from Dick Mitchell

The public favourite wins about 37% of all maiden races

The “bet down factor” factor can be crucial i.e. horses that are punted downwards from their morning line odds. The opposite can be true. Be apprehensive of horses that aren’t bet down from their morning line odds

The only time you should even remotely consider a maiden that isn’t bet down from its morning line odds is when there’s some really compelling piece of handicapping information that the public has overlooked.

If an owner debuts his horses in a maiden claimer/seller race, he’s admitting that his horse probably isn’t going to be the next Rock of Gibraltar!

In conclusion, for maidens with no form we need to accept the owner’s initial judgement on where his horse is first entered

A second-place finish in a horse’s most recent maiden race has a high impact value in predicting a maiden win the next time out.

In evaluating both the speed and form criteria of maidens, ability time is the key. Among experienced maidens, the horses with the top five ability times in a given race will win over 80 percent of the time.

Maidens race greenly. They run as fast as they can for as far as they can. Forget about jockeys trying to rate maidens or conserve their speed for tactical reasons. Rarely do deep closers win maiden races.

What happens especially in maiden claiming race, is that the experienced runners fail to meet either objective standard presented by the ability par or win profile. In other words, we have chaos. This is when we should focus our attention on the first time starters or “strangers”

A first time starter that’s the morning line favourite should get your attention. When a maiden first time starter in the morning line favourite and is a bet down, that horse wins over 40% of the time

Given the above comment, these type of horses are a short price so a common sense approach dictates that we respect these first timers to win, but derive profits from their in other pools

A look at the dosage index and the average winning distance of the sire’s other progeny gives us more clues. As mentioned earlier, maiden races are won or near the lead; hence we would like to see a dosage profile tilted toward the brilliance wing.

In the absence of dosage profiles, the average winning distance of the sire’s other progeny tells us which first timers will sprint well in their debuts and which should stretch out successfully in subsequent starts.

Longshot odds (odds of 9/2 and higher) maiden winners predominantly have leading jockeys for riders. The pareto principle rules again! 20% of the jockeys ride 80% of the winners

Another approach we can use is to eliminate a first time starting favourite that’s trained by a leading trainer who is not adept with first timer starters.

Trainer/jockey combinations with positive ROI’s. Trainer intent with a first timer can often be determined with the conditioners choice of jockey. Such combinations, already proven successfully, will team up again on the basis of repeating the process.

Everything being equal (i.e. the race is not being run at a track like Chester), in sprint races, maidens breaking from the inside post (gates 1,2,3) are less likely to win that their rivals breaking outside of them. Horses on the outside aren’t subjected to the myriad of opportunities for troubled trips as are their interior counters parts. On the inside, a horse may be pinched back by two other horses sandwiching him as they veer in and out at the same time. The outside horse cannot be veered in.

Be wary of first time starters in a maiden-claiming route race.