That moved him to a perch six pounds north of his highest winning mark but he was competitive off 88 that day.

In any case, Redarna has won second or third time off a layoff the past three seasons so it could be that his mark will drop at least a pound for his 2020 bow.

Seven furlongs ideally, or a mile, on the soft side of good; and both Ayr and Carlisle have been happy hunting grounds. I'm not convinced that cheekpieces are necessary though he's certainly run well in them (and previously without them).

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De Vegas Kid

Age: 6
Trainer: Tony Carroll
Career record: 8/39
Turf Record: 7/24
Turf Handicap Record: 7/19
Highest winning OR: 79
Current OR: 82
Win Profile:

7/7 turf wins on Good or Good to Firm (also won on Wolverhampton's tapeta track)

5/7 turf wins when apprentice ridden

5/7 turf wins on left-handed tracks (also won left-handed at Wolverhampton)

4 of last 5 wins at Brighton (overall Brighton record: 4/7)

3/6 off 60+ day layoff

Notes:

Racehorses are funny creatures. Take De Vegas Kid: he was 0 from 21 going into a very modest seven furlong handicap in February 2018 off a basement mark of 51. Two years and eight wins later and he's now rated in the low 80's!

That confidence-boosting victory at Wolverhampton was his only all-weather win. Since then he's won seven times on the turf, including four at Brighton. There might be something about seaside air for De Vegas Kid, as he's also won at Goodwood and Yarmouth. His hold up style seems ideally suited to apprentices, who don't need to do much until the last part of a race, and he does seem especially effective on left-handed tracks (though the Brighton factor heavily influences that angle).

Four runs on the all-weather since his last Brighton triumph have reduced his rating from 85 to 82 but he may need to drop a few more before he's primed again. Sussex in late summer may again be a happy hunting ground.

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Royal Brave

Age: 9
Trainer: Rebecca Bastiman
Career record: 11/77
Turf Record: 10/62
Turf Handicap Record: 10/57
Highest winning OR: 88
Current OR: 74
Win Profile:

10/11 Good or Good to Firm ground (also won on Newcastle's tapeta)

9/11 5f

9/11 ridden by PJ McDonald, Martin Dwyer or Danny Tudhope

6/11 Class 4

5/11 Musselburgh

Notes:

A slightly more left field entry to close, Royal Brave won none of his eleven starts last year and was only sixth of eight on his 2020 debut in early March. If that's the bad news, the good news is that he's now rated a stone below his last winning mark. Moreover, he has run almost exclusively on either all-weather (1/15 lifetime) or softer than good (0/10 lifetime) in that barren spell.

In fact, it is arguable that he only got his conditions twice last season, both at Musselburgh: in the Scottish Sprint Cup, where he was beaten six lengths off a mark of 91; and in a small field Class 3 handicap where he was doing his best work at the finish.

All of his last six wins have come from a rating higher than his current figure which makes Royal Brave dangerously well-handicapped when he gets fast ground and a bit of pace to run at over Musselburgh's five furlong piste.

And those are my five for the tracker.

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How to Find Profile Horses

It's an inexact science but in general terms what I am looking for are horses with a good amount of form to dissect, and which have shown a ready preference for a certain setup. All horses have an ability ceiling and tend to run in 'form cycles' up to that ceiling, then back down the weights, then up again. Spotting these cycles isn't difficult if you're looking for them; it's impossible if you're not!

Here's how to find profile horses...

Step 1: Get a list of possibles

There are a few ways to do this. One is to use Query Tool, though caution is advised because the 'sort by horse' function is likely to crash your browser as it tries to format a table with many thousand rows in it. To get around this:

- Select 'Last 2 Years'
- Select 'UK' (or 'Ireland' but not both)
- Select 'Flat Turf' (or whichever race code you want to investigate)
- Select age '5 to 7' (i.e. a horse age range appropriate for exposed form in your chosen discipline)
- Select 'Handicap' (or whatever, handicaps are best for this type of profiling)

That has brought back 14,272 qualifiers which is probably still too many.

We can whittle that down by choosing a distance range. Let's try 5f to 6f.

My sample is now 4,717 which is workable. So I'll be profiling sprint handicappers here, but I could have chosen seven-furlong specialists, milers, stayers or whatever.

Next I'll click the 'group by' radio button against 'Horse', and then sort by 'Wins'.

And bingo, I have a list of horses to potentially profile:

 

A second way is to start with a big field race you know will have been contested by numerous exposed handicappers. The Scottish Sprint Cup is a good example. (If you can't find a race, you can again use QT, by choosing e.g. 16+ runners, Class 3 or above, handicap).

Here is the result of the Scottish Sprint Cup with an instant list of 16 horses to dig into:

 

Step 2: Shortlist Horses to Profile

We now have a list of horses with which to work, but not all of them will have a consistent profile; and not all of them will have won enough races to demonstrate a profile. I look for at least half a dozen wins in a horse's career from which to try to discern patterns. It hopefully goes without saying that we're dealing with very small sample sizes here and all sorts of overlapping factors, so atom-splitters need not apply: this is broad brush stuff, and we will still need to apply judgement to our profile horses when they're entered in the future.

Let's have a look at Major Valentine and Highly Sprung, the top pair on our QT list.

Major Valentine has a few clear patterns, for example, 12 of his 14 career wins have been when ridden by apprentice jockeys. But he has a common problem when the most recent period has been used for search purposes: he is probably too high in the handicap. Having started 2019 off a mark of 64 he went on to win five races for jockey Kate Leahy and trainer John O'Shea. In his final 2019 start, he raced off a rating of 92. We could add Major Valentine to a tracker with his preferences appended, but the likelihood is he'll find winning difficult this year until he's dropped back down the weights.

A good way around this is to use a search period of, say, 2017 and 2018 (i.e. excluding the most recent year). That will bring back a group of multiple winners which may or may not have come down the handicap since their winning spree. From my five to follow list above, Royal Brave was found in this way.

Back to Highly Sprung, a son of Zebedee (of course) who is now seven. Looking at his Full Form page allows us to review his overall form by various subsets. The first thing to immediately stand out is that he is 0 from 12 on all-weather versus a very solid 10 from 50 on turf.

Checking the WINS filter allows us to see only the ten races Highly Sprung won, and to look for commonalities therein:

We can see he won five times for Mark Johnston before moving to Les Eyre who has also eked a quintet of victories from the horse. What else can we see?

All ten wins were over six furlongs. Eight of the ten were on good to firm ground, though not his most recent pair. Having won off as high as 83 (see the OR column) for Mark Johnston, he is now rated 81; that's a feasible mark but not a bargain: he might need to drop a few more.

Seven of his ten wins have been for either Joe Fanning or Silvestre de Sousa, and both jockeys have won on him for both of the horse's trainers. Six of his ten wins have come at Pontefract, from 15 starts at the track.

And as easily as that we now have a profile for Highly Sprung:

- 6f (he's 0/18, just three places, at other trips)
- ideally Good to Firm ground (though recent wins mean this is not a deal breaker)
- Extra point if racing at Ponte
- Extra point if ridden by Joe F or SdS

 

Step 3: Add to Tracker

Add your horse and all relevant notes to your Tracker. Users of Geegeez Gold tracker get an email the day before racing to alert them of the next day's runners (horses, trainers, jockeys, sires), so you should never miss a winner.

 

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A challenge?

It's lockdown, there is still no racing, and we all have a bit of time on our hands. So what about a challenge? I'd like you to share your profile horses in the comments below. Add a few details like the ones above - I've put an example in the comments below for you to use as a template - for a horse you've profiled.

Wouldn't it be awesome if collectively we could pull together a list of 20 or more horses and their optimal conditions? Hint: do try a different race distance and/or code. Below are links to the results of some of the big field handicaps at various distances from last summer, which might help:

