Introduction
Hello, and welcome new subscribers.

Lisa Jones has made the headlines in the past few weeks. She has become only the third female jockey to ride out her claim in the UK. What does the future hold for her now? Will she still be in demand now that the valuable 3lb allowance she used to claim has gone?

Fran Ferris is putting his troubles behind him and is having one of his best ever seasons. He's a great jockey, and is providing value too as punters will just not back him. Ferris is not the most valuable apprentice though. There are a few more lads and lasses who will give you more for your pound.

One way to stop some cheating in racing is to get rid of Handicap races and replace them with Claiming stakes. Handicaps, by their very nature, encourage unscrupulous connections to deliberately run a horse down in order to get a good handicap mark. Take away handicaps and you will take away a lot (but not all) of racing's problems.

Claiming races are a much fairer type of race. Not only will there be less instances of horses running over the wrong trip or going, but there is no Handicapper to try and compete with. In Claiming races the connections dictate the weight a horse will carry and there can not be anything fairer than that.

This newsletter analyses Claiming stakes and uncovers a startling weight bias.

Stephen Mainwaring

Female Jockeys
Two weeks ago Lisa Jones become only the third female jockey to ride out an apprentice claim in the UK. Alex Greaves was the first back in 1991 followed by Emma O'Gorman in 1995. Nine years later Jones achieved that feat. What does the future hold for her now?

If the record of Greaves is anything to go by Jones could be in for a lean spell. Before losing her claim Greaves was popular. She was labelled 'Queen of the sand' and had a lot of main stream press exposure. After losing her claim things went downhill rapidly.

Alex Greaves Pre / Post Losing Claim

Greaves had her first ride as a non claimer on 1st June 1991. In the six months prior to that she was winning with 21.2% of her rides and returning a crazy 40.9% profit. Six months after that date she could only manage to find six winners and hit a low 4.4% strike rate. The loss backing her mounts during that period was a bank busting 64.2%.

Why so few winners? Why was the strike rate only 4.4%? It is not as if her rides had dried up - she still had 137 rides during that period so trainers were not deserting her after she lost her claim. (Note - her future husband, David Nicholls, did not take out a training licence until 1993 so he was not supplying the rides back then).

The problem was that Greaves's was now not being offered quality rides. Before losing her claim 48% of Greave's rides were on fancied runners. After losing her claim only 24% of her rides were fancied runners.

Emma O'Gorman's case shows a different picture. O'Gorman actually improved when losing her claim.

Emma O'Gorman Pre / Post Losing Claim

After losing her claim O'Gorman managed to increase her strike and return a profit. But O'Gorman was lucky enough to have clever trainer Bill O'Gorman as her father. After she lost her claim he supplied all but two of the 71 rides - including the 10 wins.

Lisa Jones is described as one of the most talented female jockeys ever. She is a fitness fanatic with the perfect shape for a jockey and has a brilliant racing brain. She has proven time and time again that she has the technical ability and strength to get the best out of a horse and put her male colleagues to shame.

Jones is very popular with trainers and owners so she should not fall into a catch 22 situation which has hampered the careers of many female jockeys over the past 20 years. Trainers know she has talent and that it was not the weight allowance giving her an edge.

But how well is she doing since joining the big boys on 4th August 2004? Has she managed to be like Emma O'Gorman and maintain a decent strike rate? Has her record dropped like Greaves did?

Lisa Jones Pre / Post Losing Claim

Jones has different results to Greaves and O'Gorman. Being an "in demand" jockey she had many more rides during the six months prior to losing her claim. The strike rate was much lower though and she was not profitable.

After losing her claim the strike rate has dropped to Greaves' level. The loss backing all her mounts has plummeted too and punters would have lost a lot of money following the headline grabbing girl in the past few weeks.

It does look as if Jones quality rides on fancied runners is drying up. Before losing her claim 22% of her rides were fancied. Since 4th August this has dropped to 13%.

To be fair the sample size is a bit low, and the weather has been unpredictable which could have impacted some of the plans of her intended mounts. But if this trend continues for the next month or two Jones may fall victim to gender prejudice. This is where connections will not utilise the services of a non claiming female for their quality horses. It is hard to see that happening though as she does have the support of many trainers.

The biggest problem facing Jones in the next few months is the fact that the structure of Handicap races is changing. The BHB are redefining the ratings bands of Handicaps and are restricting the weight range to a maximum of 14lbs between top and bottom weight. This will have the effect of limiting the number of opportunities for low weight jockeys. Basically very few horses will be set to carry less than 8st 7lbs - the weight range where Jones has had her most winners.

