One: Who’s better than Charlie Appleby? Only Charlie Appleby.
Unless you’ve somehow managed to avoid seeing a Flat race this season you’ll know Charlie Appleby has made a terrific start to the campaign. He’s been pre-fixed with the ‘red-hot’ moniker ever since March turned into April and with good reason; he’s had 17 winners from 34 runners with a PRB (percentage of rivals beaten) figure of over 85% so far this month (up to the end of April 25).
That is obviously very good stuff, but how good is it relative to all the other trainers in the UK and Ireland over the last 10 years and more?
We looked at trainer strike-rates since 2010 in the first four weeks of the Flat season (the four weeks following Doncaster’s Lincoln meeting) and Charlie Appleby’s 2022 vintage is only beaten by the start he made to the 2018 campaign (14 winners from 27 runners at a 51.9% strike-rate) ensuring him the top two best starts to a season in the last 13 years in GB and Ireland.
He isn’t the only Godolphin handler to be quick out of the blocks with Saeed Bin Suroor making his way into the top five on the back of the start he made to 2017. That PRB figure is actually the second highest in the list, though the Godolphin trainers’ fortunes have gone in opposite directions subsequently.
High-performing trainers in the early weeks of the season will regress to their usual levels of performance as the weeks and months go on, but it will be interesting to see how Appleby fares as we enter a crucial period of the campaign.
In 2018, after his last rocket-like start, he had a four-timer on 2000 Guineas day, was third in the Classic itself with Masar (a horse who went onto win the Derby the following month) and held his strike-rate well throughout the rest of the campaign going 45 wins from 184 runners at 24% from June to November.
Two: Appleby trumping O’Brien at improving 3yos first to second start
Where Appleby goes from here is the question and though it’s doubtful he can maintain such a relentless pace even a slight drop off will see him have one hell of a season.
May and June are two of the best months of the year with all the Classics, Royal Ascot and opportunities for three-year-olds and it’s interesting to see how Appleby has done, in comparison to Aidan O’Brien, when it comes to improving 3yos on their second start.
Looking at Timeform data since the start of 2010 the below table shows you the median TF performance figures for each trainer when it comes to their 3yos on their seasonal debuts and their next starts, allowing us to accurately calculate what percentage of their Classic crop improve for a run.
That strike-rate column tells you 65.8% of Aidan O’Brien’s improve from their seasonal debut to their performance on their second start, with Appleby’s figure slightly higher at 67.2%, although he is operating from a slightly lower median rating.
Sir Michael Stoute (66.5%) and John Gosden (65.7%) are the two other current handlers in a similar place to the big two when it comes to improving three-year-olds, with the now-retired Luca Cumani (67.9%) and John Oxx (66.9%) other masters of the art.
Talking of masters, the master strike-rate part of the table indicates the percentage value of horses that improved on their master Timeform rating on their second start at three, with Appleby returning a strike-rate of 48.9% and O’Brien 48.4%.
So when it comes to expecting improvement from three-year-olds on their second start, Appleby is currently the best around. It could be ominous for Native Trail’s opponents in Saturday’s 2000 Guineas, given he has a Craven win under his belt, and he brings us onto the next topic nicely...
Three: The increasing quality coming through the ranks at Appleby’s
In the past Godolphin have been starting the season behind Coolmore when it comes to the previous year’s juveniles and with both operations expecting natural improvement at three bridging the gap has been a serious challenge.
However, looking at the top five two-year-olds for every trainer by Timeform rating since 2010, we can see that when Appleby started out his best juveniles were 10lb shy of O’Brien’s top two-year-olds, but the gap has closed and then some over the past few seasons.
In 2020 he was just 4lb off O’Brien’s median rating but with the master of Ballydoyle’s level dropping just a little Appleby actually overtook him by a fine margin last year, returning a 111.8 TF average compared to O'Brien’s 111.2.
At the very top level bringing those averages up we can see that Appleby has had Pinatubo (131), Quorto (124) and Native Trail (122) in recent seasons, with O’Brien’s Air Force Blue (123), who didn’t train on at three, being his only juvenile rated above 122 in the same timeframe.
O’Brien did have eight rated 120 or 121, including horses that improved again at three like his Classic winners Minding, Magna Grecia, Churchill, Saxon Warrior and Anthony Van Dyck, so any decline in quality of juveniles appears to be ever so slight.
But if Appleby continues to churn out these 122+ rated two-year-olds, O'Brien might just have to find one or two more himself to keep tabs on him, as that light blue arrow looks unlikely to be heading in a downward direction any time soon.
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