Jockey Profiles: Hollie Doyle

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The first in a new series of articles looking at jockeys, this one will be focusing on Hollie Doyle, writes Dave Renham.

Hollie is still just 26 and has risen up the ranks quickly. She began as an apprentice at the Richard Hannon yard in 2014 and, by 2017, had ridden out her claim. Incidentally, in 2016, while still a five pound claimer, she rode a 25/1 winner for a geegeez.co.uk syndicate, Table Manners trained by Wilf Storey at Newcastle.

The 2019 campaign was her first real milestone when she rode 116 winners, in doing so setting a new record for the number of winners achieved by a female jockey in Britain. The following year, 2020, was another big one with her first win at Royal Ascot, her first Group race success, a win on Champions Day at Ascot (the first female to achieve this) swiftly followed in the next race by her first Group 1 triumph, aboard Glen Shiel. Since then Hollie has continued to go from strength to strength and is unquestionably one of the top jockeys around.

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How to Use Profiler

Normally when gathering data for my articles on Geegeez, I use Query Tool or Draw Analyser or Pace analyser, or a combination of the three.  However, for this piece I obtained a good chunk of the data from the Profiler tool. You can find Profiler by clicking on the ‘Tools’ menu item. Once there, you will be presented with this somewhat sparse screen, and an invitation to "Enter a horse, trainer, jockey or sire name to begin":

 

 

As that instruction suggests, Profiler allows us to drill down into the record of any horse, trainer, jockey or sire. It is the same principle for each research area, but if wanting to research a jockey such as Hollie Doyle, we need to type their name into the Search bar at the top, and click the 'Jockeys tab'. This will display the following:

 

 

Clicking the 'Profile' button populates the 17 categories highlighted in blue in the first screen shot and thus creates a huge web page full of data. As the first variable in the list, the going stats will be displayed at the top and for Hollie Doyle’s search they came up as follows:

 

 

As can be seen we have a wealth of data, both win and each way. We also have a PRB figure (percentage of rivals beaten) which is an excellent ‘extra’ stat. Having data for 17 different categories all on one page is extremely useful.

For this piece I needed to adjust the Date Range filters because I wanted to look specifically at the years from 2015 to 2022. I also wanted to look at both flat (turf) and all weather racing so I set the filters as follows: (N.B. these filters were in place for the Going data shown above):

 

 

There are a number of other filters so, for example, you can look at just handicap data if you wish, just the wins, and so on. Also, we can drill into National Hunt racing data if we want to. It should be noted that when using the Profiler, it returns both UK and Irish results combined.

OK, so I have my parameters set, now it's time to dig into the stats. Before sharing my findings I should mention that as well as using the Profiler Tool for this research, I have used other sources,  including Query Tool. In all the tables profits/losses quoted are to Industry SP; I will quote Betfair SP where appropriate.

 

Hollie Doyle: Overall Record

Let us first look at Doyle’s baseline figures across every single runner during this eight-year period:

 

 

This is a thoroughly decent record: her A/E index of 0.91 is above the ‘average’ figure for all jockeys, which is 0.86. Likewise, her overall PRB figure of 0.54 is nicely above the 0.50 average mark. Losses of around 16 pence in the £ to SP convert to close to breaking even (losses of under 2p in the £) at exchange SP.

 

Hollie Doyle: Record by Year

I first wish to breakdown Doyle's stats by year. Here is a breakdown showing win percentage (or Strike Rate (SR%) if you prefer):

 

 

We can easily ignore the first year in the sample, 2015, as Hollie only had 39 rides in that year; and we can see how it often goes for a top jockey rising out of the apprentice ranks: a steady start launches into high strike rates as the claim's value is utilised, followed by a more challenging period post-riding out the claim, before blossoming into a top tier rider.

Hollie's profile mimics this perfectly: she rode out her claim in 2017 before a season of consolidation - more rides but fewer winners in 2018 - after which the last four years have seen her highest strike rates. Not only have the last four years seen her highest strike rates, but her most consistent ones too. 2019 to 2022 have seen strike rates within 1.3% of each other.