Date Time Course Horse Jockey Trainer Runners
11/05/2019 16:00 Ascot Remarkable Adam Kirby D O'Meara 26
26/05/2019 14:20 Curragh Teddy Boy Gavin Ryan E Lynam 26
18/06/2019 17:00 Ascot Mixboy Paul Mulrennan K Dalgleish 19
18/06/2019 17:00 Ascot Ulster Edward Greatrex A Watson 19
22/08/2019 15:00 York Crownthorpe Sean Davis R Fahey 18
24/08/2019 15:40 York Dramatic Queen Daniel Tudhope W Haggas 22
24/08/2019 15:40 York Making Miracles Jason Hart M Johnston 22
07/09/2019 15:35 Haydock Park Melting Dew Ryan Moore Sir M Stoute 16
04/05/2019 16:15 Thirsk Hayadh Lewis Edmunds R Bastiman 16
06/05/2019 17:50 Curragh Red Tea Donnacha O'Brien J O'Brien 27
11/05/2019 16:00 Ascot Cape Byron Andrea Atzeni R Varian 26
15/05/2019 13:50 York First Eleven Frankie Dettori J Gosden 18
15/05/2019 14:25 York Soldier's Minute Joe Fanning K Dalgleish 21
16/05/2019 13:50 York Copper Knight David Allan T Easterby 21
25/05/2019 15:45 York Duke Of Firenze Phil Dennis D Griffiths 19
25/05/2019 16:45 Curragh Insignia Of Rank Gary Carroll J G Murphy 18
26/05/2019 14:20 Curragh Baby Power Leigh Roche G Caldwell 26
01/06/2019 15:45 Epsom Downs Ornate Phil Dennis D Griffiths 19
15/06/2019 14:25 York Firmament James Doyle D O'Meara 20
18/06/2019 17:00 Ascot The Grand Visir Richard Kingscote I Williams 19
19/06/2019 17:00 Ascot Afaak Jim Crowley C Hills 28
21/06/2019 17:35 Ascot Baghdad Ryan Moore M Johnston 19
22/06/2019 17:00 Ascot Cape Byron Andrea Atzeni R Varian 26
27/06/2019 19:45 Curragh El Astronaute Jason Hart J J Quinn 16
29/06/2019 13:45 Curragh Buffer Zone Colin Keane G Lyons 16
29/06/2019 14:45 York Gulliver Jason Hart D O'Meara 18
29/06/2019 17:05 York Nibras Again Joshua Moore P Midgley 19
06/07/2019 15:15 Haydock Park Kelly's Dino Ben Curtis K Burke 17
12/07/2019 15:00 Newmarket King's Advice Joe Fanning M Johnston 17
13/07/2019 13:45 Ascot Tis Marvellous Adam Kirby Clive Cox 19
13/07/2019 15:30 Newmarket Vale Of Kent Frankie Dettori M Johnston 17
13/07/2019 15:50 York Pivoine Rob Hornby A Balding 21
20/07/2019 14:25 Newbury Withhold Jason Watson R Charlton 16
20/07/2019 15:25 Curragh Verhoyen Rory Cleary M Grassick 19
27/07/2019 15:00 Ascot Raising Sand Nicola Currie J Osborne 23
29/07/2019 19:40 Galway Great White Shark Miss J Townend W Mullins 20
29/07/2019 19:50 Windsor Show Stealer Silvestre De Sousa Rae Guest 16
30/07/2019 13:50 Goodwood Fayez Daniel Tudhope D O'Meara 16
30/07/2019 19:40 Galway Saltonstall Colin Keane A McGuinness 18
31/07/2019 13:50 Goodwood Timoshenko Luke Morris Sir M Prescott 19
01/08/2019 15:10 Galway Waitingfortheday Donnacha O'Brien J O'Brien 18
03/08/2019 13:50 Goodwood Poyle Vinnie James Sullivan Mrs R Carr 23
03/08/2019 17:25 Goodwood Gifts Of Gold Cieren Fallon S Bin Suroor 17
04/08/2019 15:55 Galway Laughifuwant Seamie Heffernan G Keane 16
17/08/2019 14:05 Ripon Growl Tony Hamilton R Fahey 19
17/08/2019 15:15 Ripon Dakota Gold Connor Beasley M Dods 17
21/08/2019 13:55 York Dakota Gold Connor Beasley M Dods 22
21/08/2019 16:15 York Eddystone Rock James Doyle John Best 17
22/08/2019 15:00 York What's The Story Joe Fanning K Dalgleish 18
22/08/2019 16:50 York Excellent Times Phil Dennis T Easterby 19
23/08/2019 13:55 York Tamreer Ben Curtis R G Fell 16
24/08/2019 15:40 York Mustajeer Colin Keane G Lyons 22
30/08/2019 15:40 Thirsk Bielsa Kevin Stott K A Ryan 16
30/08/2019 18:50 Curragh Jassaar Andrew Slattery D Weld 25
07/09/2019 14:45 Ascot Salute The Soldier Adam Kirby Clive Cox 16
07/09/2019 15:35 Haydock Park Time To Study Cieren Fallon I Williams 16
12/09/2019 16:20 Doncaster Saluti Georgia Cox P Midgley 16
15/09/2019 13:20 Curragh Buffer Zone Colin Keane G Lyons 24
15/09/2019 18:00 Curragh One Cool Poet Billy Lee M Smith 16
20/09/2019 15:45 Ayr Music Society Paul Mulrennan T Easterby 24
21/09/2019 14:40 Ayr Golden Apollo David Allan T Easterby 24
28/09/2019 14:35 Curragh Make A Challenge Joe Doyle D Hogan 20
02/10/2019 15:25 Nottingham Fantasy Keeper A Villiers M Appleby 17
05/10/2019 15:10 Ascot Kynren Ben Curtis T D Barron 17
12/10/2019 15:50 York Gulliver Jason Hart D O'Meara 22
12/10/2019 16:10 Newmarket Stratum Jason Watson W Mullins 30
13/10/2019 16:25 Curragh Royal Illusion J M Sheridan W Mullins 18
19/10/2019 16:40 Ascot Escobar Adam Kirby D O'Meara 20
26/10/2019 16:50 Leopardstown Melburnian N G McCullagh A Martin 17
03/11/2019 15:10 Naas Jukebox Jive Sean Davis G Cromwell 16

Monday Musings: The End is Nigh?

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At last some movement, writes Tony Stafford. The five-week-long stretch of mockingly-sunny days with unblemished blue skies is about to break in the South of England according to a weather forecast I took scant notice of on Saturday evening. Horse racing is about to start in Germany, on May 4th, and in France a week later.

Hints and allegations, to quote Paul Simon, swirl around the possible resumption in the UK, with mid-May being hinted and Nick Rust reportedly the target of allegations from some senior trainers according to yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph. Rust, whose six-year stint as chief executive of the BHA will end at the conclusion of a year’s notice on Dec 31, according to the paper has been urged to step aside immediately by senior trainers including Ralph Beckett and Mark Johnston.

That pair is reputedly among a group that has canvassed Annamarie Phelps, chair of the BHA, to remove Rust amid disquiet about his handling of the sport during the suspension of racing as a result of the coronavirus lockdown. They clearly believe a rapid resumption behind closed doors is vital, with no racing having been staged in the UK since March 17th, a week after the beginning of the highly controversial Cheltenham Festival.

It is likely that any hesitancy by the sport and its figurehead Nick Rust to press for an imminent return is partly based on the lingering embarrassment that some feel because Cheltenham was allowed to proceed. Matt Hancock, Health Secretary, is also the MP for Newmarket and it would be interesting to discover how he voted when the calls by other politicians to cancel the meeting were being discussed in Cabinet.

Hughie Morrison, interviewed by John Hunt on Sky Sports Racing the other night, put a very strong case for an early resumption. He said that a behind-closed-doors race meeting could easily be staged with probably a much lower chance of spreading a contagion like Covid19 than mooching round a supermarket to do the weekly shopping. People might be asked to keep their distance in shops, not that they do, so it’s hard to see how anyone with the virus will contrive to keep it to him or herself in that environment.

Morrison reckons race meetings would be relatively easy to organise: with no racegoers other than trainers, jockeys, officials and the odd owner – one per horse the norm when Ireland were racing behind their closed doors before drawing stumps last month – and in the countryside, risks Hughie says would be minimal.

I like the potential look of a mid-to late-May restart, with the plan for both Guineas at the start of June, Royal Ascot – maybe Prince Andrew can be persuaded to come out of his Royal lockdown and tasked to present all the winners’ prizes – fan-free but in its usual slot, and the Derby and Oaks on one day at Epsom at the end of June or beginning of July. The May resumption would allow Classic trials to be staged in advance of the Guineas races.

One unkind soul, when the likelihood of crowd-free meetings extending some way into the future, suggested there might in that case be more people than is usual at some Newcastle and Southwell all-weather meetings!

But joking apart – this is no joking matter – we need racing to return. I heard second-hand from a friend of a friend, who is also a friend, that one major bookmaking company is suffering very little compared with normal activity, such has been the take-up of on-line games and the like.

There is such a hunger for something to bet on – as I hinted or alleged last week – that many bookmaker and casino-game firms are inundating the breaks between television programmes with advertising material.

Imagine how much more business they will be doing when racing and top-flight football return. As to the latter sport I find it totally mind-numbing the way certain newspaper web sites keep reporting on possible future transfer deals and what their tame football celebrities think on many matters, mostly about how little they deserve to have their salaries reduced.

For all the tragedy of at least 20,000 hospital deaths associated with the virus, while obviously by no means the only cause, and however many more elsewhere especially in care homes, some elements of normal life remain.

One long-term friend, a racing fan who had been struggling in the winter despite having for many years sold motor vehicles while also running a shellfish cabin in deepest Essex, told me the other day things have turned around. The fish bar was never a restaurant, so it didn’t need to close. Meanwhile he’s been furloughed from the car sales job so has been able to run the cabin full-time on the four days it opens from Thursday to Sunday, rather than just the weekend.

Now they are doing deliveries and take-outs and he says business is booming. When I’m allowed out again I’ll go down to Billericay and take up Kevin’s offer of a free surf and turf. It’s too far for their home delivery service to accommodate me in Hackney Wick, 30 odd miles away, so I’ll have to be patient.

There were two million-pound-to-the-winner races at Sha Tin in Hong Kong yesterday morning with mixed fortunes for jockey Zac Purton on the two odds-on favourites. Beauty Generation was foiled by a short-head in the Mile race, but Purton got his revenge aboard Exultant in the QEII Cup. Exultant, the champion middle-distance horse in HK is now a six-year-old; as a three-year-old for Mick Halford when called Irishcorrespondent, the son of Teolifio won his first two races and then finished third to Churchill in the Irish 2,000 Guineas.

The Irish Guineas, and all other Classic races in that country and the UK, will need to be slotted into the European programme and full marks to the French for getting their retaliation in first. One positive side-effect for racecourses is that their ground has had a much better chance to recover from the rigours suffered during the incessant rain and universally-heavy ground early in the year, while the Flat-only tracks will be looking pristine.

A happy consequence of that will be that they will last longer into the year when we resume. For instance, in Yorkshire, Ripon and Thirsk, which normally are looking to close their doors early in September, can be capable of going on much longer. I believe that Flat racing in the UK in 2020 could easily be staged on grass well beyond the normal early November finale at Doncaster. Who’s up for a New Year’s Eve spectacular at Newmarket?

 - TS

Two-year-old Flat Debutants, Part 2

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In part 1 of this series, here, I suggested that if we were looking to blindly back two-year-olds on their flat debut this season, our starting point should initially be those juveniles trained by Richard Fahey, Jessica Harrington and Ger Lyons, writes Chris Worrall. As well as that standout trio, I was also interested in those trained by Paul Cole, Eve Johnson Houghton and David Simcock, notwithstanding the reservations I highlighted about those three.

I went on to highlight in that opening piece that we may be able to eliminate some bad bets by focusing more on each trainer's runners based on a series of factors: track location, actual track, race class/distance/going, jockeys used, time of year and sex of horse.

Richard Fahey

So, if we start with our three headline acts, we can see that Richard Fahey's results with 2yo flat debutants from 2016-19 were as follows:

Closer inspection of those 381 runners showed no real bias towards either gender or for any particular reported ground conditions, but of the other five tested variables, I found (in sample size order) that those numbers included:

  • 55/363 (15.15%) for 135.66pts (+37.37%) over trips of 5 to 7 furlongs
  • 53/359 (14.76%) for 125.13pts (+34.85%) during April to September
  • 51/339 (15.04%) for 122.82pts (+36.24%) in Yorkshire, NW & Central England
  • 47/314 (14.97%) for 132.07pts (+42.06%) at Classes 4 & 5
  • 38/236 (16.10%) for 92.88pts (+39.36%) ridden by Tony Hamilton or Paul Hanagan

(all profit quoted is to Betfair Starting Price, BSP)

And when combine all those filters, we are left with...

Suggestion: back all Richard Fahey 2yo Flat debutants ridden by Tony Hamilton or Paul Hanagan at up to 7 furlongs in Class 4 or 5 races in Yorkshire, the North West or Central England during April to September.

Jessica Harrington

And now onto Jessica Harrington, whose 2016-19 stats were...

From which (in order of winners)...

  • 18/114 (15.79%) for 81.5pts (+71.49%) over trips of 5 to 7 furlongs
  • 15/122 (12.3%) for 23.28pts (+19.08%) in Leinster
  • 15/104 (14.42%) for 56.85pts (+54.67%) on ground declared as Good to Yielding or firmer
  • 15/80 (18.75%) for 80.7pts (+100.88%) during May to July
  • 13/95 (13.68%) for 26.94pts (+28.35%) with female runners

And combining trip, track location, going and time of year gives us...

             

of which the gender spilt is as follows....

The females win more often, but the males generate more profit, so I'm not really convinced we should narrow it down either way.

Suggestion: back Jessica Harrington's 2 year olds on debut in Leinster (Bellewstown, Curragh, Fairyhouse, Gowran Park, Leopardstown, Naas, Navan) during May to July at trips up to 7 furlongs and on ground described as Good to Yielding or firmer.

Ger Lyons

The final member of our top trio is Ger Lyons, who qualified on his record over the last three seasons of...

Once again, we'll subject those runners to the filtering system, where it can be noted:

  • 30/130 (23.08%) for 90.71pts (+69.78%) over trips of 6f to 1m
  • 30/125 (24%) for 95.71pts (+76.57%) during April to September
  • 29/137 (21.17%) for 76.78pts (+56.05%) on ground deemed Soft or better
  • 29/136 (21.32%) for 79.30pts (+58.31%) in Leinster and Munster
  • 28/116 (24.14%) for 79.07pts (+68.16%) when ridden by Colin Keane

and when we combine those five sets of data, we end up with a fantastic set of numbers reading...

Once again both sexes fare well as follows...

...so we'll not differentiate between the two.

Suggestion: back all Ger Lyons' 2 yo debutants ridden by Colin Keane over trips of 6f to a mile in Leinster (see above for tracks) and Munster (Cork, Killarney, Limerick, Listowel, Thurles, Tipperary) on Soft ground or better from April to September.

*

Those were the three main protagonists from part 1 of this series; combining their two-year-old flat debutants under the specified conditions brings us to 66 winners from 293 runners (22.53% SR) and 266.74pts of profit at an excellent ROI of some 91.04%.

Clearly it will be difficult to fully repeat those numbers but if they only do half as well in the next three or four years we'll still be looking at 130+ points.

*

So what of our 'second string' trio of Paul Cole, Eve Johnson Houghton and David Simcock? Are there conditions under which we might follow their juvenile debutants?

The easiest way to find out is to dive into the data, starting with...

Paul Cole

Cole's base figures with 2yo first-time starters are:

That's a small sample size so caution is advised, but they do include of note...

  • 6/35 (17.14%) for 68.1pts (+194.57%) in Classes 4 and 5
  • 6/30 (20%) for 73.1pts (+243.67%) over trips of 5 or 6 furlongs
  • 6/29 (20.69%) for 74.1pts (+255.52%) during April to July
  • 6/14 (42.86%) for 89.1pts (+636.43%) at Brighton, Leicester & Newbury
  • 5/28 (17.86%) for 31.35pts (+111.96%) in SE England
  • 3/10 (30%) for 60.92pts (+609.2%) with Raul Da Silva in the saddle

You probably don't need me to point out how Paul got all of his six original winners, but combining those first four filters gives...

Suggestion: keep an eye out for Paul Cole 2yo firsters in Class 4 or 5 races over 5 or 6 furlongs at Brighton, Leicester or Newbury from April to July, especially if Raul da Silva's on board, even if it's a big price.

Eve Johnson Houghton

Next up is Eve Johnson Houghton, whose own record during the last four seasons was...

...which, like Paul Cole previously, was a smaller than ideal sample size, but did include...

  • 8/52 (15.38%) for 141.35pts (+271.82%) excluding April and July
  • 7/62 (11.29%) for 98.02pts (+158.10%) in Classes 4 and 5
  • 7/46 (15.22%) for 106.94pts (+232.48%) over 6 or 7 furlongs
  • 6/47 (12.77%) for 120.04pts (+255.41%) in SE England
  • 6/41 (14.63%) for 88.22pts (+215.16%) ridden by Charles Bishop
  • 6/37 (16.22%) for 142.18pts (+384.26%) from female runners
  • and 5/21 (23.81%) for 42.74pts (+203.52%) on Good to Soft or Soft ground

Combining class, month, distance and going gives us...

...and despite this dozen qualifiers include 4 from 7 (57.1%) for 48.5pts (+392.7%) for Charles Bishop, 3 from 6 (50%) for 43.6pts (+726.2%) for females and 3 from 6 (50%) for 31.4pts (+524%) in the South East, there is an uneasy feel to the exclusion of April and July - I can't come up with a logical reason why the horses would fail to fire in that month. Instead, I've taken a more straightforward view...

Suggestion: Look out for Eve Johnson Houghton's Class 4 and 5 runners over 6 or 7 furlongs on Good to Soft or Soft ground. Add a bonus point if you see Charles Bishop down to ride.

David Simcock

And finally for this look at trainers who perform well with juvenile first time starters, we'll put David Simcock under the microscope, despite his sobering record last season (0 from 20). Even with that abject campaign, his four year score is...

and again we've only a small number of runners to consider, but they do include...

  • 6/31 (19.4%) for 18.65pts (+60.17%) when ridden by Jamie Spencer
  • 4/20 (20%) for 49.15pts (+245.76%) over a mile
  • 4/15 (26.7%) for 27.4pts (+182.66%) at Yarmouth
  • 3/14 (21.4%) for 23.6pts (+168.6%) for Jamie Spencer over a mile
  • 3/9 (33.3%) for 28.6pts (+317.8%) for Jamie Spencer at Yarmouth
  • 3/7 (42.9%) for 30.6pts (+437.1%) over a mile at Yarmouth
  • and 3/6 (50%) for 32.69pts Jamie Spencer over a mile at Yarmouth

Obviously the Jamie Spencer angle is interesting, especially over a mile at Yarmouth, but I feel that particular stat lends more to the excellent record the jockey and trainer have together at that venue (a story for another day, perhaps?), but as for this piece...

Suggestion: Note, but don't necessarily back, David Simcock two-year-old flat debutants.

*

All of which second team deliberation leaves us with just the Paul Cole and Eve Johnson Houghton runners, whose suggested angles combine for 11 winners from 22 runners (50% SR) and 144.84 pts (+658.6% ROI) as a juicy-looking - but less reliable based on sample size - supplement to our top trio's 66 winners from 293 runners (22.53% SR, +266.74 BSP, ROI of 91.04%).

Hopefully, we'll soon be able to "live trial" these angles. Fingers crossed and all that, but for now, thanks for reading and I'll be back with more soon.

 - CW

Update on geegeez.co.uk

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Dear geegeez.co.uk reader/subscriber,

I wanted to share a quick update with you on where we are in terms of the site seeing out the current hiatus. The summary is that things are looking better than first feared, and all bar an Armageddon scenario should see our ongoing function.

Here's what's been happening:

I've reduced running costs by cutting back to a minimum: staff have kindly paused or reduced their capacity until such time as we're racing again.

I still need help with editorial content and we're still doing some development (so things will look even better, and have still more features, when we return), so there remain some non-essential expenses.

Those have been covered, give or take, by the loyalty of subscribers during this lockdown; and as a result of that we are in much better shape than I expected.

Indeed, assuming a resumption of at least two meetings a day from June, we will be absolutely fine: bloodied, but well able to continue.

At this point nobody knows when things will be back but there is some guarded optimism from BHA that racing could return somewhere between mid- and late May.

 

The rough timeline of concern here at geegeez.co.uk is as follows:

May resumption - all good

June resumption - all OK

July resumption - all OK

August resumption - just about OK

September resumption - concerning

October resumption - in trouble

 

The reality is that if we're not racing by June, some racecourses may go under as well as, quite possibly, a fair number of trainers. There is, then, a strong desire both inside racing and in the corridors of Parliament to see the industry (along with hundreds of other industries of course) sustain the least damage possible whilst contributing appropriately to the national and international efforts to combat the pandemic.

That's a verbose way of saying that others - some of them sizeable entities - will be in trouble long before geegeez.co.uk as things stand. For information, the betting on which month will see UK racing resume looks like this:

 

 

Although the overround on this - granted, novelty - market is a crippling 23.75%, there is still an implied 75% chance of racing returning before June is out (after normalising the overround to make a 100% book).

We remain in the realms of art more than science in trying to establish what next, but there are plenty of grounds to be cautiously hopeful for a late May/early June restart, perhaps earlier – though that would be best case.

If you've been wondering about geegeez.co.uk (thank you), or about racing's return more generally (me too!), I hope the above adds some colour to the situation.

In all bar a disaster scenario - the ramifications of which would render the loss of a little racing website trivial in the extreme - we'll be back better than ever before the longest day of the year.

Thank you again for your loyalty and ongoing support during what is a trying time for just about all of us.

Until next time, wishing you good health,

Matt

Dave Renham: Chester Draw & Pace Part 1

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This is the third in my series of articles on draw and pace bias at UK courses, writes Dave Renham. Pontefract and York were the first two to come under the spotlight, and now it is the turn of arguably the most draw biased track in the country, Chester.

Chester is by all accounts a lovely place to go and watch racing and, as I write this piece entering the fourth week of lockdown due to the coronavirus, the Roodee is a course that I will make every effort to visit in the future. It lies close to the River Dee and is officially the oldest racecourse in the world, dating back to 1539.

Chester Racecourse is a very tight track only just over a mile in circumference, which means that it does not suit long striding horses because the runners are so frequently on a left-hand lean. The home straight is only 240 yards in length - barely more than a furlong - which tends to help horses close to or on the pace. Traditionally, lower drawn horses near to the inside rail have had a decent edge at most distances. This bias is well understood across the racing fraternity, though, so whether we can actually get a worthwhile betting edge constitutes the purpose of what follows.

 

Chester Racecourse Map

Chester Racecourse Map

 

As with the last two articles, I am using some of the tools available on the Geegeez website: Draw Analyser, Pace Analyser and the Query Tool. The main period of study is a long one, going back to 2009, but I will also examine a more recent (2015 to 2019) data set in detail where appropriate. I will be focusing once again on 8+ runner handicap races only and looking exclusively at the distances from 5f to 7f.

When looking at each race I will be dividing the draw into three equal sections (low, middle, high). This is how the Geegeez Draw Analyser does it and has been the way I have generally done it for 25 years. Draw positions are also adjusted when there are non runners to make the data as accurate as possible. For a strong draw bias I am looking for a figure of over 50% for one ‘third’ of the draw, and I am looking for this starting point to ideally correlate with other metrics such as A/E values.

 

Chester 5 furlongs (8+ runner handicaps)

Since 2009 there have been 86 races that have qualified. I have also included races over five and a half furlongs, of which there of which there were 29. Here are the overall draw splits:

As can be seen, very strong bias exists which has been consistent year in year out. Below I have split out the 5f data and 5½f data for interest:

The low draw figures mirror each other, but the middle and top thirds seem to ‘reverse’. Possible reasons could be that high draws really don’t have enough time to recover over 5f, whereas the extra half furlong gives them more of an opportunity to get back into it. It could be that middle draws get ‘squeezed' somehow over 5½f. Of course it could perfectly conceivably be down to random results as there were only 29 races in total for the 5½f stats.

Onto A/E values now (5 and 5½f races) and low draws have actually offered value over the longer term:

In terms of breakdown, the five-furlong races produced a low draw A/E value of 1.05, whereas races over 5½f had a slightly better value of 1.14.

It is time now to look at each draw position broken down by individual stall number (5f and 5½f):

As we can see, stalls 2, 3 and 4 have all made a blind profit to SP, and stalls 1 to 4 have provided 63 of the 86 winners which equates to 73.3% of all races. Horses drawn 11 or wider have provided just two winners from 74 runners with only three others getting placed. The huge advantage to low draws is clear.

We can consider that macro picture in context by looking at a more recent data set covering the past five seasons (2015-2019). Here are the draw splits for this shorter time frame (total races 42):

Low draws have been consistently winning at greater than the 60% mark so on the face of it the bias seems as strong as ever. For those who like exotic bets, doing a reverse forecast on the two lowest drawn horses would have netted you an amazing ten winning bets in 42 races. Now the dividends varied greatly as they are dependent on the prices of the horses that fill the first two places. Three of the dividends paid under £10, but two paid between £50 and £70. If you had placed a £1 reverse forecast on all 42 races going back to 2015 you would have been in profit by an impressive £182.41. For any tricast punters out there, if you had permed the three lowest draws in 6 x £1 full cover tricasts, you would have won 4 times and netted a profit of £189.85. I cannot guarantee such returns in the future but it is certainly food for thought.

Here are the 5 year stats for individual draw positions:

In this shorter snapshot, 71.4% of all races have been won by horses drawn 1 to 4, which correlates with the 11 year figure of 73.3%.

Despite everything looking very rosy still for low drawn horses and amazingly still producing some profitable angles I do have a word of caution: I think there are signs that the bias is getting less strong, more notably in the past two seasons. If you look very closely at the 2018-2019 results as a whole, the low draw bias seems less pronounced. Now there have only been 15 races during these two seasons so it could simply be an anomaly due to an extremely small sample.

However, there is a reason why I think this might be the case rather than simply hypothesising over a set of numbers. In the last two seasons 12 of the 15 qualifying races (80%) have been run with the inside rail having been moved. This is almost certainly an attempt by the course to try and nullify the bias as best they can – indeed rail movement has risen from 22% in 2016 to 50% in 2017 to this new figure of 80% during the past two seasons. The rail movement is also not consistent from meeting to meeting having moved different distances ranging from a minimum of 10 yards to a maximum of 33 yards.

Digging deeper into these very recent results, in the three races when the rail was not moved in 2018/19 all three races were won by low drawn horses – in fact both 1st and 2nd were filled every time by horses drawn either 1, 2 or 3. In the 12 races where the rail was moved, less than half of the races (five) were won by the bottom third of the draw and generally the races looked far more even when looking at placed positions too. As mentioned above, the data set is far too small to be anywhere near confident, but it will be interesting to see if this emerging pattern continues in the near future.

Let us consider pace and running styles now. For the pace section I am going to study just the overall figures (2009-19):

A significant edge has been to front runners which win roughly three races in every ten while, in contrast, hold up horses are at a huge disadvantage here. That is almost solely due to the tight turning nature of the track, especially at this trip, coupled with the very short straight. Hold up horses just haven’t got enough time to pass the many runners that would be in front of them as they straighten up for home. The figures are very similar for both the 5f distance and the extended 5 furlongs (5½f). Front runners also produce an impressive A/E value of 1.84.

In terms of whether the going makes a difference, the figures are fairly even across the board although on good ground (34 races) the win percentage for front runners edges up to just over 34% with an IV of 3.79. I don’t personally believe the front running bias is stronger on good ground – the place data is no stronger for example - but I felt it was worth mentioning.

In terms of field size and the number of runners, the front running bias seems strong across the board; it is possibly slightly stronger in smaller fields but when you split the data up some of the sample sizes are a little small to confidently make that inference.

Now a look at draw / pace (running style) combinations for front runners in these 5f races. Remember this is looking at which third of the draw is responsible for the early leader of the race (in % terms):

As one would expect, the early leader comes from lower draws more than half of the time; it is clearly difficult to lead early from a wide draw which makes perfect sense given the appeal of such a position and the topology of the course. It is also easier to win having led early from a low draw rather than from a middle or high draw. Low drawn early leaders have gone onto win 37.2% of their races (23 wins from 61) – an impressive stat.

Having said that the figures are still solid from middle and higher draws: middle draws have won eight times from 35 (SR 22.9%) when leading early, and high draws have won four from 14 (SR 28.6%). Digging deeper, horses that take the early lead from stalls 1 and 2 do lead more often than any other draw and go on to win around 40% of the time.

Below is the draw/run style heat map, displaying place strike rate, for 8+ runner five- or five-and-a-half furlong Chester handicaps since 2009:

The summary is that the combination of a low draw coupled with good early pace, or at least the ability to lead, is extremely important at Chester over 5f.

 

Chester 6 furlongs (8+ runner handicaps) 

The 6f distance is run less regularly than the 5f / 5½f one, with 66 qualifying races going back to 2009. Here are the overall draw splits:

 

The strong low bias seen at 5f does not occur in the same way here with middle draws being almost as successful as low draws. What is clear however, is that there continues to be a strong bias AGAINST high draws. The A/E values illustrate that middle draws have definitely been the value:

 

A look again at individual draw positions and how they have fared over this time frame:

 

Although the lowest third of the draw did not totally dominate the win percentages, draws 1 and 2 have been very successful in terms of wins: 25 wins out of the 66 races equates to just under 38% of all races won by the two lowest boxes. Both have made a blind profit – draw 1 having performed particularly well. It should be noted, not unexpectedly of course, that double figure draws have provided just one winner from 118 runners!

Looking at ground conditions it is possible that firmer ground accentuates the bias against higher draws a little, which seems logical also. On good ground or firmer the top third of the draw have won just 4 races from 38; on good to firm or firmer they have won 0 from 12 races with only 5 horses placing. Limited data, yes, but something to bear in mind I feel.

Onto the last five seasons now. Although there have been only 30 qualifying races since 2015, I believe it is still worth sharing the draw splits:

High draws have continued to struggle in the more recent past, while middle draws have performed slightly better, and the centre is where the value seems to be once again. Double figure draws have secured zero wins and just four places from 46 runners. For A/E values I am going to split the data by draws 1 to 4, then 5 to 8 and finally 9 or higher:

Again, it appears that draws 5 to 8 have been the value stalls in the past five seasons.

Let's break down the individual draw figures for the last five seasons, 2015 to 2019:

With only 30 races in the past five seasons the individual stall data is rather limited and I personally would not read too much into it. Stall 1 has performed well as one might expect in the context of the 11 year data shared earlier.

Below are the running style figures for 6f 8+ runner handicaps at Chester, going back to 2009:

These figures show that front runners have a decent edge while horses that track the pace also perform above the expected ‘norm’. Horses that race mid pack or at the back early are at a clear disadvantage for the same reason that they are over 5f: the short straight makes it very difficult to win when coming from off the pace. Horses held up in the back are worse off than horses that race mid-division.

This pace bias AGAINST hold up horses strengthens as the field size increases. The table below looks at the 11 year splits for the 32 six-furlong handicap races with 11 or more runners:

As can be seen, there were no wins at all for hold up horses, whereas 26 of the 32 races were won by horses that raced close to or up with the early pace. The majority of races (18 of 32) were won by prominent runners, though there were, naturally, more prominent races than race leaders and their peer group strike rates are very similar.

Now a look at draw / pace (running style) combinations for front runners in 6f handicaps (2009 – 2019):

Over 60% of the races have seen the early leader come from the bottom third of the draw (low), a percentage that is even higher than the 5f data. This is a very high figure and worth noting.

The 6f trip does not give low draws the edge, however, as it does over 5f. Rather, only the two lowest stalls as noted earlier have managed to win consistently more than might be expected, taking roughly 38% of all races.

Horses drawn 10 or higher have had little or no chance of winning throughout the eleven-year sample period.

Pace wise, early leaders and prominent runners are clearly most favoured.

