'It's a really nice blend of art and science' - event rider Sam Watson taking a new route into racing

Sam Watson has earned a reputation as an innovator in his chosen sport, quite aside from being one of Ireland’s best three-day event riders with a second Olympics in his crosshairs.

As joint-founder of EquiRatings –"kind of Timeform for eventing and showjumping" – his data analytics have become an industry standard, used by federations in their programmes and teams and individuals to contextualise their results.

Now the 37-year-old has diverted some of his resources into National Hunt racing and the initial result was interesting, to say the least.

Watson joined forces with Jayne McGivern, the eventing enthusiast who owns Golden Horn, to buy a foal using the fruits of research and prepare it in a similarly comprehensive manner as he would one of his young all-rounders.

Ma Shantou, picked out for a small sum privately, moved to Ray Cody’s stable a few weeks before he finished third behind promising individuals from the yards of Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott, Petit Secret and Bleu De Vassy, in a bumper at Fairyhouse this month and changed hands for £120,000 at the recent Tattersalls Cheltenham December Sale.

"It started more from the data side," says Watson. "We basically looked at racing and the correlation between what people pay for horses and their expected chance of winning, that correlation between price and performance.

"When you analyse the game, it looks to me like racing doesn’t buy that efficiently, people tend to really overpay for actually very little additional chance of success, the probability doesn’t increase by that much.

Ma Shantou takes his turn in the ring before being knocked down to Gerry HoganCredit: Debbie Burt

"So one half was to buy smarter using data analytics and the second half was to apply what I’ve learned as an event rider. It’s kind of a really nice blend of art and science. He did lots of flat work, jumping, hacking about the farm, and I just produced him like we would an event horse.

"I think physically it gives them a nice all-round start; mentally as well, I think the variation in the training was a big thing. Hopefully that stands them in good stead, so that they won’t get stale or anything."

Not black and white

Watson and his co-founder Diarm Byrne are among a team of around eight at Carlow-based EquiRatings, among them data analysts and software coders.

It was during a lull in activity a few years ago that Watson asked them to help build some different prediction models. As with most examples where there is proprietary technology involved, he is reasonably vague about specifics, but his sales buying theory is much in line with the sophisticated professional gamblers; value is everything.

"People love black and white because it’s manageable," he says.

"When looking at a catalogue, they love to cross certain horses off the list. We consider every horse because it’s all shades of grey, it’s just a question of where they are in the price point.

"If you can get a horse that’s by a sire that’s produced a lot of winners, out of a dam that was a good racemare herself, which is what Ma Shantou was, then that horse does have a higher probability of being more successful than one by a completely unproven sire or dam – but it’s not as much [as imagined].

"You can pay a fortune for a horse like that, it’s about staying disciplined on those. It’s quite a lot of work, you want to throw your eyes over them as well, just checking for no scares, visually. He ticked that box as well, being a nice horse."

Ma Shantou was bought by Gerry Hogan and is set for a new career with Emma Lavelle. His fee was well received but Watson, who put him through the ring as a store at Goffs last year to gauge what kind of value he held then, feels the overall experience was even more valuable.

Sam Watson, riding Flamenco during the eventing cross country session during the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games in JapanCredit: Stephen McCarthy

"He was the pilot, the first test, and actually my learning from it was he was smaller, which a lot of the Shantous are, and it’s one thing that probably contributed towards us being able to buy him a bit more affordably," he says.

"That probably still did for us; if he was 16"2, 16"3 I think we would have got a lot more for him at Cheltenham. You’ve got to be careful about being too much smarter than the market as well, you’ve got to meet the market where it’s at. I’d still blend the two."

It should be emphasised that Watson isn’t any ordinary event rider. He has been to 11 championships, won a team silver at the 2018 World Equestrian Games and was selected for the Tokyo Olympics.

There are a couple more formative racehorses in his system but the focus for the next few months will be selection for Paris and hoping his best eventers stay sound.

"It’s always a late call," he says. "It’s a little bit like trying to predict what Willie Mullins is going to run in the Supreme Novices’ – you know you might have one that’s in the mix but they could go any way. There’s a good bit of water still to go under the bridge."

Racing has always been an interest. Watson reveals his father, John, an even more decorated eventer, is arguably more proud of being unbeaten from several rides at Tipperary.

His reference of Mullins crops up as the master trainer was among his clients when he would be employed to carry out some remedial flat work with individuals that had lost their way.

"I’ve been lucky enough to sit on Champion Hurdlers, Gold Cup horses, even Group 1 winners on the Flat," he says.

"All the best trainers are very good at managing workload and rest, but I think the variation, working different muscle groups – that can do wonders for a horse. I love the hands-on side of it; being in the saddle is the best bit, feeling that power and trying to get everything going again."

It must have been tempting to suggest that some could have done a job for him at Badminton.

"That’s what no trainer wants to hear," Watson laughs. "There have been a lot in Willie’s. When you see the young horses trotting past and they’re this year’s bumper crop, you have definite horse envy even as an event rider.

"It’s like those very good athletes in the human world that go and play golf on the weekend and do a very good job doing whatever they turn their hands to."

Old and new

There’s a certain self-assurance to Watson in combination with his optimistic, refreshing way of thinking. While approaching the sales with clear-eyed statistical analysis is not uniformly welcomed among the older guard, lest some of the mystique should be exposed, he admits he is experimenting and there will be mistakes to learn from.

The man so infatuated with marginal gains that he ran the Barcelona marathon wearing a fitness monitor shortly after the last Olympics is aware he will not be a full-time athlete forever. He hopes that if he can make some success of racing, it will form part of the next phase of his life.

"At the moment I’m doing a small enough thing, I’d like to ramp it up a bit, but I’d expect that kind of thought process to take off a bit," he says.

"You look at baseball, football and how much data analytics there are in the transfer markets there. I think that the last will be first and the first will be last and racing is one of the oldest professional sports, and therefore a lot of the feel and the intuition side of it is ingrained in people.

"I’m coming from a background where my father won world championship medals, I have too. In many ways I’m old school but my brain would be quite disruptive and looking for modern ways to get ahead.

Sam Watson - 'In many ways I’m old school but my brain would be quite disruptive'Credit: Ramsey Cardy

"I can see why we do things the way we do them but, to be frank, horse sports are miles behind when it comes to that – even the fact we don’t have heart-rate monitors and stuff like that when we really should."

Ma Shantou will continue as Watson’s pathfinder. And for the benefit of his new connections, he thinks of him as far more than just lines on a graph.

"I can’t wait to follow him, he has every right to be a top horse," he says. 

"That’s what we’re all after, the horse you wouldn’t want a ceiling on where it could get to, with all that potential. It was a profitable venture for us and I still think he was a good-value buy for his new home.

"I’ve actually jumped him over quite decent fences at home, he’s very athletic and we could have gone point-to-pointing but he had the turn of foot for the bumper as well. I think there’s plenty left, so watch that space."

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