 

Hollie Doyle: Record by Distance

A look at her record at different distances now. I have grouped them into five distance bands and, again, I am comparing win strike rates:

 

 

The highest strike rate has occurred in the longer distance events (1m 7f or more); but, having said that, the data set is much smaller (just 199 races). Compare that to the 7f to 1 mile results which come from 1920 races, almost ten times as many. The vast majority of Doyle’s rides come in races of 1 mile or less – roughly 69% of all her rides have been over these shorter distances. This, in fact, perfectly mirrors the percentage of races which are run at a mile or shorter, which is unsurprising, I guess.

In a previous article on jockeys and run style I highlighted Doyle as a jockey that does well in handicaps on front runners; in sprints (5 to 6f) and also races of 7f to 1 mile. I will look in more detail at her run style data later.

 

Hollie Doyle: Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)

Profiler gives a breakdown of performance by starting price splitting it up into seven price brackets. I have taken Hollie’s record straight from that table:

 

 

If you had backed all Doyle’s mounts focusing on the shorter end of the price (17/2 or shorter), you would have lost only 5p in the £. To Betfair SP though, that would have turned into a small profit of just over 4p in £. However, the value to be had with these runners has largely evaporated now she's a relative household name. In terms of very big priced runners (28/1 or bigger) only a handful have won. These have produced significant losses to SP and even to BSP losses stand at a weighty 35p in the £.

Hollie Doyle: Record by Course

I am now going to look at all courses where Hollie Doyle has had at least 75 rides. The courses are listed alphabetically in the table below:

 

 

I want to mention that course strike rates can sometimes be slightly misleading due to the average field sizes being vastly different from one track to another. For example, in the past eight seasons, the average field size (all races) at Ascot has been just under 12; contrast this with Ffos Las whose average has been around 7.6. Hence, using solely strike rates when comparing Ascot  with Ffos Las is not a statistically sensible play. I am not saying that a course strike rate is without use but, as with any single piece of information, it is useful to combine it with others.

The two stats that most interest me from a course perspective are the A/E indices and the PRB figures. Doyle’s figures for Yarmouth stand out with an A/E index of 1.30 and a PRB figure of 0.58. In addition the strike rate is high and she has made decent profits to SP. Her profits to BSP stand at an even more impressive +£90.55 (ROI +65.6%), and these figures are not skewed by any huge priced winners. It is also noteworthy that she has ridden winners at Yarmouth for a good number of different trainers (21 in total), so it is not one or two specific trainers providing all of the winning rides. Sticking with Yarmouth for one more stat, when Doyle has been riding a horse priced 8/1 or shorter she has secured 28 win from 88 rides. This equates to an excellent strike rate of 32%.

Before moving away from courses, one course that did not make the list due to having had only 46 rides was Pontefract. The stats, though, are very strong despite this smallish sample – 14 wins (SR 30.4%) for an SP profit of £22.19 (ROI +48.2%). A/E index of 1.55; PRB figure of 0.58.

 

Hollie Doyle: Record by Trainer

Some punters love to follow certain trainer / jockey combinations and, although I don't generally, I think certain combos do produce some betting opportunities that represent value. Here are the trainers for whom Doyle has ridden at least 50 times (ordered by strike rate):

 

 

As you can see, Archie Watson provides Doyle with a high proportion of her rides. Although she has not made a profit on the 939 spins in that sample, she has done on his more fancied runners. To wit, horses priced 4/1 or shorter have provided the Doyle/Watson combination with 150 wins from 418 runners (SR 35.9%) showing a small SP profit of £14.07 (ROI +3.4%). To BSP this improves to +£40.68 (ROI +9.7%).

Her record with Alan King is excellent; not just because of the profit figure, but because the PRB is exceptionally high at 0.64. One other combo to mention is Hollie with the Gosden stable. The results are not in the table because they have only combined on 36 horses but, of these, 13 have won (SR 36.1%) for an excellent SP profit of £32.32 (ROI +89.8%). Where the Doyle/King PRB is impressive, the Doyle/Gosden figures trump them, standing at 0.69 (i.e. 69% of all rivals beaten). I think it would be worth keeping a close eye on the Gosden and King stables this season (and beyond), looking out for any Hollie Doyle booking.

