ESRI study finds top trainers improve race horses Conor Banahan of The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has published a paper ‘Beyond the Hammer: Trainer Value and Market Inefficiencies in the Bloodstock Industry.’ The paper looks at the performance of race horses when sent to different trainers and the data suggests that horses sold for similar values end up achieving a higher rating when placed with a top-tier trainer. Banahan tracked all yearlings sold at public auction in Ireland and the UK in 2022 and found that on average horses sold for the same amount of money that were placed with top-tier trainers achieved peak Flat ratings 10lbs higher than those horses trained by unranked trainers. The raw difference for similarly priced horses is 16lbs, but this reduces to 10lbs when bias associated with buyer-trainer relationships are removed. The study also found that horses purchased for less than £200,000 and sent to top-tier trainers are rated, on average, around 9—10lb higher than horses purchased for more than £350,000 and trained by unranked operations. Top trainers deliver higher ratings regardless of purchase price Even horses purchased for less than £150,000 and trained by top-tier trainers are rated roughly 7lb points higher on average than those bought for £350,000 or more and trained by unranked trainers. In other words, trainer allocation can more than offset very large differences in initial expenditure. The top-tier trainers used for the analysis were the top 50 UK and Irish trainers based on the World rankings of Flat trainers and included such Irish trainers as Aidan O’Brien, his sons Joseph and Donnacha, Ger Lyons, Paddy Twomey, Jessica Harrington, Dermot Weld, Johnny Murtagh, Willie Mullins, Noel Meade and Fozzy Stack. Repeat analysis produced near-identical results As this research was based on a single crop of yearlings sold at public auction in 2022, irishracing.com supplied Banahan with the same raw data for yearlings sold in 2021 and he ran the numbers again. Quite remarkably the results were almost identical. On average a horse placed in training with a top-tier trainer ended up achieving an official Flat rating 10lbs higher than a horse purchased for the same value at a yearling sale which was placed with an unranked trainer. The research is based only on yearlings that sold at public auction in Ireland and the UK and went on to race on the Flat with licensed trainers in either Ireland or the UK.
