Pace / Running Styles for Jockeys

This month I am going to revisit the whole question of pace or running styles. For the last four or five years the question of “pace” in a horse race is something that has become a much hotter topic. In the Racing Post for example, it is not unusual to read such comments as “I expect the far side to be favoured as that is where the best pace is or “there is plenty of pace in the race, which could set the race up for a finisher”; or “**** could get a soft lead in front and hence might be difficult to pass”.  Knowing how a race is likely to “pan out” in terms of a “pace angle” can give punters a valuable insight, which in turn can lead to that all important “edge” over your fellow punters. I have used the “pace angle” more and more in my favoured betting medium – sprints. I have taken data from all sprint races over a recent 4-year period and have included all races that were run at less than 7 furlongs.

In the past my pace research has mainly focused on horses and / or courses. For this article I have focused on jockeys. The reason I have decided to look at jockeys is that I believe that a jockey can make a difference in sprint races – more often than not in sprints, it is important to race up with the pace, and hence I want to find jockeys that consistently do that. Ideally I want to find jockeys that not only consistently race up with the pace but do it successfully! Also the more insight I get into jockeys preferred running styles, the more it should help me in terms of predicting how a sprint will unravel in terms of which horses will be where early in the race. Of course there are other factors to take into account such as the draw, but for this article I have ignored the influence of the draw.

First port of call was to look at the percentage of sprinters that each jockey took out into the lead. I focused on jockeys that had raced at least 150 times and had won at least 10 races: