Stat of the Day, 1st October 2013

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day, 1st October 2013

I don’t make a habit of slating jockeys for how they ride my selections and I’m not going to have a dig at the inexperienced Ciaran McKee here either. The run from To The Sky was just ridiculous yesterday, he set about a 2m 1f hurdle race, as it were a run down a straight mile against quality horses.

It didn’t take very long before he’d opened up a twenty-lengths lead on the rest of the pack, who were running at a more realistic pace and it came as no surprise to see our pick completely run out of steam, get caught and subsequently passed to the point where he only finished fourth, another 20 lengths from the winner.

I attach little / no blame to the inexperienced jockey as it’s highly likely he was running to orders, but it isn’t fair on punters who have put their money down. Anyway, the upshot was that our 8/1 BOG selection finished 4th at 7/1.

We’re off to the North East today for another 2m 1f hurdle race aka the…

2.20 Sedgefield

Where Wakanda is today’s sole runner for Sue Smith, who’ll be looking to kick October off in the same manner as she has done for the last six months. In fact 21 of Sue’s last 100 runners have won their races, producing 40.37pts profit in the process.

But I’m particularly interested in her runners over the next month, for she has a fantastic record in the month of October. Her record in October over the last three years runs out at 14 winners from 71 runners: a very respectable 19.72% strike rate producing 22.8pts profit, a return of almost a third (32.11%). Of the fifteen runners priced at 4/1 or under, there were nine (60%) winners generating a massive 21.27pts profit (+141.8& ROI).

Wakanda runs in only his third ever race today, after two runs in Ireland (won a 2-mile maiden hurdle LTO) for Tom Taaffe he now makes his yard (and UK!) debut for Sue Smith.

As well as that excellent record in October, Sue has a pretty good record with horses taken from other yards. She hasn’t actually taken that many in the past, but she does seem to be able to get a fine tune out of them first time up. In fact, over the last seasons, there have only been 52 such runners, but 10 (19.23%) of those horses have won on their first start for the yard, helping followers to a decent profit of 17.8pts, or 34.23% of stakes.

Those figures are based on all 52 runners, but the numbers get even better when we only consider those with some support in the market and the optimum conditions are those running at an SP below 7/1, where the record reads 9/21 = 42.86% SR for 31.57 pts (+150.33% ROI) profit. And the yard is 3/6 for 13.16pts over the 2012/13 period!

As this is only Wakanda‘s third outing, there isn’t a deluge of information forthcoming but I can tell you  that he’s a son of Westerner and was well beaten (10th of 11) on debut in a bumper at Naas on soft to heavy ground before impressing in victory on his hurdling debut at Sligo in mid-July. He wasn’t always fluent that day, but kept up to his work and stayed on well to win by seven lengths going away on much better ground, more like he’ll face today.

He obviously carries a penalty for that win, as does his main market rival Saint Thomas for his win 18 days ago at Bangor, but Wakanda is far less exposed than Saint Thomas it is thought that the Sligo contest was of a higher standard than the Bangor race.

I should also add that Sue Smith’s runners over obstacles have a good recent record here at Sedgefield. In the 2011/13 period she has saddled up 17 winners from the 54 sent off at odds of 7/1 or under. That’s a strike rate of 31.5% showing profits of 36.5pts, or 67.6% of stakes.

The three separate sets of stats point towards a win for Wakanda today, so I’m placing my 1pt win bet at 5/2 BOG with Bet365, but as always, I recommend that you…

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