National Hunt 2020-21 : Dodlands Steading mid season review (published 31st December '20)

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

*  statistics from 1st August 2020 - 31st December 2020
** placed runner covers those of our horses in the first 4 in a race where there is prize money won

Since March, there has only really been one focus for each of the 4 governments in the UK. Dealing with the world-wide COVID pandemic with measures to protect the population whilst having the least impact upon the economy.

A thankless task.

The world of horseracing is often accused of living in its own bubble but for once this was an advantage to all, in that being classed as an elite sport, race meetings have continued to be staged since early June. Limited access to owners and general racing public for sure but the coverage by the two dedicated racing channels and the ITV platforms has hopefully provided much needed entertainment.

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 (© Mark Johnston) as a target is setting the bar high. Conversely if this percentage drops below 25%, thought and action is required!

So the first half of the season our runners getting placed racked in at just over 56%.
Our winning ratio was 13% (3 winners), not too bad but we had a second place beaten a nose, which is hard to take for a medium sized yard.
And just at the time of writing a couple of our best horses, with excellent chances at Kelso in late December, had to be pulled out due to ground conditions.

This figure of 56.5% though is a tremendous achievement, so hats off to the members of the Dodlands Steading Team.

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 7 of our 13 horses that ran who achieved one or more performances at a higher than average level during the first part of the season.
This number (7) is lower than in recent years and is a reflection on the larger than usual number of (initially) unraced horses in the yard, which was over 40% soon after the start of the season. And as you can see below, the horses listed are our established handicappers in the main.

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 a big ask to expect a place-to-runner ratio of 56.5% 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, Shay, 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, especially during these tough times.   

Baby Ticker (dark colours) racing at Ayr in December - on her way to victory with Connor in the saddle