The graph (sorted by IV3, the average Impace Value of a stall and its immediate neighbours) and heat map (displaying A/E) below both illustrate this:

 

Chester 7 furlongs (8+ runner handicaps)

There are two 7f distances at Chester, one over 7f and the other over 7½ furlongs. In this article I am going to look solely at the shorter distance of the two. I plan to look at the extended 7f trip in a subsequent 'Part 2' article. Since 2009, over 7f there have 75 qualifying races.

Low draws have had a strong edge having been responsible for just over half the winners. The A/E values look like this:

The market definitely factors in the advantage that lower draws generally have here, an A/E figure of 0.94 implying that there is a slight negative expectation from backing such runners. Having said that there may still be some value in backing selected lower drawn runners.

Let us now look at each individual draw and its associated stats since 2009:

36 of the 75 races were won by one of the three lowest stalls, but only draw 1 has shown a blind profit during the long period of study.

When checking the data for specific ground conditions the stats suggest that on softer ground the low draw bias increases. On good to soft or softer there have been 37 races of which 22 (SR 59.5%) have been won from the bottom third of the draw (low). The A/E value nudges up to 1.09, and backing all low drawn horses would have secured a small profit to £6 to £1 level stakes at SP.

Time now to switch attention to more recent results and the past five seasons. Here are the draw splits for 2015 to 2019 (total races 33):

The bias has been similar in this shorter time frame although in medium to bigger size fields the results have been quite even. Low draws have dominated in 8 and 9 runner races, but as I have said before it is generally not smart be too dogmatic about results when looking at very small samples.

Let us look at the individual draw figures for 2015 to 2019 (33 races):

Horses drawn 3 have done well, but although very low draws have had an edge, when looking closely at this table I am starting to think that the bias has not been as strong in recent years. My main reservation is that the place percentages for draws 1 to 7 are relatively similar and also the A/E values for draws 7 to 10 are higher as a group than draws 1 to 4, suggesting that any value that might exist is in that counter-intuitive area of the stalls.

The great thing about statistical research is that different individuals will interpret the data in different ways. This is simply my view: I could be wrong and once again it needs to be said that 33 races is still a very small data sample in which to have any real confidence.

Onto to 7f handicap running styles now. Here are the overall stats going back to 2009:

Front runners have had a fair edge with hold up horses again at a disadvantage. However, the bias is not as strong over 5 and 6f, with later runners having greater opportunity to get into a challenging position.

We actually have a reverse pattern to 6f in terms of field size. Over 7f front runners have had a huge edge in smaller fields: in races of 8 to 10 runners, (43 races in total) they have secured an impressive strike rate of over 28% with a huge A/E value of 2.24. I cannot explain why - perhaps it is because they are better able to stack the field up in behind and control the race - but the strike rates and A/E values do correlate strongly.

Finally let us examine the draw / pace (running style) combinations for front runners in 7f handicaps:

Low draws are once again more likely to lead as they are closest to the inside rail and thus have the least distance to travel. High drawn runners manage to get to the early lead in just one race in six on average. In terms of early leaders that have gone onto win the race, lower drawn front runners win more often (24.4%) than middle drawn ones (17.2%) who in turn go on to win more than high drawn front runners (13.3%).

It is also worth noting that hold up horses drawn low have won just once in 58 runs.

Combining the 5 to 7f data

Before I finish I wanted to combine all the data for the 5 to 7f distances at Chester (2009-2019). Firstly the draw splits:

Over half all of races in the full eleven-year study period were won by the bottom third of the draw; middle drawn runners have been roughly twice as successful when comparing them to higher draws.

Now the individual draw by draw data:

This table neatly demonstrates that despite the very well known low draw bias the very lowest draws continue to offer some value. Both draws 1 and 2 have made a blind profit to SP and both have A/E values in excess of 1.00, from a strike rate of almost 19%. The table also illustrates neatly that in general the higher the draw the lower the chance of winning: stalls 11+ have a collective win record of just six from 215 (2.8%).

The table below shows the combined pace data for 8+ runner 5 to 7f handicaps:

Looking at these figures, why on earth would you not try and get to the front at Chester over distances of 7f or less? Jockeys who hold up their mounts here by choice are either not trying to win or they don't know how to!

I hope this article has given you plenty of positive angles from which hopefully we can profit sooner rather than later.

- DR

Monday Musings: Time Flying By

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Logic told me time would pass slowly during lock-down. Five weeks in, it’s definitely speeded up, writes Tony Stafford. I spoke to my son twice last week, briefly on Sunday and then again for a few minutes more on Friday and I swore that there could only have been a couple of days between the two contacts.

Twin came around on BBC4 again on Saturday evening in my favourite 9 p.m. international drama slot and will already be finished by next weekend. Thankfully I’ve now joined BBC I-Player so I can have a second look on the confusing bits of that rapidly-evolving and brain-challenging eight-part (two each week) Norwegian epic when I get some time. I was very disappointed that Spiral, a series of series I most wanted to see and that motivated my joining, is not on the list.

The other evening it was still light when the Thursday 8 p.m. clapping reverberated from the flats all around. Racing fans in the UK, denied so much since the shut-down on March 18 and more so in Ireland, will have lost most markedly; along with the mainstream we all are aware of, the accelerating number of evening meetings, many of them over jumps, that bolster the normal spring racing menu have also been cancelled. Just to let you know, the days start getting shorter in nine weeks’ time!

The Racing Post’s online-only newspaper carries the cards, like Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay, that have kept racing going in Florida. Like everyone else, the Post included, I expected the Wesley Ward juveniles on show at Gulfstream on successive early evenings last week to do a Lady Aurelia and blow away the opposition.

But both on Thursday and Friday, first the 30-100 shot Lime, a daughter of Iqbaal, and then Golden Pal, 1-2 (by Uncle Mo), contrived to show the trademark Ward early pace only to succumb in almost identical fashion to a single stronger finisher even though their races were over only four and a half furlongs.

This pair was reportedly among the planned Ward annual contingent for Royal Ascot but first that spectator-free entity needs to be confirmed as does secondly that overseas runners may be accepted if it does. Should they come, I’m sure the traditional fear in which they are held by home trainers may have been a little diluted, although there’s plenty of time for Wesley to build some of that extra physical maturity that his juvenile challengers always seem to display.

I’ve been intrigued by the identity of today’s evening offering at Will Rogers Downs and thought it might justify a little investigating. I wasn’t at all prepared for what I readily discovered on the web. Will Rogers Downs is a gaming (principally, of course) and horse racing venue in Rogers County, close to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is operated by the Cherokee Nation.

That administrative area encompasses 14 counties in North-East Oklahoma and a local population of around 200,000 in one way or another descended mainly from Cherokee and two other Native American tribes.

If that wasn’t unusual enough, the jockeys and trainers will be totally unknown to most of us, unlike the stars who descend on Florida each winter and spring, especially with New York firmly shut down. For the record, Floyd Wethey, Jr. is the top rider so far in 2020 and Scott Young is leading trainer. Tonight’s 10-race card offers one quite valuable prize, a near £25k to the winner fillies and mares race. I won’t put forward a potential winner.

The gaming provides the prizemoney and the track keeps a chunk of all the race wagering. Gaming is also keeping the UK bookmaking companies going, and if the number of advertisements for casino betting that we see in the commercial breaks on most channels nowadays is indicative of betting levels in these odd times, gambling is probably going off the charts.

How the BHA must wish it could get its claws on even a small percentage of that massive cake, not that it would be right to do so (as we saw with the FOBT fiasco). Maybe they should ask Captain Tom to do a sponsored walking-frame-push around the Ascot paddock on his 100th birthday on Thursday next week while singing his chart-topping duet with Michael Ball of You’ll Never Walk Alone? The £23 million (probably more by the time you read this) by which his exploits will be aiding the NHS efforts exceeds the not-insignificant £22 million that the Levy Board is targeting to help racecourses and others through their troubled financial times.

Yesterday we went for a fourth walk of the lockdown, this time forsaking the Olympic Park, for the newly (at Easter) re-opened Victoria Park, which is in the opposite direction. The park had been closed for some time after that initial period when sunbathing and all the other indicators of holidays in good weather in the summertime caused a Government re-think. Everyone was doing the keep-out-of-the-way six-feet walk yesterday; there is no cycling and all the dogs including our Yorkie Josephina were on a lead.

What was obvious, though, was that while the ground is not yet showing any real suggestion of much new growth, the five weeks of drought, following hard on the months of near waterlogging, has already brought great cracks in the turf at some places.

Hughie Morrison has been kindly sending me a brief video every Friday of Ray Tooth’s big homebred and still unraced three-year-old Bogeyman going through his paces. Each week they have been working on the wonderful grass gallops, developed over many years by the Cundell family but now owned and managed by Sir James Dyson.

The Victoria Park phenomenon is extending into Berkshire as the colour of the terrain seems to be lightening week on week. How ironic, with barely a day’s racing after the turn of the year and before Cheltenham being staged on anything but soft or heavy ground, unless we get some rain soon, it will be firm or as near as makes no difference when we resume. Expect to see stand-pipes in the streets by July.

Finally, after hearing that he thinks racing should start as soon as possible – Nick Rust’s line at the weekend too – it was salutary that Mark Johnston has subsequently revealed he is in isolation at home after being quite ill after contracting Covid-19. It must be so frustrating, frightening even, with the Flat season still to start, for Britain’s winning-most trainer that the new norm is so alien. I’m sure that everyone in racing will be wishing Mark, wife Deirdre and their family and staff all the best in the coming trying days.

- TS

Jon Shenton: Who to Layoff?

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Under normal circumstances April and May is my favourite time of the year, both in personal “real-life” terms but also through the racing lens, writes Jon Shenton. Usually, as the flat season kicks into gear it is a period when I’d be at my most active in punting terms. This year there is a void, and I’ve as yet not wanted want to fill it with third tier US racing, or whatever other meagre scraps are on offer.

Before we begin, an uber-caveat: the date of the restart of the sport will go a long way to establishing whether data-driven angles have a strong role to play in this years’ flat campaign.

Sadly, it may be smart to keep certain angles in cold storage until the spring of 2021: a truncated campaign will quite likely manifest in all sorts of data anomalies for otherwise robust angles. Let me explain with a specific example.

