Horse Racing Fixture Profiler - Wednesday in May 2010

Your Free Tips For Today...

Huntingdon 5.20 Silver Roque 7th 11/2 has the best credentials as far as the local profiler spoilers are concerned and this was the winning direction here last week at Huntingdon. Regardless of the fact he carries a dominator jockey, he has the highest TFC/sr score and a very high (though not the highest, the third best at 28%) JFR/sr score for chases (don't ask me why this profile favours chase-winning jockeys -it's a quirk).

Meanwhile both the general profile (P0) and successful P2 decline to make a selection here as, despite the big field, no candidate is an exact enough fit for either profile. So we turn instead to race experience leaning Profile 4 which goes with Himrayn 2nd 40/1 and LTO and in-form jockey leaning Profile 1 which goes with General Ting NR given his jockey with a better in-form record than the jockey on board the other LTO, Clerk's Choice WON 1/3 , a popular past selection of ours.

Cheltenham No Novices' Hurdles today.

Kelso No Novices' Hurdles today.

A Study Of Novices' Hurdles Using Profiles - The Numbers

The keys to this race-type are:-
9PFF
Weight (avoid penalized horses unless carrying claimers)
JockeyForm/Now/strike rate (also known as JFN/sr)

This month we are continuing to focus on Novices' Hurdles. There is a general profile (also known as Profile 0 or P0) which has a solid record of identifying winners in this race-type. We can show for instance that in March 2010 it identified the winner in 42% of 19 such races studied and in April 2010 it identified the winner in 44% of 18 Novices' Hurdles. The combined strike rate for both study sets is 43% (16/37) so we have a fairly consistent performance over two months. This month we will monitor the strike rate but also the return on investment which is usually a better indicator as to whether an investment is worthwhile. In other words, are the general profile selections worth betting on?

So far in May there has only been one single Novices' Hurdle and that was the SIS Live Novices' Hurdle run yesterday at Fakenham (3.20). In that race the general profile selected the winner Sininlaw yielding a 100% strike rate record for May so far (but obviously, based on a single race, it's too early to give this much credence). To give us an idea of ROI (return on investment), we will consider what we could have earned for a 10.00 unit stake (pounds, dollars, shillings - you decide the unit of measure). Sininlaw was 11/1 and so would have returned 110.00 profit to a 10.00 stake. So that means a total month-so-far earnings of 110.00. Another way to look at it is to consider the percentage earnings compared with the total stake amount we expect to spend in the entire month. If we assume that we will cover twenty races during May, the total stake amount needed would be 200.00. In other words we start with a bank of 200.00. After this first bet, the bank would now be at 310.00. That represents a 55% interest rate on the initial bank balance. This is a very impressive figure right now but we should fully expect this measure to go down significantly as the month goes on. So, a nice start to the month for the general profile. It's worth noting however that the April study, which started on April 19th, got off to a similarly great start. Interestingly that same winning selection, Clerk's Choice, runs in today's race.

The general profile suggests looking for the best form horse using 9PFF. If the horse is weight penalized and unless he has a claiming jockey (claiming 5lb or more and preferably a JFN/sr leader) to off-set most/all of the penalty, consider him for a place. Otherwise go with unpenalized 9PFF leader preferably but not neccessarily carrying a strong JFN/sr jockey.

There are three main alternatives to the general profile, one of which (called Profile 2 or P2) had an even better record in April than P0 selecting 9/18 Novices' Hurdle winners - an impressive 50% strike rate. Better yet, P2 got off to a flying start in May by also selecting yesterday's 11/1 winner so all in all it's another good profile to follow. P2 starts by selecting the top three jockeys on JFN/sr and then selects the horse with the best 9PFF among them.

Another alternative to the general profile, which I refer to as Profile 1 (or P1) directs us to look for any last time out winners (LTOs) and if there are more than one, choose the one with the best jockey on JFN/sr. That profile picked 5/13 winners of Novices' Hurdles during the April study (it does not have selections in all races as there are not always LTO winners in the field) giving it a 38% general success rate. We'll keep an eye on it.

The third alternative to the general profile will also be added to our consideration: Called Profile 4 (or P4), it has identified race experience (sometimes including flat and even less often, including Irish PtP) to be a key in some Novices' Hurdles only really trump-able by race fit previous winning more superior 9PFF horses when present. Weight penalties cause as much of an issue for both selections and spoilers (ie the trump horses) here as elsewhere in Novices' Hurdles. Though generally a strong profile, Profile 4 does not have a very good strike rate over the past month although in the last week or so it has enjoyed a lot of success predicting 2/2 winners at decent odds last Tuesday. We will certainly take note of it.

Finally Huntingdon has its own local profile and this should definitely be considered in light of the fact that in 6/8 of the last Novices' Hurdles we have studied, either the local profile or the local profile spoiler advice has correctly identified the winner giving the best strike rate record yet: 75%. Huntingdon basically follows the general profile as a rule but it also mentions spoilers to the profile can sometimes be identified as follows:

TFC has greater emphasis than normal as does JF including JF/R chase specialists.

We have to take this advice especially seriously since only last week at Huntingdon all the profiles above failed to select the winner but this spoiler advice did point in the right direction as the winner fit both strike rate categories being #1 TFC/sr (19%, 7) and #1 JFR/sr for chases albeit only with volume of 1 (33%, 1).