 

Hollie Doyle: Record with Days since last run / horse layoff

A unique feature of the Profiler Tool (compared with the Query Tool) is the fact it gives you data for days since the horse last ran. Doyle’s figures are as follows:

 

 

As we can see Hollie has made a profit on horses whose last run was within a week of their prior start. As a general rule, my assumption, as with many others, has been that horses with shorter breaks outperform horses that are off the track for longer. This is the first time I have seen any PRB figures for any fitness based variable such as this. It is interesting, and pleasing to see the sliding scale from 0.61 down to 0.41. These findings give me the impetus to check PRB figures for a bigger group of runners to see if the same sliding scale is repeated. I am guessing it is – if so it might become the basis for an article in the future.

 

Hollie Doyle: Draw Awareness

Another first for me: this is the first time I have tried to drill down into this type of idea. Essentially punters, bookies, trainers and jockeys are aware of draw biases. Some will over- or under-estimate bias, but one would hope that seasoned jockeys understand the effect of the draw at most courses better than most. It is clearly a difficult area to research but I thought I had enough data for Hollie at one particular course, namely Kempton, to try to do this. My idea was simple: I wanted to compare her record in 8 or more runner handicaps at Kempton over 5f to 1 mile, with other jockeys, purely from a draw perspective. Kempton over these four distances (5f, 6f, 7f & 1m) offers a low draw edge and hence I wanted to compare Doyle’s record when drawn 1 to 4 (the best four draws) with all other jockeys. To do this, I decided to calculate the relevant PRB figures as these I would assume to be the most accurate, as they create bigger data sets than, say, using win and each way data.

Hollie had over 100 qualifying handicap rides when drawn in stalls 1 to 4 over these Kempton distances and her PRB figure was 0.60. The combined figure for all other jockeys is 0.55. This leads me to conclude, at least from these Kempton stats, that she has good draw awareness: she has performed notably above the norm when her horses have been well drawn at Kempton. I did check the non-handicap figures at Kempton using the same parameters – in these cases, she had fewer qualifying rides than in handicaps (44), but her PRB figure was a very impressive 0.63, the overall non handicap jockey figure stands at 0.53.

This is clearly a challenging area to research in great depth from an individual jockey perspective, due to small course and distance data sets. For example, you probably would not get enough individual data at Chester unless a jockey had ridden there regularly for 20 years or more, as that track does not host many meetings over a 12 month period. Kempton, however, has so many race meetings each year this is a course that lends itself to this avenue of research. Something else to maybe write about more in the future?

One further caveat worth mentioning with this type of research is the fact that there is some selection bias in the quality of top riders' mounts compared with the average.

 

Hollie Doyle: Record by Run Style

I mentioned earlier a recent article in which I touched upon Doyle’s positive record on front runners in handicaps at the sprint distances of 5f and 6f, but also at 7f and 1m. Well, Hollie's record from the front is actually extremely good across the board – handicaps / non-handicaps, and any distance. Yes, she has a higher strike rate on front runners running over shorter distances, but in all races of 1m1f or more her strike rate on these pace setters still hits just over 20% (A/E 1.10). This ranks her 9th out of all jockeys currently riding in the UK in terms of win strike rate (150 front running rides or more over 1m1f+ from 2015 to 2022), 12th if including Irish jockeys. In terms of A/E index she lies 11th (UK), 15th (UK and Ireland). For the record the average win strike for ALL jockeys over 1m1f+ stands at 15.6%.

Here is a breakdown of Hollie Doyle's run style performance across ALL races:

 

 

She has an excellent close to one win in four record with front runners, whereas with hold up horses this drops markedly to less than one win in every 12. The A/E figures correlate as the following chart shows:

 

 

As regular readers of my articles will know front runners have an edge at a majority of courses and distances, so the patterns seen for Doyle should come as no real surprise. That said, her figures are well above the norm over all distances, and if she is booked to ride a horse that often front runs, that ought to be seen as a double positive in cases where the pace map indicates an even tempo or, especially, Hollie's mount is the probable lone speed angle.

Before winding up the run style stats, let me share her record when riding the favourite:

 

 

More evidence, as if it was really needed, about the importance of early track position.

[As a side note, using favourite in run style analysis removes any selection bias regarding 'good horses at the front, bad ones at the back'. In spite of this levelling of the playing field, one invariably sees this type of strong front of field bias. Keep this in mind if you're currently backing plenty of fancied horses with a hold up run style!]

