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Here's an interesting stat…
I've just been playing around in HorseRaceBase and was looking at the record of Nicky Henderson.
Here are his numbers for the last 10 years
Runs = 4872
Wins = 1111
Strike Rate = 22.80%
Profit (Loss) = -219.14
That's a 4.5% loss on investment!
That strikes me as pretty amazing, I reckon that with early prices you could break even just betting blindly.
That's a great start for finding a winning system.
The first thing I discovered is that when Nicky races on the Flat he does very well, but he's only averaging about 10 runs per year, here are the flat numbers over the last 10 years…
Bets Wins WinStrike SP_PL Places PlaceStrike
134 19 14.18% 72.74 47 35.07%
Back to the National Hunt and my next step was to look at Jockeys. Here are the riders in profit…
Bets Wins Win Strike SP_PL Places PlaceStrike
McGrath, Jeremiah 88 18 20% 35.96 39 44%
Waley-Cohen, Mr S 68 17 25% 32.83 35 51%
Studd, C M 27 5 19% 20.50 10 37%
Carberry, P 11 2 18% 20.00 2 18%
Geraghty, B J 980 298 30% 15.79 503 51%
Greenall, Mr T 13 4 31% 10.25 7 54%
Curling, Sam 42 8 19% 9.51 17 40%
Walsh, R 11 3 27% 4.75 4 36%
Johnson, Richard 10 3 30% 2.75 7 70%
There are some interesting numbers here, the most interesting being that stable jockey Barry Geraghty is showing a level stakes profit over his 980 rides.
For now I'm going to finish off with a quick look at Barry's record especially since 2008 when he took over as stable jockey from Mick Fitzgerald.
As expected there weren't many runs before 2008 (just 10) although they accounted for 6.25 points of the 15.79 profit.
Although there are good profits from some of the jocks listed above I think any system that includes a jockey aspect will come from drilling down into Barry's rides.
Barry rides about a third of all the Henderson runners and will obviously be first choice for the best horses unless owner demands are otherwise eg Waley-Cohen.
Next I will look at race types and class, I'll report back tomorrow.
Today's Selections
Southwell 2.30 Thereabouts – win bet – 11/4 Bet Victor, Paddy Power
Southwell 3.00 Corn Snow – win bet – 5/2 Bet365, Bet Victor