Jamie Spencer: A statistical summary

As a jockey who splits opinion more than most, Jamie Spencer will have much written about him from now until when he hangs up the saddle at the end of the season to pursue a career in the management tier of Qatar Racing. For all that many punters will have less-than-fond memories of some of his rides, a collection of 31 Group 1 Flat wins (including seven Irish and 12 UK) is an excellent achievement. He also entered a rare club of top-level jockeys to have won under both codes when scooping Cheltenham’s Champion Bumper aboard Pizarro in 2002.

To gain a fully objective view on Spencer’s career, we have run retrospective Timeform jockey ratings since he first qualified for a rating in 1999, along with analysing traditional statistics based on qualifying rides. These are calculated on a three-year period, so a line showing 2010 would in fact be considering the 2007, 2008 and 2009 seasons.

From the data, it would appear that the peak of Spencer’s career, at least in terms of how well he was riding, came in the period which led to his appointment as the number one jockey to Aidan O’Brien in 2004. Spencer only lasted one season at Ballydoyle and a number of his rides came in for criticism, notably his efforts on One Cool Cat in the Nunthorpe and Powerscourt at the Breeders’ Cup, but the stats suggest he may have been done a disservice: his healthy Timeform Jockey Rating implies that many of his mounts improved under his guidance. After the partnership came to a conclusion, Spencer’s rating regressed from that of an elite rider to merely being very good. However, it should be noted that the quality of horse Spencer has been riding – often used as a barometer of the esteem in which a rider is held – has improved in recent years, as evidenced by the increased median rating of his mounts.

As mentioned in a slightly-doomed pre-Royal Ascot piece written about his success on the straight course (he subsequently had no winners), Spencer has become known for a tendency to launch late challenges from well off the pace. Employing such high-risk tactics ultimately shrinks margins for error, margins which he has frequently been on the wrong side of this season. This may be behind a fall in strike-rate and small decrease in his jockey rating this year.

Another school of thought is that, through analysis by experts such as our very own Simon Rowlands and Racing UK’s James Willoughby, jockeys are now becoming much more aware of pace judgement. Spencer was a master of taking advantage of pace collapses, gaining victories on horses that sometimes had little right to do so. Is this window of opportunity starting to close, perhaps?

Based on current Timeform ratings, the appointment of Andrea Atzeni (+3.81) as Jamie Spencer’s successor would appear to be a shrewd move. This season he has pushed his way in to the top five UK and Irish jockeys and the opportunity to ride for an organisation with huge ambitions is just reward for his undoubted talent. There are plans to analyse Qatar Racing’s new second jockey, Oisin Murphy, in a later piece, particularly the rate at which he burnt through his claim and how this has affected the ratings algorithm, but his current rating of +0.69 does not begin to convey the amount of potential he possesses. It is stating the obvious somewhat, but Oisin Murphy is a highly-talented young rider, capable of achieving plenty, and, in Atzeni and Murphy, Qatar Racing looks to have secured the services of two potentially top-notch riders.