 

Some Extra Hollie Doyle Nuggets

With the main body of the article complete let me just share with you a few extra stats or nuggets that may be of interest:

  1. When Hollie retains the ride after winning last time, her record reads 67 wins from 310 (SR 21.6%). Backing all runner to BSP would have yielded a profit of £31.12 (ROI +10.0%).
  2. Horses that finished second last time have a good record with Doyle on board. Of the 585 qualifiers, 139 have won (SR 23.8%) for a BSP profit of £74.03 (ROI +12.7%).
  3. In very small fields (2 to 4 runners) Doyle has secured 54 wins from 142 rides (SR 38.0%) for a BSP profit of £65.27 (ROI +46.0%). She made significant profits if backing to Industry SP, too (+£53.79).
  4. In Class 1 races, Hollie has done well if the horse has been fancied (defined as priced 10/1 or shorter). 25 wins from 109 (SR 22.9%) for a BSP profit of £26.29 (ROI +24.1%).

 

Hollie Doyle Main Takeaways

  1. Doyle has been extremely consistent in the past four years and as I am penning this piece her strike rate for 2023 is above her norm at 15.8%.
  2. When riding more fancied runners (17/2 or less) Hollie has made a small profit to BSP, though that may be due to historical data so some caution is advised.
  3. She has an excellent record at both Yarmouth and Pontefract.
  4. Doyle should be noted when riding for Alan King or the Gosden stable and, also, when riding for Archie Watson look out for shorter priced horses (4/1 or less).
  5. If Hollie is on board a horse that had run in the past seven days it tends to be a positive.
  6. At Kempton in races of 1m or less when drawn 4 or lower she has performed well above the norm.
  7. Doyle is an excellent rider from the front at all distances.
  8. The four "extra nuggets" shared immediately above.

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There are plenty of Hollie Doyle stats to get to grips with in the above: lots of positives, and the occasional negative, too. Hollie should continue to give us plenty of potential betting opportunities in the coming weeks, months and, I hope, years. I really rate her as one of the very best around and, more importantly, the stats tend to agree!

- DR

Jockeys and Run Style Revisited

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In this article I will be looking at my favourite area of research, namely running styles / pace, writes Dave Renham. As I have mentioned numerous times before, knowing how a race is likely to “pan out” in terms of a potential “pace angle” can give us an important edge.

Being able to predict the running style of each horse in a race can be liquid gold in certain circumstances but, as we know, in most cases this is trending towards the impossible. However, using past run style data we can make an informed judgement, and certain races will be easier to predict how things will pan out than others. In terms of past running style, arguably the most important factor is the horse itself, especially if it has a preferred pace position. However, there are other dynamics to consider, including the other horses in the race, the draw at certain tracks and over certain distances, the trainer, and the jockey.  And it is that last variable I'll be delving into for the remainder of the article.

A jockey can certainly make a big difference in any race, especially when it comes to pace or running styles. How often have you seen a jockey set a steady gallop in front and manage to repel all rivals for a pillar to post victory? Just the other day at Chester we saw a masterclass of that from Hollie Doyle, aboard Pride Of America in a 1m2f handicap (12/5/23). Hollie got to the front, dictated the tempo, and then cleverly kicked for home earlier than the other jockeys were expecting. She now had them all on the stretch and kicked three lengths clear around two furlongs out. The favourite gradually closed as they reached the final furlong and possibly got a neck in front with 150 yards to go. However, the energy it had used up to get back to Pride Of America meant he had nothing left for the finish and Doyle’s mount pulled away again for a classy success.

For this article I have looked at five years' worth of data (1/1/18 to 31/12/22) including both turf and all weather racing, but in the UK only (i.e. not Ireland). My focus has been on handicap races and I will start over the two sprint trips of 5 and 6 furlongs. Before I crack on, let me give you an overview of run style and what it means (regular readers will know this inside out by now I hope!).

The run style stats have been sourced from this website's data – specifically the Query Tool. The run style data here at Geegeez is split into four sections – Led (4), Prominent (3), Mid Division (2) and Held Up (1). The number in brackets is the run style score that is assigned to each section.

The numbers are really helpful as we can use them to drill down and build a better picture and understanding of how important run style can be.

