TIPSTERS EMPIRE

Want to win more often? Pick a clever jockey

As a professional punter you can do all the homework in the world, studying form, ground, course type, breeding etc. But no amount of study can legislate for how a jockey’s mind works. When putting out my daily writes ups explaining what had happened the day before, I often found myself laying a degree of blame on the jockey if they had made a mistake and it would be considered I was making excuses for the odd loser, certainly more than my contemporaries in the Tipping Industry.

I used to take a bit of flack for it: “why are you blaming the jockey?”, “the horse just wasn’t good enough”, “how many winners have you ridden?”

So now, if there are factors that the jockey should consider, I make note of how I think the pilot SHOULD ride the race. Yes, my zero time on the back of a horse, gives me no right to make such suggestions, but with the wealth of data now available, there are still really poor errors that jockeys are making and no matter how hard you study, if the jockeys and trainers haven’t done their homework too, you can’t win.

Prior to Royal Ascot, I pointed out that there seemed to be a very pronounced draw bias to the stands side on the straight course (high numbers). Stats aplenty prove this fact and within a couple of races, with horses like Palace Pier, Lope Y Fernandez and Sir Busker drawn high and dominating the Queen Anne, Berkshire Shadow (my tip!), drawn highest and winning the Coventry and the high-drawn Oxted and Arecibo first two in the King Stand, the pattern was already very clear, you needed a high draw, or you needed to get to the stands rail if you didn’t. The jockeys had plenty of time to absorb and assess this information.

I fully expected every man and horse to migrate to the stands rail on day two. The winners of the Queen Mary were all drawn high, as was Indie Angel, winner of the Duke Of Cambridge. The results were smacking you in the face and so was the solution. Or so I thought.

Amazingly, there were still jockeys making no attempt to make a beeline for the quicker rail. There really did appear to be some sort of sheep mentality going on. This was fine by me, I was finding results easy to find because it was almost like the jockeys had been told to ride in lanes straight down the course.

The weather changed for the final three days and the bias became more pronounced, but still jockeys stayed down the “dead ground” middle. One performance stood out as the perfect example of not learning from mistakes.

Silvester De Sousa was riding Art Power in the Diamond Jubilee and drawn 8. Not great, but he had nothing quicker on his outside and if the jockey had learnt anything from the week, he could track Art Power across ahead of everything and grab the stands rail. Having got away quickly, De Sousa started to tack across, then inexplicably decided to stay in the middle, on the confirmed “dead ground”. Then as the race came to a conclusion, he started tacking back across to the even deader side of the track to finish near the principles. What went on in his head? Why did he do half a job then sheepishly let his mount move to the wrong side? Had he come all the way to the quicker rail, I am sure he would have won.

So many jockeys seemed unable to think for themselves during the meeting and having made over 60 points at

Royal Ascot, I really looked forward to the Newmarket July meeting which also has a significant high draw bias.

It was a similar tale from the outset, with jockeys ignoring obvious biases, but there was a ride from one jockey that shows he was reacting to the clues. On day one, it was clear the high draw was a blessing as the low numbers or smaller fields were all being run on ground that was leaving an impression and kicking up. By the time we got to Saturday, the bias was clear, but still so many were ignoring it.

However, in the Bet 365 Handicap, Tom Marquand was on the hard-pulling favourite Royal Fleet. You could almost feel Marquand knew he was losing the battle with the horse and he was going to pull his race away. Instead Tom took him to the faster ground on the far rail and I am sure it was the difference between winning and losing. How pleasing to see a jockey thinking about it.

If we are to make this game pay, the jockey is as important as anything and it helps to have notes on how they perform. Courses they ride well, better on front runners or hold ups, but most of all, have they shown a propensity to think. Find a jockey who does. by Cotswold Racing at Tipsters Empire