Penalty Carriers

 

This week I am going to look at penalty carriers on the flat racing in the UK. The data has been taken from 2009 to May 7th 2012. All profits and losses quoted in the article are to SP. 

 

It is worth noting that any backing profits quoted should be easily beatable in real life using betting exchanges such as Betfair or taking best early prices from online bookmakers

 

So why look at penalty carriers? Well, although they are forced to the carry extra weight of the penalty, trainers often try to take advantage of the horse being in form before being reassessed by the handicapper. Let us see therefore the performance of all penalty carriers over the period of study:

 

Runners	Wins	SR%	Profit/loss	ROI %
2570	588	22.9	-£112.09	-4.4

 

This is a fairly solid set of figures with losses equating to only 4.4 pence in the £, and a good number of selections to boot. Let us breakdown this data starting by looking at the position in the market:

 

Market position	Runners	Wins	SR%	Profit/loss	ROI %
Favourite	1072	376	35.1	-£42.68	-4.0
2nd Favourite	503	104	20.7	-£19.90	-4.0
3rd Favourite	303	51	16.8	+£17.49	+5.8
4th Favourite	221	24	10.9	-£21.50	-9.7
5+ in betting	471	33	7.0	-£45.50	-9.7

 

A position in the top three in the betting has been preferable both in terms of strike rate and in terms of returns. Although third favourites have made a small profit I would not advocate backing them blind as I would not expect that profit to be replicated over a similar future time frame.

 

I looked at the age of runners next:

 

Age	Runners	Wins	SR%	Profit/loss	ROI %
2	133	31	23.3	-£16.38	-12.3
3	743	223	30.0	+£53.70	+7.2
4	603	127	21.1	-£28.26	-4.7
5	436	88	20.2	-£39.92	-9.2
6	285	59	20.7	-£13.07	-4.6
7	199	34	17.1	-£16.41	-8.3
8	96	16	16.7	-£14.63	-15.2
9+	75	10	13.3	-£37.13	-49.5

 

The record of 3yos looks impressive on the surface. Conversely, results for horses aged 9 and older are poor and they look worth avoiding. The 3yo performance I felt merited further investigation and a pleasing stat to note is that they have made a profit in every year – 2009, 2010, 2011 and the first half of 2012. That suggests consistency which is a plus when looking at potential punting angles. Another positive angle worth noting is the performance of 3yo penalty carriers in open handicaps (3yo+ races). They have produced 80 winners from 276 runners (SR 29%) for a profit of £64.88 (ROI +23.5%). The reason why the returns in these contests have been far better than the overall figure is probably down to punter prejudice. Most punters would expect a 3yo penalty carrier to be less successful when racing older horses as compared to when racing against his/her own age group. Hence in open (3yo+) I suspect these penalty carriers tend to start at slightly bigger prices than they should due to this pre-conception.

 

Onto class of race next:

 

Class	Runners	Wins	SR%	Profit/loss	ROI %
1	5	0	0.0	-£5.00	-100.0
2	231	20	8.7	-£49.75	-21.5
3	113	25	22.1	+£40.57	+35.9
4	509	116	22.8	+£7.09	+1.4
5	838	202	24.1	-£109.19	-13.0
6	825	208	25.2	-£4.34	-0.5
7	49	17	34.7	+£8.53	+17.4

 

There does seem to be a pattern here with the higher class races (2 and above) performing below expectations, while the lowest class races (6 and 7) performing over expectations and actually making a nominal profit.

 

Next I wanted to look at claiming jockeys. Trainers sometimes try and ‘offset’ the penalty by putting a claiming jockey on board. Is this a good ploy? Well let’s look at the stats:

 

Jockey claim	Runners	Wins	SR%	Profit/loss	ROI %
No claim	1722	416	24.2	-£36.48	-2.1
Claim 3lb+	848	172	20.3	-£75.60	-8.9

 

The figures suggest there is no advantage to be had by placing a claiming jockey on board. In fact, they have performed worse in terms of both strike rate and returns. Indeed, it is worth noting that 7lb claimers have managed a strike rate of only 17% with losses of 27% (27 pence in the £).

 

Finally let me look at trainers to see whether there are any trainers who are adept at placing horses carrying penalties. Here are a list of those trainers that have secured 7 or more winners.

 

Trainers	Runners	Wins	SR%	Profit/loss	ROI %
Roger Charlton	13	7	53.9	+£0.91	+7.0
Sir Mark Prescott	58	31	53.5	+£4.10	+7.1
Kevin Ryan	38	19	50.0	+£24.51	+64.5
Ian Williams	17	8	47.1	+£9.56	+56.3
Alan Swinbank	16	7	43.8	+£4.07	+25.4
Michael Wigham	16	7	43.8	+£11.67	+73.0
George Baker	21	9	42.9	+£3.24	+15.4
Stuart Williams	24	10	41.7	+£11.90	+49.6
Richard Hannon	24	8	33.3	+£17.00	+70.8
Tim Easterby	24	8	33.3	+£4.21	+17.5
Bryan Smart	29	9	31.0	-£3.35	-11.6
Michael Easterby	23	7	30.4	-£1.38	-6.0
Paul Midgley	31	9	29.0	+£8.97	+29.0
Milton Bradley	29	7	24.1	+£12.88	+44.4
Mark Johnston	114	25	21.9	+£4.25	+3.7
Richard Fahey	42	8	19.1	-£11.68	-27.8
Ruth Carr	43	8	18.6	-£3.00	-7.0
David Evans	61	7	11.5	-£24.25	-39.8

 

Sir Mark Prescott is renowned for running horses quickly after a win, but despite an excellent strike rate, profits are small. Perhaps the trainer to take out of this is Kevin Ryan – a 50% strike rate is excellent as are returns of 64p in the £.

To conclude you could do a lot worse than backing a good proportion of penalty carriers. I would pay most attention to 3yos (especially in 3yo+ handicaps), and also I would look closely at class 6-7 handicaps. Any penalty carrier trained by one of the trainers with a positive return, most notably Kevin Ryan, are also worth close scrutiny. In terms of negatives, I would avoid horses aged 9 and older, class 2 or higher handicaps and any horse ridden by a 7lb claimer.