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.
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.
A look at jockeys and it’s immediately clear our best chance is to just go with Ryan Moore’s rides.
Things are looking more promising now.
A glance at the festivals shows that the Newmarket Guineas and York 3 Day are not happy hunting grounds.
Here’s the record of those two festivals over each of the years.
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.
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.
Removed they give us this.
I think we’re good to go with that.
System: JO-126-62-05-2025-May Micro - O’Brien
Next up William Haggas.
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.
Followed by removing 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.
Here are the system settings:
System: JO-126-63-05-2025-May Micro - Haggas
John and Thady Gosden next and our best starting position yet.
A look through the festivals throws up this for Chester. Just 1 win in 12 runs and that was odds on.
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.
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.
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.
This leaves us with this.
Here’s the system settings:
System: JO-126-64-05-2025-May Micro - Gosden
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