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Research Corner – Trainers to Note during January

horse racing trainers in form

Hi All

Here is our regular look at the horse racing trainers we expect to be in form for January.

It is hard to comprehend that we are already looking ahead to 2022…where did the last 12 months go?

At the time of writing, the King George at Kempton and Welsh National at Chepstow are looming large, so this time we are going to focus our endeavours on the National Hunt trainers which have in the recent past achieved a bright start to the first month of the New Year.

As with last time around we are going to use a duo of tried and tested sources for our research, the excellent database at Horseracebase and the Adrian Massey portal.

On Course Profits free Horse Racing magazine

Horse Racing Trainers In Form

We will start the process by considering the top 20 UK National Hunt trainers ranked by the number of winners that they saddled during January over the most recent 5 year period: –

Unlike last time around when the top 3 places were dominated by the usual suspects of Henderson, Nicholls and Skelton, this time “Twister” has moved into second place and the Skelton stable are only in 8th place.

No doubt with the build up to the Cheltenham Festival being in full swing this may have a significant bearing on the individual stables plans.

Paul Nicholls also tends to give the majority of his horses their mid winter flu jab during early January so they traditionally have a quieter time of things for a couple of weeks soon after.

At first glance Nicky Henderson’s 89 winners and level stakes profit at the Betfair SP catches the eye but on closer inspection the performance has been diminishing during the more recent years during the month of January.

One of the stables towards the head of the earlier January chart is Olly Murphy of whom we highlighted in the December Research Corner piece, so let us see whether there any potential nuggets for the month of January.

Olly Murphy

Apart from a blip in January 2019 the yards record at the start of the year since taking out a trainers license in 2017 makes for good reading.

On that basis it could pay to keep close tabs on the runners sent to the track during January 2022.

Actual versus Expected

One solid indicator that can be used to demonstrate if there are potentially profitable angles is the A/E or Actual versus Expected.

We have given a detailed explanation in past articles but in simple terms any figure below 1.00 means an underperformance to market whilst any, in excess of 1.00 is a positive indicator.

Olly Murphy

Olly Murphy has been operating at an average A/E over the past 4 years of 1.27 so we will now take a closer look at the performance by race type.

The Bumper runners and those in Novice Hurdles look pretty standout, whilst those in Handicap Hurdles and Chases less so.

This may well change as the horses mature but for now we will stay with what appears to be the most interesting categories:

System 40: Back the runners trained by Olly Murphy when they are entered in National Hunt Flat races (Bumpers) and Novice Hurdles during the month of January.

To read the rest of this article and gain access to four further micro systems with a combined ROI of 107% upgrade your account to Gold or Platinum – Full details HERE.

If you are already a Gold or Platinum member you can read the full article in Issue 86 which you can find here.

As ever stay safe and always bet within your means.

Steve Carter

Featured Image: Donald McCain Shares A Joke(CC BY-SA 4.0)

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