Below is a basic breakdown of which type of horse fits which type of run style profile:

Led – horses that lead early, horses that dispute the early lead. I refer to the early leader as the front runner;

Prominent – horses that lie up close to the pace just behind the leader(s);

Mid Division – horses that race mid pack or just behind the mid-point;

Held up – horses that are held up at, or near the back of the field.

 

Jockeys in Sprint Handicaps (5f - 6f)

As a starting point let us see which jockeys took the early lead the most (in % terms) in sprint handicaps at up to six furlongs. I have included jockeys that have had at least 100 rides over this 5-year period and who are currently still riding in the UK – those with the highest 15 percentages are shown below:

 

 

For comparison purposes the average for ALL jockeys in terms of taking the early lead is 14.2%. Thus, Ross Coakley and Kieran O’Neill both go forward early nearly twice as often as the average. Now, a look at those jockeys that have the lowest percentages:

 

 

There are a couple of very well-known jockeys in this cohort: Ryan Moore and Jamie Spencer. Spencer is renowned for his hold up style as a jockey, so that should come as no surprise. However, Ryan Moore may raise more eyebrows, as less than 6% of his sprint handicap rides have seen him take the lead early. Moore-ridden sprint handicappers have been held up more than any of the other three run styles (mid division, prominent, led), but only 11.7% of them have won. Compare this to the combined figure of horses he's ridden prominently or led aboard which have won 22.2% of the time in the same group of races. Moore is a well-respected and successful jockey, but in sprint handicaps would I want him riding a horse I'm keen on? Probably not.

Jockeys who can get their mounts to front run more often than most in sprints are definitely worth noting, but one could (rightly) argue that the win percentages for jockeys when on front runners is more important. For example, if a jockey had taken the lead in 25% of races but won only 5% of them then this turns into a negative. In contrast, a jockey that has led early in say 15% of races but won 25% of the time when taking the early lead is definitely a positive. Of course, the ideal is to have a jockey that gets to the front early a high percentage of the time, and goes on to win a high percentage of the time!

Therefore, let us now look at the top performing jockeys in terms of win % when on a front runner (30 front running rides minimum):

 

 

For comparison purposes the average win SR% for ALL front running jockeys in handicap sprints stands at 18.1%. It's good to see Messrs Coakley, Hart, Callan and Bryan in this table – they were also in the top 15 of early leading jockeys shown earlier. Some of the datasets are quite small, so we do need to be aware of this but, when it comes to Jason Hart, we have plenty of evidence with which to work. Hence let's dig a little deeper into Hart's run style record in 5-6f handicaps.

Jason Hart's Run Style in Sprint Handicaps (up to 6f)

As we have seen Jason Hart front runs / leads early in roughly a quarter of all handicap sprints in which he rides. Of these 27.2% went on to win. These are impressive and powerful numbers and I am always on the look-out for which horse Hart is riding in such contests.

Look at Hart compared to the average jockey, in terms of run style: there are two columns in the graph below. The orange columns show what percentage of horses displayed that particular running/pace style for all the jockeys; this is our control group data if you like. The blue columns are the figures for Hart. So, for instance, leaders accounted for 14% of all runners when examining the ALL jockey data, whereas Hart led on 25.5% of his sprint handicap rides; prominent racers were 33.4% for all jockeys versus 39.9% for Hart, and so on.

 

 

The graph is useful as it is an easy way to compare the data. Jason Hart clearly understands the importance of track position in sprints: 65.4% of the time he either gets to, or is close to, the front early. This is far higher than the average figure for ALL jockeys which stands at 47.6%.

If we look at the win and place breakdown for Hart, we can really see the importance of track position:

 

 

As the table shows, if you had been able to back every front running sprinter Hart rode, you would have made a huge profit, not just if backing to win, but backing each way also. Not only that, we need also to remember these profit/loss figures are calculated to Industry SP. Just imagine the profits if backing on the exchanges or taking BOG! Prominent racers would have made us a profit if backing to win also. The stats/returns for midfield and hold up horses are poor for Hart in these quick fire events – but we know from previous research this is almost always the case regardless of rider or situation.

For the record Hart has taken 123 different horses to the front early in these races and, of those he has ridden from the front four times or more, 15 of the 16 won at least once. Indeed these 16 horses have combined to front run in 107 races of which they were successful on 40 occasions, which equates to a hugely impressive 37.4% strike rate.

