Do you have a favourite Victorian jockey? Who is it?

In this radio interview on RSN - Radio & Sport conducted by Nadia Horne, Dean The Trial Spy discusses the statistics of leading jockeys from Victoria.

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John Thwaites: Twenty four minutes to midday. Time on winners to touch base with Dean the Trial Spy and today we’re going to look at some of the stats of the leading trainers in both Sydney and New South Wales over the past few months and probably with this segment with Dean, it’s not just looking at the stats in their totality, we need to probably drill down and see if there’s specialist distance that the trainers sort of aim their horses for. Dean joins me now. How are you, Deano?

Dean the Trial Spy: Very well, John. How are things?

John Thwaites: Yes. Good, thank you. Very interesting topic this, because we all look at the strike rates of trainers, but if we drill down even further, Dean, we can really find some nice gold here, because some trainers seem to excel at certain distances and at certain tracks.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah, absolutely. What we’ve done here is uh...done a bit of analysis through the database on some of Australia’s leading trainers and sort of run it through basically using SP, the best of either SP or New South Wales or a very low proxy and most people will be able to best those sorts of prices, but basically, assuming that we’re backing each runner to win 4 units, we’ve just done some analysis to determine where these trainers are excelling and where their runners seem to be over bet.

John Thwaites: And of course, some of the trainers we’re going to look at, Darren Weir, Pete Moody, David Hayes, Chris Waller, they have an amazing amount of armoury in their stables, so they’re not short of runners. So, we really have to be very careful here in which ones we back.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah, absolutely. That’s key. They’ve got very, very large stables, plenty of horses and plenty of owners, but you know, despite the obviously outstanding ability of these trainers, every trainer has a few slow ones as well. So, it’s about trying to identify the right horses and also the right situations where these trainers seem to target their horses.

John Thwaites: Alright. Well let’s have a look at some of them. We’ll start off with Darren Weir. What have you found out about Darren?

Dean the Trial Spy: Um, a few interesting things about Darren. Firstly, in the distance range from about 900 meters to 1600 meters was fairly unprofitable as a whole, fairly negative numbers consistently showing through there and then once you get from 1700 meters above, quite positive numbers. So, Darren appears to be a trainer who really does excel with the stayers. In terms of prize money, something that really stands out is that, essentially from prize money levels of about 16000 above, all very positive with Darren, but massive losses on anything 15K and below and it also bears out in his numbers when you’re looking at country racing compared to metropolitan and provincial. Very, very positive profit on turnover on metropolitan races, but very low on country. And I think, you know, Darren’s a trainer that’s risen rapidly from country to a leading metropolitan trainer, but I think he’s still got a lot of those country horses as he does have a couple of training facilities. And it just appears because of his enormous success in the metropolitan world, a lot of his slower horses are being over bet in the country.

John Thwaites: Yes, for sure. Mondays and Tuesdays in the western districts. I don’t know if you have any…Sorry?

Dean the Trial Spy:  No, no. Carry on.

John Thwaites:  I don’t know if you have any stats on this, but Darren appears to have an amazing canny knack of getting horses from other stables and winning with them first up after lengthly spells.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yes, absolutely. I haven’t gotten the exact stats on that in front of me, but jeez, there’s been some countless examples. He got Aliana from the Cummings stable to win first up at Flemington about $14. You know, Count Encosta came from the Thompson stable and had a new lease of life. Yeah, I think he’s got that beach that he uses quite extensively on horses that have soundness issues and the like, and it just seems to work wonders with them.

John Thwaites: Peter Moody.  Well the first thing that springs to mind with Pete, Dean, is that he is so strong at Caulfield. Do the stats back up that fact?

Dean the Trial Spy: They do. They do. He’s very strong at home. He’s got very strong numbers in the shorter distance ranges around 900 to 1200 meters where his runners excel, sort of the opposite of Darren.  He also does well on that lower prize money bracket and that’s also borne out in sort of the country stats. So Peter Moody’s one you can follow when he takes his horses to the lower meetings. He seems to place his horses fairly well and his numbers quite evenly spread country, provincial to metro and he’s quite successful across the board there. He’s also, and what’s an interesting point across all these trainers and very surprising in some ways is, just looking at the raw numbers, with a lot of them their favoured runners are often not the profitable ones, which is really interesting to look at. But with Peter Moody, his favourite runners are. So he is sort of one of the stables where it looks like the money does talk with his stable and it’s quite accurate.

John Thwaites: David Hayes and nephew Tom Dabernig are two that have been in white hot form of recent times, Dean.

Dean the Trial Spy: It’s very interesting because, you know, David Hayes has had a sort of lean time of it for a few years. We’ve looked at his data over the last 365 days and to be honest his profit on turnover is the worst by a long way of these trainers we’re looking at, minus 36% and it was actually quite difficult to find any particular area, apart from first starter and horses that have sort of run between 8 and 11 days, so those that are backing up. Apart from that, it was difficult to find profitable edges with David Hayes. But, I think like you say, what’s happening now is he, by his own admission, has got his best stable for a long time currently and they’re starting to deliver a few more rewards now, but as a general hold, David Hayes has proven to be a bit over bet for quite some time.

John Thwaites: Yeah, probably with of course the name of Colin etcetera that have gone before him. But I suppose, with David, we have to understand that he’s started basically from scratch at Euroa. He’s now basically got that facility up and running as a, instead of a construction site, a training facility. So, I suppose we need to sort of bring that into account?

Dean the Trial Spy: Oh, absolutely. And all credit to him, you know he had 4 winners the other day at the big meeting. So, you know, his stable’s just starting to fire now and maybe as time goes on we’ll see these figures start to improve.

