Jamie Spencer Retires

Tanlic said:
Cauthen was brilliant I'll give you that but your one size fits Clive?

You look back at Jamie Spencer's last 40 rides and see how many he held up out the back door?

It is a complete fallacy that he holds up every horse and has only one way of riding.

You'll find most of those he hold up out the back door are long shots and the hope is his style might just bring out something in them because they have tried everything else...so they book Jamie......occasionally it works but most of them wouldn't win a donkey derby let alone a horse race.
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Fair enough
 
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Tanlic said:
Andrea Atzeni is a good replacement but that doesn't mean Spencer was a bad jockey.
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He wasn't always bad but to say he has been anything other than dreadful for at least a season and maybe more is to blind yourself to the facts. I think EC1 put up his stats some time ago and they did not make for good reading.

Tanlic said:
He's probably one of the best hold up jockeys ever and his method of riding totally misunderstood by disgruntled punters.
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I suspect you're doing punters a disservice there, Tanlic, with that very broad generalisation. Most experienced punters can see good and bad jockeyship in just about every race. There will be niceties that the better jockeys, including Spencer in his prime, display more often but too many of his bad rides are glaringly obvious.

Tanlic said:
Some may disagree with that but you only need look at who he has ridden for in the last couple of weeks and it has got to make you think either you are wrong or the dozens of trainers he has ridden for haven't got a clue what they are doing.
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It's a fact of professional sport that big names are automatically linked with big jobs. You only need to look at some of the big names among football coaches who made their big name at one club over a couple of seasons and then bombed completely thereafter despite being repeatedly engaged by 'big' clubs. Same with 'big name' players.

Sometimes trainers and owners engage the big name to make them feel important.

It's like:
- Who'll we get to ride? Jimmy Fitz is a good jock, let's get him.
- Who? Nobody's heard of him. He can't be any good. You need to go for an established jockey. They'll have the experience and nous. That's why they're up there. What about Spencer?
- He's getting a bad press these days.
- Yes, but look who else is still using him. They must know something.
- Yeah, right enough... let's get Spencer.

Even Cumani's patience ran out with him.

Tanlic said:
His style of riding will always be open to criticism basically because most puters don't even try to understand race riding.
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Again, I think that does punters a disservice. They do try to understand race riding. It's not often I stand in a bookies these days but when I do I'm surprised at how much more informed the punters are when watching the races compared with 20 or 30 years ago. They can quite readily identify when jockeys are making mistakes.

Unless by 'race riding' you mean something else then sure there will be some races when the jockey makes decisions or moves that are too subtle for most of us to notice but with improved race analysis on the racing channels we're getting better at understanding it.

What has become increasingly obvious is that Spencer most certainly is now much more one-dimensional than he used to be. It's as if he has decided to play a percentage game and assume that the majority of races will be run at too fast a pace and that by keeping well back he will eventually overtake the weakeners and win, in which case he will look brilliant.

OK, so he doesn't always hold them up but he still does it far too often and when he doesn't he tends not to win either.

Hughes does the same thing in the big sprint handicaps but he is at least versatile in choosing his tactics in other races and his analysis of Sole Power today was highly enlightening.

I don't really like saying it but Spencer's riding has become a bit of a joke but he seems determined not to change. It's almost as if he is sticking the finger up at his critics.
 
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Tanlic said:
Cauthen was brilliant I'll give you that but your one size fits Clive?

You look back at Jamie Spencer's last 40 rides and see how many he held up out the back door?

It is a complete fallacy that he holds up every horse and has only one way of riding.

You'll find most of those he hold up out the back door are long shots and the hope is his style might just bring out something in them because they have tried everything else...so they book Jamie......occasionally it works but most of them wouldn't win a donkey derby let alone a horse race.
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Indeed he doesn't hold every horse up at the back
I backed him on a horse I believed to be well handicapped a month or so back, a horse whose all win and placed efforts had come well off the pace, what does he do? Sets off like someone's stuck a rocket up his jacksy :mad:

I might add I have never even sat on a horse in my life and was firmly talking out my pocket :rolleyes:
 
Anyone else noticed apart from there being a fair bit of surprise about JS's retirement, one or two interviewees have cited "personal problems" so I get the feeling there is a lot more to this retirement than he has just decided to get out due to the fact he's been offered a job he simply can't refuse.
 