There is one more Jason Hart stat to share which is his record on front runners in handicap sprints when his horse was in the top three of the betting: he has won on these horses a staggering 41.2% of the time with SP returns equating to 90p in the £. Looking at the ALL jockey figures for these fancied runners, the strike rate is just 29.2%.

Before moving on, Hollie Doyle is another jockey who has done well on similarly fancied runners, scoring over 38% of the time.

Jockeys in 7f & 1m Handicaps

Up in trip now. To start with I will look once again at which jockeys took the early lead most often (in % terms) in these races. As with the sprints I have included jockeys who had at least 100 rides over the 5-year period and who are currently still riding in the UK – those with the highest 15 percentages are shown below:

 

 

Theodore Ladd has staggering figures, taking his runners to the lead over a third of the time. Next highest is Frankie Dettori, albeit with a 12% lower figure.

It should be noted that front runners in handicaps are not as successful over 7f-1m compared with 5-6f but, generally, they do still have an edge, as the graph below shows:

 

 

As can be seen a front runner is twice as likely to win as any individual hold up horse. For the record, if we had been able to use our crystal ball to predict the front runner in every qualifying race we would have made a profit of £1954.92 to £1 level win stakes, equating to returns to Industry SP of over 22p in the £.

Time to see which jockeys have performed best from the front in terms of win strike rate (50 front running rides minimum / 7f-1m handicaps):

 

 

William Buick heads the list on 30% which is excellent. He also appeared in the best percentage table for 5-6f handicaps earlier; much of this will be down to the well-drilled Charlie Appleby horses on which he typically has first dibs. Hollie Doyle appears again also, as do Daniel Tudhope and Charles Bishop.

Data as we know can get skewed under certain circumstances, so I now want to examine jockey run style performance in these 7f-1m handicaps when the horses have come from the top three in the betting. This gives us a similar group of runners which renders jockey comparison arguably more effective. First let us breakdown overall win strike rates for all four run styles when the horses are in the top three in the betting:

 

 

Early leaders still enjoy a strong edge in this cohort of exclusively fancied runners. The overall strike rate for ALL runners from the top three in the betting stands at 20.3%, so these front runners score 35% more often than the average (27.4 / 20.3 = 1.35).

Let us review which jockeys have higher strike rates on top three in the betting front runners than the 27.4% average. In addition I will share the potential profit/loss figures should we have predicted the horse/jockey would get to the front early (40 qualifiers minimum):

 

 

Some impressive figures here – Buick is again prominent in the list with an excellent 43% win success, though Tom Marquand just pips him on 44.4%. Hollie Doyle has very good stats once more.

Run style/pace averages by jockey

In order to give us a more complete picture I have produced jockey run style/pace averages. I have used these averages in the past not just for jockeys, but courses and trainers as well. I simply add up the Geegeez pace points for a particular jockey and divide it by the number of rides; the higher the average the more prominent the jockey tends to race. It makes sense to split these pace averages up into 5-6f and 7f-1m handicap figures.

I have also highlighted jockeys with high run style/pace averages (in green) and low run style/pace averages (in red). The colour coding parameters for each distance are slightly different as the average run style figure for 5-6f handicaps is 2.28, for 7f-1m it is a little lower at 2.21.

 

 

As a rule of thumb I would prefer to have a jockey with a green figure if riding a horse I wanted to bet at these distances. I also would check their win strike rate as well because, as I mentioned earlier, this is clearly important in terms of avoiding losing runs.

Before winding this piece up, here is a race example of how we could have combined our knowledge of both horse and jockey pace/run styles. It is from March 16th of this year and it was a 5f handicap at Southwell. The racecard below has been ordered by horse pace totals (last four runs):

 

 

As we know 5f handicaps generally give front runners a healthy edge and, looking at the horse data above, it seemed likely that the early pace will come from either Ustath, Brandy Station or Dapper Man. If we now look at the jockey run style pace averages (5-6f handicaps 2018-2022) we see the following:

 

 

Jason Hart, who was mentioned earlier in the article, tops the list and hence a combination of Dapper Man’s 14 points and Jason Hart’s preference to push his mounts up to or near the front early, looked a good partnership. Ustath (16 points) was ridden by Jonny Peate, but his average was relatively modest at 2.19; Brandy Station (14 points) was ridden by Zak Wheatley who had a decent enough figure of 2.42. From these stats and using solely run style/pace to find a selection, you would say that Dapper Man and Jason Hart looked the most obvious option with Brandy Station another to consider.

