Thursday, 17 April 2014

Irish Grand National Comprehensive Trends

The Irish Grand National takes place at Fairyhouse this Monday, and is one of the highlights of the Irish jumps racing calendar. Like the English and Scottish versions of the race which have been recently run, the Irish National tests a horse's jumping and stamina, and often goes to an outsider running from a big price (last year's winner was Liberty Counsel, a 50/1 shot from the small yard of Dot Love).

A quick word of caution on trends: Mark Twain once said, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." Although trends can often be used as one of the most vital guides when analysing a horse race, there are occasions on which they would fit into Twain's quote somewhere after statistics. Many of the trends you will find below will be helpful tools to narrow down the field in the National at Fairyhouse on Monday, some of them will be no help whatsoever and could even result in you eliminating horses unnecessarily.

For example, the fifth trend is "8 of the last 10 winners were male". It would be very easy to jump to the conclusion that mares don't perform well in the race and should be ignored. However, 250 runners in the last 10 years were male, while only 18 were not. Therefore, the mares actually have a much higher strike rate (11% compared to 3%) and a much higher profit/loss figure (+59 compared to -55). This evidence would actually hugely encourage me to back a mare in the Irish National. However, the simple line, "8 of the last 10 winners were male" would suggest the exact opposite, and could easily make you eliminate a horse from your shortlist which is a potential winner.

On the other hand, a lot of these trends will come in as being useful. Although trends are a popular method of analysing horse races, there are very few places on the internet where you can get a large list of trends, and none to my knowledge where you can get a list of the size and variety of the one below. I would suggest that you trawl though them yourself, highlight what you think is relevant or unusual, and use them to your advantage come Monday. Enjoy and the best of luck to you in doing so.

Horse

10 of the last 10 winners ran from a starting price of 9/1 or more
6 of the last 10 winners ran from a starting price of 22/1 or more
10 of the last 10 winners were aged 10 or less
8 of the last 10 winners carried a weight of 10-5 or less
8 of the last 10 winners were male
10 of the last 10 winners carried at least 10lb less than top weight in the race
10 of the last 10 winners carried between 1lb and 14lb heavier than bottom weight in the race
7 of the last 10 winners had an official rating which was higher than on their previous start
9 of the last 10 winners had an official rating which was higher than on their previous winning start
6 of the last 10 winners came from outside the top 15 in the market
8 of the last 10 winners came from outside the top 10 in the weights
10 of the last 10 winners had an official rating which was 11-30 lower than the top official rating in the race
9 of the last 10 winners wore no headgear
8 of the last 10 winners were Irish-bred (the other two were both French-bred)
8 of the last 10 winners had come in the top 3 on at least one of their last 3 runs
7 of the last 10 winners won at least one of their last 5 runs
10 of the last 10 winners won at least one of their last 10 runs
7 of the last 10 winners had 4 or 5 runs in the last 365 days
8 of the last 10 winners had placed in at least one of their last 3 runs
8 of the last 10 winners had never won on the same going as the Irish National was being run on
9 of the last 10 winners settled in the mid division (the other was prominent)

Last Race

6 of the last 10 winners came in the top 4 last time out
9 of the last 10 winners came in the top 9 last time out
6 of the last 10 winners had their last race at Cheltenham or Naas
8 of the last 10 winners had their last race at Cheltenham or in Ireland
9 of the last 10 winners had a starting price of 9/1 or more in their last start
8 of the last 10 winners ran over 3m+ on their last start
6 of the last 10 winners ran in a race with 18 runners or more last time out
8 of the last 10 winners ran in a race worth at least 17K last time out
9 of the last 10 winners ran at a left-handed track last time out
9 of the last 10 winners ran in the last 60 days
9 of the last 10 winners ran in a race last time out which had, between the previous race and the Irish Grand National, produced 0 or 1 subsequent winners
7 of the last 10 winners had run in the past 60 days prior to their last race
7 of the last 10 winners had been in the top 10 in the market on their last start

Last Winning Race

8 of the last 10 winners had their last winning run over 3m+
6 of the last 10 winners had their last winning run in a field of 11 or more
9 of the last 10 winners had their last winning run in a chase

Trainers

No trainer has won twice in the last 10 years.
Michael Hourigan – 6 places from 12 runners
A L T Moore – 1 win and 5 places from 12 runners.
8 of the last 10 winning trainers only had 1 runner at Fairyhouse on the day of the National (the other two had 2 or 3 runners).
9 of the last 10 winning trainers had only 1 runner in the race.
5 of the last 10 winning trainers had at least 1 win from their last 10 runners (7 had at least 1 win from their last 25 runners)
9 of the last 10 winning trainers hadn’t sent out a winner in the previous 14 days
7 of the last 10 winning trainers hadn’t sent out a winner in the previous 30 days (the other 3 all had less than 10 winners in the previous 30 days)

Jockeys

Like the trainers, no jockey has won the race twice in the last 10 years.
Andrew McNamara – 1 win and 2 places from 6 runners
Mr P F Mangan – 2 places from 4 runners
R P McLernon – 2 places from 2 runners
A E Lynch – 2 places from 6 runners
D J Howard – 2 places from 2 runners
D J Casey – 2 places from 9 runners
9 of the last 10 winning jockeys had had at least one winner in the past 40 days
7 of the last 10 winning jockeys hadn’t rode a winner in the last 14 days
9 of the last 10 winning jockeys had 4 or less rides that day
5 of the last 10 winning jockeys had only 1 ride that day
7 of the last 10 winning jockeys had had less than 25 rides in the previous 14 days
8 of the last 10 winning jockeys had had at least 11 rides at Fairyhouse in the past (the other two had none)

8 of the last 10 winning jockeys had at least 1 win at Fairyhouse (the other two had never had a ride at Fairyhouse)

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