Statman Reborn – Episode Two
Finding new angles to try and eke a profit out of our betting each month has never been an easy task, but luckily, I have a pretty fertile imagination – and a very good racing database that I can investigate at leisure. I have, in the past, been accused of digging too deep and leaving too few bates for your average punter (profitable or not), but I have also annoyed others by making things far too simple, providing far too many bets – evidence that you can’t please everyone whatever you do.
This month I have decided to focus on all-weather racing – not everybody’s cup of tea I agree, but a rich vein of profit in the past and, like it or not, one of the few growth areas in our sport with filled races and regular nine race cards – who expected that back in October 1989 when Lingfield staged the first meeting on the equitrack and my good friend Conrad Allen trained the first winner with Niklas Angel? Anyway, with months of all-weather Flat racing to look forward to, let’s go find a profitable way to make some money, however low the standard!
Concept
I come from a generation where any kind of headgear was seen as a badge of shame – only given to horses who weren’t willing to put it all in when asked, making them horses to avoid at all costs – but I looked at recent results and noted plenty of winners wearing first time blinkers, cheekpieces, or a hood, suggesting I have it all wrong (not for the first time).
So, the questions that need answering are obvious to me – do certain trainers use headgear better than others, are they more beneficial over shorter trips, do they only work first time, and do they help to land a gamble now and then – lets go and find out (oh, and I am throwing in tongue ties and wind-ops (first three starts after surgery unless annotated otherwise) for good measure).
The Data
I was originally only going to look at the months of October to March when there is little to no Flat racing on the turf, BUT the numbers that produced were way too small to take seriously – so we will make this an all-year all-weather concept instead, which will also apply to the months mentioned.
Data used is limited to the last 10 years (1 January 2014 to 6th October 2024 for clarification) and all profits are recorded to both Betfair SP (assuming 2% commission paid) and Industry SP where appropriate.
A minimum of 10 runners per month (average), 10 or more winners, and a minimum 10% strike rate are also needed to be included to attempt to avoid one winner skewing our figures. All races are included unless annotated differently, for both the United Kingdom and Ireland for clarification.
The Presentation
As mentioned last month (on my “debut”), I am a massive lover of tables as they put all the info in front of you to do with as you see fit, and when it suits you.
Each section will be clearly labelled, starting with an overview before breakdowns to make the profit percentages better (or worse), and with a brief summary below each section.
Any “minimums” will be stated per table and dependent on the numbers involved, but those with one or two winners at exaggerated prices will be removed as anomalies.
Summary: This is meant as nothing more than our baseline. I was surprised to see a profit to BSP for all horses carrying blinkers, wearing a tongue-tie, or after a wind-op I admit, less so by the very poor figures for the others and the overall losses, but now we have something to start digging into finding ourselves a winning system - and we have a pretty steady 10% or so strike rate to compare suggestions with.
Summary: A small pattern appears to be emerging from the depths with blinkers and tongue-ties looking to be the best angles by far, so now we can look a little deeper.
Summary: A return on investment (for those who like that sort of thing) of 43.88% overall to BSP, and 13.19% to Industry Starting Price isn’t too bad, with Gary Moore (now Gary and Josh Moore) the stand out result with a close to one in five strike rate and a return on investment of 95.55% from his Sussex base - suggesting to the ex-jump jockey knows exactly the sort who will improve for blinkers - more so than most or all of his rivals in the training ranks.
System 59: JO-120-59-11-24
System: Back the All Weather entries of the named trainers when blinkers are applied.
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