Galway - Dermot Weld Mini-Angle

Dermot Weld is the undisputed King of Galway. Year after year, Weld turns up to his familiar stomping ground and conquers all that lies in his path. His reputation precedes him at Ballybrit and punters pile money on to his fancied horses, often successfully.

Weld’s domination is such that every year from 2007 to 2012 it was actually profitable to blindly back all of his runners at the meeting. However, it hasn’t been for the last 4 years and we need to dig a little deeper in order to find a strategy that will yield profits from fancied Weld runners.

A small bit of research led to the observation that Weld’s horses perform particularly well at the meeting in maiden races with Pat Smullen on board (hardly a secret) so I’ve decided to use this as a starting point…

The Initial Criteria

Trained by Dermot Weld
Ridden by Pat Smullen
Running in a maiden race

Over the last 5 years, there have been 39 runners which fit this criteria. 17 won (44%) and a further 9 made the frame, giving a win/place strike rate of 67%.

This has been reliable for each of the last 5 years, as the table below shows:

Year	Runners	Wins	W%	Places	P%	W/P	W/P%
2016	8	4	50%	1	13%	5	63%
2015	8	2	25%	3	38%	5	63%
2014	8	4	50%	3	38%	7	88%
2013	8	3	38%	1	13%	4	50%
2012	7	4	57%	1	14%	5	71%

These are very impressive figures. However, if we delve further into the horses in question, we find that 20 of them were evens or shorter. For this reason, backing all 39 of these horses to win to level stakes would have resulted in a loss of 4.31 points.

Therefore, we need to look a little closer into the figures to find a better edge.

Bogie Race

If we break down the stats by the day of the week, we see relatively equal success over most days, with a couple of exceptions. The Monday is particularly impressive, with 4 wins and a place from 5 runners. However, the poor record on the Saturday is more interesting, with only 1 win and 2 places from 7 runners.

The races at the Galway Festival don’t necessarily stay the same each year, as the festival isn’t packed with high-class action in the same way as Cheltenham or Royal Ascot. However, there has been a race on the Saturday for a number of years over 1m ½f called the European Breeders Fund Maiden. 5 of the 7 Saturday runners which fit this criteria ran in this race, with no wins and 2 places from 5 starts. For whatever reason, this race has been an unsuccessful one for Weld and we should therefore steer clear of it when developing our angle.

Distance

It’s interesting that the bogie race happens to be the race run over 1m½f, while the sole winner on a Saturday was in a race run over 1m 4f. For this reason, I decided to look into distance to see whether it can help us to narrow down the criteria further.

Distance	Runners	Wins	W%	Places	P%	W/P	W/P%
7f	20	10	50%	5	25%	15	75%
1m½f	10	3	30%	3	30%	6	60%
1m4f	9	4	44%	1	11%	5	56%

The win rates and win/place rates tell a clear story here, although it’s the opposite to the hunch that led us to this point. The records are far better over shorter trips.

Horse Experience

Ran Before	Runners	Wins	W%	Places	P%	W/P	W/P%
Never	9	3	33%	2	22%	5	56%
Once	25	13	52%	7	28%	20	80%
More than once	5	1	20%	0	0%	1	20%

Again, the figures tell their own story here. It’s often thought that a more hardened, tougher horse can benefit at Galway, and so it stands to reason that horses which have a run under their belt and are a little less green will perform better than those which are making their racecourse debut. However, it is worth noting that the record of horses with two or more previous starts is poor (albeit from a small sample size). These are horses which have tried more than once to break their maiden and have failed to do so. Therefore, it looks like we may be looking for horses which have one previous start under their belt.

This becomes more interesting when we realise that horses with just one previous start which finished 2^nd last time out have an extremely strong record of 7 wins and 1 place from 10 runners.

The Definite Criteria

Trained by Dermot Weld
Ridden by Pat Smullen
Running in a maiden race
Has exactly one previous start
Not running in the 1m½f maiden on the Saturday
Running over 1m 1f or less

Results: 17 starts – 10 wins – 5 places – +3.92 profit

Possible Additions to the Criteria

Running over 7f or less

Results: 14 starts – 9 wins – 4 places - +5.62 profit

Finished 2^nd LTO

Results: 7 starts – 6 wins – 1 place - +3.89 profit

Running over 7f or less & finished 2^nd LTO
Results: 6 starts – 5 wins – 1 place - +3.59 profit

The very best of luck, and keep an eye out for the rest of our Galway coverage over the coming week.