Many of my favourite angles are early season specific. Several yards are typically fast out of the blocks and others have a more nonchalant approach to the first exchanges in the campaign, in result terms anyway. Avoiding some yards during the initial knockings of the turf season can be a prudent move. A case in point is Tim Easterby: the powerhouse yard has a colossal number of runners throughout the spring and summer months with performance notable by its variance over the course of the season as the below graph illustrates.

It’s not the most exciting data, illustrating only the yard’s win percentage. However, it clearly shows a seasonal variance: Easterby’s performance in April and May is moderate in comparison to the peak summer period. To give a feel for the scale, there are 642 total runners in April alone, so in horse racing terms the sample sizes are broader than most (the yard is also 0-from-29 in March).

Focusing on 2020, what happens now? It is pure speculation but for the sake of this article let’s assume the season starts in July. Ordinarily, this would be peak Tim territory assuming a standard racing calendar. The million dollar question is, would the yard be expected to drop straight into the usual July prolific form or will it build slowly like usual, allowing its animals to develop race fitness through visits to the track, peaking as a yard in September or later? Perhaps we will see neither and the yard will flatten their own curve.

It is very difficult to project with any confidence, especially when placed in the context of every other yard rethinking and rehashing their own usual blueprint, planning for and around a truncated season.

Arguably, all typical trainer patterns could be of limited relevance. I certainly wouldn’t back a usual Easterby July qualifier this year, at least until I had more evidence to show the yard had adapted to the revised topology.

However, we don’t give in that easily at geegeez. Yes, it is true that a data-driven gambler may have to tread carefully; but there is also such a thing as first mover advantage! By cutting through the noise more quickly than most, there may be opportunities to gain utility from the numbers as they happen. Within that, possessing a good understanding of the ‘norm’ is beneficial as it provides a head start in terms of knowing what to look for as racing awakens from its enforced hiatus.

One sensible starting point is to evaluate how trainers perform after a horse has had a long rest from racing. This year, most animals are going to be hitting the track after a sizeable hiatus when the sport re-commences. Knowing the trainers who perform well in these circumstances ought to be of use.

The table below (containing data from horseracebase) shows exactly this: it summarises trainer performance with horses returning after a break of 181 days or longer (UK flat turf races only, 2011-present, SP 20/1 or shorter). The SP cut-off is a personal choice and generally helps sort the wheat from the chaff in my opinion.

The insight is sorted in A/E order (Actual vs. Expected, assessing performance vs. the expectation of the market, 1.00 being par, anything greater being outperformance against market expectation) and a minimum of 100 runs are required to qualify for the table. There are plenty of points to discuss but we will begin with my eye being drawn to the four yards marked in yellow.

These jump off the page, predominantly due to their impressive strike rates around one-in-four win to run ratio. They are also bona fide prime flat racing organisations where value can be hard to come by so merit closer scrutiny.

Given the profile of these yards, it is surprising that the market seems to ever-so-slightly underestimate their lay-off horses: time and again these guys fire in winners after an absence. The length of time off the track is far from detrimental to their chances; in fact, it may be a positive indicator of intent. However, we, as the general punting public still subconsciously prefer the reassurance of a recent run. In the case of the highlighted yards (and several of the others) it is a wise move trying to ignore the long elapsed time between runs.

Taking this concept further, the graph below illustrates the same trainers contained in the original data table above. The red line shows the A/E performance for the horses returning to the track after more than 180 days by trainer, whereas the blue bars shows the A/E for those who have a run during the last 180 days.

In basic terms, virtually all these trainers perform more profitably with lay-off animals than they do with more recent runners (using A/E as the measure). The only three that do not are Messrs Balding, Prescott and Ryan, but even then, the difference in results is virtually negligible.

The left-hand side of the graph indicates those where the variance between the lay-off horses and the race fit animals is most significant. Ballydoyle maestro Aidan O’Brien heads the list. There is some logic in this, at least theoretically. It is not beyond imagination to speculate that a horse travelling across the Irish Sea to the UK is ready for action and means business. Were it not it would be running closer to home, presumably.

However, to satisfy whether that is a fair assertion or not, a comparison with the yard’s Irish return-after-a-break horses should confirm if this is the case.

As can be seen, O’Brien’s travellers outperform their stay-at-home counterparts on every measure. Whilst it is probably not angle material it is certainly worth factoring into big race considerations, especially if the money is down (the record for horses 6/1 or bigger is just 2-from-45 within the UK dataset).

Another trainer highlighted in the table with a large differential between the performance of his lay-off and recent runners is Roger Varian. The Newmarket-based operation is one that, considering its scale and profile, I do not particularly follow or have many related opinions / angles.

However, in the context of his layoff runners there is an interesting edge to consider when runners are evaluated by age.

The table demonstrates that the winning performance level of Varian’s three-year-olds after a break is not as strong as his older horse returners. This could easily be a sample size issue, particularly as the place performance is very consistent. Regardless, the numbers of the four years and older brigade are highly noteworthy.

Taking those four-plus aged horses and evaluating their performance after an absence against the yard’s performance where a run has been more recent, the numbers grow in stature still further by comparison.

Effectively, the table above confirms that the absolute right time to back a Varian horse aged four or older is its first run after an absence.

I dare say that this is the tip of the iceberg and there are plenty of other interesting data-driven nuances in relation to all trainers in the table. A bit of homework for me – or you? – over the next week or two perhaps.

Again, 2020 may prove to be wholly different from recent history given these unique circumstances. Normally, much of the value in these yards horses after a break can be attributed to the likelihood that much of their competition would have had a recent outing: the beady eye of the market is often drawn to those who have provided recent evidence of their well-being rather than those who have been out of sight, out of mind.

This year, especially early in the season, most runners in each race will be racing on the back of a long break. It is conceivable that every yard and every owner will be desperate to get their charges out as early as possible to mitigate some of the economic damage received through the enforced absence.

Consequently, if the phasing of animals having their first run in a while is compressed into a short period of time as there isn’t the luxury of a long campaign, it could be easily argued that the market  will focus more towards the likes of O’Brien, Varian, Gosden and Haggas given their elevated status.

If the mooted Royal Ascot behind closed doors meeting does proceed, virtually every horse will be hitting the track after a long absence. Gosden, O’Brien et al runners could be like moths to a light for punters, even more so than usual, eroding potential value from the lay-off angle.

However, the bottom line is that these yards have proven performance after a lay-off in their locker. Plenty of others do not and those others will have to elevate their game and do something uncharacteristic to their norm to prevail.

Of course, it is conceivable that trainers who build a horse’s fitness through racing will adapt easily. Trainers are generally highly skilled practitioners and should be able to modify their approach to match the situation.

The yards listed in the table below are some of those for whom the first run is typically a sighter; whether things will be different in 2020, time will tell, but it seems prudent to be cautious until evidence to the contrary manifests itself.

It is certainly the case that the performance of runners from these yards after an absence is not meeting market expectation with unhealthy A/E numbers across the board. Again, the table is restricted to runners at 20/1 or shorter (SP), and 100 runners is required to qualify.

In broad terms, unless there is a compelling reason not to, it’s a straightforward decision to pass on entrants from these guys after a hiatus. Naturally, Easterby (Tim) is on here as intimated earlier. It is going to be fascinating to see whether these yards will still be content to play the long game once racing is back.

Personally, I’m not sure how to play things yet. The timing of the resumption will be key in shaping a strategy. With the deferral of four of the Classics it’s looking more and more likely that the resumption date will be mid-summer. Given that, my gut feel is that angle and data-driven wagering of this kind will be fraught with danger. However, where there is a market there will always be an opportunity to find an edge.

One thing is for sure: one of my starting points will be to man-mark the yards in this article when we get going again. By spotting the trainers who are ready to go, or otherwise, there should be plenty of chances to make up for lost time. Who knows, I may even be backing Tim Easterby horses after a prolonged absence. These are strange times, after all!

Stay safe.

- JS

Two-year-old Flat Debutants, Part 1: Trainers

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After reading the responses from last week's SotD overview and also checking that I wasn't duplicating anyone else's work, I'm going to kick off my series of research pieces with a fairly simple analysis of trainers to follow on the Flat with their 2 yr old debutants, writes Chris Worrall.

And the way I've approached this ahead of the 2020 season, which will hopefully be here as soon as it's safe to do so, is to look back over the previous four seasons to get a five year overview by the end of this season. With that in mind, I then applied the following criteria to the long list of trainers with such runners since 2016...

  • a minimum of 30 2yo debutants
  • a minimum strike rate of 10%
  • an A/E above 1.00
  • profit over the four years at Betfair SP
  • and profitable in at least three of the four years

Applying those filters reduces the list to a far more manageable six trainers:

Paul Cole, Richard Fahey, Jessica Harrington, Eve Johnson Houghton, Ger Lyons and David Simcock

Their collective figures, pulled from the excellent horseracebase.com, over the last four seasons look like this...

A near 15% strike rate and an ROI at Betfair SP in excess of 50% is something we can really work with, even if replicating that stratospheric level may be nigh on impossible.

The yearly breakdown since 2016 looks something (well, exactly) like this...

As you can see, 2018 wasn't quite as good for our highlighted trainers, but still profitable nonetheless. That said, the strike rate, which dipped below 10%, would have tested confidence.

We can further break down the data so see which trainers performed best in each year or, conversely, which years were best for each trainer which would lead us ultimately to the same end point.

What I can tell you from that breakdown is that runners trained by Cole, Fahey and Harrington were profitable at Betfair SP [the P/L(BF) column in the tables] in each of the four seasons.

Ger Lyons had a tough 2016, but has shown three years of unbroken profit since; and Eve Johnson Houghton's numbers dipped in 2018, when she went 0 from 15 with juvenile first-timers, but are otherwise solid.

But I'd have reservations about David Simcock in this context after he went 0 from 20 in 2019: if we were to drop one of our six trainers, it would likely be him.

Figures for 2016...

And 2017...

With 2018 producing...

And finally 2019 gave us...

