Trainer Knowledge: Top 10 Nursery Trainers
Top 10 Nursery Trainers
It’s that time of year again when the two-year-olds start running against each other in Nursery Company. For those of you who don’t know what Nurseries are for two-year-old horses then it’s basically a handicap for the younger horses.
Some trainers do very well in this discipline year in year out, and with the backend of the flat season ahead of us, this guide could prove very useful to have to hand when looking to make a little on the gee gees.
Sir Mark Prescott does well with his Nursery runners, and is a potent force with every one of his runners – especially at Musselburgh, with 5 winning bets from 7, he shows a strike-rate of 71.43% at the northern track, and a profit of £150.05 to level £10 stakes.
So like your very best countdown program of Top 100 Chat-up lines, or TV Shows – I’ll start by introducing number 10 on the list.
10.
Alan King
Bets: 32
Wins: 5
Strike-Rate: 15.62%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £130.00
9.
David Elsworth
Bets: 34
Wins: 6
Strike-Rate: 17.65%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £396.20
8.
J Howard Johnson
Bets: 28
Wins: 5
Strike-Rate: 17.86%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £125.00
7.
Kevin Prendergast
Bets: 84
Wins: 15
Strike-Rate: 17.86%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £158.40
6.
Jamie Osborne
Bets: 164
Wins: 32
Strike-Rate: 19.51%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £575.90
5.
Luca Cumani
Bets: 40
Wins: 8
Strike-Rate: 20%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £116.00
4.
Sir Michael Stoute
Bets: 35
Wins: 8
Strike-Rate: 22.86%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £145.00
3.
David Wachman
Bets: 43
Wins: 11
Strike-Rate: 25.58%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £690.00
2.
Roger Charlton
Bets: 39
Wins: 10
Strike-Rate: 25.64%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £8.40
1.
Sir Mark Prescott
Bets: 80
Wins: 24
Strike-Rate: 30%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £181.10
So there you have it, the very best in profit making on two-year-old handicaps (Nurseries). Now I’ll put up a few extra stats for the top 5 trainers, for which course they’re best at.
ONE
Sir Mark Prescott
Track: Musselburgh
Bets: 7
Wins: 5
Strike-Rate: 71.43%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £150.05
TWO
Roger Charlton
Track: Bath
Bets: 2
Wins: 2
Strike-Rate: 100%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £95.00
THREE
David Wachman
Track: Curragh
Bets: 4
Wins: 4
Strike-Rate: 100%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £330.00
FOUR
Sir Michael Stoute
Track: Lingfield
Bets: 3
Wins: 2
Strike-Rate: 66.67%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £115.00
FIVE
Luca Cumani
Track: Wolverhampton
Bets: 3
Wins: 2
Strike-Rate: 66.67%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £160.00
Frozen Fire - Irish Derby (G1)
Promising Lead - Pretty Polly (G1)
Youmzain - Grand Prix De Saint Cloud (G1)
Yeats - Ascot Gold Cup (G1)
Duke Of Marmalade - Prince Of Wales (G1)
South Central - Norfolk Stakes (G2)
Henrythenavigator - St James Palace (G1)
Trainer Knowledge: Top 10 Trainers who beat the system
What is it about the same trainers who beat the handicapper year in year out? Do they have a canny knack of handicapping their horses to perfection year upon year, or does the handicapper give them a chance at certain stables as opposed to others?
I mean if you had a Nick Williams horse win a maiden on debut by three lengths, and a Sir Michael Stoute horse win the same race by the same distance – would they get handicapped the same? Or would the Sir Michael Stoute horse be handicapped on his trainers’ reputation and thus run the risk of being badly handicapped?
Some trainers consistently beat the handicapper each year despite the handicapper always trying new ways to get a handle on the horse. Sir Mark Prescott is a prime example of this and in many ways the master of beating the British Handicapping System, something which he has done successfully for decades.
The only problem is now is that once your typical Sir Mark Prescott horse has had it’s three runs over a trip short of it’s best as a two-year-old, when it returns in a Handicap as a three-year-old over a more suitable trip, the cat is usually already out of the bag. The new revolution of the betting exchange or Betfair as I’d prefer to call it – now gives a more realistic interpretation of a horses price, and with one so obviously well handicapped as a Prescott handicapper first time up, a lot of people will be queuing up to hit the ‘back’ button; so you need to start looking elsewhere for better prices on less exposed masters of this handicapping shrewdness.
Therefore the aim of this article is to pinpoint 9 other trainers who beat the Handicapping system on a regular basis and show a solid profit in the process, each trainer will be presented with a list of essential stats which will give you an idea as to how often they beat the system.
10.
David Elsworth
Bets: 855
Wins: 105
Strike Rate: 12.28%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £2,114.60
9.
Tom Tate
Bets: 286
Wins: 38
Strike Rate: 13.29%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £700.96
8.
David Wachman
Bets: 402
Wins: 57
Strike-Rate: 14.18%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £650.01
7.
Chris Wall
Bets: 725
Wins: 110
Strike-Rate: 15.17%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £1,277.90
6.
John Long
Bets: 106
Wins: 17
Strike-Rate: 16.04%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £1,410.08
Jane Chapple-Hyam; former wife of trainer Peter has had plenty of experience in horse racing. Working for sixteen years as Peter Chapple-Hyam’s assistant in both England and Hong Kong and in 2005 took a huge step into the training ranks herself. Now backed up by Jim & Fitri Hay her string only look like improving and she’s a woman who knows what she is doing.
