A Preliminary Look at Race Class in Flat Handicaps

Dipping my toe into Race Class in flat handicaps

Introduction

I would like to start this piece with a question, writes Dave Renham. “When analysing a handicap race, how many of us look at the class of the race and other class factors in detail?”

Clearly, I cannot speak for everyone, just for myself, but in terms of the pecking order of race factors I’ll look at, class considerations are at the lower end of my list of priorities. I would always look at run style/pace, the draw, Peter May’s ratings, last time out (LTO) factors (position, odds, course) first. Once I move on to class factors though, there are five main things I will look at:

1. which class of race each horse raced in last time and over its last few starts
2. which horses have won at this level before, or indeed at a higher class level
3. recent handicap marks or Official Ratings (ORs) over the past few races noting how well the horses ran on each occasion
4. highest winning handicap marks, as long as they are relatively recent (within 18 months or so)
5. past placed form and the relative handicap mark at the time

I must admit there are times when, especially if I am looking at a big field handicap, I’ll only do this for the main contenders, or at least the horses I believe are the main contenders! Also, in terms class factors, I know from past research that it is quite difficult to find an edge when taking on the Official handicapper, as the handicapping system in this country is extremely accurate. However, I still want to review what I think I know and compare it against recent evidence.

Data has been taken from UK racing, turf and AW, handicaps spanning the four full years from 2021 to 2024.

Before sharing my research let me discuss the different classes of handicaps. In 2021 and 2022 the European Free Handicap was the only remaining Class 1 handicap, but that race was discontinued thereafter, so the highest class of handicap is now Class 2 - and the lowest level is Class 6.

Within each class there are races open to slightly different ability levels as regards their Official Ratings. Every classification has at least two different rating bands within it, and there may be some variants of these which I've not listed, for example 56-72:

Class 2 includes Heritage Handicaps. The rating bands for this class are 86-100, 91-105 and 96-110.

Class 3 The ratings band for this class are 76-90 and 81-95

Class 4 For horses rated 66-80 and 71-85

Class 5 For horses rated 56-70 and 61-75

Class 6 For horses rated 46-60 and 51-65

Class 2 Races Overview

Therefore, within each classification there are races where the quality or class level of the runners is slightly different.

Let me give two race examples of Class 2 handicaps run during the period of study. The first race, run on October 16^th 2021 at Ascot, was the Class 2 Balmoral Handicap, a 20-runner race where all horses were rated between 101 and 110. The average OR for the race was 105. The second race, run on October 17^th 2024 at Southwell, was the Class 2 Download the At the Races App Handicap, a 12-runner race where 11 of the 12 runners were rated 94 or less with the highest rated horse having an OR of 98. The average OR rating for the race was just 91, a difference therefore between the two race OR averages of 14 pounds.

Hence, we need to be aware that the level of competition within each class band can differ, and sometimes quite markedly. Of course, the handicapper, as I have already stated, does an excellent job when rating horses, so in theory the rating adjustments made should ensure races are equally as hard to win regardless of the average OR. Having said that, higher rated runners in Class 2 handicaps do win slightly more often than lower rated ones.

This can be seen when we look at the splits for horses rated 101 to 110 compared with those rated 90 and lower when racing in Class 2 handicaps. Let me look first at qualifiers with a BSP winning price set at a maximum of 20.0. This is to avoid the results potentially being skewed by a huge priced winner or two:

Horses with a higher rating have outperformed those with a lower one as mentioned above, albeit the difference in absolute win rate is only 1.7%. In relative terms, it is nearly 14% greater. The hugher rated runners recorded a small profit with a difference of just under 7p in the £ when comparing the two rating groups. The A/E index was also higher for the 101 to 110 group.

Just for the record here are the figures for qualifiers priced over 20.0 BSP for each rating band:

Hence, in this cohort of genuine outsiders, the higher rated Class 2 runners have comfortably outperformed the lower rated runners across strike rate, returns and A/E indices. It should be noted that the 101 to 110 group did not have any 100/1+ winners that would have completely skewed their profit figure. Indeed, it was the 90 or below group which had the biggest priced winner and comfortably so at BSP 146.4.

Class 3-6 Races Overview

We see a similar pattern in different class groupings when comparing the highest rated runners with the lowest, including a price cap of BSP 20.0. Across all class groups the higher rated runners won more often. Differences in win strike rates vary from 3% or higher to 4.5% or higher depending on the class level. In terms of A/E indices the higher rated runners have proved better value in Class 3, 4 and 5 contests. At Class 6 level the lower rated runners have had the edge value wise.

Comparing Average Race OR with LTO Average Race OR

Having given us some background, for the remainder of this article, I am going to dig a bit deeper into the whole question of class. I will set an odds range of BSP 20.0 or shorter once more to avoid very big prices skewing the findings. In addition, the horse data I am checking requires the horse to have run in a flat handicap (turf or AW) last time out as well.

I have discussed already that within each race class we can get a significant differential in terms of average race ORs of the runners. For the main body of this article, I want to examine the performance of horses racing in a handicap when comparing the average OR of their current race with the average OR of their last race. I have decided to split the OR race average differences up thus:

Just to clarify, a horse that raced in a handicap that had an average OR of 76 last time out and races in a handicap with an average OR of 82 this time would go in the '+6 to 9' group as the difference is six higher. A horse racing in a handicap where the average was the same would go into the '+1 to –1' group, and so on.

