Editor's Welcome This month we have an excellent and potentially very profitable piece of research from Nick Hardman. Nick has researched the sires that produce offspring who win when the ground is challenging. And it turns out that you can just blindly follow the progeny of some sires when the going is soft or heavy and make strong profits. These systems are going straight into my portfolio and I suggest you do the same. We have another interview this month with a horse racing expert and tipster in the shape of Barrow resident Gary Poole. Gary is the brain behind the successful Bookies Enemy No 1 tipping service and he shares his story and his thoughts on racing and form study. Talking of tips, we have some tips for you for the upcoming Wimbledon tournament and we have selections for the Woman’s title. Also on the tennis front we have a look at match fixing where we assess the evidence to determine how safe your money is in what can be a very lucrative betting medium. As well as our usual reviews and tipping tables we also learn some lessons from our arbitrage friends on how to combine markets to get better odds about your selections. I hope you enjoy this month’s issue. All the best Darren Power For more information CLICK HERE Soft Ground Sires The influence of sires is often overlooked when it comes to a horse’s ability to act under specific ground conditions. More often one tends to consider breeding with respect to race distance or more typically its influence on speed and stamina. For instance it is widely known that the likes of Galileo, Montjeu and Cape Cross all produce progeny who excel in black type middle distance races, whereas the offspring of Kodiac and Zebedee make excellent sprinters. A horse’s ability to see out a trip or whether it has the requisite speed to win at sprint distances are factors that should always be considered when looking for likely race winners. Equally important is a horse’s ability to act on the ground and this trait is often inherited through their breeding line. Horses’ preference for specific ground conditions is to a large extent dictated by their racing action. In other words, how a horse elevates its legs, hooves and hocks whilst galloping. A low action generally refers to one where a horse will have less elevation and does not thump down hard on the turf. These horses appear to glide or skip over the surface and are considered “top of the ground” horses. This action is most suitable to good and firm ground. A rounded or high action is the opposite where the action is a high elevation and the hooves come down hard on the turf. These horses tend to prefer softer ground. A horses’ action, and hence its ability to act under specific ground conditions, are largely influenced by their breeding line. In this article we explore some of the sires whose offspring have a particular preference, and a better record, under soft and heavy ground conditions. We will begin by looking at soft ground sires on the flat. We will also explore the combined sire influences of ground preference and race distance. We will then take a look at their national hunt counterparts. Using HRB I have searched the database for sires whose progeny appear to prefer soft and heavy conditions. For both codes we concentrate on the going descriptions of soft, soft to heavy and heavy. Most flat races are run on good ground and most national hunt races on good to soft ground so there is not much point in exploring these typical conditions. What is of greater interest is the extremes of underfoot conditions where the ground is typically testing in nature. Authorized If ever you needed an example of the influence of the sire on ground preference then Authorized is it. The winner of the 2007 Epsom Derby, the son of Montjeu raced only seven times in his career, winning four. Those four wins came in the Racing Post Trophy, the Dante, the Derby and in the Juddmonte International before he was retired to stud after a disappointing run in the Prix des Arc de Triomphe. Below are his progeny statistics for all runners: An overall strike rate of 14.56% is respectable but backing all of his progeny would have produced just a nominal profit of £2.32 to level £1 stakes. However, if we look at the performance of his runners on different ground conditions we can see a marked preference for softer underfoot conditions. The data is show in the table below: Right at the top of the table we can see that his progeny perform best under soft underfoot conditions with a strike rate of 20% and a level stakes profit of £96.65. In contrast we can see that his progeny have just a 12% strike rate on good to firm ground, a 14% strike rate on good ground and they are yet to win on firm ground. If we look only at those runners on soft, soft to heavy and heavy going then we see his progeny have an overall record of 51 wins from 249 runners (21% strike rate) for a profit of £117.07. Given Authorized’s exploits over middle distances it is no surprise to see that 49 of those 51 winners on soft, soft to heavy and heavy going came over trips of 1 mile and further. Combining this race distance with the preferred going boosts the level stakes profit to £131.32. Summary Sire: Authorized Going: Soft, soft to heavy, heavy Race distance: 1 mile and further Captain Rio Not as illustrious as our first soft ground sire Authorized, Captain Rio was a capable sprinter in his short career, winning 3 of his 8 starts including the Two Year Old Trophy at Ripon on the final start of his juvenile season. He is now a 16yo but continues to knock them out in abundance at stud. Overall his progeny statistics do not inspire a great deal of confidence: A 10% strike rate and a level stakes loss of £211.32 does not really do justice to this precocious sire, especially when we dig a little deeper into the going preferences of this progeny. Again, as we saw with the progeny of Authorized, the offspring of Captain Rio perform best with soft underfoot conditions. The strike rate is still a little on the low side but we can see that all of the profit comes when his progeny run on soft, yielding to soft and heavy ground. Yielding is an additional ground description used in Ireland to describe ground somewhere between good and soft. I would personally strike a line through that description due to the low strike rate and the fact that the vast majority of that profit comes from Bootsandbars who caused a recent 50/1 shock at Naas just a couple of months ago. If we look only at those runners on soft, soft to heavy and heavy going then we see his progeny have an overall record of 63 wins from 535 runners (12% strike rate) for a profit of £104.96. 31 of those winners came over sprint distances, although the 6f sprinters show an overall loss and the 5f specialists show a profit. A further 24 winners came in races of 7f to 1 mile and this distance category has been by far the most profitable one. Summary: Sire: Captain Rio Going: Soft, soft to heavy, heavy Race distance: 7f to 1 mile We can now turn our attention to the national hunt sires and see if there are any whose progeny prefer similar testing conditions. Karinga Bay Karinga Bay was one of the most prolific sires in jumps racing. Sadly he passed away in 2006 which means his last crop are now 8 year old horses. However, they include Gold Cup winner Coneygree and smart performers like General Miller, Bradley and Killala Quay. Karinga Dancer was himself a smart middle distance performer winning the Group 3 Gordon Stakes, four Group 3 races in Germany and finished runner up in the Dante and Eclipse. Since 2003 his progeny have run some 4,278 times and won on 448 occasions at a strike rate of 10.47% but show an overall loss of £610.39. However, if we just stick with those runners on soft, soft to heavy and heavy going then he has produced 162 winners from 1306 runners at an increased strike rate of 12.40% for an overall profit of £174.33. What is really interesting is the performance of his progeny on heavy going: As you can see from the table above, the progeny of Karinga Bay have the highest strike rate under the most extreme of underfoot conditions – heavy going. Not only that but backing such runners would have returned a huge level stakes profit of £199.35. Another interesting fact is that it is his hurdlers that are most profitable to follow under soft and heavy conditions: Although both his chasers and hurdlers have an identical strike rate, it is obvious from the table above that it is his progeny over the smaller obstacles who have been most profitable to follow in the last decade. Sadly for us, his last crop will all be 9yo horses next season and so we may only have a few more years left if we were considering backing them as part of a micro betting system.