National Hunt Trainers of Interest
The following article is based on trainer performance in 2022 to date of writing 13th December 2022.
Each trainer must have had at least 25 runners throughout the year and a Win Strike Rate of at least 25% through the year.
The results cover both racing in the UK and Ireland.
The year 2022 to the date of writing this piece (13th December 2022) shows an interesting top table of those trainers who have managed a 25% strike rate with their runners in National Hunt Racing, but a healthy strike rate alone will not guarantee you a profit.
To highlight this, look at the number of runners and the P/L for Willie (WP) Mullins!
More than three times the number of runners than Chris (C) Gordon and a staggering loss of -224.61 points to level stakes backing at Starting Prices.
Mullins runners are prolific in numbers and prolific in winners, but good luck if you can find which one will pass the post first, and if you do, you may well find that there is little or no value in the bet.
But what of the other 2022 National Hunt trainers heading the table in terms of strike rate… (note no Nicky Henderson, Twiston-Davies) …are the old guard starting to be pushed aside…
Barry (B) Connell (Ireland)
“I'm a bit mad to be taking a licence out at 60
but why not give it a go?”
In 2019 Barry Connell moved his cap from Owner to Trainer as he severed ties with Alan Fleming and took it upon himself to train his own horses over in County Kildare.
Having bought a farm 4 years prior he put a lot of work in to install gallops and outdoor arenas and a host of other facilities to ensure that they had everything needed for training his horses.
Previously his runners had been spread among famous names such as Ted Walsh and Gordon Elliott to name but two but his desire to have a more hands on approach led to him taking out a training licence aged 60.
With space to have 25-30 runners at the stable at any one time and to train 10-15 younger horses to bring on behind, Connell is a master of his own destiny.
He is quoted as saying “I've done everything else in that I've owned, ridden and bred winners, so why not give it a go?”
Indeed, and he seems to have got off to a good start overall.
And in 2022 he seems to have really found his feet with a 26.23% strike rate.
His Handicap Novice Chasers and Hurdlers have come up short, 0 from 13 since his inception but other than that we will be interested to see how 2023 pans out for this new trainer.
System 70: JO-98-70-01-23-OCP-NH Trainers-B Connell-1st Qtr.
Back Barry (B) Connell’s National Hunt runners (Not Novices) during the first quarter of 2023.
Kieran Burke
Burke has a healthy strike rate of 26.56% strike rate for 2022, but the returns suggest that those runners may well be going off at the shorter end of the market.
Based in the heart of Dorset Kieran Burke started training in 2011 following a riding accident while as a former jockey, but you would only have seen a 20.00% + strike rate in that initial year, subsequent years 2012-2021 ranged from a flat 0.00% (0 winners from 59 runners in 2014) to 13.79%.
2022 has been an obviously good year, with profits coming from his Handicap runners which themselves have had a 35.56% strike rate.
Again 16 wins from 8 runners shows a trainer with a smaller bank of horses being used to the best of their ability, and the combined strike rate since September 2022 has been almost 50%, so we will be interested to see if Burke can continue to deliver profits from his Handicap runners over the next few months.
System 71: JO-98-71-01-23-OCP-NH Trainers-K Burke-1st Qtr.
Back Kieran Burke’s National Hunt Handicap runners during the first quarter of 2023.
Chris Gordon
Chris Gordon is also a dual purpose trainer based in Winchester. Starting out back in 2007 with his wife Jenny and no more horses than you could count on one hand the yard “survived” charging the bare minimum in training fees at the outset and gradually the yard grew.
Since 2012 the yard has had just one profitable year (2014) other than 2022, but the strike rate in 2022 has been than double that of 2014.
His National Hunt Flat and Hurdlers are the ones which generated the profit.
But eliminating the Maidens and Novice runners clearly shows that we would have lost little in terms of profits while maintaining an almost equivalent strike rate.
Whether 2022 is another one off year of profits it will be interesting to see, but we will look to follow his runners (excluding Novices and Maidens) for the start of 2023 and see whether there are any further profits to be had.
System 72: JO-98-72-01-23-OCP-NH Trainers-C Gordon-1st Qtr.
Back Chris Gordons Hurdle and NHF runners (excluding Novices and Maidens) for the first quarter of 2023.
Richard Bandey
Another relatively new trainer is Richard Bandey, previously an amateur jockey he decided to hang up his riding boots and concentrate on racehorse training and received a combined licence in 2018.
In his first full year in 2018 his National Hunt runners turned a profit of 44.50 points thanks to a 50/1 winner Fortune Bound with an overall strike rate for the year of 16.67%.
Move forward to 2019 and 2020 and these were the years of struggle with strike rates of 3.33% (1 winner from 30 runners) and 0.00% (0 from 24 runners) respectively.
2021 turned a healthy profit with a relatively low 13.33% strike rate thanks to a 20/1 and an 80/1 winner.
2022 though has seen a much better strike rate of 28.00%, profits accrued of 48.73 points certainly cannot be sniffed at with runners varying in price from 2/11F to 20/1.
His strike rate for 2022 has been evenly split between both Handicap and Non Handicap races.
Any winners could come from any of the various race disciplines within National Hunt racing.
A modestly small stable we will be interested to see how the yard can perform in the first quarter of 2023.
System 73: JO-98-73-01-23-OCP-NH Trainers-R Bandey-1st Qtr.
Follow Richard Bandey’s National Hunt runners for the first quarter of 2023.
And an aside to the top 25% performers we are also interested in Adam West showing an A/E of 1.80
For those that do not know A/E stands for Actual over Expected.
It is an indicator of the relative performance of the runners, and in purely simple terms an AE of greater than 1.00 shows that the runners outperformed their perceived odds and chance of winning their races. So, the greater the AE the better the performance compared to what was expected.
Operating a dual code yard (Flat and Jumps) West’s National Hunt performances have been far better than those of his Flat runners since he started in 2013.
An overall strike rate of just 6.35% on the All Weather (just 2.33% in 2022 to date) and 6.35% on the Turf Flat (6.50% in 2022 to date).
His National Hunt runners however have increased in number as the years progress and 2022 so far has shown a reliable performance with a strike rate of 23.53% in 2022 to date.
But we are aware that we need to be careful, those sixteen wins are split over 8 runners, and the bulk, 13, have been multiple wins in Handicap races.
That said we are going to be interested to see what happens in 2023 for the West yard’s National Hunt runners, as the yard continues to develop momentum for this race code.
System 74: JO-98-74-01-23-OCP-NH Trainers-A West-1st Qtr.
Follow Adam West’s National Hunt runners in the first quarter of 2023 to Win Only.
* All suggested bets are Win Only using the Exchanges and results will be recorded using Betfair SP less 2% commission.