Atzeni no surprise to get the job but somewhat surprised Oisin Murphy has taken the No 2 job - no count the money was too good to refuse but Harry Bentley has not had the best of times in the job.
 
fonz said:
Indeed he doesn't hold every horse up at the back
I backed him on a horse I believed to be well handicapped a month or so back, a horse whose all win and placed efforts had come well off the pace, what does he do? Sets off like someone's stuck a rocket up his jacksy :mad:

I might add I have never even sat on a horse in my life and was firmly talking out my pocket :rolleyes:
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Don't know which horse you're talking about, don't know if Jamie was riding to instructions, Don't know if the horses needed an end to end gallop and they were going a dawdle and Jamie or the horse had a rush of blood to the head

That may have been plan B that someone said earlier Spencer never had:lol:

I've sat on hundreds of the beggars but please don't think for one minute that I am saying you need to be able to ride to spot a bad ride.

Some of the best judges in the game have never sat on a horse in their lives.
 
I think there's also a difference between being able to spot an obviously bad ride and an indifferent one.

For me, Spencer doesn't alter his tactics enough. If holding them up was the correct tactic he'd win more often than he does.

Contrast his riding style with Joe Fanning's. Fanning is recognised largely as a from-the-front jockey but he also gets it wrong out there. However, when you see how often he gets it right it is easier to forgive the ones he gets wrong.

Look, too, at how Ryan Moore varies his tactics from race to race. It is almost impossible to tell in advance what he is going to do. He is a jockey you can rely on to get it right in 90% of his races. He won't always win but he'll nearly always give his horse every chance of running to its odds or better.

Queally is also impossible to read in advance but with very different results...
 
Sometimes jockeys are told to ride to silly instructions and its even possible that trainers actually go for Spencer when they have a horse that needs holding up...so he ends up getting that type of horse to ride. Some trainers i'm sure just tell him to hold it up when in fact he himself shouild be the decision maker once the race starts.

The problem you have is that 50% of races aren't run to suit that style of horse..sometimes you get away with it if the horse is running over further and the extra distance counteracts the the lack of end to end gallop.

I think if you ride 90% of horses in a hold up position you will get results like Spencer..but i do think he has been a victim of his own making as trainers see him winning many races from off the pace and they don't book him for the on pace horses that win most races.

I'd love to see someone ask Spencer if he is constantly being told by connections to ride off the pace..because i think he has taken a lot of unfair stick which some is no fault of his own
 
Desert Orchid said:
I think there's also a difference between being able to spot an obviously bad ride and an indifferent one.

For me, Spencer doesn't alter his tactics enough. If holding them up was the correct tactic he'd win more often than he does.

Contrast his riding style with Joe Fanning's. Fanning is recognised largely as a from-the-front jockey but he also gets it wrong out there. However, when you see how often he gets it right it is easier to forgive the ones he gets wrong.

Look, too, at how Ryan Moore varies his tactics from race to race. It is almost impossible to tell in advance what he is going to do. He is a jockey you can rely on to get it right in 90% of his races. He won't always win but he'll nearly always give his horse every chance of running to its odds or better.

Queally is also impossible to read in advance but with very different results...
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i also think that Fanning gets picked to ride on pace horses as connections think that is his strength..so he has a lot of success as most races are won by horses near the front of the pace

Basically a lot of jockeys are pigeon holed and that is what rules whether they win a lot or not..being a head waiter is all well and good..but you will get noticed an lauded far more in the long run by riding horses near the pace.
 
Desert Orchid said:
He wasn't always bad but to say he has been anything other than dreadful for at least a season and maybe more is to blind yourself to the facts. I think EC1 put up his stats some time ago and they did not make for good reading.



I suspect you're doing punters a disservice there, Tanlic, with that very broad generalisation. Most experienced punters can see good and bad jockeyship in just about every race. There will be niceties that the better jockeys, including Spencer in his prime, display more often but too many of his bad rides are glaringly obvious.



It's a fact of professional sport that big names are automatically linked with big jobs. You only need to look at some of the big names among football coaches who made their big name at one club over a couple of seasons and then bombed completely thereafter despite being repeatedly engaged by 'big' clubs. Same with 'big name' players.

Sometimes trainers and owners engage the big name to make them feel important.

It's like:
- Who'll we get to ride? Jimmy Fitz is a good jock, let's get him.
- Who? Nobody's heard of him. He can't be any good. You need to go for an established jockey. They'll have the experience and nous. That's why they're up there. What about Spencer?
- He's getting a bad press these days.
- Yes, but look who else is still using him. They must know something.
- Yeah, right enough... let's get Spencer.

