New: daily_jockeys_insights comes to Smartform
By colin on Tuesday, December 10th, 2024Hot on the heels of our post about the new daily trainers insights variables available to Smartform users, we’re pleased to announce the addition of a new corresponding table for jockeys: daily_jockeys_insights.
You can view the new schema and Smartform users can download all the data (all 2.3 million new rows) following the instructions under “Downloading the data” here.
The new table follows the format and category types designed for daily_trainers_insights, but instead curating statistics for all daily races and runners since March 2008 according to jockey performance. All the details are in the schemas, and the previous blog article on trainer_insights holds true but this time for the riders. Rather than restate the high level details in this blog post, we will instead show what it is possible to achieve using one of the unique fields in the table.
In this example, presented below, we joined the daily_jockeys_insights table to the daily_runners_insights table for all yesterday’s racing at Wolverhampton, removing non-runners, and focussed on the percentage rivals beaten (PRB) statistics for each jockey riding in each race, but over the past 5 years using the values automatically generated in the new table. The particular PRB statistic we used comes with a twist, however, in that it considers the performance of each jockey according to the handicap status in the race in which the jockey is competing. In other words, each PRB figure is applied to the jockey’s performance in handicaps or non-handicaps – and the 5 year PRB figure for all the jockeys rides up to but not including the race is presented – according to the handicap status of the current race in question. Note that each comparison, as presented below, can be generated prior to racing, and you can also interrogate previous day’s statistics by entering the relevant meeting date. We then wrote a graphics script to plot the runners in each race, showing each jockey below the runner name, and highlighting the runner and jockey in bold which has the highest PRB statistic within the context of the race. The red dashed line shows the level of the PRB for the highest rated jockey within each race. Below are the results.
Finally, let’s look at the results for each race by querying Smartform on the highlighted runners and jockeys above.
| Course | Race Time | Horse | Jockey | Result | Starting Price |
| Wolverhampton | 16.15 | Lewis Barnes | Kaiya Fraser | 2 | 9/4 |
| Wolverhampton | 16.45 | Diomed Spirit | Marco Ghiani | 3 | 7/1 |
| Wolverhampton | 17.15 | Onslow Gardens | Tyrese Cameron | 4 | 11/8 |
| Wolverhampton | 17.45 | Bear Rock | R Kingscote | 2 | 66/1 |
| Wolverhampton | 18.15 | Windsor Pass | Kaiya Fraser | 5 | 4/1 |
| Wolverhampton | 18.45 | Eagle Day | R Kingscote | 1 | 15/2 |
| Wolverhampton | 19.15 | Moon Over The Sea | Jack Doughty | 5 | 9/2 |
| Wolverhampton | 19.45 | Khangai | Hector Crouch | 3 | 5/4 |
| Wolverhampton | 20.15 | Alfheim | Tommie Jakes | 1 | 11/4 |
Given we are using just one variable from the new table, these are, we hope you will agree, interesting results: 2 well priced winners, with 4 placed horses also at interesting prices, and 3 losers.
What is particularly interesting about using the “by handicap status” condition is that whilst you do get some repeats (as with Richard Kingscote and Kaiya Fraser, each qualifying in 2 races, above), one jockey that has good statistics does not dominate the whole meeting’s statistics. This can happen with (for example) course statistics by jockey. Where you do want to highlight “the best” jockey at a course, this also has its uses, and this too is available in the new table, along with 40+ other variables. Enjoy!