Let's examine and compare the win strike rates of each group first. I wasn’t sure what I would find but these results come from huge sample sizes so we can be very confident in the numbers:

As we can see the strike rates are very similar which again perhaps highlights how accurately calculated handicap ratings in this country are overall. The two highest percentages lie at the right of the graph with the '-6 to -9' group and the '-10 or lower' group. If we now compare the A/E indices (to BSP) we again see a very level playing field:

The figures vary by just 0.03 from the lowest, 0.99, to the highest, 1.02. For the second graph running the '-6 to -9' group and the '-10 or lower' group are marginally better performing than the rest. Both these groups also made a small profit to BSP with their cohort of runners that were BSP 20.0 or less.

There are so many different routes I could take at this point, but I elected to fully focus on the '-10 or lower' group for the remainder of this article, as based on these initially findings this could be the group where we find an edge.

Handicap Races where Average OR dropped by 10 pounds or more from previous race (also a handicap)

Race Class Change

The first area which I want to look at for this cohort is ‘Race Class Change’ in terms of official classifications (Class 2, 3, 4 etc). Clearly, with a drop in race average OR of 10 or more from LTO, there were always going to be very few qualifiers in terms of being upped in class next time – just 18 horses went up in class to be precise (for the record this small sample made an ROI% loss of 14.4%). Here are the splits for qualifiers racing in the same class or dropped in class:

According to these figures, the bigger the drop in race class the better. There is positive correlation across strike rates, returns and A/E indices.

What is really interesting is when we look at the race class last time out for any qualifying class dropper. For example, if a horse raced in Class 2 LTO, then raced in Class 3 or lower next time, their record when the average race OR drops by 10 or more is quite remarkable:

These runners have shown a BSP profit in each of the four years showing excellent consistency with A/E values for each year ranging from 1.08 to 1.21. I, for one, will keep a close eye on these runners in the future.

The Betting Market

Moving onto market factors, and horses that start in the top three of the betting, after seeing the race average OR drop by 10 or more produced a blind profit:

Returns equated to a smidge under 3p in the £ and, if we stuck to favourites only, returns were marginally better at 3.3p in the £.

When we look at BSP prices, those qualifiers priced between 15.0 and the price cap of 20.0 won just 5.2% of the time (48 wins from 932) for a hefty loss of £133.20 (ROI –14.3%).

Based on this evidence, it seems to make sense to be looking for horses nearer the top end of the betting market more often than not.

Position LTO

How about last time out finishing position? The past stats have favoured horses that finished either second or third last time out. These runners have combined to produce the following figures:

We see a strike rate close just better one win in every five, and positive returns of over 5p in the £. The A/E index of 1.04 is also very solid. Logic dictated to me that there would not be too many LTO winners that qualified considering the average race class OR drop, but actually there were 204 such winners of which 43 won (SR 21.8%). However, they are very well found in the market and have proved quite costly to follow, losing £28.56 (ROI –14.0%).

Trainers

Trainer data is always something punters are drawn to and for this area of research I think the findings may be more illuminating than usual. One skill that all trainers need is an ability to find the right race for their horses. However, in handicaps there will be times when this may not the case and a trainer will be quite happy to see a moderate or even poor run in the hope that the horse's handicap mark drops. But how many trainers have been adept at finding a much weaker race in an attempt to exploit it? Let’s see.

The table below shows those trainers who had at least 50 runners with a drop in race average OR of 10 or more compared with the average rating of the race they contested last time out. The table is ordered alphabetically:

We have quite a mixed bag here, but there is a good proportion of trainers who stand out positively including George Boughey, John Butler, David and Mick Easterby, Brian Ellison, David Evans, Richard Fahey, Paul Midgley, Gary and Josh Moore, Nigel Tinkler and Archie Watson.

What may be even more enlightening is to compare the record of the trainers in the above table against their overall record with all other runners under all other circumstances, (e.g. runners whose race average OR changed by -9 or more). Below are the trainers with the biggest differentials between the two in terms of win strike rate:

We could argue that these nine trainers have been very adept at placing horses in much weaker races compared with the handicap LTO over the past four years. Not only do the strike rates suggest that, the A/E indices for each group show that too:

There are some excellent A/E indices there in the blue columns. Overall, of the 33 trainers in the original table 24 had better records when their charges raced in handicaps with an average race OR of 10 or less compared to their most recent start.

Summary

As with a lot of areas I research, I have literally scratched the surface in terms of race class. However, it has been an interesting journey with several positives noted on the way. The second half of the article focused on just one specific group of runners - those who were contested a handicap where the average official rating was at least 10lb lower than their previous race - so there is scope to look in detail at other groupings in the future. For those who want more class articles (no pun intended) please suggest any ideas in the comments.

- DR

Other Recent Posts by This Author:

• Top 10 Front Running Biases in Handicap Chases, Part 2: 5 to 1
• Top 10 Front Running Biases in Handicap Chases, Part 1: 10 to 6
• An Irish National Hunt Trainers Analysis
• Prepping for NH 2025/26, Part 5: National Hunt Flat
• Prepping for NH 2025/26, Part 4: Handicap Hurdles