From the above annual break down figures, Paul Cole's failure to hit the 10% SR in both 2017 & 2018, and Eve Johnson Houghton's similar strike rate deficiency in 2018 and 2019 ought to preclude them from our final angle; and if we also decided that David Simcock's 2019 performance was too unsettling for inclusion, we'd then take just three trainers forward: Fahey, Harrington and Lyons.

I'm happy to overlook Ger Lyons' failure to make profit in 2016, as a near 16% strike rate suggests his winners were simply too short-priced to cover the losers. If we set 2016 aside for now, our three final trainers' collective record over the past three seasons stands at a combined...

...which is not too dissimilar to our opening set of figures. The strike rate has risen slightly from 14.56% to 15.38% whilst the ROI has dropped from 50.13% to a still very respectable 43.29% and, importantly, I think the final numbers are likely to be more stable with less scope for variance.

 

So, if you're looking to blindly back 2 yr olds on their Flat debut this season I'd suggest your starting point should be those trained by Richard Fahey, Jessica Harrington and Ger Lyons.

 

I intend to back up this starter piece with a more detailed analysis of each of my six originally highlighted trainers to analyse which of their two-year-old debutants to back based on criteria such as track/track location, going, distance, jockey, time of year and so on.

- CW

Geegeez NH Trainer Rankings 2019/20

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Another day, another dataset. Well, you've got to do something to pass the time, haven't you? I was thinking about how the National Hunt season 2019/20 ended so abruptly and how unsatisfactory it was; and then I began to think how unsatisfactory the whole Trainers' Championship is, to this scribe at least. Without for a second wishing to discredit the excellent Nicky Henderson, or his closest pursuer, Paul Nicholls, the barometer of success in this championship immediately discriminates against more than 99.72% of trainers (two with a chance, 716 others last season with varying degrees of no chance).

It is perfectly reasonable to assume that huge swathes of the majority have no desire to become Champion Trainer, but it is also fair to suggest there are scores of better than capable handlers who will never get the chance at the top table because of the self-perpetuating nature of its ranking system. A focus on volume and prize money rewards those with large yards full of expensive purchases; and how do you get such a cup which runneth over? By being atop the trainers' table.

Of course, everyone started somewhere and (most of) the names at the peak of the pile earned their place. Others further down the current list will one day join them and someone will wrest the crown from the districts of Seven Barrows and Ditcheat one of these days - for the first time since 2004/5. That season saw the last of Martin Pipe's 15 titles, interspersed mid-flow by a brace for 'the Duke', David Nicholson, and preceded by a further brace for... Nicky Henderson (and a single for David Elsworth thanks almost exclusively to Desert Orchid's heroics). So it is that, since 1985, only five trainers have been Champion. Proprietary stuff.

Back to the start and, as I was saying, I got to thinking about "who is the best?", a question where the 'who' varies depending on the definition of 'best'.

The formal understanding is the one with the most prize money accrued. Although that is on one hand somewhat crass, on the other it does seem to allow the cream to rise to the top - certainly in terms of quality and quantity. Both quality and quantity, however, are self-perpetuating functions of seniority: earned or otherwise, the answer is generally pretty much the same from year to year to year, which tells us little about the aspirants or the quietly very effective.

So I had an itch and I scratched it was a dataset. Not literally, of course.

Here's what I did next...

Because I wanted the findings to vaguely meaningful, notwithstanding that they would be subject to conjecture, I looked only at trainers who sent out 100 or more runners in the 2019/20 UK NH season. From 718 to saddle at least one, that left a more workable number of 73 who presided over a century and more such events.

And because I wanted, without ignoring the scale and class aspects, to partially normalise their overwhelming effect, I came up with some other (readily available) ranking factors. The factors I landed on appertained to betting and owner utility as well as the numbers game which completely besieges many trainers' thoughts from May to April each year.

For scale, I used runs, wins and places.

For owner utility - beyond the above - I selected earnings per run, winners to runners, win percentage and place percentage.

And for punter utility, I opted for starting price profit/loss.

There would be strong cases for a raft of other variables as well as, or in place of, those chosen; but this is my theoretical exercise and I hope the ones to have made the cut are at least reasonable.

So, against these eight measures, who is the champion trainer? Patience is a virtue. Let us first consider the best in each category.

Champion Scale Trainer

There is, for any conditioner of pedigree, a correlation between the number of runs and the number of wins/places: more runs will bring more wins and places. Simples.

Most Runners

Dan Skelton has a peerless propensity for volume. Last season he saddled over 250 more runners than the next on the list, Donald McCain. McCain's own scale speaks, well, volumes about his Lazarus-like comeback from the sudden loss of his major owners, Paul and Clare Rooney, less than five years ago. That split allegedly involved at least 60 horses, 52 of which had run in the previous season; so credit to McCain for rebuilding so rapidly.

Always keeping close tabs on each other, in third and fourth, are the titans Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls, with Messrs. Jonjo O'Neill, Evan Williams and Nigel Twiston-Davies rounding out the least secret seven in the sport.

The final trio in the top ten, and the only other three to send out more than 400 runners in the 2019/20 season, were Philip Hobbs, himself resurgent after a season in the doldrums two back; Colin Tizzard, and Neil Mulholland.

They've got the quantity, but how many winners came their way?

 

Most Winners

Unlike the Trainers' Championship, decided by prize money won, the Jockeys' Championship uses this metric: number of winners. If trainers were calibrated on the same gauge, would the winner still have been Nicky Henderson? Yes! And no...

Tied at the summit are the actual Champion Trainer, Henderson, and the Most Runners award winner, Dan Skelton. It seems quite fitting that there should be a confluence of quality and quantity between this pair that brings them together with the exact same number of victories - 118 - across the season.

No other trainer managed three figures, though of course the truncation of term almost certainly denied that noted fast finisher, Paul Nicholls, who might yet have inflicted some squeaky bum time on his nemesis through potent late salvos at Ayr and Sandown.

No Duckworth-Lewis here, result stands, weighed in.

Familiar names all completing the top ten, and some performances worthy of mention. Philip Hobbs' return to form was expected, perhaps, but the re-emergence of fellow Somerset resident David Pipe was probably less predictable. From 116 winners in 2014/15, Pipe contracted to 80 then 59 then 33 in the following three seasons. 44 was an improvement last term and, from a handful less runners this campaign, the most famous resident of Wellington boot-ed home 66 winners, an uplift of 50%.

Pipe was joined in the swinging 60's by Olly Murphy and Fergal O'Brien as well as the already mentioned McCain, Tizzard and O'Neill. Dr Richard Newland, much of whose work is conducted in the summer months, has a tough gig to replicate last season's sixty winners given jump racing is not mooted to return until at least July 1st. Others - indeed most - will be affected by that, too, though few target the summer programme as effectively as the Doctor.

Most Placed Horses (including winners)

The same top four as the most winners chart, but Fergal O'Brien gets a second name check, jumping into the top five for number of placed horses.

Given he was only 16th in terms of number of runners saddled, both his win and place counts are commendable.

 

 

And the Champion Scale Trainer is...

 

Congratulations go to Mister Big, Dan Skelton.

Top for number of runners, joint-top for number of winners, and top for number of placed runners makes Dan the runaway winner of this category.

Skelton was flanked on the podium by Nicky Henderson and Paul Nicholls, his former boss, who this time settled for silver and bronze respectively.

There were no major surprises lower down the scale top ten with the probable exception of David Pipe. After some regressive and lean years, it's great to see Nicholashayne back on the map.

*

Champion Owner Utility Trainer

The first category is arguably a touch superficial in some regards, so well done if you've made it this far! In my opinion, things are about to get a lot more interesting, even if that may only be relative...

There are four sub-categories that together will earn one trainer the gong for owner utility, a considerably more meaningful stripe upon any handler's shoulder. To remind you, the quartet are earnings per run, winners to runners, win percentage and place percentage.

Highest Earnings Per Run

Had I used earnings, as well as number of runs, wins and places, the overall table would have looked quite similar to the actual Champion Trainer table: that would have been self-defeating. But, by the same token, it is appropriate to consider earnings, in context.

So I took the seasonal prize money totals of our trainers and divided them by their respective number of runners. A great leveller.

As can be seen, that puts a whole different spin on proceedings. That scourge of the British Cheltenham Festival trainer ranks, Gordon Elliott, heads the list, and by daylight, too.

Elliott's Cotswold squad snaffled seven winners through the season, which was four fewer than his northern raiders purloined: always a happy hunting ground, Perth provided aplenty, accounting for 11 of Cullentra Stables' 28 UK 2019/20 wins.

Then follow NJH and PFN, at a respectful distance, as was often the case in mid-March (seems a very long time ago now).

But emerging from the long grass are some lesser lights able to compete better than equally with most on this more even sward.

Anthony Honeyball, whose yard is sponsored by geegeez.co.uk; Brian Ellison, another renaissance man this season; and Harry Whittington, propelled into the top eight thanks to the likes of Festival winner Simply The Betts and, in the same Brooks family ownership, Rouge Vif and Saint Calvados, all provided plenty of bang for their owners' bucks.

In the cases of Ellison and Honeyball, it is likely that initial purchase prices were significantly lower than the top three as well as Harry W. Further credit then is due.

Winners to Runners

If you're an owner, what do you crave more than anything else? To see your horse win. Ideally a big pot but, once reality kicks in, any pot will do. So who managed to make connections smile on the most regular basis?

Given that all of the trainers in the list sent out at least 100 runners, this is a representative table of those whose focus may be said to be on quality - at least race-winning quality somewhere on the ability spectrum - over quantity. It is also a nod to a handler's ability to place horses in the right races. To appear in this top ten anywhere is a huge credit.

For example, the likes of Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson can be marked up for their four-in-nine winners to runners ratios given the previously flagged scale of their operations. Dan Skelton, by comparison, comes in at number 21 with a slightly better than one-in-three winners to runners rate. That's respectable, especially given he saddled 212 individual horses last season; but it's not at the level of these guys on this measure.

Four trainers managed to win with more than half of all the horses they sent to the races, headed by Anthony Honeyball whose owners cheered their horses to victory at least once during the season slightly more often than four-in-seven. What makes this performance even more creditable is that Honeyball had a dismal campaign in 2018/19, when the yard was blighted by a stubborn virus for most of the year.