Even Cumani's patience ran out with him.



Again, I think that does punters a disservice. They do try to understand race riding. It's not often I stand in a bookies these days but when I do I'm surprised at how much more informed the punters are when watching the races compared with 20 or 30 years ago. They can quite readily identify when jockeys are making mistakes.

Unless by 'race riding' you mean something else then sure there will be some races when the jockey makes decisions or moves that are too subtle for most of us to notice but with improved race analysis on the racing channels we're getting better at understanding it.

What has become increasingly obvious is that Spencer most certainly is now much more one-dimensional than he used to be. It's as if he has decided to play a percentage game and assume that the majority of races will be run at too fast a pace and that by keeping well back he will eventually overtake the weakeners and win, in which case he will look brilliant.

OK, so he doesn't always hold them up but he still does it far too often and when he doesn't he tends not to win either.

Hughes does the same thing in the big sprint handicaps but he is at least versatile in choosing his tactics in other races and his analysis of Sole Power today was highly enlightening.

I don't really like saying it but Spencer's riding has become a bit of a joke but he seems determined not to change. It's almost as if he is sticking the finger up at his critics.[/QUOTE}

Rubbish!!! Spencer despite riding some real crap has ridden 60 winners brought in over a million in prize money so far this season and has approx 14% strike rate which is better than the likes of Jim Crowley, David Probart, Luke Morris and dozens of other....if he's bad then they must all be complete shyte.
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I think its fair to say that if we want to compare Fanning and Spencer as jockeys its worth trying to select races that suit their seeming style of riding.

Spencer overall strike rate = 15%..which tells you bugger all..without knowing what chance the horses actually had then these type of stats are useless

for this i'll use handicap races as they are a more even playing field to judge jockeys.

Spencer has ridden 401 winners..the expected wins using odds as a guide are 460..which means he wins 87% of handicap races he should win.

Fanning...377 winners...expected wins 418..he wins 90% of races he should win

so we have a benchmark ..Fanning looks slightly the better rider..but he rides the type of horse that suits our racing generally.

Lets judge them by field size..a rough way of seeing how they face a fast pace or slow pace..generally larger fields suit hold ups..smaller fields suit on pacers

Spencer
All handicap rides = 87%
20+ runners = 97%
8 or less runners = 81%

Fanning
All handicap rides = 90%
20+ runners = 89%
8 or less runners = 107%

those figures point to Fanning being nearly as good on hold ups as his overall figure but it shows that in races run at slower paces he excels

with Spencer his figures show he is better on holds and but loses out in slow run races because he is not adapting to the likely slower pace...so there is no misconception by punters or lack of knowledge of races imo
 
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Tanlic said:
Rubbish!!! Spencer despite riding some real crap has ridden 60 winners brought in over a million in prize money so far this season and has approx 14% strike rate which is better than the likes of Jim Crowley, David Probart, Luke Morris and dozens of other....if he's bad then they must all be complete shyte.
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Given his profile, wouldn't you expect his strike rate to be better than that?

The other jockeys are journeymen, retained by smaller operations and whose choice of outside ride is limited. I'd have been stunned if the bare percentages were any different.

And has he ridden any more crap than jockeys struggling to eke out an existence?

He's retained by a billionaire operation who buy expensive horses to win big races so in the big scheme of things a million in prize money is only to be expected.

Maybe the problem is that he is high profile therefore his poor rides are more readily spotted.
 
He must think he is riding kingman,

In general he is a negative for me and is perplexing abdullah has choosen him as a stable having horses with Gosden and Stoute that could be ridden by Ryan Moore and William Buick.
 
sunybay said:
EC

What about the figures of James Doyle?
This one is also a big negative for me.
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Doyle
All handicap rides = 93%
20+ runners = 29%.......1 win from 58 rides
8 or less runners = 98%

as he has only had 58 rides in the 20+ category...worth using 16+ runners

16+runners = 83%
 
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What about Ebor winner Louis Steward?

Johnny Murtagh told C4 that owner Andrew Tinkler told him to book the lad on account of his excellent stats (after also saying, by the way, that the owner was a great man to work for who never interfered ;)). The figures for his last ten rides certainly look impressive, with four wins, three seconds and a third.
 
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