Timeform take a look at the best jockeys to follow when betting.
Timeform ponders the merits of backing the fourteen-time champion jockey Tony McCoy and attempts to come up with some profitable alternatives.
Anthony Peter McCoy rode his 3,000th winner in February of last year. It was just another remarkable achievement to add to the perennial champion jockey's role of honour. Since then he has claimed his 14th consecutive jockey's title, and produced one of the greatest ever Cheltenham Festival rides when getting Wichita Lineman up to beat Maljimar in the William Hill Trophy Handicap Chase.
McCoy is widely regarded as the finest National Hunt jockey we have ever seen and has a reputation amongst most punters as the man to follow, but is the Northern Irish phenomenon really the jockey you want on side if you are aiming to make a profit?
In-depth analysis of McCoy's statistics reveal that backing his mounts to level stakes would have seen the punter making a loss every campaign since 1999/00: in fact to a £10 stake you would have, on average, been in the red to the tune of £964 per season.
One of the reasons for this could be that McCoy's winners are sometimes markedly underpriced due to the obvious attraction of punters to such a positive jockey booking. It is not just McCoy who suffers from this. Even Ruby Walsh with the help of leading trainer Paul Nicholls failed to make a profit last campaign, whilst backing perpetual runner-up in the jockey's championship Richard Johnson to level stakes over recent seasons would have seen you in a dire financial state.
So, which jockeys have bookmakers and fellow punters not yet cottoned onto and whose mounts are allowed to go off at more rewarding prices than those of the big names? One of the most profitable riders in recent times is Charlie Mann's stable jockey Noel Fehily, who would have rewarded followers in the past decade with an average seasonal profit of £975 to a £10 stake on each of his mounts. Fehily enjoyed his best campaign to date when recording 89 winners in 2008/09 and has continued in a similar vein this time around with 51 so far.
Examination of recent years reveals that it can prove successful to latch onto up-and-coming conditional jockeys, and whilst these riders are less well known than the stalwarts of the weighing room they can prove just as much of an ally in the battle against the bookmakers, not least due to their valuable claim through the early stages of their careers. Peter Toole, for example, has had 22 winners this term and would have remunerated supporters with a profit of over £850 for a £10 bet on each of his rides. His career seems sure to continue on the up, and he should be worth following for some time to come.
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