Jonjo’s Chasers Come Alive In March

Finding trainers that do well at particular times of year can be profitable. However, so far the experience on this blog has been mixed. Emma Lavelle was profitable in October/November if you started backing from day one however she under-performed against previous years – not helped by a rather poor November. Backing Donald McCain’s runners in December was more of an experiment as he had only done well for the previous 2 years. He didn’t have a great December in 2014 with the type of runner  we focused on and I wont be jumping on that angle this year!

Anyway, I wasn’t intending on writing anything this week but then a qualifier emerged from a micro-system I had forgotten about (‘built’ a few months ago)…  

Rules: 

• Jonjo O’neill
• Handicap Chasers
• 14/1 or under
• March Only
• 1-60 days since last run

Results

It is always said that Jonjo gets his horses primed for this month and Cheltenham in particular. I thought I would look to see if the stats backed this up, which they do. His fit handicap chasers excel at this time of year and it isnt by accident. In fact his stats for his chasers for the rest of the year, using the criteria above..

682 bets / 107 wins / 15% win SR / -106 isp / AE 0.83 

Those returning after 60 days are: 21 bets / 1 win / 6 places … Jonjo does know how to target a horse after a break but he does appear to do best with those that have ‘recently’ proved their race fitness. 

So, a straightforward approach. As ever use this information as you please. You may wish to back selections blind or to use the information in your own race analysis. 

Cheltenham…3 of those 16 winners were at the Cheltenham Festival. Indeed his record at Cheltenham with qualifiers under the rules above are..

2010: Sunnhillboy 2nd 6/1 

2012: Alfie Sherrin WON 14/1 / Sunnyhillboy WON 13/2 

2013: Johns Spirit 7th 14/1 

2014: Holywell WON 10/1 

Not bad. 

Onto today…

There is a selection for this micro-system in the 3.30 Exeter…

Catching On 6/1 

I haven’t looked in depth at this race as I am trying to have mini-break leading up to Cheltenham – mainly because my ability to back winners during February was rather poor and sometimes you need to take yourself out of the day to day betting bubble. Jonjo has won this race twice in the last 6 years with Teeming Rain. He is young and unexposed and is still in the ‘could be anything’ category. He is one of the few horses you can say that about in this race. He is in form and clearly progressing. I don’t think Jonjo would aim him at this race if he didnt think he would stay. Now, of course he may not but that is the chance you take in these races. The other option is to go with a more exposed horse that may be proven in the conditions. I will leave you to look through the others…

Good Luck…

p.s At some point I will add all of the micro systems discussed on this blog to the systems tab, to save you having to dig out the various posts. The Suzy Smith ’90 Day’ angle is proving profitable. She had a winner yesterday and one the other day at Plumpton. Since I posted that angle she is 2/4 with 8/1 and 13/2 winners that were both fairly well backed. That post, for convenience is below….(I am aware I need to start sharing some more when time allows, Ralph Betckett was another I am tracking and he had an 8/1 winner yesterday that qualified) 

*****

90 Day Trainers – Another profitable approach.

I have to hold my hands up here.

I have ‘stolen’ an idea.

Firstly one of you, my email list subscribers/blog readers, got in touch – a nice chap called Bob- asking me to look into something for him. He remembered Matt Bisogno of www.geegeez.co.uk sending out something about trainer Graeme McPherson. Graeme did something very well.  He had a decent record when his handicappers were having only their first or second run in the last 90 days. (ie they had ran 0 or 1 time only in the last 90 days).

Now, why is this important? Well clearly Graeme is very good at getting horses fit at home, ensuring they have not been ‘over raced’ in the preceding few weeks and subsequently finding the right races for them.  This was potentially another method for identifying when horses were going to run well.

You know by now that I do like a good trainer angle. With this idea now in my head I set about researching some more trainers. (Matt is aware that I have ‘stolen’ his idea 🙂 ) As I found out looking at trainer’s handicappers that had 0 and/or 1 run only in the last 90 days appeared to be a decent approach.

So far, looking at my list, I have found 14 trainers that do this quite well. Since 2010 there have been 1125 selections, 278 winners, 474 places for a BFSP profit of 1711.73 points. That’s a 25.5% win strike rate and an average of 342 points profit a year. As you will see, some trainers have quite a low strike rate, others not so bad, and some bang in decent priced winners quite regularly. For some there are not many selections a year which means they are perfect to add to a portfolio.

I am going to go back through them and make sure I haven’t back-fitted etc (which you can do subconsciously!)  but thought i would share some now. Unsurprisingly it’s not just a case of finding a trainer with a decent record with handicappers having only their 1^st or 2^nd run in the last 90 days. Some trainers are better with certain types of horses than others and you need to check that results are not skewed by one or two big priced winners.  With any rule you need a logical reason for including it. If there is no logical reason you are simply back fitting to meet your own ends etc. And of course their record with this type of horse (0/1 runs 90 days) has to be better than when the horse has had more than that number of runs.

Anyway, with that said I am happy to share a few of these. Like I did with the trainer/jockey/track combos I will spread them out over a few posts. . I haven’t bet any of these live as yet and will be tracking their progress to see how they do.

1.Graeme McPherson

• Horse Run (last 90 days) Between 0 and 1
• Handicap
• Class 2,3,4
• Horse running same class as previous run or up1 or up2 classes.

2012 was clearly a difficult year but otherwise an ok set of results. He does have many decent priced winners and is actually unprofitable to follow with horses priced under 14/1. However I cant think of a logical reason to exclude those runners. He isnlt good at class5/6 (just poor animals i imagine) nor when dropping horses in class. He does have the odd winner but the general stats were not good.

2. Luca Cumani

• Horse Run (last 90 days) 0 ONLY
• Handicap
• Class 4, 5 only

Luca has a superb record at placing his horses in the lower grades (only a couple of runners in C6) when they havent had a run in the previous 90 days. He performs well above market expectations and generally makes steady profits every year. Even if you dont follow the selections systematically it will help with form analysis of a race knowing he has a 37% win strike rate with such runners. He is actually 0/9 with horses priced over 10/1 so you may just want to focus on the fancied runners. I suspect a few bigger priced horses in the morning get backed throughout the day into the 10/1 or under price range.

3. Miss Suzy Smith

• Horse Run (last 90 days) between 0 and 1
• Handicap Chase and Hurdle only
• 16/1 or under

A nice mini angle in which to target the Suzy Smith (not to be confused with Sue Smith) handicappers. They have to be generally well fancied. In fact she is 0/20 with horses priced over 16/1 although 5 have placed and I will be keeping an eye on this. She has been quite consistent over 5 years and I will always allow a trainer one unprofitable year out of 5, especially when it isnt totally disastrous.

That is it for today. Hopefully you found that useful/interesting. I will share the others in due course and I look forward to tracking them to see how they do. On the face of it this looks like a very profitable ‘way in’ when following certain trainer’s handicappers. I have to thank Bob who emailed in, and Matt for the original idea. As a thanks to him it would be wrong for me not to plug his Geegeez Gold again 🙂 You know I use this everyday and that I think you should be doing the same.

You can get your 10 day free trial below. Matt has created a new page which explains much more clearly what Gold is. So if you checked out the old page, or you are sitting on the fence, do click below to really see what you are missing. I would just sign up for the next 10 days as I am sure you will make more money using ‘Gold’ than you have in the previous 10 🙂