Wizard Daily Report and Research - Friday , 3 November 2023 - R&R posted at noon daily

• Wizard Plus What the jockey said.
• Research - Australian Trainers examining the top trainers around Australia and how they perform in different locations and under different conditions.

Wizard Plus - What the jockey said.

I mentioned earlier this week how Wizard Plus takes after-race reporting to a new level. In the Wizard Plus enhanced formguide we now include the observations of the jockey and trainer when they have reported to Stewards on the performance of the horse. This information can be extremely useful when assessing the actual run of the horse. 

From the feedback received since launching the new Wizard website this is a much appreciated enhancement.

To give you an insight into the type of jockey observations we collated in just two days early last week I have reproduced some below. (I have not included repeats of comments.)

There are dozens of jockey comments/observations that we now record in Wizard Plus. Just a few of the jockey observations we report in addition to those listed above:

prefers softer going

did not handle the tight track

backed-up too quickly

better racing with cover

suggest adding blinkers

did not handle track conditions

better ridden forward

did not handle synthetic

disadvantaged by heavy weight

horse lost its action

horse raced flat

etc etc. 

Wizard Research - Australian trainers analysed (South Australia)

In this series of articles, we report on the best performing trainers in Australia - on metropolitan, provincial, and country tracks. Many of the names will be familiar to you, but there are others who are just as successful (in terms of strike rate) who simply fly under the radar. 

Today we look at the top trainers on South Australian racetracks, in terms of race wins, for the 2022-2023 racing season.

In South Australia 12 of the top 20 metropolitan trainers are also among the top twenty provincial area trainers. This number is the same as in Victoria, 1 more than Queensland, but substantially different to NSW where the number was 17.

The standout figure for me in this 2022-23 metropolitan table is the 47.8% winners to runners that was achieved by Ben & JD Hayes. Interestingly, the stable is not in the top 20 table so far this current racing season. With that sort of success rate in the past it will be a surprise if they don't re-appear in coming months.

With respect to individual trainers, David Jolly has a good record with the Wrat 100 pointers. At Morphettville, when his 100 pointers have been in the market, between $2.00 and $5.90 at the close of betting, they have produced a strike rate in excess of 40% and have returned 58c in the dollar. On another tack, the stable of Wayne Francis and Glen Kent have a sweet-spot in their form pattern with horses that are returning within 8 to 28 days out-performing all other categories of days-since-last-run. Their history for these horses when they are in the $2.00 to $5.90 closing odds range shows a strike rate close to 40%.

(Note: There was insufficient data for SA country trainers so that category has been limited to those trainers with at least 10 winners during the season.)