Ryan Moore has been ruled out for the remainder of the Flat turf season with a broken leg, and I want to use this week’s article to discuss how his absence might affect Aidan O’Brien’s operation in the next few months, especially with the runners at British racecourses.
Ryan Moore/Aidan O’Brien combination in Britain/Ireland
Ryan Moore had his first ride for Aidan O’Brien on Macarthur (third at 12-1) in the 2007 Great Voltigeur Stakes at York and started riding regularly for him from 2011 until taking up the stable jockey mantle in 2015. These are his year-on-year stats for the master of Ballydoyle in Britain and Ireland only…
Backing all 1967 mounts would have returned a loss of £150.76 (-7.66% on turnover) but that becomes a profit of £90.92 at Betfair SP (after 2% commission)…
Much has been written/discussed in recent days regarding Moore’s absence and the effect it might have on the O’Brien yard with talk of Christophe Soumillon coming over from France to adopt a temporary role. Should we downgrade the chances of the yard’s runners now the brilliant Moore is absent, or will the betting market over-react and over some value opportunities?
Since racing resumed after lockdown in June 2020, Aidan O’Brien has saddled 2348 runners that were not ridden by Ryan Moore…
…they returned a loss at SP but did show a small profit at Betfair SP.
The runners in Britain only fared poorly…
…landing 14 of their 232 starts (6.03%) against an expected winners figure (EX Wins in the table above) of 19.21, giving an A/E (actual over expected) score of 0.72 (anything below 1.0 is a cause for concern). Backing all the qualifiers at SP returned a loss of £90.63 (-£61.96 at Betfair SP). Plenty of these would have been 100-1 no-hoper/pacemakers in Group races but splitting the qualifiers by SP rank shows that even the favourites (SP rank = 1) returned a loss…
If we group together the relatively fancied runners (defined as an SP of 8-1 or shorter) we get the following results…
…big losses at both SP and Betfair SP. In the same period, Ryan Moore-ridden 8-1 or shorter chances for O’Brien in Britain ran as follows…
…recording a very small profit at Betfair SP after commission.
One other interesting angle about Aidan O’Brien’s British runners in recent years, regardless of who rides, has been their poor record in the autumn, in fact only May has been profitable for the yard since 2020…
Their combined record in the September-November period looks like this…
…even the ones ridden by Ryan Moore fared poorly…
O’Brien’s autumn runners in Britain, split by age, looks like this…
…the two-year-olds returned a small profit (+£0.71) at SP (+£9.20 at Betfair SP).
Omitting that age group gives the following results…
…a terrible strike-rate and a huge loss (-82.13%) at SP and at Betfair SP (-80.53%). Laying these runners at Betfair SP returned a profit of £58.22 at Betfair SP (-78.67% on turnover). The samples sizes are relatively small, but these figures a worry for backers of the O’Brien contingent in the St Leger.
Summary
Aidan O’Brien’s British runners might be worth opposing for the remainder of the Flat season, especially those aged three and up.