In the past 10 years Kieren Fallon has never won a Group 1 Sprint race

Kieren Fallon Returns Racing

On Friday Kieren Fallon will return to racing after being banned / suspended for three years. Whether the ban / suspension was right or wrong, or whether it was too long or too short is all immaterial now as he will be back at the racecourse riding horses.

Punters should now get on with finding profitable angles from Fallon. He will no doubt be riding many horses - many of which will be fancied. Should Fallon be backed in every race? What about just on the best horses? Will Fallon be good at winning on bad horses? What is his record like on Favourites?

If Fallon is the same jockey today as he was three years ago then his stats should be the same and profitable angles could indeed be found.

Fallon the Best Jockey? - Not for Value

It has been said that Fallon is the best jockey riding in the UK in the past 10 or so years. But what good is that achievement to punters? If Fallon is 'the best' jockey would punters have made money following all his rides?

The Flatstats Stats Tables show that Fallon may have been one of the best jockeys for number of wins and strike rate but he is not even in the top 10 for profit and is way down the list for 'value'.

K Fallon Leaderboard Ranking

	Wins	Win%	Plc%	A/E	ROI%
Leaderboard Ranking	1st	2nd	2nd	45th	26th

Data analysed to 27-Jun-06. Only jockeys which had 100 or more rides during that time were analysed.

This table shows the leaderboard rankings for Fallon. The first column (Wins) shows that Fallon was top of the table for number of wins. During the period analysed (the 5 years prior to his last ride in 27-Jun-06) Fallon had won 847 turf races. That figure was 81 more than the second most winning jockey at that time - Kevin Darley.

On strike rate (Win%) Fallon was ranked second only to Frankie Dettori. On place rate again Fallon was 2nd to Dettori.

Number of wins and strike rate are pretty much meaningless to a betting punter. As noted in the Flatstats Stats Guide the essential stats which punters need are the ROI and the A/E 'value' stat. It is these figures which Fallon does not rank so high with.

Out of 201 jockeys analysed during the sample period Fallon ranked 26th on profit (ROI%) and a really low 45th on A/E.

That last figure is the most significant. It shows that despite Fallon being a jockey who enters the winners enclosure the most often, he is too overbet to make a profit.

To be fair his A/E figure of 0.91 is not that bad when compared to other top jockeys - they all mostly tend to have A/E figures which indicate overbetting. The figure is for all races too and thus it is wise to dig deeper into the stats to see if a jockey is better or worse under different race conditions.

Stats for Kieren Fallon

Fallon does indeed show a preference for different race conditions. You can view those conditions on the Jockey Stats page. Just search for Fallon, click Generate Report and view the various stats tables for each different racing criteria.

Below are some examples of his best and worst stats but first here are his stats for all races to use as a baseline.

K Fallon Stats for the Flat Turf

Race Type	Wins	Runs	Win%	Plc%	I.V.	A/E	£1 win	ROI%
All Races	847	4537	18.7%	41.0%	1.00	0.91	£-573.16	-12.6%

A punter backing Fallon in every race was losing 12.6% of their invested stakes. Putting it another way, for ever pound bet on Fallon the punter was receiving back 87p. The punter would actually have been better off backing favourites as the favourite on the flat turf returns 94p for every pound bet!

Good Stats for K Fallon on Turf

Race Type	Wins	Runs	Win%	Plc%	I.V.	A/E	£1 win	ROI%
Group 1 Races	31	148	20.9%	43.2%	1.12	1.20	£26.56	17.9%
Outsiders (Bottom 3rd in Betting)	26	303	8.6%	21.5%	0.46	1.06	£41.75	13.8%
3 Good Runs	107	455	23.5%	50.1%	1.26	0.96	£7.02	1.5%
Firm Going	47	186	25.3%	50.5%	1.35	1.02	£-2.11	-1.1%
Long Distance Races	138	723	19.1%	40.9%	1.02	0.96	£-24.64	-3.4%
1st Favourites	465	1377	33.8%	60.3%	1.81	0.96	£-68.26	-5.0%
Summer	438	2096	20.9%	43.8%	1.12	0.95	£-573.16	-6.7%

Those are some of his better stats - stats where he is not so overbet, the loss is not so great, or a profit was actually returned.

Fallon returned his greatest profit in Group 1 races. Backing all Fallon runners in Group 1 races over the past 10 years returned a profit of 17.9%. The A/E value figure of 1.20 is good and the strike rate is just better than his overall strike rate.

What really stands out amongst that stat is his record in Group 1 Sprints. As will be shown in the next table, Fallon is not a profitable jockey for sprint races. Looking specifically at Group 1 sprints reveals a startling fact:

In the past 10 years Kieren Fallon has never won a Group 1 Sprint race.

Obviously that statement is slightly flawed due to the fact that Fallon was not riding from 2006 through to 2009! But going back further than 10 years reveals that Fallon has only notched up a single win in Group 1 Sprints. Out of 46 attempts Fallon's only Group 1 Sprint win was with Embassy in the Shadwell Stud Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket in 1997.

The next most profitable stat for Fallon is his record with outsiders. These are horses which are in the bottom third of the betting (in a 12 horse race - the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th in the betting etc.) Fallon actually returned a profit with this group. The strike rate is obviously low but the A/E and ROI% figures are good. What is happening here is that punters are underbetting him on longshots.

3 Good Runs means that the horse had 3 good runs in it's last 3 races where a good run is classed as 'placed' or finished within around 2 lengths of the winner. Fallon only returns a slight profit here but again it is interesting to note that punters are not overbetting him on horses with good recent form.

The rest of the stats in the Good Stats table are not that positive but they are better than his overall baseline figure.

An unusual stat is his record with favourites. The first thing to note is that even though it is more profitable to back Favourites than Fallon in every race, if you backed a Fallon Favourite you would be much better off!

Once again it seems that punters are not overbetting Fallon but this time on the more fancied runners. This is a bit of a paradox as punters are underbetting him on outsiders but are not overbetting him on favourites. It must be the case that they think a Fallon outsider has no chance, whilst a Fallon favourite is poor value which is clearly not the case.

Weak stats for K Fallon on Turf

Race Type	Wins	Runs	Win%	Plc%	I.V.	A/E	£1 win	ROI%
Heavy Going	13	132	9.8%	30.3%	0.53	0.49	£-66.60	-50.5%
Soft Going	65	410	15.9%	38.8%	0.85	0.84	£-115.22	-28.1%
Autumn	188	1165	16.1%	37.1%	0.86	0.84	£-244.45	-21.0%
Sprints	359	2063	17.4%	40.8%	0.93	0.86	£-373.39	-18.1%

The previous table showed that Fallon has good stats for Firm ground. This table shows that Fallon is a much weaker jockey as the going gets softer. On Heavy going Fallon returns a big loss and the strike rate dips into single figures.

The autumn is the worst time of year for backing Fallon. The back end of the flat season is probably not the best time for Fallon to make his comeback!

Summary

There is no doubt that Fallon is one of the greatest jockeys in the past 10 years. But being a greatest jockey by winning many races is of no relevance to the betting punter. Punters need to look at the stats and realise that great jockeys do not often make profitable jockeys.

Related Articles and Resources

• Kieren Fallon Stats
• Jockey Leaderboard Tables

Comment on this Article in the Message Board

• Kieren Fallon's Return to Racing

Article created 3-Sep-09. Stats may have changed since.