Oisin Murphy – An Angle

First things first. Who the hell am I? I may be a newcomer in terms of writing for this publication, but I am by no means a novice. I have a bloodline allegedly tracing back to the great Fred Archer which is presumably the reason I was watching the racing rather than Andy Pandy and Camberwick Green as a kid in the 1960s. A growth spurt put paid to my claims to follow in my ancestor's footsteps, but a job with the old Extel betting shop service at the age of eighteen opened the door to a forty-eight year career in commentating on the sport through various media channels.

Retirement two years ago left me with a gap to fill. Having lost an edge from watching a lot of races on a weekly basis, I had to look elsewhere to gain an advantage. This publication, its systems and microsystems have been an inspiration. Now it's my turn to share some of my findings.

To state the obvious my interest has always been to find systems that would fit in a portfolio which could provide an income and minimise the losing runs.

Having accidentally come up with the Oisin Murphy/Hugo Palmer connection that Darren has alluded to in his daily emails, I now want to look at another means of exploiting the rider's exceptional talent. It should come as no surprise, given his battles with his weight, the demand for his talents as a horseman and the feedback he gives owners and trainers, that Oisin Murphy is a man to follow in non-handicaps. When looking at the figures below it should be remembered that he served a ban which kept him out of action in 2022.

The table below is based on those jockeys who were in the top twenty of riders in 2025 and I have taken the top five based on win percentages. It shows the record of each rider in non-handicaps since 2021 with a maximum BSP of 15.00.

William Buick has actually made a loss since 2023, whereas Oisin Murphy has returned a double figure profit every year for the past ten years apart from 2018. The figures are more startling when you analyse Murphy's record by the class of the race:

Looking at those percentages, it seemed obvious to check out the class four and five races to see if the data was telling us more. The first thing to jump out from the records, using the above criteria, is his relatively inferior record in five furlong races. Ninety-two percent of the loss at this trip can be attributed to juvenile contests but given his most significant trainers and owners have few runners at this trip, there are grounds to discard all runners at the trip rather than complicate things.

The second was that October was a poor month revealing a significant loss from eighty-five bets.

The competitive nature of maidens/novices at this time of year is an obvious factor, whilst a deeper dive into the October results revealed that one of the main issues was a poor set of returns at Kempton. In fact, his ROI% in AW non-handicaps races since 2021 is just 2.26% and there is only one profitable year in that period.

In summary the simple set of rules are to follow Oisin Murphy in class 4/5 non-handicaps. Exclude 5f races, all-weather races and races run in October. Depending on the type of punter you are, there are three options you can follow. Firstly, this base principal which has produced the following totals since 2021:

The annual breakdown is:

Alternatively, if you are in a position to use the 15.00BSP or less filter the results improve as below:

For which the annual results are:

And if you want to exclude odds-on selections:

And again, on annual basis the annual figures are:

The longest losing run in the latter scenario is ten and coincided with his last few rides in 2021 and his first few after his return in 2023. There are also two losing runs of nine. The other two options each had one losing run of nine.

The average BSP of his winners in scenario three is 4/1 and with a strike rate of 35%, the value of having him on board is clear to see. I started live testing the theory in 2025, since when that average BSP has held and the strike rate has been 40%.

These are figures that are hard to ignore and, now that I've gone public with them, I hope they continue to impress.

Peter Appleby