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Following on from the thread where we have been discussing the tendency of punters to assume that where a stable has two horses entered, the ‘first string’ is the one with the higher profile jockey, I have been thinking about the extent to which a jockey booking influences our punting decisions.
You will commonly hear analysis of a race which includes the phrase ‘the booking of [insert jockey’s name here] looks signigicant’. Clearly, having a top jockey on board is a plus and sometimes a capable claimer taking weight off is also useful but the impression I get is that there is the suggestion that the trainer has chosen to put a particular jockey on board because ‘today’s the day’. This might be a top jockey riding for a smaller stable or it may be a particular jockey/trainer combination.
My own experience of booking jockeys is that you book the best jockey available on the day and if you’re lucky enough to get Jamie Spencer then that’s fantastic but if the only jockey available on a wet Monday at Wolverhampton is a seven pound claimer you’ve never heard of then there’s not a lot you can do about it.
We’ve been lucky enough to have Jamie Spencer ride for us a few times and he has won twice for us but on the occasions that he has ridden one of ours there was nothing ‘significant’ about it in the sense that ‘today was the day’. Indeed, the first time he rode for us, his agent rang up Mark for the ride on Mark’s other runner in the race only for Mark to tell him that we had the better chance.
Are there any occasions when anyone would treat a jockey booking as ‘significant’
When the mighty Kieren Fallon rides his next Group 1 winner for Ballydoyle, that will be significant.
Are there any occasions when anyone would treat a jockey booking as ‘significant’
The obvious one is Ruby booked for a Tony Martin handicap hurdle lightweight that has previously been unplaced x number of times under a 7lb claimer.
Are there any occasions when anyone would treat a jockey booking as ‘significant’
The obvious one is Ruby booked for a Tony Martin handicap hurdle lightweight that has previously been unplaced x number of times under a 7lb claimer.
I’ve always thought that if Tony Martin was trying to land a touch he wouldn’t do anything as obvious as that
Tuffers,
forgive me if I am supposed to know but who is "Mark" and who are "us" ?
Sorry – ‘Mark’ is Mark Brisbourne, our trainer and ‘us’ is the syndicate I run with my brother.
thanks Tuffers whats the name of the syndicate?
I think that any time I calculate the handicap, and its a close run thing – the booking of a claimer who has previously performed well for that horse or the yard is very significant.
thanks Tuffers whats the name of the syndicate?
I think that any time I calculate the handicap, and its a close run thing – the booking of a claimer who has previously performed well for that horse or the yard is very significant.
Stratford Bards Racing. We’re only a very small syndicate (we only ever have two horses in training at any one time). We had our best season last year when Elopement won the Channel 4 Trophy for us by winning 6 turf handicaps.
I can think of several times a jockey has made me look twice at a horse.
The most recent was the booking of Ruby Walsh by Emma Lavelle for Crack Away Jack in Binoculars race at Ascot.
When I looked at his form for his only race to date at that time I noticed he has beeen backed from 20/1 to 12/1 attracting several decent EW wagers.
While I never backed him those two factors put me off backing Binocular.
I latched on to Binocular and immediately bet him and started a thread.
Seabird asked me a week or so later if I had lost faith in Binocular because the 2nd in the Ascot race had been beaten I said no. I also said that CAJ was the only decent horse in the race apart from Binny.
I watched the race a few times and really though CAJ was a ready made winnerUnfortunately I never knew he was running at Sandown and missed betting him when he won and now the horse is fav for the Fred Winter.
The fact I never backed him is irrelevant. The point is had Ruby not have been booked I wouldn’t have looked at him twice.
I Think when any top jockey is booked for a small trainer we should take heed
As the original poster suggests, the phrase "jockey booking looks significant" is overused, and many times it’s simply a case of a top jockey not having a ride booked in a particular race and it being the best available.
The trouble for punters is it’s impossible to work out the significance of a booking unless you have the following information:
1. Who made the phone call – the jockey’s agent or the trainer/secretary?Some trainers will invariably attempt to book the best jockey available regardless of the horse’s chance, but others are more selective and only ring agents up for a top rider if the ride is perceived to be worth it.
