“A great jockey cannot make a slow horse win, but a bad jockey can get a great horse beat,” – Jerry Bailey
In my many years of following this great sport, I have seen quite the spectrum of how much, or little, stock horseplayers put on the jockey in a race. You have those that take the stance that the jockey doesn’t matter, that it’s the horse and trainer who produce the results. Others that will solely look at the jockey or connections in a given race when making selections. Most fall somewhere between, but its my opinion that the best handicappers in this game try to piece together the story that is being told through statistics and past performances, and the jockey is key piece of that puzzle.
It almost goes without saying how brave and hardworking these guys and girls are. If you have not seen the series “Jockeys” on Animal Planet years back, I recommend it to get a better understanding of the hours, emotional and physical stress, conflict, and danger these men and women take on each day.
So back to the handicapping. Here I will mainly reference SoCal jockeys with opinions and angles I look at regularly, along with statistics in the grid at the end to determine where you can better look for value. I don’t believe in the method of playing a horse just because a certain jockey is aboard, or if the leading rider has the mount; instead I ask five key questions, and these can be applied to any track or circuit:
- Does this horse’s running style match the strength of this jockey?
- Do the conditions of the race match the strength of this jockey?
- Does this jockey normally ride for this trainer? Owner? If so, is there a positive ROI?
- Does the jockey work the horse in the AM?
- If there is a jockey switch, do we have enough intel to determine an “edge”?
Running Style:
So, you are dissecting your PPs and you notice that in a race at Santa Anita there is a dirt route with only one horse showing evidence of early speed. The track has been playing fast. You glance up to the rider of this horse and see Martin Pedroza. Before you move on to the next 4 questions I detailed above, you should already begin getting excited. This is one of the more obvious examples of a riders strength matching with a horse’s running style in a favorable pace scenario. Pedroza has always been known as an excellent gate rider and one who can put a horse on the lead with ease, looking into his history of dominance on the Fairplex/Barrett’s grounds its clear he carried the favorable riding traits from that track to the main circuit with success. If Pedroza is placed on a deep closer, or on Turf, I can begin to consider eliminating that horse from consideration. I always find it valuable to eliminate horses for styles not matching a rider, especially as a horizontal horseplayer. The more you watch, the more you will see and understand each jockey’s strengths and weaknesses, the key is to pair them up to the horse to find value or eliminate a horse from consideration.
Racing Conditions:
Same concept as running style, there are jockeys whose skills are better suited for routes vs. sprint, or turf vs. dirt, or specific to a track or course (i.e. downhill turf at Santa Anita). Some examples of this are, Asa Espinoza clearly a stronger rider on dirt than turf (see stats below), Talamo is stronger on sprints (especially downhill turf), I prefer Maldanado for Turf routes, and Fuentes on dirt sprints. Then there are the guys you can trust on anything, i.e. Rosario, Prat (although stronger on Turf), and DVD, who you want to skip this question and go to the other 4 to see if you can find value.
Connections:
I took a large group of co-workers to Del Mar last summer, many of which were first timers. I explained the importance of the jockey and how the role of the jockey agent is to establish relationships with trainers that will lead to the best mounts for their jockey, and similar for trainers to develop relationships with good deep pocketed owners. The better the mounts, the more income opportunity for the jockey. For the trainer, the better the rider assigned, the more income opportunity. So, in simple terms, the best horses should attract the best trainers, who should have relationships with the best jockeys to pilot them leading to the best chance for them all to make money. This is where it is important to understand a couple key topics, 1. Variance, and 2. ROI.
Think about how difficult it is to make money (for a living) as a professional sports bettor. To be successful you need to pick 55% winners on a large bankroll over time. As we all know, sporting events are often a 50/50 proposition (one team vs. another) so gaining a 5 point edge should be easy right? Nope, that’s why there is a very small % of successful sports bettors. Now go to horse racing, not a 50/50 proposition as average field size is 7 horses, or a 14.2% probability on an even playing field and a much greater degree of variance. So, the goal for many is to have a higher than 15% win rat, but that also does not always equate to a positive ROI. If the top jockey, getting mounts with the top trainers, who train the top horses in the world wins only 15% of the time, I guarantee a negative ROI. Because of the short price, and low value, the win rate needs to be much higher in order to drive a profit long term.