 Lisa Jones Turf Statistics

Apprentice Jockeys to Follow
One talented female apprentice who is very much underbet by the public at the moment is Hayley Turner. Despite being regularly talked up by media pundits whenever she rides, she is still offering good value. Her overall turf A/E figure (a statistic which indicates if she us under or overbet) is 1.19, but in 2004 the figure has been running at 1.29 and this is despite her having her best ever season.

Turner is currently a 5lb claimer but will drop down to 3lb any day now. She is just hovering under the 50 winner mark which is the threshold for going to the next claiming level.

Fran Ferris was recommended by Flatstats as an apprentice to follow back in 2002. The 'Three To Follow' feature identified him as an underbet, promising lad who was going places. Despite proving his ability on the track, he went off the rails a few times and endured lengthy spells off the course.

This year Ferris is back with a vengeance. He is having his best ever season for winners, but more importantly for punters, he is very good value for his claim.

Ferris's A/E figure this year is 1.36. He is a very experienced lad but is seen as a 'bad boy' of racing by punters. This is making his mounts value bets. Backing all his mounts this year has returned a profit of 21%.

Ferris only needs another 15 or so winners and he would have ridden out his claim. His fate then may be the same as Lisa Jones in that connections may not think he is good enough without the 3lb claim, and as he is also a good lightweight, he may find that there will be less opportunity for rides when the new Handicap structure starts in September.

Definitely one to follow until his claim is ridden out.

Nicky Mackay is probably the best of the current crop of apprentices around today. He is currently a 3lb claimer who needs around 18 winners before he loses his claim.

It is advisable to back all his mounts right now as the guy really is worth his claim. Mackay has hit 14% strike rates for the past two seasons, and has returned 20%+ profits in the past three. His A/E is 1.26 for this season.

Mackay can be described as a really good all rounder who is effective over all distances. He shows very little biases in his stats which shows that he has experiences of all course shapes, distances and goings. That is not common with apprentices as most of them have little winning experiences, or pick up bad habits over certain distances. Mackay though, wins on just about everything. He even had his first winner at Royal Ascot this year aboard Sir Michael Stoute's Admiral in the King George V Stakes.

Summary
The following apprentices are offering value right now and should be backed until they lose their claim:

Hayley Turner
Fran Ferris
Nicky Mackay

 Turf Statistics for the above Apprentices

Value Jockeys
Topics of great debate in the bookies, pubs and message boards are usually on the lines of "Jockey A is good, Jockey B is bad", "Jockey C is a value jockey". Most of the talk is just non factual argumentative rubbish! And in the case of message boards and chat rooms, argumentative it is.

From a punting point of view it is useless to know which jockey has had the most winners, and to a degree which jockey has the best strike rate. When punting on jockeys you really need to know which jockeys offer the best value.

To solve all arguments it is now possible to rank jockeys based on value by using the new Flatstats Tables. These tables allow you to view the best and worst jockeys for your pound by ranking jockeys based on the A/E figure.

You can generate a report showing which jockeys offer the best value on favourites, or on outsiders. You can even check which jockeys are the most valuable when the going is soft or heavy as the following tables show.

Top 10 Value Jockeys on Favourites

 View Full Table

Graham Gibbons offers the best value on favourites. Gibbons won on 16 favourites when he was only expected to win on 12 of them (expected figure derived from the odds of his mounts e.g. an Evens shot is expected to win 50% of the time, a 3/1 shot 25% of the time).

Notice that there are no leading professionals at the top of this list. You have to scroll all the way down to Position 44 to find Kieren Fallon. His A/E is a respectable 0.99 which means that he wins as expected on favourites. You won't make a profit backing all his favourites, but you won't make a great loss either.

Right at the bottom of the list are the jockeys who offer the poorest value when riding favourites. Click the View Full Table link above to see who they are.

Top 10 Value Jockeys on Soft / Heavy Going

 View Full Table

The best value jockey in the mud (soft / heavy going) is Ben Swarbrick. He was expected to win on just 4 horses but actual won on 6.

If you are looking for Champion Jockey Fallon, you have to scroll half way down the list. Fallon is ranked 93 in this list. His A/E is now a non value 0.78.

Look further down the list to number 171 and note the record for Lisa Jones. Jones has only ever had 1 winner from 44 rides in the mud. No wonder she has not been doing well the last few days. If the soft ground continues over the next few months this could cause further problems for her.

Use the New Flatstats Tables and find out the truth about value jockeys. Amaze your friends with this new found knowledge!

 Flatstats Tables

Claiming Stakes
Punters often moan that there are too many shenanigans going on in handicap races: horses running over inadequate trips and on unsuitable goings, suspicious jockey rides etc. If you believe that too, then the simple answer is not to bet in handicap races.

