November is just around the corner, so stand by for a glut of winners trained by Venetia Williams and the inevitable “her runners need soft ground” comments in the racing media. I’ve already heard this recently – after her stable jockey Charlie Deutsch won a Goodwood handicap for professional jump jockeys earlier this month – but is it true?
Let’s examine Venetia Williams’ national hunt runners over the last ten years (since the beginning of October 2014), split by the official going description…
…her strike-rate is highest on officially heavy going (18.2%) and lowest on good ground (10.19%). I’m ignoring the three runners on good to firm as it’s a very small sample size. We’d have lost money by backing the yard’s runners on heavy going (-£91.93 to a £1 level stake at SP), though laying her runners on good or faster going at Betfair SP (the ‘Lay P/L BF’ column) would have returned a healthy profit after 2% commission.
We could look at the above table and conclude that “the softer the better” for Venetia Williams-trained runners but are there other factors that we should consider when assessing her horses? Regular readers of my columns will be familiar with my ‘Venetia Williams handicap chasers in November’ system, which I first wheeled out in Raceform Update the best part of 20 years ago, and splitting her runners by month makes interesting reading….
All months show a loss at SP except for November which is in profit to the tune of £36.97 to a £1 level stake at SP (+£124.65 at Betfair SP after commission). Her strike-rate is slightly greater in December, though backing these runners at SP would have returned a loss of £13.02 (profit of £55.87 at Betfair SP). Her strike-rate is only 11.88% in October (12 winners from 101 runners) but ten of those winners came between the 22nd and 31st and I certainly wouldn’t rule out anything she runs in the next week or so.
If we combine the October, November and December national hunt runners from the Venetia Williams yard we get the following figures…
…a total of 213 winners from 1177 bets (18.1% strike-rate) for a small profit (+£13.17 or 1.17% on turnover). Now let’s split these by the official going…
The heavy-ground runners again perform best in terms of strike-rate (22.75%), though the good-ground runners show a profit, albeit a very small one, and have the highest actual over expected score (A/E) of 1.43. The disappointing return is from those running on officially soft going – they show a loss of £24.01. Is the ground the most important factor when trying to come up with a profitable betting angle for the yard’s early-season runners? Possibly not. Now let’s split the October-November runners by race type…
…that’s more like it – a healthy profit from the chasers (+£157.92) and a big loss from the hurdlers.
Omitting the hurdlers gives the following figures…
…and splitting these 787 runners by the official going shows a profit in all areas….
The heavy-ground runners again have the highest strike-rate but that’s to be expected, as heavy ground produces smaller, less competitive, fields. 54% of the 134 heavy-ground runs in the above table took place in fields of seven or fewer runners but for good ground the figure was just 22%. Backing just the handicap chasers in the October-December period in the past ten years, regardless of ground conditions, would have returned the following results…
A strike-rate in excess of 21% and a profit of £162.94 to a £1 level stake at SP (+23.24% on turnover). Ignoring the early October runners would have increased the profit (the nine winners came on the 19th, 22nd, 25th, 27th, 27th, 29th, 31st, 31st and 31st). This system returned a loss in 2017 (-£36.50) but was profitable in the other nine years of the study period, including 28 winners from 86 bets last year (32.56% strike-rate, +£58.66 at SP, +£75.66 at BSP after commission).
In summary
Time of year is more important than ground conditions when it comes to backing Venetia Williams-trained chasers (handicaps and non-handicaps) and bumper runners and we can side with them from now until the end of December.
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