For example, when Drayden Van Dyke teams up with Peter Miller the win rate is a strong 28% with a ROI of $2.44 (on a $2 bet) or over 139 races. So if $2 was bet to win on each of these 139 races for this connection, you would have seen a 22% gain on your investment, or a $61 profit. On the other end of that example will be the connection of two other familiar faces, Doug O’Neill and Bejarano. These two have a 20% win rate, very respectable, but a $1.60 ROI on $2 over 1000 races, or a $400 loss in profit if $2 was bet on every race this connection showed. These connection stats are in nearly every tool (DRF, Thorograph, etc) so looking at how the connections perform from an ROI standpoint over a large enough sample is important to spotting successful connections, and its not always the common names (see Treece/ Payeras).
Morning Workouts:
I recall reading an interview transcript from Drayden Van Dyke where he stressed how important it was for a jockey to know the horse and his or her specific traits and tendencies. So many people simplify this sport, but man is it intricate. These jocks, at speeds as high as 40 MPH, need to pick up cues from the horse (what lead is the horse on, head tossing, ears pricked vs. pinned, breathing, etc) and must make decisions quickly on best route to victory. Do I restrain and let the horse loose in the stretch? Do I give him/her a loose rein, do I whip or hand ride, do I go inside to the rail or outside of horses? How will my horse react to being “headed”? The answers to these questions, which again need to be made quickly and decisively, are much easier to make and made with more success when a rider knows the horse and what he/she likes and dislikes.
How do you know as a casual observer? Well, the only real way to know is to subscribe and read workout reports. I recommend National Turf (Andy Harrington) or Donald Harris/ Toby Turrell with The Winners Card Workout Report. You again will see a wide spectrum from horseplayers on the importance of these reports, and again, to me it all comes down to using them wisely not blindly. Many will scan through looking for B, B+ and the rare A works, elevating those horses, and discarding all C’s. To me, I feel it crucial to actually read the description of the work to identify what the trainer’s intention may be. Remember, not all trainers work their horses like Baffert or Peter Miller where you regularly see fast times and bullets. Other trainers focus on condition, or situational works for the horse with little care of the time or rank of it. I like to see if the jockey named to ride the horse in a race also has been on him/her for morning workouts, giving me more confidence, the rider knows this horse. Jocks are avid PP readers, most of them anyways, but data won’t tell you how a horse will or will not respond to tactical moves by a jockey, the only way to know for sure is to have worked the horse.
Jockey Switch:
Personally, I feel people read too much into jockey carousel situations, and immediately think that the best rider must have made a decision to switch to a better horse. Not always the case, and I caution players to pause before making assumptions before digging in. Jockey’s have strong connections to certain trainers and owners, where it could make sense to stick to a lesser horse in a race for a connection that is stronger and more valuable vs. jumping to a new mount or keeping a mount on a stronger horse in the same race. Get to know these connections and allegiances.
In Conclusion:
If you are a serious handicapper and put the time into “digging for value”, you can find an edge. The jockey is an important piece of the puzzle and by asking yourself the five questions above, I believe you will have more success in finding positive value and/or eliminating unlikely winners from the equation. The chart below will help you identify current trends and strengths by rider.
Remember though, things change with time. Just a few years back Bejarano had a hammerlock on the top of the jockey standings each year and getting top mounts in SoCal. Many years back Mike Smith was considered a turf specialist. And just a year ago Rosario was 4th or 5th choice as a NY rider, now back in SoCal is starting to gain some top mounts and will challenge Prat in the standings. These guys are human, not robots, and the art of riding a horse is not an easy one. Like baseball or golf, guys go into slumps and ride hot streaks. As with anyone, personal problems and inner demons come and go, and can impact performance, and much of this will never be known to the public, but is just another variable that makes this game so difficult and unpredictable. No angle or statistic is perfect, but its important to find the edge, uncover value, and be disciplined in order to be successful in this game. Best of luck!
