"Can You Find Value in Following Jockeys?"

Recorded October 2025 for Losing Is a Gift: Why Punters Must Embrace the Pain. Any figures mentioned are from that time.

Jockeys are one of the first things punters look at, and one of the first things they argue about. I have always struggled to extract much value out of them. People get big on jockeys, big on criticising jockeys, big on apprentices, big on certain female jockeys. I have tested jockeys in a lot of different ways, and what I keep finding is that the market is very good at factoring in the ability of the rider. That leaves very little for me to take out of it.

What the testing actually shows

Jockey edge is one of the positive form factors I look at, alongside things like race pressure. Every horse has these factors listed underneath it for every race, so you can go and analyse them yourself rather than take my word for it. A horse might come up with a jockey edge tick. Another might be sitting at minus four and a half per cent. So the information is there and it does mean something.

But when I measure it, the edge is small. It gives you an edge, but it is only giving you one or two per cent. That is not nothing, and I will take it as one factor among many. What it is not is the be all and end all. Who is riding the horse is rarely the thing that decides whether a bet is worth having.

The James McDonald problem

The clearest way to explain it is with James McDonald. He is a brilliant jockey. He is the best jockey in Australia, if not the world. Nobody is arguing about that.

That is exactly the problem. Everybody knows it. So when he gets on a horse, the price is going to be shorter. The ability that you spotted has already been taken out of the price by the market before you get there. You have not found anything. You have just paid for something that was already visible to everyone.

The same logic runs the other way. When people criticise a jockey, and it is very easy to criticise jockeys, the market has usually already discounted that rider too. You are not getting a bargain by avoiding them. You are getting a price that already reflects the doubt.

Value, not winners

This comes back to the thing I say constantly. It is not about backing winners. It is about finding value. Everybody backs winners in the end. The question is whether the price you took was bigger than it should have been.

A good jockey shortens the price. A poor jockey lengthens it. Both of those adjustments happen before you bet, which means the jockey rarely creates the value on its own.

Use jockey edge as one small input. Look at it, note it, then move on to the factors where the market is slower to catch up. If the only reason you like a horse is the name next to it, you probably do not have a bet.

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From the full video: Losing Is a Gift: Why Punters Must Embrace the Pain | The Grind Ep.10

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