Our May Micro Systems
Is it that time of year already? Well, not at the time of writing but the Flat season has started and the first weekend of Doncaster is in the books already.
As always, we’ll start by taking a look back at how the previous Month’s micro systems fared, in this case it’s those for March. Combined they ended in profit on both win and place which was great and potentially six of the nine could go live. I say six because one is in profit over all but made a loss on the win side of things. More on that in a moment though.
First though we’ll see who won’t be making it.
The Nicholls/Cobden system was never going to be a thing next year anyway with the parting of the ways and although it made a profit overall of a point or so with a 3.76 loss on wins and 5.22 profit on place it probably wouldn’t have made it anyway even if Harry Cobden hadn’t moved elsewhere.
The other two that failed to perform were Lucinda Russell who’s having a tough time of it this year and the Carr/Sullivan pairing who could only muster 2 wins from their 23 efforts.
On now to the good news, figures read win then place with any losses in red.
Snowden / Sheehan: +10.24 and +0.89
Mullins / Townend: +3.21 and +1.26
Richards / McMenamin: +5.00 and +0.78
Watson / Doyle +7.36 and -1.48
Balding / Murphy + 7.81 and +1.02
And then the final one that I think I will run again next year although I will have a good look at it to see if anything can be tweaked is the Murphy / Bowen one which actually ended up almost 5 points but lost -7.48 on wins whilst gaining an impressive 12.45 points on places, maintaining a 51.52% place strike rate across the month. Across the board we hit a 25% strike rate on wins and 46.32% on places.
The complete results table is below.
That one is in the books then and hopefully April will bring similar good news.
Now it’s time to turn our attention to May.
The approach will be the same, using the excellent dig function at https://www.horseracebase.com/ to see which trainer and jockey combos have historically performed well during the past four Mays. From there we’ll investigate to see what micro systems we can find.
We’ll start with the Flat and our first port of call is the partnership of Karl Burke and Clifford Lee.
Over the last four Mays they have come together 139 times for a strike rate of 22.3% and an overall profit of 38.42 pts although two of the years show losses.
With all that data let’s have a look and see if we can find a micro system.
A look at the forecast odds of his horses over the period suggest that they have to be at least not considered an outsider. Everything 14/1 and above has a record of just 1 win from 26 qualifiers, so I think we’ll remove those to start with.
Horses making their debut are also worth removing. Whilst they have had a modest 18.18% strike rate, they show losses of over 10 points and an A/E of just 0.66.
Cheekpieces, Visor or a Hood combine for just 1 win from 10 attempts for an almost 9 point loss so we’ll add them to the discarded data.
If we look at race types then it’s clear the profits are from Handicap and Non-Handicap races. Sellers, Maidens and Novices all show losses and just 2 wins from 10 runs.
As far as Age Restrictions go 3yo+ races although showing a tiny profit have a strike rate of just 16.64% compared to the 30% in all other age restriction ranges. We’ll remove those which will trim our qualifiers and raise our overall strike rate at the same time.
All of which leaves us with this micro system for Burke and Clifford.
Longest Losing Run (win): 9 Longest Losing Run (place): 5
Next one is Aidan O’Brien and Wayne Lordan.
A look at race quality suggests Group/Grade 1 and 2 are not successful with a record of 0 from 13. I would think that perhaps with Ryan Moore being the main man perhaps the Lordan mounts are in there more often as pacemakers than genuine chances.
As usual for Aidan O’Brien the handicap efforts show a loss and just one win from nine attempts.
If we look at age restrictions the success in this partnership over the past four Mays have definitely come in the 3yo and 3yo+ ranges.
If we also look at season runs it seems that if the first run of the season was in May then it has been something of a cobweb clearer with nearly all the wins coming from second and third runs.
This leaves us with a promising micro system that has profited each year and picked up a couple of nice winners along the way here and there as well. Along with a stunning strike rate last May!
Longest Losing Run (win): 5 Longest Losing Run (place): 3
Tony Carroll and Jack Doughty are our next pairing.
If we look at race types then Handicaps are far and away the worst area. A strike rate of just 11% compared to around 30% on the rest.
All of their May wins have come from horses that finished in the first three last time out.
And this gives us another micro system for May.
Longest Losing Run (win): 5 Longest Losing Run (place): 5
Our next pairing is Hugo Palmer and Oisin Murphy.
Looking at race types, their best results come in Handicaps during the last four Mays.
With just that filter we have a micro system that went 0-3 in 2023 but the past two Mays have been very solid.
Longest Losing Run (win): 4 Longest Losing Run (place): 2
Next up is the Charlie Appleby and William Buick partnership.
If we look at Class it’s the top end where the best performances have been during the last four Mays and if we concentrate solely on the Newmarket Guineas we can find ourselves a nice little micro system for when these two team up. They have been profitable across all of the last four years and last year they were only out of the places on 2 occasions from 11 rides.
Longest Losing Run (win): 5 Longest Losing Run (place): 5
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