This weekend at Chepstow is one every jumps fan anticipates and while the weather has taken the chase races out of the meeting, it’s still going to be a high-quality and exciting weekend of racing.
With it being an all-hurdle fixture, I’ve taken a close look at two races to document what it’s taken over the last 15 years to land each race with a view of trying to help us find both winners this season.
PERSIAN WAR NOVICES’ HURDLE
The Grade 2 feature of Chepstow’s season opener is a Novice Hurdle which allows last season’s Novice to compete so while you will also have your more ‘traditional’ first season hurdlers, it’s a proper race to try and win without experience.
I’ll highlight the topline trends and further add weight to the relevance with a deeper dive into the data from the last 15 renewals.
Topline Trends
- ALL of the last 15 winners came from the Top 4 in the market at SP
- 14 of the last 15 winners finished Top 3 last time out
- 13 of the last 15 winners were sent off 8/1 or shorter
- 13 of the last 15 winners last ran between either 16 and 90 days ago or 121+
- 12 of the last 15 winners were NOT wearing any headgear
- 12 of the last 15 winners had raced over hurdles before now
- 10 of the last 15 winners were trained by Paul Nicholls (5) Philip Hobbs (3) or Fergal O’Brien (2)
Price
All of the last 15 winners came from the Top 4 in the market at SP with second favourites contributing the least winners with just 1. 3rd and 4th favourites have produced 4 winners each and both show healthy ROI’s if just backing blind.
13 of the last 15 winners were sent off 8/1 or shorter which backing blind shows a 12% ROI. 3 of the 4 odds-on shots during that period won which improves the ROI to 31% however the best bracket to back blind on SP alone would be 13/2 to 8/1 which shows an impressive 143% although finds just 4 of the 15 last winners (4 from the last 12 in fact)
Last time out
Not many runners fall outside the window of last running between 16-90 days ago or 121+ but it’s the shorter of those two periods that is profitable to back blind showing a 41% ROI.
Of the 7 winners who hadn’t run this season (121+ days ago) just 3 hadn’t seen a hurdle in public yet and two of those were trained by Philip Hobbs and all 3 were sent off as favourite.
Headgear
While 12 of the last 15 winners were not wearing any headgear it’s those with Cheekpieces or Hoods that are interesting given they account for the other 3 and show a 68% ROI. Each winner was sent off between 15/2 and 10/1 which brings only 6 qualifiers and increases the ROI to a whopping 375%.
Given the 3 winners were trained by Olly Murphy, Fergal O’Brien and Nigel Twiston-Davies, they’re all top trainers, who do well this time of year so in hindsight weren’t that hard to find.
Trainer
There are 3 trainers with their names etched more than once in the last 15 years as the winning trainer with each profitable to back blind. 5 of Paul Nicholls’ 14 runners won with a further 4 more placing. 3 of Philip Hobbs’ 10 runners won with a further 2 more placing. 2 of Fergal O’Briens’ 7 runners won with one more placing.
Conversely, Dan Skelton is 0 from 7 meaning he’s never won this race and the same is true for Jamie Snowden who is 0 from 6 in the last 15 years.
SILVER TROPHY HANDICAP HURDLE
The feature Handicap of this weekend hasn’t been kind to favourite backers with only Tea Clipper in 2020 successfully landing the spoils as market leader and it was back in 2007 before that.
With some big trainer names on the honours board though it seems as though this shouldn’t be impossible to solve, so I’ve again looked at the last 15 renewals to highlight some topline trends with a little bit more about them in order to confirm their validity.
Topline Trends
- 14 of the last 15 winners were NOT the favourite
- 14 of the last 15 winners were NOT wearing any headgear
- 12 of the last 15 winners placed Top 4 last time out
- 11 of the last 15 winners held an OR of 137 or lower
- 11 of the last 15 winners carried no more than 11 stone
- 10 of the last 15 winners had NOT run this season
Price
This hasn’t been a great race for favourites with just one winner in 2020 since the last one prior back in 2007. They’re loss makers blind as you would expect with about the same performance
coming from the 3rd and 4th favourites too. Second favourites have a 31% strike-rate and show a healthy 81% ROI from the 5 winners they’ve found, so if you’re going to listen the fancied runners in the market, look to the second in at SP.
Last Time Out
12 of the last 15 winners placed Top 4 last time out but it’s last time out winners that carry 7 of those 12 and show a 56% ROI. Horses who placed second last time out are costly to follow with just a 3% strike-rate and a hefty 85% losing ROI.
Both 3rd and 4th placed last time out runners are profitable to back blind with 42% and 105% ROI respectively so if you backed every runner who placed either 1st, 3rd or 4th last time out you’d have found 11 winners in the last 15 years and be showing a 63% ROI.
There hasn’t been a winner who placed outside the Top 8 or failed to complete last time out in the last 15 renewals with 50 horses who qualified (compared to the 59 who qualified from 1st, 3rd or 4th last time out)
While 10 of the last 15 winners had not run this season, they operate at just a 6% strike-rate and are heavy loss makers blind. The best strike-rate has come from runners with 31 to 60 days since their last run which has found 3 winners but shows a massive 450% ROI.
Weight and Official Rating
Just backing all runners carrying 10-05 to 11-00 has found 9 winners in the last 15 renewals with a 19% ROI.
While most winners were Officially Rated 137 or lower, they account for 78% of the runners whereas those rated 141 or higher would have found 4 winners from 29 runners and show a decent 126% ROI.
Career Form
8 of the last 15 winners had been to Chepstow which means 7 hadn’t but if you backed all those who had blind you’d show a 20% ROI whereas if you backed all those who hadn’t blind you’d be showing a losing 26% ROI to SP.
6 of the 8 winners had won here which increases the ROI to 39% and 4 of the 8 winners had been here more than once which increases the ROI to 50%.
Looking for previous wins in the search to find the winners increases as we add number of career wins as listed below:
- 2 or more career wins -11% ROI (13 winners)
- 3 or more career wins +4% ROI (11 winners)
- 4 or more career wins +26% ROI (7 winners)
- 5 or more career wins +62% ROI (5 winners)
- 6 or more career wins +135% ROI (5 winners)
- 7 or more career wins +204% ROI (4 winners)
- 8 or more career wins +300% ROI (2 winners)
- 9 or more career wins + 460% ROI (2 winners)