Research Corner – A Bit of Brazilian Magic
Hi All
At the time of writing the first Classics of the Flat Turf season have just been run and whilst many of the headlines about the Colts 2000 Guineas were about the flop of the hot favourite, City Of Troy, it did not go unnoticed that the Fillies Classic was won by the Roger Varian trained Elmalka, who was ridden by Silvestre De Sousa.
Silvestre De Sousa was British Champion jockey in the years 2015, 2017 and 2018 and was then retained for 3 seasons by King Power Racing, the operation founded by the late Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and run by his son, Aiyawatt.
After three seasons riding for King Power Racing, de Sousa was released from his contract and spent the 2022 season riding as a freelance but found that option challenging so in September 2022 he moved to Hong Kong. During the winter he rode 45 winners and was in fifth place in the jockeys' standings, with his mounts earning £7.7 million in prize money.
After a brush with the racing authorities, he was given a 10 month ban by the Hong Kong Jockey Club for a breach of betting rules and 2 months ago he found himself back in Britain as a freelance jockey.
Since his resumption back in Britain he rode his first winner on the 13th March and has quickly scored on another 19 runners from a total of 123 rides (16.26% Strike Rate) and these have produced a level stake profit of +34.69pts to the Betfair SP.
Clearly there is a hunger to get himself back to the top of the pile and he has already ridden 4 winners for the Roger Varian yard including the aforementioned 1000 Guineas heroine Elmalka, and that is from just the 9 rides since his return.
Newmarket based trainer, Chris Dwyer, has also teamed up to good effect with SDS with 5 winners from the combination and an eyewatering 70% Place Strike Rate in the last couple of months. The significance of that piece of data is that the trainer’s wife, Shelley Dwyer, is Silvestre De Sousa’s agent for booking his rides.
At the time of writing (May 9th) SDS has travelled to Brighton for 5 rides on the same day as the Chester May Festival is being held.
If we take a closer look at the Chris Dwyer/Silvestre De Sousa combination, we find the following: –
If we allow for the obvious availability issues of when SDS was retained by King Power Racing the combination must be of interest going forwards. But can we home in a little to focus on the key areas? The following is one that could help.
And a closer inspection shows these profits were achieved on rides particularly on the All Weather.
System: JO-115-17-06-24: Back the runners from Chris Dwyer’s yard when they are ridden by Silvestre De Sousa and entered to race in Handicap’s on the All Weather.
Whilst there will always be an element of guess work regarding the trainers that may be worth keeping an eye on when SDS is booked this season, it has to be fair to assume that previously strong alliances have the opportunity to be rekindled.
With that in mind let’s take a look at the stables that supplied the most winning rides for SDS over the past decade.
Starting from the top we see Mark Johnston, which of course now is headed up by his son Charlie, although Mark is still very much part of the team up at Middleham.
Johnston/SDS
As we have mentioned earlier there are valid reasons for the decline in numbers of rides and it will be interesting to see if the combination is rekindled. In the first couple of months, it hasn’t but the yard is known for their prolific numbers so let’s take a watching brief on this one for now.
The Channon yard is next, but the P&L figures do not look very promising, so moving on we have already clocked the opportunity with the Chris Dwyer yard.
Andrew Balding’s figures don’t look inspiring but there may be a tiny snippet that could be worth following, which is when the yard sends one up to Newcastle and SDS is booked to ride.
This has only happened 8 times in the last decade but 4 of these runners won including one in March of this year, with Superb Force winning at 4/1. There may not be many qualifiers, but it certainly looks one angle to keep an eye on.
The combinations of SDS with Simon Crisford and Mick Appleby have been patchy at best so moving on we come to Roger Varian.
Varian/SDS
As we can see from the above this combination have already hit the ground running in the last couple of months. Four winners from 9 such hook up’s have been positive ones including the aforementioned 1000 Guineas win with Elmalka.
System: JO-115-19-06-24-RC-DSousa/Varian – Back the runners trained by Roger Varian when they are to be ridden by Silvestre De Sousa
Until next time
Steve C
