A Strong Finish to the 2023/4 Jumps Campaign
The countdown to the 2024 Cheltenham Festival has ramped up another gear with numerous “pointer races” being run as trainers and connections work out how to get their pride and joy in the best condition to win one of the twenty eight prestigious contests over the four days at Prestbury Park.
In the meantime, we have plenty of time to try and win a few quid, weather permitting of course, in the coming weeks until the big one.
In recent times there has been a monumental battle between Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson for the National Hunt Trainers Championship. The result is decided by which yard has amassed the highest amount of prize money won during the current season which this time around runs from 1st May 2023 until 27th April 2024.
At the time of writing Paul Nicholls is leading the competition with 72 winners and a total prize money of £1,597,807, with the yard running at a 24% winning strike rate.
The yard usually gives their horses the flu jab mid-winter and based on information in Paul Nicholls latest blog post that has been the case again this year.
If past campaigns are to be repeated this year, now onwards is the time to really get stuck into the yard’s runners, but which ones?
We will start by looking at the period February through to the end of the season which traditionally completed with the final fixture at Sandown which features the bet365 Gold Cup.
Given the high profile of the yard and the fact that Paul Nicholls is an Ambassador for Betfair and posts regularly on his blog there, it is quite surprising that you would have made a level stake profit to Betfair SP blindly backing the stables runners in three of the most recent five campaigns during the Feb-April period.
I feel sure that many of you will be aware of Paul Nicholls but for those that aren’t he has had a remarkable career to date since taking out a trainer’s licence back in 1991 having previously been a jockey with 133 winners over a 7-year period.
He made his base at Manor Farms, Ditcheat where he has remained ever since, and to date has trained over 3600 winners including 150 Grade 1 races, 14 trainers’ championships, 4 Cheltenham Gold Cups, a Grand National and the King George Chase an amazing 13 times.
Shortly after a visit from the late Queen he was awarded the OBE in the New Year’s honours list in 2020.
His more recent approach has been to acquire young horses that have shown potential in Point to Point and National Hunt Flat races. They start their career in the hands of Will Biddick who is the most successful British Point to Point rider, before moving to Ditcheat the following season to race in Bumpers.
If you would like to find out more about what makes the man himself tick there is a very informative write up here which includes a behind the scenes film.
For me Paul Nicholls first appeared on my radar with See More Business winning the 1997 renewal of the King George on Boxing Day at Kempton Park and subsequently going on to win a total of 18 races including the Cheltenham Gold Cup.
I digress, back to the task in hand.
If we now consider the Paul Nicholls runners over the review period in a number of ways, starting with handicaps and non handicaps we find: –
Although the winning strike rate is way higher for the non-handicap runners it would appear from the above that the profit is potentially to be had from those entered in handicap races.
A quick check of the individual years shows that a level stake profit would have been made in 3 of the 5 years:-
If we breakdown the runners in handicap races by the type of race i.e., Hurdles and chases, we find: –
Again, we see a clear difference between the types of runners with those competing in handicap hurdles achieving an actual versus expected figure of 1.07 which indicates that these types are outperforming the market in terms of price and probability etc.
A quick check of the individual years makes for positive reading.
So, there we have it, a fairly simple and straightforward way in which we could potentially profit from backing the runners trained by the 14 times champion national hunt trainer during the final 3 months of the jumps season.
System JO-111-16-02-24-RC – Back the runners trained by Paul Nicholls when they are entered in Handicap Hurdles races during February through to the end of the jumps season in April.
Until next time
Steve C
