February Trainer To Follow

V for Victor: Dartnall's a man to follow in February

In a packed programme tonight, as the pair of Ronnies used to say, we’ve got a trainer from Devon who is well worth keeping on the right side; two horses in whom I have a personal interest running today; and, a quick update on the questions I asked you earlier in the week.

So to business. I’ve been ‘mucking around’ with some settings in the Stat Attack feature in HorseRaceBase.com (the brilliant site I told you about a few weeks back), and each day it gives me a report for my criteria.

Essentially I’m always on the lookout for hot trainers (remember that TrainerTrackStats was my invention way back when, before Gavin took it on so excellently, and I’m still a trainer stats fiend!). And the chap I want to talk to you about today is one of those wonderful creatures who have recorded a level stakes profit in recent years.

In layman’s terms, if you’d backed all of his horses since the start of 2007, you’d be in front. Nice work. So, drumroll please, and step forward, Mr. Victor Dartnall.

He’s in great form at the moment which is what highlighted him to me today. But let’s break down his overall performance to draw on a few sub-trends in his profile.

Firstly, January and February have always been strong months for our Vic. In fact, during the period 2007 to now, he’s shown a 150% return at SP. To Betfair odds, that translates to an eye-watering 231.9%.

Now before you go mortgaging your house/spouse/mouse to lump on, note that Vic hasn’t made a profit in every year, though in the lean years, there was only a slight loss.

What about race types? Does Mr D focus on any specific types of race or is he a dab hand at one distance range over all others?

‘Yes’ is the unsurprising and short answer. In races of 2m5f or less (including flat races), Victor Dartnall has the following figures to his name since the start of 2007:

73 wins from 359 bets for a level stakes profit of 65.86 points at bookies’ starting price. Betfair punters would have been swimming in gravy to the tune of a whopping 203.73 points profit. Yikes!

In class 4 races or lower (i.e. Class 4, 5, 6, or 7) at the distances above, Dartnall’s stats are even hotter:

61 wins from 282 bets (21.6% strike rate) for a profit of 83.97 points. That’s