The Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle is a race that can be hard to solve given the lack of both experience and form. It’s thrown up plenty of big-priced winners and it’s certainly a race I think most people want to try and find the winner of due to the feeling that the winners is always there to be found in hindsight.
Hopefully we can find the winner with foresight though and I’ve looked at all running’s and against the last decade to see what’s changing and what’s stayed the same.
KEY TRENDS
- Will NOT have already raced at Cheltenham
- Will have won a Hurdle race if having more than 3 runs over hurdles
- Probably has 5 or fewer runs over hurdles
- Look away from favourites in this race
- Respect winners of the 4yo Rated Novice Hurdle in Naas (8th February this year)
- Preferably NOT wearing a Tongue-Tie
Focused Trends
PRICE
- Favourites – 3/20 (15%) & 1/10 (10%)
- Top 3 in the betting – 6/20 (30%) & 4/10 (40%)
- 22/1 or bigger – 8/20 (40%) & 4/10 (40%)
Favourites are a big loss maker and even trying to follow the Top 3 in the market would still lose money this century and in the last decade.
Backing all runners priced 22/1 or bigger though would have been profitable across both periods with 40% of the winners coming from there. It is thanks to 80/1 winner Jeff Kidder in the main, but even without him you’d have made money this century and only a small loss in the last decade. Not often you can bet the backend of a market blind and make profit.
RATINGS AND WEIGHT
- Winners with an OR between 129 and 139 – 10/20 (50%) & 7/10 (70%)
- Winners carrying between 11-0 and 11-9 – 12/20 (60%) & 8/10 (80%)
There have been more winners rated between 129 and 139 than outside of it and in recent years half of the winners carried between 11-0 and 11-9.
Combining these two measures would provide a slight loss backing blind, however if we were to tweak the OR range to 129-134 with weight of 11-0 to 11-5 it would have shown a 56% ROI to SP, but no winner since 2018. This system did find 5 winners in a row though, but it does depend on the top weight’s Official rating.
LAST TIME OUT
- Won last time out – 9/20 (45%) & 4/10 (40%)
- Last ran 16-60 days ago – 18/20 (80%) & 8/10 (80%)
- 4 of the last 6 winners ran in Naas’ 4yo Rated Novice Hurdle (8th February this year)
For a plotty handicap race it’s possibly a little surprising that 40% of the winners won last time out. It’s been profitable in all running’s to bet this blind but not in the last decade.
Most runners will have run 16-60 days ago so that won’t help whittle down the field, but 4 of the last 6 winners have come from the 4yo Rated Novice Hurdle in Naas which is run on 8th February this year. Worth noting that 3 of those 4 won that race too.
CAREER FORM
- Winners who had run at Cheltenham – 0/20 (0%) & 0/10 (0%)
- Winners who had 5 or fewer runs over hurdles – 18/20 (90%) & 9/10 (90%)
- Winners who had 1 or 2 wins over hurdles – 14/20 (70%) & 8/10 (80%)
No winner of this race had already run at Cheltenham and 37 horses have tried. Most winners have 5 or fewer runs over hurdles and 1-2 wins over hurdles. The only ones who hadn’t won a race over hurdles had 3 hurdle runs each.
HEADGEAR – (all this century)
- Cheekpieces or Blinker – 5/72 (80% ROI)
- Cheekpieces – 3/39 (62% ROI)
- First-time Cheekpieces – 1/17 (12% ROI)
- NOT First-time Cheekpieces – 2/22 (100% ROI)
- Blinkers – 2/33 this century (103% ROI)
- First-time Blinkers – 1/9 (188% ROI)
- NOT First-time Blinkers – 1/24 (70% ROI)
- Visor – 0/17 this century
- Hood – 0/31 this century
- Tongue-Tie NOT worn – 18/378 (11% ROI)
There’s lots of information here to do with Headgear but the first thing to state is that only Jazzy Matty in the last 10 renewals had worn headgear and won. So, this might be now out of date or others might argue it’s an angle due for another winner.
Well worth noting though that most winners don’t wear a Tongue-Tie and there have been no winners in a Visor or a Hood.
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