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I’ve been reflecting on the jump jockeys championship and the late surge of Harry Skelton aided by Dan Skelton. Dan was able to place lots of horses in midweek low value races which went off at short odds. By contrast Brian Hughes didn’t have such good rides, as he was partly reliant on Don McCain, whose horses weren’t on average as good as the Skeltons’.
It raises the issue of what trainers and owners are trying to achieve. Is winning more important than prize money, so better to win three £3,000 races as you push a horse from say 80 to 100 rating, or try to win one race worth £15,000? Low value races don’t strike me as very economic as it must cost at least £1,000 to enter, pay fees and transport, but on the other hand racing isn’t very economic for owners anyway. Can trainers dictate to owners? It seems likely that the Skelton entries were designed to help Harry, and I am a bit surprised the owners were happy to go along with it.
I recall reading somewhere that there are computer programmes to assist trainers with entries. Are these merely to help admin or do they identify the best races for each horse to enter to have the best chance of winning?
From a punting point of view maybe all you need is the trainer strike rates, but ideally I’d like to know why each horse happens to be in a particular race, as it should shed some light on its winning chances. This seems to be more important information than say whether the Timeform rating is 97 or 98, which is usually priced in. I think you might be able to infer something if you knew the trainer/owner strategy, but it doesn’t seem to be much discussed. Presumably McCain and Skelton have different approaches, and say Paul Nicholls or Mark Johnston would be different again.
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