Stat of the Day, 4th June 2014

Stat of the Day

Stat of the Day, 4th June 2014

Seconditis struck again at Yarmouth where Minstrel Lad was denied by less than half a length having taken the scenic route from the back of the field with a furlong or so to run.

Regular readers of my columns on Geegeez will know that I’m fairly loathe to criticise the jockeys who generally do such a brave and wonderful job every day, but I just can’t help but think we’d have been counting our pennies has Simon Pearce kept his mum’s horse a little nearer to the action and not had as much ground to make up late on.

He looked to be waiting and waiting for a gap that wasn’t going to open up, before belatedly switching outside to stay on well. Nevertheless, another “2“ it is (four in a row, now!) and another “-1“ in the P/L column.

I shall be expecting a return to winning ways after this string of “nearlys”, preferably starting with today’s…

3.10 Fontwell:

Where 6yr old mare Detour Ahead makes her racing debut for trainer Warren Greatrex after a fairly nondescript 22-race career with Jennie Candlish that yielded just one win, but did at times hint at untapped talent/ability. In fact she was considered good enough to be entered for the Mares’ hurdle at the 2013 Cheltenham Festival, where she ran off a mark of 103 and her sole win came off 100, whilst she runs off 94 today, so she’s weighted well enough to land this one.

She put together a nice little 3233 run last November/December, but two poor runs in Jan/Feb signalled the end of her time at the Candlish yard and now runs for Warren Greatrex for the first time on the back of a 4 month “rest”.

Mr Greatrex’s horses are in really good form at the moment with 8 winners and 3 placers from his 17 runners in the last month and he has a good record with NH horses switching to his yard and winning on debut.

Since the start of 2011, he has had 22 winners from 69 yard debutants, a 31.9% strike rate producing 82.24pts (+119.2% ROI) profit in the process with today’s jockey Gavin Sheehan riding 10 of those winners from just 19 rides (52.6% SR), which in turn has yielded 17pts (+89.6% ROI) profit.

From the 22/69 record above, all 22 winners were priced below 16/1, as were 63 of the 69 runners. 22 from 63 is a 34.9% strike rate and the resultant 88.2pts profit are equivalent to 140.1% of stakes invested.

Now we don’t often (although we have in the past!) select many 16/1 runners for SotD, so it’s worth looking to say how the yard debutants perform if there’s money around for them and we see that with a 6/1 odds cap, they’re still very profitable to follow. A 44.7% strike rate courtesy of a 17/38 record has produced 25.7pts (+67.6% ROI) profits with jockey Gavin Sheehan’s record standing at 10 winners from 12, a remarkable 83.3% strike rate for 24pts (+200% ROI) profit.

Gavin himself is in excellent form, having ridden five winners from nine rides in the last fortnight and here at Fontwell he has ridden three winners and been placed on two other occasions from nine rides in the last 8 months. His record over hurdles here at Fontwell over the last year reads as two wins and four placers from just eight efforts.

Gavin will claim his usual 3lbs here today and Warren Greatrex is a dab hand at utilising these jockey claims to the full. Over the last couple of years, his yard’s record with 3lb claimer jockeys is 8/41 (19.5% SR) for 21.5pts (+52.5% ROI) profit. It should also be pointed out that the bulk of those rides (and winners!) also involved Gavin Sheehan, whose record is 7/36 (19.4% SR) for 21.7pts (60.2% ROI).

If we consider those runners in the 9/4 to 12/1 bracket, the yard record is 7/27 (25.9% SR) for 33.1pts (+122.5% ROI) with Gavin riding 6 winners from 23 (26.1% SR) for 32.2pts (+140% ROI).

And it’s a small subset, but there were 4 winners from 12 runners (33.33% SR) priced below 5/1, yielding 7.8pts (+64.7% ROI) with Gavin successful three times from eight starts (37.5% SR) for 6.9pts (+86% ROI) profit.

The yard’s in form, the jockey’s in form and the horse has unfulfilled potential. The yard does well with horses from other trainers and if the money comes, it could well be a good sign. My money’s going on this one with a 1pt win bet on Detour Ahead at 100/30 BOG with Bet365. A couple of other firms are offering the same price too, as you’ll see when you…

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Here is today’s racecard.