A close second was the revitalised Brian Ellison. What is remarkable about Ellison's season is not the number of winners - he recorded the same 34 total two seasons ago, and prior to that was in the high forties for two further seasons; no, it is the strikingly fewer runners which he sent out. It's a stark illustration, perhaps, of how fashion changes but consider that Ellison's 34 NH winners in the 2017/18 campaign came from 249 runs and 65 different horses whereas he matched the winner tally from just 117 runs and just 37 individual horses this time around.

Borders trainer Sandy Thomson and Grand National-winning summer specialist Dr Richard Newland keep their connections contented at a better that one-in-two rate, too.

All of the other handlers in the list - David Pipe, Chris Gordon, Fergal O'Brien and Olly Murphy - deserve mention for their excellent performance on this important measure of utility.

Win Percentage

There is, perhaps unsurprisingly though statistically not necessarily, a strong link between the winners to runners key players and those with the highest win percentage based on wins to runs. To be clear, whereas winners to runners measures how many individual horses won during the season, win percentage is simply the number of all wins divided by the number of all runs.

The top pair, clear of their field, were again Brian Ellison and Anthony Honeyball, though in the reverse order this time. Both won at about 29% during the season, both recorded Impact Value scores around 2.5 (implying they won almost two-and-a-half times as often as the average in the training ranks).

Henderson's one-in-four win rate, on quadruple the number of runners as the top two, is also very impressive. No other National Hunt trainer of more than a hundred runners last term managed an IV of greater than 2, Jamie Snowdon's next best being 1.89.

To put those win strike rates into perspective, the average for all trainers last season was 11.79%.

 

Place Percentage

If your horse cannot win a race, what is the next best thing? It is probably being placed.

There should be a link between win percentage and place percentage, though the latter often 'smooths the curve' on the basis that more horses make the frame than win and, therefore, the sample size is bigger.

There are new names in this top ten, though not the main man. He is Anthony Honeyball, whose consistency in the Owner Utility category cannot be overstated. Honeyball's Potwell Farm team made the frame more than half the time last season, the only trainer in the country to achieve that from greater than 100 runners.

Gordon Elliott's selective sailors came in next best (consider that Elliott ran 292 individual horses in Ireland last season, 80 more than did Dan Skelton in the UK, and you'll start to get a feel for the squad from which he can select his raiding party) at just shy of 50%, with Fergal O'Brien a close third.

Brian Ellison, top for win strike rate, drops to fifth here, while Seven Barrows and Ditcheat, as well as Olly Murphy's Warren Chase Stables, are all again represented in the top eight.

New names to feature here, suggesting they may have been a touch unfortunate not to win a couple more last term, are Kim Bailey and Alex Hales.

And the Champion Owner Utility Trainer  is...

 

Huge congratulations to Anthony Honeyball, whose average position of second, including two top rankings, across four sub-categories marks him down as a worthy winner of the Champion Owner Utility Trainer section.

To win with well over half of all horses, to make the frame with more than half of all runners, to win with two-in-seven of all runners, and to maintain sufficient quality whilst doing it to record the fourth-highest earnings per run is outstanding. Honeyball is clearly the boutique trainer in the country and it is not coincidence that geegeez.co.uk both sponsors the yard and syndicates horses within it.

Nicky Henderson again must settle for minor honours, third place this time behind the resurgent Brian Ellison in second. Paul Nicholls further demonstrates his consistency in fourth, though he might have snatched bronze had he been afforded the chance to reprise the late flourish of recent seasons in the final weeks of term.

Dr Newland, Fergal O'Brien, David Pipe, Olly Murphy (the only other trainer with whom geegeez.co.uk syndicates jumpers), Philip Hobbs and the hitherto unmentioned Nicky Richards complete the top ten. All performed impressively for their owners during the 2019/20 campaign.

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Champion Bettor Utility Trainer

Just one category here, starting price profit/loss (SP P/L). For this pilot ranking piece, that will suffice as representative of punter utility, but it will likely be supplanted in future by something like exchange A/E, a more predictive metric performed on a truer market. That's for next time.

Profit/Loss at Starting Price

Isn't it funny how the minute one puts a bettors' slant on things the picture changes almost completely? Funny yes, but it also makes perfect sense. Those at the head of the official Champion Trainer table will almost always be the best known of their peer group, most of them relative household names to even casual bettors. That's precisely why they won't generally appear in this list: they are over-exposed from a betting perspective, though all will saddle great value bets in certain situations. That's for another day!

Brian Ellison's preeminence in this collective is a nod to his struggles in recent seasons. This is a guy who has achieved a Grade 1 and eight Grade 2 victories under National Hunt rules, all bar one of those since 2015. And yet his overall regression in recent times, highlighted above, has led to some juicy priced winners - and a +56.03 level stakes profit - as a result of a consistent run of form insufficiently accommodated by the market.

Last season's exchange Actual over Expected (Ex A/E) of 1.55 is likely not sustainable - and is a sore thumb when compared to his five season Ex A/E of 1.04. The latter figure remains solid enough, and it is to be hoped that 2019/20 was a turning point for a likeable man who is, clearly, a very, very good trainer.

In second place is Rebecca Menzies, like Ellison a dual-purpose trainer. +29.75 to level stakes will have been highly pleasing for yard devotees and, unlike the leader in this season, she also broke even last season. Ms Menzies has a two-year Ex A/E of 1.31.

The bronze position goes to Ben Pauling, which is remarkable when one considers that his team were badly out of form for a chunk of the campaign. Pauling is an under-rated trainer in my opinion, and he has some very promising horses for next term. With a clean bill of health, he should begin to challenge some of the more mainstream top tens.

Excellent punter performances, too, in the latter half of the top dozen from rankings regulars Honeyball, O'Brien and Pipe, who all remained in the black to level stakes at starting price.

Thus the Champion Bettor Utility Trainer is Brian Ellison. Ellison has had a brilliant season and this category award is fitting recognition of that.

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Overall Top Ranked NH Trainer 2019/20

We've seen which handlers have performed best in terms of scale, and owner and punter value. Those are the constituent components that inform the overall rankings. There is no weighting, no magic algorithm to contrive an outcome. Arguments, perfectly credible ones at that, can be proffered about the validity of the chosen variables: isn't that the fundamental point - to be arguable - of a ranking or rating system? And, with those caveats in place, it is time to reveal the 2019/20 Geegeez Champion National Hunt Trainer.

The winner is...

NICKY HENDERSON

The master of Seven Barrows is the official Champion Trainer for the season just passed, and he is top ranked in the Geegeez list also. Having set out to create a level playing field for anyone who saddled 100+ runners in the campaign, I'm not entirely sure whether to laugh or cry at the fact that the final answer is the same as the deeply unsatisfactory - to me at least - method of awarding Champion Trainer honours.

Henderson can be a touch divisive, often projecting an aura of bumbling naivety in stark contrast to his long-term elite level performance. But that performance, matching quantity with quality, is just about peerless whichever way you dissect it. A level stakes profit at exchange prices in the last two seasons is the cherry on top of Henderson's impressively accomplished cake.

In second and third are Fergal O'Brien and David Pipe, the former consistently climbing the ranks, the latter back in the big time. Both had excellent campaigns by a number of measures and are applauded.

O'Brien went from a 12% to a 19.4% win rate, bettering his previous best of 18.35% in the 2016/17 season. He also recorded his best ever number of winners. Pipe has been mentioned numerous times in the above despatches, and rewarded numerous loyal and big-spending owners in 2019/20. He has some exciting novices to look forward to next term as well as his usual batch of interesting handicappers.

Very close to them - note in the full table below the left-hand average score column from which the rankings are produced - in fourth and fifth are Paul Nicholls and Dr Richard Newland. I suspect Nicholls' win percentage and earnings per run may have improved enough in a full season to bag third but that, as we know, is not how the cookie crumbled.

Given the loss of at least a sizeable chunk of the summer jumping this year due to the coronavirus hiatus and a focus on flat racing when the sport returns, it might be expected that while Nicholls could elevate to the podium, Dr N will do very well to hang on to his excellent top five finish.

In joint-sixth place are Anthony Honeyball and Nigel Twiston-Davies. Honeyball should have more horses/owners, his finishing position testament to the brilliant job he, Rachael and the team do with the small but select group in their care. Naturally, that would bring the challenge of maintaining performance levels on greater volume, but if there is a trainer in the top ten deserving of such a challenge it is him.

Twiston-Davies, meanwhile, had the lowest win and place strike rates of the top ten in spite of achieving his own best win rate since the 2007/8 season. A winners to runners ratio of 40% is perfectly respectable except when placed next to Honeyball's season-leading 57.5%. The latter, clear top in the Owner Utility section, has some very exciting novice hurdlers and chasers to work with next term, including two mares for geegeez.co.uk syndicates, one of which is already a Listed bumper winner.

In eighth place is Olly Murphy. Incredibly, Murphy is in just his third season training, and he's managed to marginally improve his win strike rate from season to season while scaling up in parallel. Overall runner numbers were down a touch this term, obviously due in large part to the lost six weeks caused by Covid-19, but this was a breakthrough cycle for the Wizard of Wilmcote as he recorded his first Grade 1 success with Itchy Feet in the Scilly Isles Novices' Chase. The Cheltenham Festival was frustrating but Olly has an exciting team of youngsters for next season and he looks very likely to continue his ascendance when jumping resumes.

It will be fascinating to see if Brian Ellison, in ninth, can sustain his effort into the new season. He has bundles of back class but recent struggles and a group of horses that may be handicapped towards the upper end of their ability means he'll probably need to acquire new stock to stay competitive in the rankings. I hope he does.

The likes of Philip Hobbs, Dan Skelton and Nicky Richards are all bubbling under, though Colin Tizzard's 15th place can be considered an underachievement. So too, to a lesser extent, can the rankings of Jonjo O'Neill and Donald McCain: given the firepower they have, earnings per run of around £1,250 are disappointing.

The full table is below so you can look for your favourites and see how they fared. Click the images (two halves) to enlarge them.

I'd very much welcome any comments and suggestions, on the process rather than the results - data are data, after all.

Matt