2-Year-Old Handicaps: Nurseries Part 1

July 1, 2024
Dave Renham

July sees the recommencement of nursery races, handicap races for 2-year-olds, with the first of them scheduled for Haydock and Carlisle this Saturday, writes Dave Renham. This article is the first in a two-part series that will look at these niche races. I have collated data from the last nine UK flat and all-weather racing seasons (2015 to 2023) with profits and losses quoted to Industry SP. I will quote Betfair SP where appropriate.

Contents

The market

My first port of call is the betting market and a look at some Starting Price bands. Let me focus first on a value metric, the A/E index:

As the graph neatly indicates, the shorter the price, the better the value. The only slight outlier is the 18/1 to 33/1 but, essentially, as the price gets bigger the value decreases.

If we now examine the Return on Investment (ROI%), we can see how well the two metrics correlate with each other:

Odds on shots have made a small profit, although there were only 131 such runners, so you certainly would not have raked it in! While I am not usually a fan of short prices, any horse priced 6/4 or shorter in a nursery is worth a second look. Conversely, performance dips when we hit 13/2 or greater, so nurseries look generally top-of-the-market orientated.

With shorter prices doing relatively well, let me dig into the results for favourites; one would surmise, given the data so far, that they are likely to be the best option in terms of market position. Here are the overall stats:

We have a strike rate of around three wins in every ten races, a good A/E index of 0.98 and minimal losses to SP. To Betfair SP, this loss would have become a £37.52 profit, giving a small +1.6% ROI. In addition, nursery favourites have performed better on the all-weather than they have on turf, as the stats below show:

Nursery favourites on the all-weather have edged into SP profit. To BSP, these figures improve to £61.43 (ROI +5.8%).

Another favourite angle I looked at was the going conditions on the turf. It seems the firmer, the better:

The good to soft or softer results may be because the market assumes that a young horse with limited experience can act on a softer surface when it has not raced on one before. This is just a theory. The good/firm+ and good ground results for favourites saw a small positive return to BSP.

The final favourite stat to share focuses on horses that had previously won twice as a 2yo. Of these 303 horses, 109 won (SR 36.0%) for an SP profit of £15.79 (ROI +5.2%). To BSP, this improved to a profit of £32.78 (ROI +10.8%).

Position Last Time Out (LTO)

I want to examine a recent performance metric, so let's investigate the position LTO stats.

The slight anomaly is the results for the 5th – they are out of kilter with the remaining ones. Overall, it seems the better value - or least worst, perhaps - lies with those runners who finished first or second LTO. If we look at the BSP returns for those finishing in the first two LTO, losses become very small at less than 1.5 pence in the £.

Sticking with those runners that were first or second LTO, if we restrict that LTO race to a nursery, we edge into BSP profit by £43.15 to £1 level stakes (ROI +1.7%). Essentially, I would view a run in the top two places LTO as a slight positive.

Weight carried

When I first came into racing, there was an old adage about backing the top weight in a nursery. I’m not sure how successful that may have been ‘back in the day’ before we had a wealth of weight stats to pore over. However, that is not the case now. Although top weights win more often than any other weight position, they would still have lost you nigh on 20p in the £ for every £1 staked. Below, I have looked at actual weight carried rather than position in the weights. When I talk about the actual weight carried, I take any jockey claim into account. Below are the ROI%'s for different weight groupings.

Across the board, we have losses to SP and, in some cases, significant losses. As a rule, the lower weights have returned more significant losses, and hence, I would be wary of backing a horse carrying 8st 9lb or less and ignore totally if they are under 8st. In fact, the 7st 13lb or less group won just 3.7% of the time, with an extremely poor A/E index standing at 0.55.

While discussing weight carried, let's compare the performance of jockeys in terms of claiming jockeys. Trainers use apprentices in handicaps to take weight off their horse's back which, in theory, should slow them down less during the course of a race. The quid pro quo is that these jockeys are less experienced than the ‘pros’. Here are the stats:

The more experienced the jockey, the better the win rate and the higher the A/E index. In terms of ROI%, the correlation with those two metrics is good, although 5lb claimers have lost 1p more in the £ than 7lb ones. The ‘top’ jocks (no claim) are close to breaking even when betting on BSP. Ultimately, I would be less inclined to back a horse in a nursery with a claiming jockey on board, especially one carrying 5 or 7lb.

Career Wins

Earlier, I touched on the fact that two or more career wins when sent off favourite was a positive. So what about all runners in terms of career wins? Let’s look at the win and each way strike rates first:

In terms of win SR%, horses with two or more wins in their debut year have been the most successful. Those who are still maidens have struggled in comparison. When we look at the returns to SP, these correlate well with the win strike rates – the 2+ group would have lost you 13p in the £, the 1-win group lost 18p, and the 0 wins group lost 20p.

Sex of horse

This is an area I like to look at because occasionally gender biases are unearthed. The vast majority of nurseries are for both sexes, and I have concentrated on those mixed-sex nurseries (roughly 1900 races over the study period). Here are the figures:

Male horses clearly come out on top across all metrics. When I learned this, I thought analysing nurseries with a similar split of male to female runners was worthwhile. I have looked at races where the split is no worse than 40% females versus 60% males and vice versa.

The bias toward male runners strengthens a little, especially considering the ROI%s. All things being considered, a male runner is a better nursery proposition than a female one.

Run Style

The final area to examine in this first piece is run style. I’ll begin by reviewing the win strike rate for the four categories geegeez.co.uk stores in its database: led, prominent, mid-division, and held up.

Based on all previous evidence I have shared regarding run style, these figures should come as no surprise. Let’s see if the A/E indices correlate:

The bias to early leaders/front runners in these contests is significant. As I have mentioned numerous times, the early leader will only be known a few seconds after the race has started. Hence, taking advantage of this run style bias is not easy. What the early leader conundrum does do, as far as I am concerned, is to continue my pursuit to find more accurate ways of predicting the early leader in run style-biased races. If your crystal ball had managed to predict all nursery early leaders since 2015, you would have made a profit of £701.95 (ROI +24.6%) to £1 level stakes. That equates to £7019.50 to £10 win bets.

Part 1 Summary

In conclusion, here are the key points:

1. The best value lies with shorter-priced runners - 6/4 or better / favourites.

2. Favourites have been profitable to SP & BSP on the all-weather and to BSP on good or firmer going. Favourites have also proved profitable to SP and BSP, with at least two previous wins.

3. Horses that finished 1st or 2nd last time out in a nursery have edged into BSP profit.

4. Horses carrying 8st 9lb or less have a relatively poor record; those carrying under 8st have an abysmal record.

5. Male horses outperform female horses.

6. Horses that lead early have a considerable edge.

And that wraps up part 1. In part 2 next week I will continue my digging into these nursery handicaps. Until then...

-DR