Monday, 19th October 2020
On Friday, the tapes go up on Cheltenham’s 2-day ‘Showcase’ meeting….
Some fans think of the fixture as the beginning of jumps season ‘proper’ ….
Fair enough. But it’s early days. There isn’t much form in the book and the fitness levels of horses from multiple yards are as yet unestablished….
Be sure to factor all that into any selections you make on the cards at Cheltenham this weekend….
Cautious readers will adopt a watching brief – biding time, assessing the lie of the land, keeping the powder dry….
But the ATC readership also has its paid-up members of the ‘gung-ho brigade’ – and they’re champing at the bit to get involved….
I’m somewhere in-between those two camps – probably more cautious than gung-ho. I’ll look. But I won’t seek out bets because I feel I must. I’ll play only if I can make a sound case….
But you don’t read this column to learn what the world of racing looks like from whichever fence I’m straddling. You read because you want definite opinion…. solid pointers…. chunks of insight….
So, if you’re looking to scamper a few quid around at Cheltenham this weekend – on singles, multiples, L15s or whatever floats your boat – let’s pretend you’re holding the metaphorical gun to my head....
Let’s pretend it’s a case of stand and deliver – a case of solid KISS angles or your life….
I wonder if we sometimes over-complicate the racing game. You can analyse things to death – pulling the bones apart until sense can no longer be made of the whole….
I wonder if sometimes we try too hard. If the analytic process sometimes leaves us knowing less than when we set out….
Especially with the big handicaps. Big-fields of 20-odd runners take hours to scrutinize. When you’re done, you can often still make a solid argument for fifteen….
Maybe there’s a case for going counterintuitive and seeking to do better by thinking less. It’s a line of approach we occasionally experiment with at ATC – especially at the big meetings….
I wonder if locating betting value really must be the complex and demanding exercise everybody assumes….
I wonder if there aren’t simple, straightforward, and painless routes to profit that stare us in the face sometimes. Routes we ignore because they don’t appear complicated enough. Because they seem too good or too simple to be true….
We’re basically looking for angles that suggest themselves and don’t require too much (or ANY) of our own intellectual input. We’ve had a fair bit of success with this kind of approach in the past. Enough to persevere and to keep on looking out for what we call KISS angles.
To refresh your memory, KISS is simply an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid – which seems an appropriate name for this type of approach….
The place to start is the 10-year record of the entire Showcase meeting – and a spin through the individual yards that have consistently performed well at the meeting over the period….
The table below highlights the detail that matters – the top performers are ordered in terms of volume of wins with significant total place strike rates highlighted in red….
We can make some interesting and immediate observations….
Several big trainers have been productive and consistent enough to produce a total place percentages in excess of 35% over the 10-year-period – Paul Nicholls (48.1%), Gordon Elliott (39.3%), Nicky Henderson (37.8%) and Philip Hobbs (35%).
The deduction we can make is that the biggest yards tend to be well-prepared for these opening exchanges in the winter game. But there’s nothing in that deductive statement that your average punter couldn’t guess correctly at – even without seeing these figures….
Where total place percentages are concerned, your best option might be to note the yards that deserve honourable mentions….
Rebecca Curtis, for example. Only 25 qualifying runners – but four winners, six places and a total place strike rate of 40%. Maybe the average punter wouldn’t guess those figures quite so correctly?
Or Neil Mulholland. Perhaps the fact that his last 23 runners at the meeting produced five winners and three placers for a total place strike rate of 34.8% is off the market radar….
Or Fergal O’Brien. Perhaps it would come as a surprise to your average punter that his last 46 runners at the meeting produced six winners and nine placers for a 32.6% total place strike rate….
Do these observations lead us down a golden pathway to guaranteed winners? No! Do they guarantee that one or all of these yards will have at least one winner this time around? No! Do they guarantee these yards will at least produce competitive horses? No! Of course not. They are mere observations – not magic spells….
There are no guarantees in the racing game. None whatsoever. The historic record tells us what has happened before – and nothing more. We should always remember that….
But we should remember too that racing trainers are creatures of habit….
That what happened before can happen again because of that….
And that the more frequently it happened previously, the more reasonable it is to anticipate – or at least factor in the possibility – that this is a cycle ready to play out again this time around….
Which is why you might pay attention to any chasers Neil Mulholland has entered up at the weekend….
All his winners and all his placers at the Showcase meeting over the last decade were produced by chasers – and from just 19 qualifying runners…
As repeat patterns go, that’s one of the best and most consistent we get from the historic record at this early-season Cheltenham meeting….
It’s not the only one, of course. There are other interesting angles to look at and from. We’ll get onto that tomorrow….
That’s all from me for today. I’ll be back tomorrow. Meanwhile….
Anything to report? Anything to say? Anything to share? Contact me at: nick.pullen@oxonpress.co.uk
Until next time. Stay tuned.
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