Al Pacino’s Tony D’Amato talked about football being game of inches in his famous speech in Any Given Sunday and it is an idea that applies to all sports, racing as much as any.

Punters can recall agonising defeats by heads and necks at least as long as victories and so it is with trainers; luck can run with them or against them for periods of time.

This was mentioned with reference to Dermot Weld ahead of Galway when the trainer was having more second-place finishes than seemed normal and he has seen the gap between victory and defeat narrow a little in the time since, and helped along by Coeur D’or landing a pair of premier handicaps by narrow margins.

With the flat turf season in its final quarter, it is a good time to take a broader look at trainers that may not have had things go their way in 2023, using a simple metric of winners relative to second and third place finishes.

Clearly not all places are created equal, a runner-up beaten eight lengths went nowhere near as close as one beaten a neck, but over a longer period of time, these figures can give a broad insight into yards shaping better than their bare winners’ totals, and that may be due positive regression either for the rest of a season or even more so the following season.

The theory goes that most – but not all – trainers should have broadly the same number of winners as second and third place finishes.

Someone like Michael O’Callaghan, who as of last Sunday evening had 11 winners with 12 runners-up and 14 third place finishes, is having a standard year in terms of luck with 26 placed horses versus 11 winners for a ratio of 2.08, dividing the placed horses by the winners.

Those yards having numbers that are substantially smaller or larger than 2.00 could be said to have luck working for or against them respectively with the numbers referenced covering the official Irish flat championship, starting in March rather than in January.

Looking at the top 35 trainers by winners trained so far this year, three names stand out as not getting the rub of the green.

All three might be due the ball hopping their way in the last six weeks of the turf season, though it could be argued that some of their runners have not been convincing in a close finish. Golden Spangle (Bolger) has won races but has also finished second or third on seven occasions while Harmony Rose (Condon) has thrice been beaten by half a length.

In truth, 2023 has not been a particularly unlucky season by this measure as routinely in the past there have been trainers with a ratio of four and five placed runners per winner.

At the other end of the spectrum, there have been ‘lucky’ yards, though the two luckiest trainers are almost certainly more good, than lucky.

Aidan O’Brien (1.7 placed runners per winner) and Paddy Twomey (1.0 placed runners per winner) routinely ‘break’ this metric given their high strike rates and it is much more useful for finding mid-range yards that could offer some value in the market.

One trainer that has certainly had variance work in his favour is Gerry Keane with a record of eight winners/1 second/three thirds (0.5 placed runners per winner); when your luck is in, it’s really in!

Never Shout Never looks well capable of a big performance

Irish Champions Festival marks the beginning of the end of the flat season, but one would need to be jumps obsessive not to recognise how much good racing there is still to come on the level, allowing that the really top class stuff takes place outside Ireland from here.

Still, there are plenty of interesting mid-grade races here over the next month and a half and it will be time enough to properly consider national hunt racing after the Birdcatcher.

With the exception of a handful of high-end juveniles, most of the horses from ICF will have at least one more run this season and with that in mind a handful of eye-catchers from the weekend are worth mentioning.

If there was a seriously well-handicapped horse that ran over the two days, perhaps it was the ‘Bold Lad’ runner-up Never Shout Never.

Not only did he do best of the low-drawn horses, but he had also looked to force an overly strong pace, sectional times suggesting the field was slowing markedly late. This was a big effort from a three-year-old against experienced handicappers.

This year’s ‘Petingo’ did not seem as strong as some recent runnings but the fifth Dartan is nonetheless interesting if stepping back up in trip.

Things went wrong for him from the stalls as he was slowly away, not ideal for one that likes to be forward, and he needed to be pushed along early to get any sort of position.

In the circumstances, he did well to finish as close as he did and while he has been busy this summer, this run suggests he may not be done with.

The Matron Stakes was one of the strongest races of the weekend, the fast pace sorting the field out as the four proven classy fillies pulled clear, but Ocean Jewel shaped better than her eighth.

This was her second start after a mid-season break and she stepped up a lot on that return at Naas, travelling quite nicely at the top of the straight only to get hampered, running on quite well with her rider accepting that it wasn’t her day.

Lesser group races should provide her with a better opportunity to win.

Lessons learned from Samui’s Listowel victory

THE best National Hunt race in the early part of the week at Listowel was the Liam Healy Memorial Lartigue Hurdle on Monday where Samui landed a sustained gamble for Gordon Elliott and Danny Gilligan, backed from an initial 12/1 in the morning before being further supported from 11/2 into 4/1 on the show.

My first thought after the race was that the winner was paying a major compliment to Mystical Power who beat him seven lengths despite hurdling poorly at Galway and secondly that Gilligan is going to continue to be a major asset to Elliott in these valuable handicaps. The pair are now 3/15 in handicaps worth €25,000 or more, the previous wins coming in the Mayo National and Galway Plate.

Samui seemed suited by coming off the pace, only one of the first six racing prominently which is unusual at Listowel, and the early gallop seemed strong as Boher Road and Mercury Mission pressed on, both soon jumping markedly right. Boher Road likely did well to finish as close as he did in seventh, but those tendencies are worrying.

Dark Note did best of those ridden close to the pace in second, moving smoothly to the lead before the second last and only just beaten, and Andy Slattery has done a really good job with him since buying him out of a claimer last June. He has now won twice for the yard and been in the first four on nine of his last ten starts.

Flamborough would likely have finished closer than fourth but for errors at each of the last three hurdles and Shajak is one to keep in mind stepping up in trip, this strong pace not even enough to get to the bottom of him.

He ties in with Dark Note on previous form, but since catching the eye in the big flat handicap over two miles at Galway, he has run in unsuitable races, first around Kilbeggan which is too sharp for him and again here. He wants at least two and a half miles and a galloping track while headgear might not go amiss.