Tuesday, 20th October 2020
The jumps season takes another step forward at the weekend – Cheltenham hosting the Showcase meeting that runs from Friday through Saturday….
There isn’t much form in the book at this stage of the season. Nor do we know for sure which yards are forward and which need time….
But the historic record offers information and direction. It reveals which yards have proved effective at this meeting before – not just once but consistently over a period….
I’ve been looking at the 10-year record. Yesterday, I focused on a handful of trainers that have banked decent total place strike percentages at the meeting – and who might be off the market radar….
Today, I turn my attention to the ‘volume’ guys. The yards that have farmed the Showcase meeting time and time again….
The table below clearly highlights the ‘volume’ guys at a typical Showcase meeting….
With 22 winners and 16 placers produced from 79 runners – a haul that amounts to a stellar winning strike rate of 27.8% and a top-class total place strike rate of 48.1% – Paul Nicholls is way out in front as the king pin at this particular early-season event….
Only Nigel Twiston-Davies comes anywhere close to providing even minimal opposition….
He too gets into double figures in terms of winners – saddling 14 over the last 10 meetings. Whilst his overall rates fall short of what Nicholls has put in the record books, Twiston-Davies is a clear best-of-the-rest candidate….
Working on the principal that the guys who have done best long-term are best-placed and most likely to come out of the next wash with good figures again – both these yards are worth closer scrutiny….
Paul Nicholls is rolling along nicely this month with 17 winners from 43 runners to date – at a heady win strike rate of 39.5%....
Only 12 of those 43 runners finished outside the places. That stat conforms that Nicholls arrives at Cheltenham this weekend with his horses in fine fettle....
The winners this month have been banked all over the place – by pretty much all the individual divisions of horses within the wider Nicholls team….
Perhaps the handicap chasers have done best overall – with four winners from nine goes and level stake profits (to SPs) sitting at 12.7 points….
Harry Cobden is the clear number one rider at the yard. He’s 13 winners from 34 runners over the month to date – at a rate of 38.2%....
Understudies Bryony Frost and Lorcan Williams have had to be patient – whilst accepting minimal opportunities. That will change as the season hots up. For now, Cobden is the man on a roll for the yard….
Coming back to the performance of the Nicholls team at the Showcase meeting across the last decade, the figures are very clear. They appear in the table below…..
Nicholls has done his best work by far with his runners in non-handicap events – over hurdles and fences. Consolidate the figures and they read like this….
It’s impressive stuff. But had you backed all those qualifiers to win to the tune of a single point, you’d be sitting on a profit of just 11 points – that’s 0.25 points per bet….
Nobody is going to get rich backing those horses. The market is onto the Nicholls non-handicappers. Hardly surprising. When you’ve been one of the top men in the game for getting on 20-years, punters tend to know what to expect….
Of course, those figures are to returned SP. Chances are, had you been getting on at early prices, you would have done better….
And, of course, winners are useful for multiples, L15s, placepots and all the rest of it. But the bottom line is that you won’t get rich backing the horses Nicholls usually does well with at the Showcase meeting….
In contrast to Nicholls, Nigel Twiston-Davies tends to do best with his handicappers at the Showcase meeting as the table below illustrates….
Consolidate the handicap figures and they look like this….
A winning strike rate in handicaps of 18.2% is none too shabby. A handicap-focused total place percentage in excess of 40% tells you that Nigel Twiston-Davies has been a serious player in the handicap divisions at this meeting over a long period of time. That’s something even Paul Nicholls can’t even say….
The trouble with Nigel Twiston-Davies is that his yard is having a much quieter time of it this month than we have come to expect based on the early-season exploits of the yard in previous years….
His 33 runners to date this October have produced just 5 winners. Twenty of his qualifying runners failed to hit the frame….
For a yard that has forged a long-standing reputation for hitting the ground running, these are underwhelming figures indeed….
And they make it difficult to go into the weekend with any sense of confidence that the yard can suddenly transform its performance figures or turn things around….
But, whatever the recent stats, the Twiston-Davies yard is in the habit of targeting the Showcase meeting. I can’t imagine Twiston-Davies has not prepared horses for this season’s Showcase races….
He’ll be doing what he always does at this time of year and focusing on going well again. I expect he will be looking to get on the scoreboard again – regardless of how the season has started….
We’ll keep an eye on the form figures as the week progresses. Maybe things will look a little different on Friday morning. Right now, you couldn’t say the Twiston-Davies yard is on fire.
That said history tells us that it would be dangerous to summarily ignore the yard’s Cheltenham-bound handicappers this weekend. They have done way too well over the years for that….
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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