PREMIERSHIP tables are consistently referred to in mainstream racing publications, newspapers, social media, electronic racing media and so-on.

It’s great to win a premiership, but does that really tell us anything about the performance of a trainer during the season?

We all know that in 2017-18, Darren Weir trained the most winners, Chris Waller earned the most prizemoney and Tony McEvoy had the best strike rate (of the top 10 trainers).

We already know that Darren Weir will train the most winners again this season and that he and Waller will vie for the most prizemoney.

Strike rates are a measure of how often a trainer wins races and they certainly have their place in assessing performance, but they can also be misleading. If a high overall strike rate is propped up by many runners in Provincial or Country races, is that as good as a lower strike rate from a trainer that has many more Metropolitan runners?

It can easily be argued that the most meaningful measure of a trainer’s performance is how effective they are at earning prizemoney for owners and by extension, creating residual value for breeding (especially creating commercial stallions), which is beyond the scope of this article.

So what happens when we dig a little deeper beyond the more traditional measures of total winners or winning strike rate to look at the earning effectiveness of trainers?

In this article we examine a few different measures around how effective trainer’s have been at earning prize money for their owners, based on results from the 2017/2018 season.

SUMMARY OF TRAINER NUMBERS

By way of outline, there were:

• 26 trainers that had 100 or more individual horses to race at least once last season;
• 45 with 75 or more horses
• 99 with 50 or more horses

  

• 145 with 40 or more horses
• 223 with 30 or more horses
• 406 with 20 or more horses
• 876 with 10 or more horses
• 2338 trainers that had 1-9 individual horses.

The largest number of individual horses to race in the 2017-2018 season:

• Darren Weir: 565 horses
• D & B Hayes and T Dabernig: 409 horses
• C Waller: 366 horses
• James Cummings: 246 horses
• K Lees: 221 horses
• M G Price: 204 horses
• G Waterhouse and A Bott: 202 horses
• P&P Snowden: 187 horses
• Tony McEvoy: 150 horses

For the purpose of this article, we will stick with the trainers that had 30 or more individual horses to race in 2017/2018, so as to not skew the sample (otherwise, Joseph O’Brien, with just the 2 individual runners, will top every measure thanks to his Melbourne Cup win!).

MEDIAN PRIZEMONEY PER HORSE

The table below shows all trainers with 100+ individual horses to race in the 2017/2018 season and the median prizemoney earned per horse.

Note: This study does not include amounts paid in bonuses/breeding schemes. 

The MEDIAN represents the mid point of individual horse earnings for that stable. Another way to look at it is to say that 50% of horses in the stable earned more than this amount and 50% earned less.

We use MEDIAN rather than the average, as that figure can be skewed by one or two standout horses that may have won significant prizemoney races. For example, Redzel’s win in the 2017 Everest will skew the average across the Snowden stable, the deeds of Winx will skew Waller’s results and so on.

*sorted by size of stable

** The result of the C Maher stable are unreliable as horses did not race in his name from 3rd October 2017 to 5th April 2018 due to suspension.

You can see from the above list that some stables have done considerably better than others on an individual horse basis.

Of course the prize money on offer in different States certainly plays a role and perhaps most importantly, these figures do not account for the quality of bloodstock each individual trainer had in their stable for the season.

It’s fair to say that a trainer like James Cummings or Peter & Paul Snowden had on average better quality horses in their stable compared to Matthew Dunn for example. At the same time, it would be naive to think that all trainers would perform equally if given the same quality bloodstock.

I would suggest that a comparison between the Waller and Hayes & Dabernig stables is not unreasonable given both had a similar number of horses and have the profile to secure good quality bloodstock for their stable. The median prize money earned per horse in the Waller stable ($28,280) was two times greater than the Hayes & Dabernig stable ($14,060). We are of course only looking at one isolated season.

AVERAGE NUMBER OF RUNS PER HORSE

This is another interesting measure for each stable which you can see in the above table and a key driver of prizemoney earned per horse.

If the individual horses are a stable’s assets, then the more productive you can be with those assets, the more money you can earn and therefore return to owners.

Chris Waller averaged 6.4 runs per individual horse during 2017/2018, which is 1.5 runs per horse greater than the average for the group of trainers in the above table.

An extra 1.5 runs per horse across the 366 individual horses Waller had race during the season is a significant amount of extra earning capacity, which shows in his results.

Whether it’s driven by the type of horses in the stable, luck with injuries or the ability of a Trainer to plan and manage the preparation, training and recovery of their horses, there’s no doubt that maximising the ability of each horse to get to the track during the season is important in maximising prize money.

LEADING TRAINERS BY MEDIAN PRIZEMONEY PER HORSE

The table below shows the top 40 trainers based on median prizemoney per horse during the 2017/2018 season. A trainer must have had at least 30 individual horses have at least one start to be included.

Even taking Winx’s influence out of the equation by using median prizemoney, Waller’s stable as a whole comes out on top on this measure – which makes sense given he’s been the country’s leading big race trainer for the past six years.

A surprise entrant at the top of the rankings is Brent Stanley, who didn’t have a standout performer to boost his average, but achieved an excellent result with his team of 36 horses. He also achieved an outstanding 7.2 runs per horse during the season, which no doubt helped his earnings.

THE TOP END EARNERS OF EACH STABLE

The table below shows trainers with a minimum of 30 individual horses to race in 2017/2018 sorted by their top 25% of earners:

What this table shows is that 25% of Chris Waller’s 366 individual horses to race earned $77,665 or more for the season. Given the volume of horses in the Chris Waller stable, the $77,000+ figure illustrated here is a ringing endorsement of the overall strength of his stable.

By contrast, Darren Weir ranked 17th on this list, with a figure of $42,400. That discrepancy is a reflection of the number of horses Weir races in the bush, whereas Waller rarely ventures any further afield than the provincial circuit. 71% of Chris Waller’s total runners were on metropolitan tracks in 2017/2018 compared to just over 33% for Darren Weir.

The standout was WA training duo Grant and Alana Williams who had 25% of their horses earn $88,024 or more during 2017/2018, which is an amazing achievement in Western Australia.

Some may say that the support of leading owner Bob Peters has given them an advantage in the quality of bloodstock they have, but you still have to get the job done!

This table (and the previous) also leads to a conclusion that it’s more lucrative to be at the top end in New South Wales than it is in Victoria. Six of the top 10 here are based in New South Wales, two from Western Australia, leaving only Tony McEvoy (who has just as many runners in South Australia) and Jarrod McLean representing the Vics.

THE 25% BOTTOM HORSES IN EACH STABLE

We can also see in the above table that 25% of the horses in leading stables earn relatively little prizemoney. For example, while 1 in 4 horses in the Chris Waller stable earned $77,665 or more during the season, an equal 1 in 4 earned $6,966 or less.

Of some alarm within this category (not shown in the above table) is that of the 223 Trainers with 30+ individual horses to race last season, there were 21 that had 25% of their stable earn $0!

80 trainers had a 25% of their runners fail to earn $1,000 during the season.

It reinforces that while the top end horses can earn huge amounts in modern racing, there’s still a very big chunk of slower ones doing the rounds.