5.
Jane Chapple-Hyam
Bets: 157
Wins: 27
Strike-Rate: 17.2%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £900.66
A chartered accountant and a competent racehorse trainer, Nick Williams may not have the horses as some of the more prominent stables in racing but he certainly knows a handicap snip when he sees one. After all he did get Bulwark to win the Chester Cup, that’s an achievement in it’s self and a cracking year so far in 2008, suggests he’s only going to get better.
4.
Nick Williams
Bets: 259
Wins: 51
Strike-Rate: 19.69%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £1,406.60
One of the latest new wave of talent to start up training, Tom Dascombe has made racing his life for the last 19 years, and stints as a stable lad, jockey, and now trainer – this lad has made rapid progress in his first season or two at the helm, and is a talent worth keeping on the right side of.
3.
Tom Dascombe
Bets: 156
Wins: 32
Strike-Rate: 20.51%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £675.20
Tim Vaughan a relatively new trainer on the racing scene, although being involved with horses all his life. Took out a permit to train horses in 2005, and saddled a winner with his first runner. Investments in his abilities over the last couple of years have seen this mans talent come to the fore and looks one to follow for a while yet.
2.
Tim Vaughan
Bets: 84
Wins: 19
Strike-Rate: 22.62%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £442.90
…and finally what list would be complete without the messiah himself, and straight in at number one goes Sir Mark Prescott.
1.
Sir Mark Prescott
Bets: 702
Wins: 214
Strike-Rate: 30.48%
Profit to £10 Stakes: £525.00
So there you have it, 10 trainers worth following in Handicap Company which are proven money makers. All stats date back to 2003, and thus separate the men from the boys, and in Jane Chapple-Hyam’s case, the women from the girls.
Trainer Breakdown: Chris Wall
In addition to my “The Lower Classes” article, I shall now be conducting a series of tests on various trainers over the next month and trying to look into what make them tick. I know the guys on here are big fans of Chris Wall mainly because one of our members is employed by the master of Induna Stables, so that’s my first port of call for this series.
Our first approach is; looking at what tracks Chris Wall favours against others and try and piece together a pattern to make some hard earned. From the table below, you can see that Chris Wall does well at Lingfield, Newbury, Wolverhampton, Yarmouth and Sandown although Doncaster can also be included.
As you can see Chris Wall makes a healthy profit at all of the meetings listed above, but Lingfield can be both all-weather and turf and thus needs further investigation. In the table below I’ve separated them into the turf course and all-weather and although there isn’t much of a difference it’s worth splitting up the sample.
A much better strike-rate and Profit on the Turf here at Lingfield, and if you’d narrowed it down further to backing Chris Wall horses on the Lingfield turf, with the going description as Good – you’d get the following set of results.
Following this over the last five years has proven profitable however qualifiers are few and far between which can be attributed to the general core of meetings at Lingfield now are run on there artificial all-weather surface. The stats below are linked to the above table in regards to the ground condition at Lingfield, and this is how you’d have done backing these year on year.
Another place to look for Chris Wall runners are in handicaps and the master of Induna Stables can be placed up there with the best at handicapping his horses to take advantage of their marks. I’m guessing the majority wouldn’t know but if you’d backed every Chris Wall; Handicap runner since 2003, you’d of made a cool £1,260.29 to £10 level stakes – with a strike rate of 15%.
Following Chris Wall handicappers in Class 4 Handicaps will have resulted in a profit of £830.68 to £10 level units, and a strike-rate of 18.62%. However backing his handicap entrants in Class 1 events will result in a £40 loss to £10 units, as all four entrants in this grade have all lost.
Okay so now we’ve looked at his favoured tracks, favourite type of races (handicaps) so now it’s time to take this investigation to the next port of call – Race Distances. Each trainer has the ability to train a certain type of horse; Richard Hannon is most potent with his Sprinters, but struggles to do anything with horses beyond a mile. Sir Michael Stoute does well with his classic types, mile and above but has trouble with his sprinters.
So if you’d backed every Chris Wall horse over a distance of 9F and above, you’d of lost £1,280.45 to £10 level units. With just a winning strike-rate of 10.63% - that’s quite a poor showing really for a trainer who does so well with his horses, which must suggest that his runners below 9F will show a significant profit – let’s see!
Now those figures are much better; backing a Chris Wall horse over 5F to 8.5F has produced a tasty profit of £1,153.58 to £10 level stakes. Narrowing this down to handicaps only further increases the profit and overall strike rate, these details are in the below table.
Another investigation I decided to delve into was following Chris Walls’ horses in Handicaps, over the trips between 5F and 8.5F, and then added in my initial investigation of the Prize Money (See my The Lower Classes article for more detail). This produced 367 bets, 62 winners and a profit of £1,550.11 to £10 stakes, the Prize Money use was that of £0-£8,000.
So now we’ve looked into the Newmarket handler a little more it’s clear to see that was can use some of these stats to our advantage. I’ve put together a bullet-point list of what should help us go a good way towards making some money following his horses.
- Back Chris Walls’ horses at Lingfield, Newbury, Wolverhampton, Yarmouth, Sandown and Doncaster.
- Especially when in Handicaps, as these show a significant profit to your original stake.
- Have more confidence in a Chris Wall runner when the distance is below 9F, his horses below this trip appear to run much better than over longer distances and make a tasty profit in the process.
