Swindon trainer Darryl Porter is running away with the trainer’s honours at Swindon Greyhound Stadium as we head into the Springtime meetings. Paul Blake looks at the trainers to follow at the Wiltshire track.
With 69 winners already this year, Porter is a lofty 22 winners ahead of his nearest rival Sean McDonald, who himself has 47 winners to date.
Our table, which awards points according to trainer rankings in five areas, sheds new light on the performance of each trainer.
The highest strike rate belongs to Ray Jones who, despite only having 16 runners has won 5 times. His strike rate is currently 31% although that will surely be hard to maintain as he has more runners. Of the trainers with more than 50 runners, James Little has the stand out strike rate with 22% of his entries landing the top prize.
Angie Kibbles’ string have not performed as well as she may have hoped this winter. Her strike rate this year is considerably down on last year’s showing. In 2022, Kibble had a strike rate of 22%. So far this season it is just 13% in graded races.
The most consistent trainer this year is arguably Deborah Pearce. The Hampshire based trainer has 41 winners from just 198 runs at a strike rate of 21%. Even more impressive is the trainer’s profit to a £1 stake return where she is ranked second.
Track stalwarts, James Danahar and Peter Swadden will no doubt be happy with their mid-table position at this point. One expects that both will be looking to close the gap on Porter and McDonald as the days lengthen.