2. When was the booking made? Was it the morning after the six-day entries came out, or five minutes after the 48-hour decs were published? That’s not to say that an early booking is always significant (some stables like to have everything jocked up long before they actuallly decide whether they will run – Mark Johnston’s being an example) or that a late booking isn’t (some stables will only engage a jockey when they have carefully examined the likely declarations a few minutes before the 10am declaration deadline), but nearly all jockeys pick up a fair percentage of their rides on the morning of declarations, quite often because their intended mount is pulled out and their agent is left looking for the best remaining ride. Plenty of trainers have no qualms about pulling their horses out just a few minutes before declaration if they don’t like the look of a race, even if it’s the champion jockey that they have booked, so top jocks often become free at the last moment.
3. Is their any special relationship between a jockey and connections, especially owners (this happens more often that many would realise) – I’m not talking about anything dodgy here, just that the jockey might know or have a gentleman’s agreement with the owner, that sort of thing.
4. If the jockey has a good record for the trainer, is the trainer selective about when he puts the jockey up? Quite often you will see stats quoted such as "jockey has won 3 out of 5 for stable", but the natural consequence of a good early record like this is that both parties are happy for the relationship to progress, with the natural regression to the mean ensuing. The booking of a rider who has had 3 wins from 5 rides for a stable in the last 3 years is more likely to be significant than the booking of one who has 3 from 5 in the last three weeks.
One thing I would recommend for punters is to keep an eye on the early jockey bookings in the RP with respect to top jockeys engaged for stables they are not automatically associated with on unraced horses or those with few runs and not an obvious form choice. In such circumstances, there’s a fair chance the trainer has rung the agent (rather than vice-versa) and told him something positive about the horse.
Also, be aware that on Saturdays there is such a shortage of jockeys because of number of meetings (and overseas Group races) that unusual jockey bookings are the norm rather than the exception.
Thanks for that very informative post, Hugh.
Is there any chance that you can find time in your busy schedule to describe a typical day in the life of a jockey’s agent?
Am I right to assume that Kerrin McEvoy will be riding in Britain again this year?
Colin
Hi Colin
Yes, Kerrin will be back for his usual stint, probably returning just before Guineas weekend.
Not sure I’m best qualified to give a "typical jockeys’ agent day" as I only do Kerrin whereas the average agent who does the job for a living will have anything from 3 or 4 up to, in a couple of cases, 30 or 40 riders on their books. There are a few other guys who just do the one jock (Ray Cochrane for Frankie, and Andrew Sheret for Jamie Spencer are the obvious ones) but most agents try and get several on their books, which must mean the phones never stop ringing.
I tend to be at my desk by 8am every morning, though I know plenty of other agents with bigger workloads start much earlier – I just find 8 is about the earliest you get calls coming in. With a high-profile jockey like Kerrin, you will probably already have most of your rides booked at this stage, at least in all the races you want rides in (we are not chasing riding fees and I try not to take rides for Kerrin that I think have no possible chance unless it’s for a stable he’s closely connected with).
The first couple of hours are pretty much spent monitoring the 48-hour decs, taking incoming calls from trainers (or more often, at least with the bigger yards, from their racing secretaries) who are making late plans to run or, in some instances, late plans not to run in races where they had earlier intended to.
You also need to keep a close eye on the declarations pages. For instance, sometimes a ride on a horse with a clear chance will become unexpectedly available because a jockey switches meetings, either through choice or because of his retainer. The Weatherby’s/BHA site not only shows which horses of the original entries are "jocked up", but also shows how many horses have been declared, updated every five minutes. Thus you can often more or less work out which horses have been declared; lots of trainers monitor this very closely before deciding whether or not to declare runners, often just a few minutes before the 10am deadline.
