Image shows horses galloping on turf, one of the hroses has a visor on and the text overlay reads profitable may systems

Spring into Profit: Horse Racing Strategies for May’s Calendar

It’s that time again. After a very successful month for March, it will be interesting to see how April’s systems get on.  At the time of writing the Aintree National Meeting is just getting underway and to date there’s only been one runner on April’s micro systems which are all on the flat.

As usual, we will start by getting together a list of trainers who show a positive A/E for the last three Mays as a whole. We’ll look at those with the most winners and then see how they look for each of the years and whether there is a micro system to be found within the data.

I’ve broken down the initial list to include only those with 25 wins or more. 

It was interesting to see how many of those with a good number of winners actually had some very low A/E figures.

Trainer breakdown

It seems unlikely we’ll find something profitable with Aiden O’Brien but never say never, let’s take a look!

His raw stats show a big loss for last year but we do have a lot of bets to work with so we won’t give up just yet.

Year breakdown

A look at jockeys and it’s immediately clear our best chance is to just go with Ryan Moore’s rides.

Jockey breakdown

Things are looking more promising now.

Yearly breakdown

A glance at the festivals shows that the Newmarket Guineas and York 3 Day are not happy hunting grounds.

Festivals listing

Here’s the record of those two festivals over each of the years.

Yearly breakdown

He’ll probably roll in a 20/1 winner this year now but I think it’s a fair assumption to feel he doesn’t target these as much as others. 

Maybe not, but either way he hasn’t been successful at either so we’ll remove them.

A useful filter here now. One that will reduce the bets and increase the strike rate.  If his horses have already had 2 runs this season then there’s no profit to be found.

Sesons Runs

This is an interesting table.   It would appear, not unsurprisingly, that his Group runners with Ryan Moore onboard are very much fancied and short priced.  I think there’s an argument here to remove them, even Group 3 which does show a profit but has a 2.67 BSP average win price.

Group and Listed Runners

Removed they give us this.

Breakdown by year

I think we’re good to go with that.

Horseracebase settings for System: JO-126-62-05-2025-May Micro - O’Brien

Next up William Haggas.

Haggas Yearly breakdown

Not the best starting point but let’s see what’s what.

Concentrating on Tom Marquand’s rides only seems to be the best route in here.

Tom Marquand rides

Followed by removing handicap races.

Handicap races

And those two filters give us a promising micro system.  2022 was particularly good but 2023 and 2024 both saw profit and also some nice place profit as well.

Yearly breakdown

Here are the system settings:

Horseracebase settings for System: JO-126-63-05-2025-May Micro - Haggas

John and Thady Gosden next and our best starting position yet.

Gosden yearly

A look through the festivals throws up this for Chester.  Just 1 win in 12 runs and that was odds on.

1-12 runs

Field size now and very interesting to see that anything with 13 or more runners in has shown a complete blank in regard to wins. 

Field size

This table is an interesting one.  Forecast Favourites. Basically, if it is then it just about breaks even.

Nothing bad in that but being as we are looking for micro systems, this is a chance to reduce our bets by some margin. It does of course reduce our strike rate but not at the expense of our profit.

Favourites

A look at jockeys and we can remove all those jockeys who have not recorded a win under the Gosden’s to bring down the number of bets a little further.

Jockeys

This leaves us with this.

Yearly breakdown

Here’s the system settings:

Horserace basae settings for System: JO-126-64-05-2025-May Micro - Gosden

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