Howard Johnson

L

landlark

At the Start
Joined
Dec 3, 2006
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Was just wondering the other day as Cheltenham was coming to a close that Howard Johnsons yard was having a terrible time as we all know. But what puzzled me was the fact that almost all his yard was running badly yet both his best horses Tidal Bay and Inglis Drever came out and won! My question is how does one manage that? If you look at his stats you see everthing is either PU or tailed off, he had one other winner a 2/7 shot that struggled to win. Even Dennis O`regans stats at the Festival were P,P,P,1,P,P,1 since then that odds on winner mentioned above. At the festival he took all his horses home except his two winners saying the ground was wrong (good to soft/soft). So do you think he had those two kept in isolation in another yard? Or what? Is it either a brilliant piece of trainership or pure luck that is the question. Im not being negative about the man here or saying hes fiddling or anything im just keen to know how he did it.
 
I think that trainer form is an overrated aspect of assessing a horse's chance and is certainly one that I pay scant attention too. Where a good horse is being aimed a big race even less so. Just my opinion.
 
Yes but in this case its not trainer form im on about its about 90% or so of a yard being laid up yet the 2 flagbearers being immune to it??
 
Perhaps he does something different with them, I don't know. Drever is 111 this season - there was no doubt in my mind that JHJ would have him ready for his day.
 
maybe trainers just have periods where the target races just don't appear...when the target races appear..the horse wins..as with tidal and inglis
 
Ignoring trainer form is imo the fastest way to the poorhouse! It's all-important to me

I've no doubt Howard Johnson has a part of his yard, as most if not all trainers do, where he can keep horses apart from the rest. This is usually used for new horses coming into the yard, as a c3 week quarantine, but in this case I've no doubt that knowing he had a virus in the yard, he quarantined his stable stars apart from the rest.
 
Why? I pretty much ignore it and am not even on the way.

There are many, many variables that you need to take into account to stay ahead in the game. Trainer form may be one of them, but in terms of importance it is languishing down with historical trends for me.
 
It was reported in the couple of weeks running up to Cheltenham that both Inglis Drever and Tidal Bay had been isolated from the rest of the yard, whilst they were under their mysterious "dusty hay" cloud.
 
It's no secret that the influence of Wylie in the yard has grown to such an extent that other owners started to leave a few years ago, as they felt they were getting suffocated. A wealthy all dominant patron can have some disadvantages too. It's possible that JHJ built the second half of the season around winning big races for Wylie, he does afterall have something of an eggs and basket situation now. He notably remarked after ID's victory, that he was going home to celebrate that evening!!! Clearly nothing else fancied despite having runners on the Friday.

On the subject of trainer form, it's often over-stated (and most certainly the way the RP describe it). There's various studies been done on this before and for the most part so called trainer form coincides with the statistical laws of probability after being subjected to random number distribution investigations. Even when a stable was considered to be out of form, the same research suggested that punters could make a profit by backing that yard as they were either under performing very often in reality, or simply complying with RND and being wrongly attributed. Yards that were regarded as being 'in form' by contrast, showed a loss as they were over-bet
 
I dont know if this makes a difference, but he has 2 yard which are around 2 miles from each other. I have no idea who is stabled in which yard but there wil be different staff in each yard so I would of thought a virus in 1 yard wouldnt spread to the other one
 
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