So what makes a winning thoroughbred race horse? Is it the price paid for the horse? Is it breeding? Is it training? What about the jockey? Or maybe it’s the horse itself? Actually no one really knows the definitive answer to this $million question and that’s why, in my humble opinion, horse racing is such an enjoyable challenge from a betting perspective… …but lets look at each of these questions individually?
Is it the price paid for the horse? If you were to apply what you believed to be logic to this, the answer would be “Surely the more you pay for the horse the better horse you get?” If only it was that simple; if only the purchase price offered a guarantee of success? Not quite. 2 “poles apart” examples of this would be looking at a horse called THE GREEN MONKEY (ouch!!), then compare him to the outstanding filly SNOW FAIRY who cost the princely sum of €1,800 as a yearling and to date has amassed winnings of just short of £4,000,000 So the price paid certainly doesn’t point to guaranteed excellence in the game. (Though some will argue you have a better chance of your horse being a star if you’ve paid the earth for it?)
Is it the breeding? More often today there is an emphasis on the science of thoroughbred breeding and the bloodline of a thoroughbred horse when it comes to producing a winner, yet not all perfectly bred animals from excellent blood lines become champions at the game. (May I refer you back to The Green Monkey above!) Across Europe there are farms where colts “stand at stud”, waiting to “get jiggy” with whatever mare is brought to them. (It’s a great job if you can get it) Stud fees can range from as little as a few hundred pounds all the way up to the £££££’s for the use of champion sire GALILEO, who stands at Coolmore Stud in Ireland. The cost for GALILEO to cover your mare? It’s described on their website as “private” I’m afraid, but I guess that’s like “If you have to ask you can’t afford it!!” But what you do get for your money with this fella is a whole lot of hope! Facts are facts and there is a list as long as your arm showing the number of Group winning horses that GALILEO has sired. However, (and dare I say it?), past performance is not an indicator to future results!
Is it the training? This is an interesting 1. Each year there are figures listed for the top trainers in the UK and the “usual suspects” are generally towards the fore in these tables. For the “Top Trainer” award the tables are ranked by prize money won, rather than % win strike rate, but they often go hand in hand… …but you can find exceptions in trainers with smaller yards who sometimes have a higher than average % strike rate. Last year the top trainers were NICKY HENDERSON in National Hunt & JOHN GOSDEN on the flat. Now both of these are UK racing giants and are unquestionably masters of their trade, but like a lot of businesses in life, in racing you find in horse racing that owners of horses often follow the mantra of “Success breeds Success!” I’m not 100% sure how many horses each of these individuals will have under their charge this year, (it will be 100’s each), but I do know that they’re not all horses that win regularly. In fact, if in the 2012 season you blindly followed each of these guys and backed every horse that they saddled in a race you’d be plenty out-of-pocket! (An example of this is that last season, John Gosden trained 3-yr olds returned a level stake loss of 108.47 points!) So yes it could be that a better trainer will get your horse running better, but I stress it only “could be?”
What about the jockey? Just like the trainers above, you will find jockey performance results within tables each year, however the BIG difference here is that it’s the number of winners ridden that determines the end-of-season awards on the jockey championship. Now a lot of people out there have their favourite jockeys, (I personally don’t have a go-to favourite, but there are those I’ll certainly steer clear of), but again if you were to trust your cash on every ride a certain jockey undertakes, you’ll end up in the red. 2012 champion jockeys were AP McCoy (185 winners from 848 rides for a 22% strike rate) over the jumps and RICHARD HUGHES (172 winners from 834 rides for a 21% strike rate) on the flat. Now there is absolutely no questioning the ability, drive, determination, bravery and desire of the aforementioned AP McCoy. He has, after all, been the champion National Hunt jockey for the last 18 years in succession, but again if you were to invest £1 on every horse he started a chase race on in 2012 you would be -£74.25 points to level stakes. In fact the jockey BARRY GERAGHTY had a better winning strike rate, ( 25%), and he won £181,491 more in prize money from 623 less rides, but again if you backed every horse that Barry rode you’d be in negative funds for the year! So my advice would be “If you follow the 1 jockey, you’ll be re-loading your betting banks regularly!”
Or maybe it’s the horse itself? Ahhh, the horse, I nearly forgot about him/her. Which horse really makes a great racehorse, what in itself are the keys to it being a champ? In September 2011 Channel 4 broadcast the amazing programme INSIDE NATURES GIANTS – THE RACEHORSE This showed us, for the 1st time, the sheer evolutionary masterpiece a thoroughbred racehorse is. However their conclusions to “what makes the best racehorse the best?” were indeed eye-opening. It wasn’t the externally obvious things such as muscle-mass, height, leg length & length of stride, age, sex or any such like. No, these experts, (which included a top biologist, anatomist and evolutionist), came to the conclusion that in fact it was certain parts of the “inside” of a horse which made it what it is. Of course it’s important that they have 4 legs and a head pointing in the right direction… …but it was the heart, spleen, lungs and the horses respiratory system which determined how fast a horse can & will run. At full gallop, a great airway allows the horses lungs to be filled and re-filled 100’s of times per minute, which then transfers the oxygen into the bloodstream. Then there’s a need for a big, strong, powerful heart to pump the blood throughout the horse to enable all of the muscles to work. Finally, the horses spleen supplies the circulatory fuel for the sudden bursts of speed needed to win races, (or historically run away from predators!)
So, in conclusion, it all appears quite easy. If you start with a big bag of cash to allow you to select a decent stallion & mare, (both from a tried and tested bloodline), then once the horse is born you select the best trainer for it, (not necessarily one of the top trainers), who then, when the horse is ready to race, selects the right jockey for the horse, (but not necessarily the top jockey), you then stand a better than average chance of your horse winning races…
…but after all that you may then find out that your horse just doesn’t have the heart for the game (or for that matter the lungs, respiratory system and spleen!!)
It’s as simple as that folks!
FarSideRail 