2yo maiden debuts – does the course make a difference? By David Renham

 

This month I have been investigating data for 2yo maiden debuts. I had a simple idea to test – does the course where the horse begins its career make a difference in subsequent races? Instead of simply looking at the next race performance, I have looked at their next three starts – so in this case their 2nd, 3rd and 4th career starts.

 

I decided to compare six courses – three top Grade 1 courses Newmarket, Newbury and Goodwood; and three lower grade courses – Brighton, Hamilton and Chepstow. Here are the findings:

 

Made debut at Newmarket in 2yo maiden – results of next 3 runs:

 

Subsequent run	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
Second Career Run	499	3053	16.34	-£381.65	-12.50
Third Career Run	446	2799	15.93	-£317.39	-11.34
Fourth Career Run	362	2531	14.30	-£476.09	-18.81

 

Newmarket is known as the Headquarters of British flat racing so one would expect that a good proportion of best 2yos make their debut there and the results of their subsequent three starts seems to back this theory up. Although they make losses, they are not too steep and the strike rates are very acceptable.

 

Made debut at Newbury in 2yo maiden – results of next 3 runs:

 

Subsequent run	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
Second Career Run	276	1847	14.94	-£363.42	-19.68
Third Career Run	236	1691	13.96	-£128.25	-7.58
Fourth Career Run	217	1555	13.95	-£363.93	-23.40

 

The results for Newbury are not quite as good as Newmarket, but with an overall strike rate of around 14% these runners have an above average success rate on their next three runs. Newbury sees some of best Lambourn trained 2yos on debut so these results are pretty much as expected.

 

Made debut at Goodwood in 2yo maiden – results of next 3 runs:

 

Subsequent run	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
Second Career Run	166	1167	14.22	+£126.61	+10.85
Third Career Run	148	1065	13.90	-£147.33	-13.83
Fourth Career Run	106	978	10.84	-£333.22	-34.07

 

Goodwood is one of the top tracks in the country and it is interesting to see a blind profit made on second career starts. Having said that with winners at 100/1 and 66/1 (three times) one can see how this profit was achieved. Overall though when we look at the strike rates the Goodwood debutants are probably not as good as those that either Newmarket or Newbury.

 

Let us look at three lower Grade tracks now and their results.

 

 

 

 

Made debut at Brighton in 2yo maiden – results of next 3 runs:

 

Subsequent run	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
Second Career Run	59	620	9.52	-£294.96	-47.57
Third Career Run	48	561	8.56	-£279.81	-49.88
Fourth Career Run	55	508	10.83	-£152.08	-29.94

 

Quite a significant difference can be seen in comparison with the Grade 1 tracks – much lower striker rates and significant losses; especially for the second and third runs.

 

Made debut at Hamilton in 2yo maiden – results of next 3 runs:

 

Subsequent run	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
Second Career Run	40	440	9.09	-£216.84	-49.28
Third Career Run	43	410	10.49	-£208.00	-50.73
Fourth Career Run	38	373	10.19	-£151.30	-40.56

 

Even worse returns from Hamilton debutants and I would be wary of backing any Hamilton 2yo maiden debutant in subsequent races – well the next three anyway.

 

Made debut at Chepstow in 2yo maiden – results of next 3 runs:

 

Subsequent run	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
Second Career Run	47	521	9.02	-£300.04	-57.59
Third Career Run	43	480	8.96	-£202.86	-42.26
Fourth Career Run	42	434	9.68	-£155.68	-35.87

 

Chepstow sees some good quality National Hunt racing, but the flat fare is decidedly modest. The results for horses that make their 2yo debuts at Chepstow in maidens mirror the poor Brighton and Hamilton results.

 

For the next table I have combined the results for the 2 ‘groups’ to give us an overview:

 

Courses combined	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
Newmarket, Newbury, Goodwood	2456	16686	14.72	-£2384.67	-14.29
Brighton, Hamilton, Chepstow	415	4347	9.55	-£1961.57	-45.12

 

This table shows even more clearly that it can be very significant where a horse makes its 2yo maiden debut.

 

With the strike rates for Newmarket debutants on their next three runs, being the highest, I feel it is worth investigating these runners in more detail/

 

Focus on Newmarket debutants – next 3 runs 

 

Firstly let us look at the trainers who have the best records from these runners. I have used 40 runs as a minimum:

 

Trainer	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
Henry Cecil	50	146	34.25	+£32.43	+22.21
Saeed Bin Suroor	52	171	30.41	-£25.04	-14.65
Mahmood Al Zarooni	14	49	28.57	+£10.53	+21.48
Sir Michael Stoute	64	252	25.40	-£15.82	-6.28
Andrew Balding	22	88	25.00	+£20.84	+23.69
William Haggas	42	173	24.28	-£17.76	-10.27
Michael Jarvis	46	195	23.59	+£14.59	+7.48
Peter Chapple-Hyam	42	179	23.46	+£136.61	+76.32
Barry Hills	93	414	22.46	+£54.10	+13.07
John Gosden	77	349	22.06	-£71.83	-20.58
Jeremy Noseda	41	187	21.93	-£40.67	-21.75
Luca Cumani	23	110	20.91	+£12.53	+11.39
Mark Johnston	22	108	20.37	+£5.08	+4.70
William Knight	8	42	19.05	+£0.48	+1.13
Ralph Beckett	11	58	18.97	-£10.49	-18.08
Clive Cox	8	44	18.18	-£9.42	-21.41

 

Michael Jarvis has now retired so it will be interesting to see whether Roger Varian will achieve similarly good results. Some of the most prominent trainers in the country are in this list – Saeed Bin Suroor, Sir Michael Stoute, Henry Cecil are all high up in the list.

 

Let us look at the results of the Newmarket debutants in terms of course Grade:

 

Course Grade	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
1	369	2826	13.06	-£552.73	-19.56
2	169	935	18.07	-£16.44	-1.76
3	518	3191	16.23	-£467.97	-14.67
4	248	1409	17.60	-£157.89	-11.21
National Hunt race	3	22	13.64	+£19.90	+90.45

 

Horses that go on to run at a Grade 1 track on their second, third or fourth career starts have the lowest strike rate, coupled with the poorest returns. Arguably one should expect this as the competition should be stronger. Those running at Grade 2 tracks have achieved a close to break-even situation. However, there is no clear pattern emerging here so I have the split the courses simply into Northern courses and Southern courses:

 

Course	Wins	Runs	SR%	Profit	ROI%
Northern	524	3116	16.82	-£243.68	-7.82
Southern	783	5267	14.87	-£931.46	-17.68

 

This is much more illuminating – horses that go on to run at a Northern course produce better results than those running in the Southern half of the country. This is almost certainly due to the fact that the racing tends to be less competitive at more Northern tracks. The good news from our perspective, is that the market has yet to adjust to this fact under these circumstances.

 

Finally for “in running” punters, horses that made their debut in a 2yo Newmarket maiden are worth noting if they take an early lead in any of their subsequent three starts – over 27% of these early leaders have managed to go on to win.

 

I hope this article has shown you where a 2yo runner makes its debut (in a maiden) has a real relevance and is worth taking into account in their early careers.