If you’re a jockey with a retaining stable, of course, your whole plans revolve around what your stable (or retaining owner) does, and if there’s a late change of plan, that can alter everything you’ve been working on for the last four days (i.e. since the six-day entries came out). And if your jockey is the stable’s second retained jockey, as is the case with Kerrin, your plans are also dependent on what the first jockey is doing (though Godolphin try really hard not to mess us around late, and if Kerrin had some good outside rides at, say, Newmarket and Godolphin made a late decision to run one in a Newmarket maiden, Simon Crisford would typically tell us to stay at HQ if we wanted, which not all retaining stables do).
About five or ten minutes after the 10am declaration deadline, the provisional declarations are published on the Weatherbys site. Usually, one or two of the declared horses will not be jocked up, so then it’s a free-for-all amongst the agents to try and secure those rides for any jockeys they have who are frere in that race. The provisional lists contain only the horses’ names, but you can work out the weights of each horse from the top horse declared, and there’s something wrong if you don’t know the trainers of each horse by this stage. The other things you’re looking for here is whether all your intended rides have made the cut, and whether maiden races have divided (though by this stage if you’re doing your job properly you have anticipated this and contacted trainers about possible plans if they do divide) About half an hour later, the final declarations are published, including any divided races, final weights and the draw.
In my case, the next hour or so is taken up looking at the races Kerrin is riding in today, as part of my job is to talk through each race with him in terms of where the pace is likely to come from and who the horses with the best chance are, in addition to any comments I have about the horse Kerrin is riding and any opinions I have about any track bias or anything like that, and any horses that may be worth being wary of (e.g. plays up at the start, or hangs during a race). Kerrin then usually rings me around midday (he will have been doing the same thing for the last hour) and we talk through each race. Sometimes that’s the only time we talk that day, other times we may chat multiple times, but we tend to communicate more by text unless it’s urgent, usually 10 or a dozen times a day, it’s easier all round especially as he’s often in the gym/getting ready for racing etc.
At around 1pm the six-day entries come out and you start sifting through them. I will already know what Godolphin have entered as their racing secretary emails the list of entries to Ray C and me, so I try and work out where Frankie might end up and work from there. If there is a horse Kerrin always rides, I’d tend to stick his name down on the horse (you just click next to it), but generally, it’s just guesswork for me where he might end up at this stage (unless Godolphin have entires at no more than one meeting). Again, the Weatherbys site gives only a limited amount of information at this stage – horse’s name, trainer, official rating and that’s about it.
Sometimes, if it’s an important ride that I know there will be competition for, I’ll ring up immediately, though really it depends on the stable concerned and their modus operandi; in most cases it can wait until first thing in the morning before ringing, as the trainers tend not to even look at the races until then. So in the afternoon you tend to sift your way through the runners whilst, obviously, watching the racing on RUK/ATR. Some agents do go to the races in the afternoons but I think most find, like me, that it’s so much easier having your PC with all the entries at hand, your main phone line(s) and the TV racing. I tend to go racing only to evening meetings and the occasional weekend one nowadays.
I try to "finish" for the day at the end of afternoon racing, although obviously I often need to watch the evening racing too; if Kerrin isn’t riding I’ll usually just tape it and watch it afterwards though. You don’t get too many calls after 5 or 5.30, unless it’s from some mad punter ringing you from Ireland at 1am to berate you about a ride Kerrin gave a horse he’d backed, as happened once last season. The only really sacrosanct time in this is on Sunday afternoons; it’s an unwritten rule that you wouldn’t phone a stable after about midday on Sundays, the one day that doesn’t have a six-day entry stage; used to be Tuesdays as well prior to six-day decs
Hope that answers your question! As I said, this is just my way of doing it, and others probably have totally different ways of working.
I really enjoyed reading the post above.
Taking the time and trouble to make such a detailed comment is exceptionally welcome.
Yes I have to agree!
What a superbly informative and interesting post to read.
Has definitely opened my eyes a little, as to how hard a job like that must be and the amount of time it would take up, especially if you were looking after a number of jocks.
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