In handicaps, not only is the field against you but also the forces of the handicapper. And with the new handicap structure starting in September, things can only get more trickier!

If you are not finding many winners at the moment then avoid handicaps and concentrate on Claiming races. Claiming races are great races for stats punters because there are plenty of useful stats to use to great effect. There is a very strong weight bias in claiming races and also a gender bias and price bias. Claiming races contain volumes of information on which trainers and owners are good at placing their horses in claiming races so there is plenty of information to analyse.

Weight
With Handicap races the higher the weight, the more chance a horse has of winning. This happens because the best horses are usually assigned the highest weights whilst the worst horses are assigned the lowest.

The following table shows the weight range stats for 3yo+ Handicaps of exactly 10 runners.

Flat Turf 3yo+ Handicaps of 10 Runners

The table shows the Impact Value figure. The higher the figure, the more that group win their fair share of races. The 9st 4lbs+ range win 1.20 times their fair share of races, whilst the upto 8st 7lbs range only win 0.81 their fair share of races.

If you dig deeper and look at the record of the absolute top and bottom weights in that race you will see that the top weight wins 12.3% of the time whilst the bottom weight wins just 6.3% of the time. The top weight is therefore nearly twice as likely to win as the bottom weight.

That may seem like a striking statistic but the figure is even more startling in Claiming Stakes.

Flat Turf 3yo+ Claiming Stakes of 10-12 Runners
(10-12 used to increase the sample size)

Claiming stakes show an extreme bias towards the top weights. The impact value figures show that horses weighted in the 9st 4lbs or more range won more than 4 times as often as horses weighted upto 8st 7lbs.

Looking closer at the absolute top and bottom weights shows that the top weight won 25.4% of the time (that's 1 in 4 races going to the top weight) whilst the bottom weight won just 3.6% of the time. The top weight is more than 7 times more likely to win than the bottom weight. That's a stat 3.5 times more powerful than in handicaps!

The top weight in a Claiming race is the most valuable horse. The weights are allocated depending on how much the connections think the horse is worth. If they value it highly, the weight will be high. If they don't value the horse much at all, the weight will be low.

Sometimes you get connections who are just too confident, or too greedy and thus the top weight does not always win. The best advice is to concentrate on the 9st 4lbs+ range as this group have a high chance of winning.

Gender
Nick Mordin first spotted a gender bias in Claiming races about 10 years ago. He stated that any horse which had stud potential (colts, fillies and mares) who were running in Claiming races had to be bad bets - connections would not want to be getting rid of horses who could have a future stud value. The stats still hold mostly true today.

Flat Turf 3yo+ Claiming Stakes
(all field sizes not just 10-12)

Colts, fillies, mares and horses (entire males of 5yo or older) all perform poorly in claiming races. The impact value and A/E figures show this more clearly than the Win%.

Already we have the basis of a very simple system. All you have to do is back geldings who are carrying top weight in a 3yo+ Claiming stakes race.

If you had done this in the past 10 years you would have achieved the following results:

171 wins from 605 bets, 28.3% strike rate, 13.1% profit

You can view the Claiming Stakes Top Weight Dataset in the Systems Builder section:

 Claiming Stakes Top Weight System

Trainers
Some trainers really know how to play the claiming game. Undoubtedly, the best trainer for Claiming Stakes is the retiring Mary Reveley. In the past 10 years she won with 48 from 176 runners and achieved a strike rate of 27.3%. Backing all her runners returned a profit of 17%.

David Nicholls has had the most Claiming stakes winners. He is just 1 ahead of Reveley with 49 wins. In order to achieve that he had to send out 247 runners, thus his strike rate is lower on 19.8%.

Martin Pipe is in the top 10 list based on strike rate. He has won 19.2% of the time but returns a loss of 22%.

Right at the bottom of the list you will find Tony Newcombe (0 wins from 31), Jim Goldie (1.6%) and Simon Dow (2.6%).

 View Full List of Trainers for 3yo+ Claiming Stakes

Don't forget that you can also rank trainers and owners based on strike rate, profit, or A/E in Claiming races with the new Flatstats Tables.

Subscribe to Flatstats
Here's a value offer for you. Subscribe to Flatstats for the rest of the Turf Season for just £64.95! That's a big saving over the individual monthly cost. Join now and you can access all the features of Flatstats for this value, low price.

Don't forget. Flatstats is not just for stats-meisters. Flatstats can be used to compliment form study and speed ratings.

Whatever method you use to find winners why not use Flatstats as a second opinion? Continue to make your selections using your own tried and trusted methods, but just check the Flatstats rating of your selection to see if it's chances are overall good or bad.

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