Stat of the Day, 24th May 2014

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day, 24th May 2014

Strike A Light was a 7/2 winner yesterday, the very same price as we’d advised. The 3yr old grey filly was kept in a handy position until hitting the front with a furlong to go. Despite looking like she was carrying her head a bit strangely, she warmed to the task, stayed on and won by a neck, doing just enough and with probably a bit held back if needed.

She was a horse you couldn’t back purely on her past form/performances, and that’s where the stats come in, as trainers are creatures of habit who stick to methods that serve them well. More of the same hopefully today in a competitive-looking…

2.50 Catterick:

Where there are some similarities to yesterday’s selection and reasoning.

The trainer in focus today is Philip Kirby who, like Rae Guest yesterday, has been very profitable to follow in recent times.

In fact had you backed every single one of Philip’s 275 handicap entrants on the Flat in the last four years, you have collected from the bookies on 45 occasions, with that 16.4% strike rate netting you a cool 90.8pts profit to 1pt level stakes bets, an ROI of a shade over 33%.

It isn’t however, really that viable to back Mr Kirby’s runners when the money is down for them and if we discarded the 23 runners priced below 5/2 (not that we’d generally back them for SotD anyway!), we would admittedly lose 7 winners and reduce our strike rate down to 15.1% (38 winners from 252), but the overall profits rise to 95.8pts, or 38% of stakes. And that to me, is a wise move.

Those figures obviously include all runners priced at 5/2 and above and we therefore need to check the numbers aren’t skewed by a big winner or two, but I’ve had a look at the rae data and it tells me that his runners are profitable in a whole range of odds brackets, as I’ll show you now…

5/2 to 20/1 : 38/207 = 18.4% SR for 140.7pts (+68% ROI) profit
5/2 to 12/1 : 32/157 = 20.4% SR for 77.3pts (+49.3% ROI) profit
5/2 to 8/1 : 26/103 = 25.2% SR for 61.0pts (+59.2% ROI) profit

Incidentally over 52% of the lower bracket horses were placed, opening up the possibility of an E/W bet, should we need/want one.

Mr.Kirby’s runner in this contest today is Just Paul and like yesterday’s selection, he is the trainer’s only runner of the day. Philip Kirby is also one of those trainers with a very good record on those occasions when he has just one horse to run, with 21 winners from 77 ( 27.3% SR) over the lat four years generating 103.5pts (+134.5% ROI) profits.

We can drill down further into these solo runners and find that those sent off at odds of 7/2 to 20/1 won 17 of 51 races, a 1-in-3 record producing excellent profits of 119.4pts or 234.1% of stakes invested, whilst those priced between 7/2 & 10/1 were the winners of 13 races from 32 (40.6% SR) for level stakes profits of 57.6pts (+180% ROI).

Just Paul comes here in good nick, having won last time out at Musselburgh three weeks ago. That was at this same Class 3 level and over today’s 7f trip on similarly good to soft ground as he’ll encounter today. Prior to that, he was 3rd at Redcar (5 weeks ago now) on his seasonal reappearance after a 23 week absence. He was only beaten by two necks over a mile that day.

He has a course and distance win to his name already and his overall record is decent, with 6 wins from 18 so far and a 50% place strike rate. All six of his wins to date have come from his 12 attempts at today’s 7f trip and he’s two from two on good to soft.

If his 6/18 record wasn’t good enough, then we should note that he was 0/5 before switching to Philip Kirby’s yard and I fancy him to go well again today, despite a 5lb rise in the weights.

When I wrote this, not all the firms had priced the race up, but from those who had, I saw there was just about enough juice in a safety-first approach, so the call is a 0.5pts E/W bet on Just Paul at 13/2 BOG. That price is currently offered by PP & BetVictor, so take your pick! The other eight firms with a book open were at least half a point shorter at the time of press (just before 1am!), as you’ll no doubt see when you…

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Here is today’s racecard.