National Hunt 2019-20 : Dodlands Steading mid season review (published 31st December '19)

A statistical review of the season to date for Dodlands Steading is provided below.

*  statistics from 1st August 2019 - 31st December 2019
** placed runner covers those of our horses in the first 4 in a race where there is prize money won

After enduring the endless dry winter of 2018-19, the rain and generally wet conditions of this autumn have been welcomed by all National Hunt trainers in Britain and Ireland. Very little sub-zero temperatures too and there have been healthy field sizes at each fixture.
At Dodlands, most of our horses were slightly undercooked on seasonal debut. We do not house a large string of horses and aim to have the jumpers running through to end of April / early May. So as fitness improves, so should the form figures......well, that's the theory!

Our thinking our first runner of the new season was Stainsby Girl on 2nd November, and she finished 2nd......a bit of an omen to come in the first half of this season!

Regular readers will both be aware that we put a lot of stock into the place-to-runner ratio as a measure of stable form. 50% of runners in the first 4 as a target is setting the bar high. Conversely if this percentage drop below 25%, thought and action is required!

So the first half of the season our runners getting placed racked in at just over 57%.
Our winning ratio was 9.5% (2 winners), not too bad but we had 6 second places which was 28.5% of our runners.

This figure of 57% though is a tremendous achievement, so members of the Dodlands Steading Team take a bow!

To measure the ability of the horses here at Dodlands, we use Racing Post Ratings (RPR) which are allocated to every horse after each race that it completes.
These give an indication of the quality of performance achieved by the string. Taking an RPR of 100 to represent an average level of performance, the yard had 10 of our 13 horses who achieved one or more performances at a higher than average level during the first part of the season.

The table below lists each of these individual performances.

So, a fantastic effort by the team in the early months of the season and whilst it is unrealistic to expect a place-to-runner ratio of 57% to be maintained, we will continue working on those incremental improvements and striving to be competitive in each race in which we compete.

Many thanks to this season's team - Georgina, Alan, Cameron, Callum, Garry, Connor, Pinky, Kingy, Leah, Laura, Rebecca, Lewis and Ollie. Plus of course our vet Sarah S, and Helen!
Thanks to all our owners too, it goes without saying none of this would be possible without you.   

Baby Ticker (dark colours) racing at Hexham in December - on her way to victory