John Thwaites: Sydney’s an interesting situation, Dean, because Chris Waller just has an immense armoury in his stable, but I’ll be very interested, listening to you now, where is he most profitable?

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah, you know, Chris is interesting. Again, absolutely outstanding trainer, no doubt about that, but just so many runners and it can be hard when you’re analysing the data because, you know, he’ll have multiple runners in a race. So, you know, he might have 5 runners in a race and even if a winner wins at $5, he’ll still only break even, so when you’re looking at the data like this, there’s probably a lot more mining that needs to occur. In sort of the distance range, you know, very good with stayers again. Another one, you know 2000 to 2500. Wet tracks were actually better than dry tracks for Chris Waller. Something that really did stand out, you know, first up and second up, his horses weren’t a profitable betting proposition, but once they get to that thrid up and fourth up, which is something that he says himself, that’s when they really start to fire. And like a lot of the trainers, you know, something that does really stand out is the quick backup. You know. Horses between sort of 4 to 9 days since their last start backing up, they were very profitable.  

John Thwaites: Hmm, yes. A very, it’s very tough for punters not seeing races in Sydney as you have in the last 2 to 3 months, where there’s been a field of 7 or 8 and Waller’s had 4 or 5 of them.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah, and what’s interesting is, you know, people often notice that the outsider wins in a lot of cases and it actually is borne out in the data is, when his horses are ranked SP1, 2, or 3, you know, on that function alone, not very profitable and interestingly his 6th, 7th, 8th  SP ranked horse was actually profitable. Of course, you can’t just simply go and take any of this data, you know, you’re going to have to take it all at face value and incorporate it as part of a far wider analysis, but you know, it is interesting to see that, you know his horses are always there and always trying. But the market doesn’t always get it right.

John Thwaites: Hmm, for sure. Gai Waterhouse. Very interested to see what you found out about Gai.

Dean the Trial Spy: Gai very strong at 1000 meters and also very strong from 1900 to 3200, so she’s obviously a very versatile trainer. The stats also showed around that 30 to 50K prize money mark and from 200K above. So, very strong in the midweek, I think is what that shows and also in the big races and there’s profits to be made there. One thing that really did stand out was good tracks, highly, highly profitable on good tracks. And far less so, in fact negative on all the other tracks. So you know, for a trainer who likes unclear 9:19 up on the pace, obviously the good tracks suit her runners and also a trainer, more so than most of the others, where both first starters and horses first up were very successful.

John Thwaites: Yes, the TJ Smith legacy there of training them hard and getting them rock fit for a first up go race on speed, so the profile over a thousand doesn’t surprise.

Dean the Trial Spy: No. No. You know, essentially sort of Gai gets them up and running very early and the you’ve got the likes of Chris Waller and Darren Weir who ride better as they get a bit deeper into prep.

John Thwaites: Finally, Deano. Joe Pride. Now this is a trainer I’ve got a lot of time for but, in comparison to Waller and Waterhouse, he’s almost like a gorilla/guerilla 10:01 trainer, if I can use that term.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah, that’s right. You know, less runners. Probably about a third the number of runners over the 365 day period I looked at here. Very strong in the sprints, 900 to 1200 very strong there. Any race from 80K above, so Saturday above very, very strong, he’s going very well. Heavy in slow tracks. Very, very profitable Joe and that doesn’t surprise me when you sit and think a lot of his great horses like Reign Affair and Sacred Choice who won the Doncaster and all those 10:32. You know, he has a lot of good wet trackers and the numbers bear that out. And another trainer, in fact the most outstanding for first up horses. Joe Pride’s first up runners are enormously profitable with 32% profit on turnover on these runners which is incredible. So, you know, boy, first up runners for him. SP ranked 1, the favourite, very, very profitable, unlike most of the trainers. So, quite interesting that, you know, you sort of look at Joe Pride and Gai Waterhouse, they are very similar and then you look at Chris Waller and Darren Weir, they are very similar, but both of them are sort of opposite extremes.

John Thwaites: Hmm. Very interesting. I must say, I have noticed with Joe, particularly through Rock Sturdy, when the money goes on, the horse really runs a forward race.  

Dean the Trial Spy: Absolutely and that is the case with all of his runners. You know, it just is really interesting to see that, you know, the money really does talk and it’s bang on when the Joe Pride stable and the Gai Waterhouse stable, when their runners are, when the market believes they’re on, they are on. Whereas Waller and Weir, you know, interestingly, that doesn’t seem to be the case but, they’re obviously winning a lot of races, so sometimes the market just seems to get their runners wrong.

John Thwaites: Fascinating stuff there, Dean, because look, we all look at the strike rate of trainers and sort of use that as the template, but it’s not probably the way to make money because you really need to drill down in and find out where these trainers really excel and why they excel there.

Dean the Trial Spy: Absolutely. You’ve got to keep drilling and drilling and trying to find those little niches and those little edges that the market may have missed to determine whether to back or unclear 12:10

John Thwaites: Hmm. For sure. Hey, Dean, good on you mate. You have a good week, mate.

Dean the Trial Spy: You too. Thanks very much, John.

John Thwaites: Dean the Trial Spy with some very interesting comments there with all the unclear 12:21. You can hear that later on on podcast, but I’ve got a big opinion of Joey Pride as a trainer. There you go, 32% strike rate first up and when that is franked by market support, I think you can bet with a bit of confidence.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah,

John Thwaites: Exactly.

Dean the Trial Spy: Alright.

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