Chart guide:
Column 1: dirt win %
Column 2: dirt ROI
Column 3: turf win %
Column 4: turf ROI
Column 5: Santa Anita win %
Column 6: Santa Anita ROI
Column 7: route win %
Column 8: route ROI
Column 9: sprint win %
Column 10: sprint ROI
Column 11: top trainer connection
Column 12: top trainer connection ROI
“A good jockey has to be physically well balanced. They have to possess a strong upper body and a strong lower body. You’ve gotta have quick reflexes, and you’ve got to be incredibly coordinated. But it’s your instincts that have to be perfect. You can’t be an exceptional rider without instincts.” -Chantal Sutherland
| Flavien Prat | 22% | $ 1.60 | 24% | 2.06 | 23% | $ 1.75 | 22% | $ 1.75 | 23% | 1.94 | Mandella | $ 2.56 |
| Joel Rosario | 22% | $ 2.12 | 15% | $ 1.45 | 20% | $ 1.39 | 17% | $ 1.53 | 20% | $ 2.07 | Eurton | $ 2.99 |
| Drayden Van Dyke | 25% | $ 1.52 | 19% | $ 2.27 | 19% | $ 1.72 | 20% | $ 2.02 | 24% | $ 1.80 | Miller | $ 2.44 |
| Joe Talamo | 18% | $ 1.80 | 12% | $ 1.89 | 15% | $ 1.91 | 13% | $ 1.50 | 17% | $ 2.14 | Dollase | $ 2.13 |
| Kent Desormeaux | 18% | $ 1.37 | 11% | $ 1.08 | 17% | $ 1.42 | 13% | $ 1.11 | 16% | $ 1.32 | Morey | $ 3.04 |
| Tyler Baze | 14% | $ 1.35 | 10% | $ 1.39 | 12% | $ 1.33 | 13% | $ 1.68 | 12% | $ 1.17 | Chew | $ 3.05 |
| Asa Espinoza | 16% | $ 1.79 | 6% | $ 1.90 | 12% | $ 1.89 | 13% | $ 1.89 | 13% | $ 1.74 | Sadler | $ 5.48 |
| Heriberto Figueroa | 19% | $ 1.80 | 10% | $ 1.54 | 16% | $ 1.75 | 15% | $ 1.86 | 18% | $ 1.70 | Morey | $ 2.62 |
| Agadipo Delgadillo | 13% | $ 2.10 | 13% | $ 1.77 | 10% | $ 1.30 | 9% | $ 1.40 | 15% | $ 2.34 | Nunez | $ 2.70 |
| Stewart Elliott | ||||||||||||
| Brice Blanc | 6% | $ 0.72 | 8% | $ 0.80 | 8% | $ 0.74 | 9% | $ 1.06 | 4% | $ 0.32 | Gallagher | $ 2.19 |
| Rafael Bejarano | 15% | $ 1.35 | 12% | $ 1.49 | 15% | $ 1.63 | 13% | $ 1.43 | 13% | $ 1.44 | Desormeaux | $ 2.88 |
| Edwin Maldanado | 10% | $ 0.94 | 13% | $ 2.09 | 10% | $ 1.08 | 17% | $ 2.20 | 8% | $ 0.83 | Papaprodromou | $ 3.03 |
| Martin Pedroza | 15% | $ 1.99 | 5% | $ 1.09 | 13% | $ 1.38 | 14% | $ 2.72 | 13% | $ 1.31 | Sise | $ 2.48 |
| Edgar Payeras | 15% | $ 1.19 | 0% | $ – | 5% | $ 1.17 | 4% | $ 0.94 | 16% | $ 1.15 | Treece | 31% win 69% ITM |
| Ruben Fuentes | 15% | $ 2.52 | 9% | $ 1.31 | 11% | $ 1.70 | 13% | $ 2.03 | 14% | $ 2.27 | Lerner | $ 2.79 |
| Geovanni Franco | 16% | $ 2.01 | 13% | $ 1.52 | 15% | $ 1.82 | 14% | $ 1.58 | 15% | $ 1.97 | Stute | $ 3.24 |
| Tiago Pereira | 16% | $ 1.93 | 8% | $ 1.02 | 14% | $ 1.81 | 10% | $ 1.41 | 16% | $ 1.77 | D’Amato | $ 2.46 |
| Aaron Gryder | 22% | $ 1.75 | 19% | $ 5.85 | 17% | $ 2.13 | 20% | $ 1.92 | 21% | $ 2.11 | D’Amato | $ 2.87 |
| Evin Roman | 12% | $ 1.57 | 7% | $ 0.87 | 10% | $ 1.09 | 7% | $ 1.04 | 13% | $ 1.54 | Hess | $ 2.12 |
| Mario Gutierrez | 13% | $ 1.08 | 11% | $ 1.67 | 12% | $ 1.34 | 11% | $ 1.38 | 14% | $ 1.33 | Hollendorfer | $ 3.12 |
| Mike Smith | 36% | $ 1.93 | 10% | $ 0.92 | 30% | $ 1.99 | 25% | $ 1.36 | 27% | $ 1.85 | Sherrifs | $ 2.07 |