John Ingles highlights a handful of Flat trainers with the best strike rates at this time of year.
Trainers with at least 50 runners on the Flat in Britain in October 2020-2024
Charlie Appleby
67 winners/ 215 runners: 31.16% strike rate
Charlie Appleby can be relied upon for a strong end to the turf season and it’s the Godolphin two-year-olds who account for most of the stable’s runners in October. 155 of Appleby’s 215 UK runners in October over the last five years have been two-year-olds, equating to 72%, providing 51 of the stable’s 67 winners during the month. Last October, the stable won both the Group 1 races at Newmarket’s Future Champions Festival with subsequent 1000 Guineas winner Desert Flower landing the Fillies’ Mile and Shadow of Light becoming Appleby’s third winner of the Dewhurst Stakes after Pinatubo in 2019 and Native Trail in 2021.
Better still is Appleby’s record in the Group 3 Autumn Stakes at the same meeting which he won with Ghaiyyath in 2017 and then four years running with One Ruler, Coroebus, Silver Knott and Ancient Wisdom between 2020 and 2023, the last-named going on to win the Futurity Trophy later in the month. Surprisingly perhaps, Appleby has been much less active on Champions Day at Ascot, with just one winner (2021 Champions Sprint winner Creative Force) there from 11 runners and no runners at all in either of the last two years. Last month’s impressive Tattersalls Stakes winner Distant Storm looks the stable’s best hope of Group 1 success this October when bidding to become another Dewhurst winner for his trainer.
Saeed bin Suroor
29/123: 23.58%
Fellow Godolphin trainer Saeed bin Suroor competes on a much smaller scale than he used to, 2015 being the last time he hit a century of domestic winners, and is now down to just 20 horses in training, but he has the next-best October strike-rate over the last five seasons. In contrast to Appleby, around half of his October runners have been in handicaps, with his biggest win of the month in recent years coming in a listed race at Ascot with Soft Whisper in 2022.
While Bin Suroor had as many as 11 winners in October as recently as 2021, he has had only seven and ten runners respectively for the same month in 2023 and 2024. However, three of those were successful last year and one of them proved to be a winner of note as two-year-old Tornado Alert, who landed a maiden at Newcastle, has made into a smart colt this season, finishing fourth in the 2000 Guineas and winning the Group 1 Grosser Dallmayr-Preis at Munich.
Joseph Parr
19/86: 22.09%
Newmarket trainer Joseph Parr, who only took out a licence in 2020, can hold his own with some much bigger names in the training ranks when it comes to saddling winners in October. A better than one-in-five strike rate for the month is particularly good given that it’s mostly ordinary handicappers who have provided those wins. Parr saddled five winners in October 2021 and repeated that feat in 2023, with another three winners in October last year from 13 runners at odds of 17/2, 7/1 and 5/1.
The stable’s fairly useful all-weather performer Kalamunda won twice in October 2023 and completed a hat-trick last autumn when winning in October again at Kempton. While the stable has struggled for winners this year with only five on the board, a win for Jazz Scene at Southwell at the end of September is a more encouraging sign and Kalamunda returned to form at the same track last time suggesting he too might be about to come good again at this time of year.
John & Thady Gosden
80/405: 19.75%
John Gosden, along with son Thady since 2021, have sent out more runners in October over the past five seasons than most stables but have managed to maintain a strike rate just shy of one in five. Domestic highlights of the month in recent seasons have come on Champions Day at Ascot, with Emily Upjohn winning the Fillies & Mares Stakes in 2022 and Trawlerman getting the better of Kyprios in the Long Distance Cup in 2023, a race he and stablemate Sweet William (placed in the last two renewals) are entered for again.
The stable can also boast a couple of recent wins in the Sun Chariot Stakes, from Nazeef and Inspiral, and the latter filly also won the Fillies’ Mile in 2021, with Commissioning following suit a year later. Haydock winner Legacy Link is vying for favouritism in this month’s Fillies’ Mile and if successful would provide Gosden senior with a record seventh victory in the race.
But it is Champions Day that is much the most important date for the stable this month. The Gosdens are currently third in the trainers’ championship behind Aidan O’Brien and Andrew Balding, but their hand is potentially strong enough to overhaul those two rivals at Ascot. Besides Trawlerman in the now Group 1 Long Distance Cup, top-class colts Field of Gold and Ombudsman are being prepared for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and Champion Stakes respectively, both having already won at Royal Ascot in the summer.
Owen Burrows
11/57: 19.30%
Owen Burrows is selective with his runners resulting in only 57 runners in October over the last five years, but that approach coupled with a healthy strike rate regularly makes it a profitable stable to follow. That’s the case again this season when Burrows is on course for his most winners since 2018. He would certainly have been worth following last October when Anmaat caused a 40/1 surprise in the Champion Stakes. There was no fluke about that win, however, as the seven-year-old has shown similar form this season, finishing runner-up in all three of his starts, most recently behind Delacroix in the Irish Champion Stakes. But he’ll have to turn around form with Ombudsman from the Prince of Wales’s Stakes if he’s to win again at Ascot later this month.
Other good winners at this time of year in recent seasons are Hukum in the 2021 Cumberland Lodge Stakes and Alflaila in the 2022 Darley Stakes at Newmarket. Anmaat looks set to be joined on Champions Day by the progressive Lillie Langtry Stakes winner Waardah who is prominent in the betting for the Fillies & Mares Stakes.
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