UK Horse Racing Tips

Caroline Bailey has, justifiably, garnered a reputation as one of the leading horsewomen in Britain. She is, in fact, the daughter of the late Dick Saunders, who rode Grittar to win the Grand National, as a 48-year-old amateur, in 1982. Indeed, during her own riding career, she had the distinction of becoming the first female jockey to ride a winner at Cheltenham, aboard Ptarmigan who, like Grittar, was bred, owned and trained by the late Frank Gilman in Morcott, Rutland.

Caroline Bailey first took out a full, professional training licence in 2006, but by that stage of her career, had already sent out over 450 point-to-point winners from her yard at Holdenby Farm Lodge in rural Northamptonshire. Her most memorable victory came courtesy of the seven-year-old Castle Mane, who recorded an impressive, 13-length win in the Christie’s Foxhunter Chase Challenge Cup at the Cheltenham Festival in 1999. In fact, she later admitted, ‘At Cheltenham, I’d never been so excited in my life, particularly as we’d had him from the beginning.’ Two years later, in 2001, Bailey saddled the first two home, Gunner Welburn and Secret Bay, in the Martell Fox Hunters’ Chase, over the Grand National fences, at Aintree. Other notable horses to pass through her hands include the profilic Teaplanter, who only cost £1,000 as a yearling, but won 27 races, including three point-to-points, and amassed nearly £54,000 in total prize money.

Since joining the professsional training ranks, Bailey has found high-profile winners harder to come by. However, in February, 2019, she did saddle Crosspark to win the Vertem Eider Handicap Chase at Newcastle; the £50,048 first prize money made a significant contribution towards what is, so far, her best seasonal total, of £227,615, in 2018/19.

Dave Nevison said about himself: ‘I’m a bloody good winner!’

When you tell someone you’re a gambler they often give you one of those looks. It’s the reason why I don’t tell people I bet. Nothing worse than a pointless exercise. You have nothing to gain.

Mr Nevison used to say to everyone one he was losing on the day so it stopped them asking for a tip. Very few losing punters want to hear you are raking in a fortune. It can make people jealous. Not everyone wants you to win!

Then someone asks: ‘What is your strike rate?’

I guess punters and non punters like to simplify life in a form of categorisation. As if a strike rate really tells the story about your gambling success or failure. It’s dependent on the type of bets you place. To be fair, most punters are creatures of habit. The favourite backer remains the favourite backer for the rest of their life.

I once wrote an article titled: He’s Backed Every Favourite Since 1973.

The poor bloke never had a big priced winner.

Perhaps a strike rate means something if you bet on horses priced at short odds. Let’s face it, if you bet odds-on and you have a 50% strike rate, then the maths tell the story: ‘You’re a loser.’ If you told someone you had a ‘levels you devils’ strike rate they would be impressed. However, the intelligent punter would quickly follow such a statement by asking: ‘What’s your average starting price?’

That’s the thing about gambling, it’s often not what it seems. For example, if a punter makes their own tissue prices to find value in a given race, they may well bet on a number of horses in the same race and one of them may be 100/1 because you feel the true price is 50/1.

What’s your strike rate?

I don’t know about you, but I’d be struggling to work out the strike rate on multiple bets at different odds. If I told someone I had a 10% win rate they would think I’m having a torrid time.

‘So you’ve had ten winners in the last hundred bets? You must be a mug punter!’

Then they notice a wad of cash in your pocket and that Rolex watch on your wrist.

Then you say: ‘I only bet on horses at the minimum price of 100/1.’

‘Nice work.’

The key to winning at gambling is finding value. You appreciate the true odds, while the layer has got it wrong. That is based on skill and spotting a good bet from a bad one.

Dave Nevison said of all the bets he made he was best at spread betting. In fact, he was so good that the firms closed his accounts and at all costs wouldn’t dream of opening them again.

If someone asks how’s your luck, it’s best to say you’re having a bad day.

Then smile and say: ‘I have a 10% strike rate.’

‘Winner!’

Rated 140 by Timeform, alongside the likes of Shergar and Dancing Brave, Sea The Stars was, far and away, the outstanding horse of his generation. In his 3-year-old campaign, in 2009, he beat everything put in front of him, winning six Group 1 races in a row, at distances between a mile and a mile and a half and was named Cartier Horse of the Year.

Trained in Co. Kildare by John Oxx and ridden, exclusively, by Michael ‘Mick’ Kinane, Sea The Stars won the Group 2 Beresford Stakes at the Curragh on his third and final start as juvenile. He reappeared in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, where he beat the impressive Craven Stakes winner, and favourite, Delegator, by 1½ lengths. He subsequently became the first horse since Nashwan, in 1989, to complete the 2,000 Guineas – Derby double, beating a bevy of Aidan O’Brien-trained runners, including Fame And Glory, at Epsom.

Thereafter, Sea The Stars started odds-on for his remaining four starts. In the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown, he had to dig deep to fend off the Derby fourth, Rip Van Winkle, but won the Juddmonte International at York and the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown in comfortable, if unspectacular, style, as was his trademark. Stepped back up to a mile and a half for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, he pulled hard early on, but ultimately quickened clear to win, impressively, by 2 lengths.

Born on May 23, 1955, Oliver Sherwood began his career in racing as pupil assistant trainer to Gavin Pritchard-Gordon in Newmarket in 1974, before becoming assistant trainer to Arthur Moore in Co. Kildare, Ireland, where he first rode as an amateur National Hunt jockey. However, in 1978, Nicky Henderson relinquished his position as assistant trainer to Fred Winter to start training in his own right, so Sherwood took his place at Uplands, the most famous racing stables in Lambourn, Berkshire. He continued riding, with no little success, and became Champion Amateur Jockey in 1979/80; all told, he rode 96 winners under National Hunt Rules but, in 1984, made what he later called the ‘obvious transition’ to training in his own right, at nearby Rhonehurst Stables, where he has been based ever since.

Nowadays, Oliver Sherwood is best known as the trainer of Many Clouds, who won seven high-profile races, including the Hennessy Gold Cup – a race that Sherwood had first won with Arctic Call 24 years earlier – in 2014 and the Grand National in 2015, before suffering a fatal pulmonary

haemorrhage after winning the Cotswold Chase at Cheltenham in 2017. However, while he may lack the firepower that he once had at his disposal – his last Grade One winner, for example, was Cenkos in the Sandeman Maghull Novices’ Chase at Aintree in April, 2000 – it is worth remembering that Sherwood has saddled over 1,000 winners. Albeit some years ago, his successes at the Cheltenham Festival include The West Awake in the Sun Alliance Chase and

Rebel Song in the Sun Alliance Novices Hurdle in 1988, Aldino in the Grand Annual Handicap Chase in 1991, Young Pokey in the Arkle Challenge Trophy Chase in 1992 and

Coulton in the Cathcart Challenge Cup Chase in1995.