Rowleyfile Investigates: What Influences Fallers and Unseated Riders in Chases, part two

In part one of this investigation, I looked at the influence of field size (significant), distance (negligible), going (small) and course (highly significant) on the likelihood of fallers and unseateds in specific circumstances in chases in Britain and Ireland over a five-year period.

In this follow-up I will allow for those factors in identifying which jockeys fall or unseat more or less than could be expected given the sorts of circumstances in which they ride.

I am aware that this may seem insufficient to some. For instance, some jockeys get to ride a greater proportion of favourites, while others may have to take rides on riskier conveyances, and this has not been allowed for. Also, in order to create a level playing field, by choosing handicaps only, a jockey’s particular aptitude on novice chasers (for instance) has not been taken into account.

As with much statistical analysis, there is a limit to how far you can go without losing the reader, not to mention yourself. Readers are advised to be mindful of the context of these figures, which has been spelled out as far as possible.

To put the following jockey figures into further perspective, it should be noted that a jockey fell or was unseated on roughly 7.7% of his or her rides in handicap chases in Britain and Ireland in the five-year period under review. That involves hitting the deck on roughly one ride out of every 13 (the figures are nearer one in 10 for non-handicaps).

This confirms that jockeys are incredibly brave, or incredibly reckless, depending on your take on things. “How many horses have I fallen off?” None: and I intend to keep it that way!

The following are the figures for the 42 jockeys who had 300 or more rides in handicap chases in the period under review, with the “expected” figures having been normalised to take into account the various factors mentioned previously.

A lower figure represents fewer falls and unseateds than could be expected, so is “good”. Richie McGrath is out on his own in having hit the deck less than half as often as might be expected, Barry Geraghty has done so about two-thirds as often, A. P. McCoy about three-quarters as often, and Ruby Walsh has come a cropper almost precisely as often as implied by the field sizes, goings, distances and tracks at which he has ridden.

One interesting aspect is that, collectively, the most active jockeys in handicap chases have fallen or unseated 0.85 times as often as might be expected. That means that, by implication, less active jockeys have parted company more often than par.

Readers may wish to place their own interpretation on some of the figures. It is clearly an advantage not to fall or unseat (in more ways than one), so it could be wondered why some of those with particularly good records in this area have not ridden more winners.

Either way, you may want to factor the above into your betting decisions. The evidence is that it would be wrong to regard races of different field sizes and at different courses (in particular) as equally likely to give rise to “incidents”, and you may wish to view the engagement of one jockey over another as some indication of the likelihood of completing, over and above the skills of the jockeys in question