End of National Hunt season review

Statistics are only useful when they can be used to your advantage ( © Tony Calvin - Racing UK Betting Lab), but the tables which summarise the stable performance during 2016-17 National Hunt season are provided anyway.

*  statistics from 1st August 2016 - 31st July 2017
** placed runner cover those of our horses in the first 4 in a race where there is prize money won

The make up of the string at the start of the 2016-17 season was weighted towards novice and unraced sorts, with just 5 horses who were recognised handicap hurdlers. Four of these five (Hartforth, Tomahawk Wood, Bollin Julie and Snapping Turtle) were the 4 individuals who each won a race making up the 4 hurdle winners in the above table. The fifth handicap hurdler was Shades of Midnight, and he produced at least 3 cracking efforts last season but without winning.

However, we were delighted by the improvement in the quality of horse at Dodlands last season, a term that is not measurable by the number of victories achieved in any given season alone.
The trade newspaper, The Racing Post (and just how lucky is horseracing to have a specialist newspaper, plus two dedicated TV channels) and its' associated website, provide a marvellous wealth of data on horses, sires, broodmares, jockeys, trainers, racecourses etc. Not least of this information is the Racing Post Rating (RPR) which is allocated to each racehorse in each race based upon performance in that race. This differs from the formal BHA handicap rating which is allocated to each horse each time it runs, but doesn't reflect the precise level of performance achieved by horses in each race.

Taking an RPR of 100 to represent an average level of performance, the yard had 8 horses who ran one or more performances at, or at a higher level than, an RPR of 100 during the season.
The table below lists each of these individual performances.

Almost as noteworthy are the performances of the young, untested horses from our yard who achieved eye-catching RPRs on debut in a particular discipline, as shown in the table below.

So, maybe there were just 4 wins from our string of 15 horses which ran during the season (there were a further 4 or 5 in training who needed a bit more time to mature and didn't run), but a fine level was achieved by 10 individual horses of those 15 on at least one occasion, including several excellent runs by the very useful Shades of Midnight.
Uhmmm.....lots to be pleased about really!

So, many thanks to the team - Sarah B, Lisa, Stuart, Garry, Callum, Pinky, Milky, Kingy, Aidan, our vet Sarah S, and of course Helen W for keeping us all sane!
And a special word of thanks to all our owners too. The racing game can be a roller coaster of emotions at times, but all at Dodlands strive to make each moment the most exciting and pleasurable of experiences - win, lose or draw.

We're very excited about 2017-18 too with all bar Dumbarton from the above 'RPR tables' in the yard, so keep your eyes peeled on our web-site for new acquisitions, as well as the promising sorts of 2016-17.  

Promising novice hurdler Night Comes In seen schooling last April