As is inevitably the way with example races, things panned out much as expected from a run style perspective: Ustath and Brandy Station disputed the lead for the first furlong before Dapper Man who had been tracking them took over. He led for the rest of the race and won at 8/1.

Obviously, not all races will go to script like this, but doing our run style homework should give us an edge over those who ignore run style completely, or do not fully understand it; jockeys definitely have a part to play and we need to be aware of that.

There are many other factors to consider when analysing any race, but run style bias can be potent, especially over certain courses and distances. In some cases I would argue it is the most important thing to consider. I hope this piece has further sparked your interest and, if you have not really considered run style before, this should offer some food for thought. Until next time...

- DR

Run Style in Smaller Field Handicaps

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It is time for me to revisit one of my favourite areas of research, namely the run style of horses, writes Dave Renham. In case you didn't know, run style research is often linked with draw analysis, as one can positively impact the other depending on the course, distance and field size in question. For example, if we look at data from 2014 to 2022 for Chester handicap sprints (up to 6f) with 10+ runners, we can see that the highest third of the draw are at a disadvantage in terms of taking the early lead:

 

 

Of the 92 early pace runners, just 11 were horses from the top third of the draw. Working out the percentage chance of which third of the draw is most likely to lead given those raw figures are as follows:

 

 

So a horse from the top third of the draw manages to take the early lead just under 12% of the time. This equates to less than one race in every eight. Compare that to horses from the lowest third of the draw who are able to lead in more than half of all races. Why this happens is simply due to the nature of the Chester track. Horses drawn low are drawn on the inside nearest the rail, and at both sprint trips, as we can see from the racecourse map, the turning nature of the track means that if a horse can grab the rail they will be going the shortest route for well over half the race.

Horses drawn wide have a very difficult task therefore to get to the early lead in front of a lower drawn rival, especially so when all jockeys (and trainers) know the value of a forward position.

 

 

So, when combining draw and run style at Chester over sprint trips with 10+ runners, it should be noted that a low drawn early leader is a horse that has a better chance of winning than any other draw / run style combination. These horses have won 26% of the time going back to 2014, whereas high drawn held up horses have won 0% of the time (0 wins from 135).

Bigger field sizes in handicap sprints almost always strengthen any draw bias – I rarely concern myself with the draw in races with small fields, and all my draw research / article writing is based on field sizes of at least eight or more. Hence in big field handicap sprints at certain courses I will use draw and run style biases in conjunction with each other to look for potential betting opportunities. The Chester stats shared above are a good illustration why I do this. At this juncture, it is worth mentioning the blindingly obvious: I don’t ignore other race reading factors, I just perceive draw and run style as often the most useful.

However, in recent years, the average number of runners in handicap races has been dropping. This means that fewer races provide the opportunity to use draw and run style biases in tandem.

To illustrate the fact that smaller field races are becoming more prevalent, take a look at the table below. This illustrates the percentage of races that have taken place within different field size brackets in 5f handicaps, comparing the period from 2015 to 2018 data with the past two full seasons (2021-2022).

 

 

As you can see the very smallest fields (2 to 6 runners) have seen an increase from 18.7% to 21.3%; there is also an increase in the 7 to 9 runner bracket. In 10 to 12 runner races there has been a small decrease, but in 13+ runner races we can see a bigger reduction.

A similar pattern can be seen when we delve into 6f handicap data over the same two time frames:

 

 

Races of 2 to 6 runners occurred roughly one in every nine contests between 2015 and 2018, but this has increased to roughly once in every six races in the past two seasons. This is not ideal as races with fewer runners gives me less opportunity to potentially factor in draw bias. However, we have to move with the times, so in the remainder of this article I will look in more detail at small field sprint handicaps, honing in specifically on run style.

From extensive past research I know, and regular readers of my articles will know, that early leaders in handicap sprints tend to have a decent advantage over other run styles. At some courses the bias is stronger than others, and as a general rule front runners have more of an edge over five furlongs than six. As I mentioned earlier my draw based articles use eight runners as a minimum, so it makes sense therefore to concentrate here on races with seven or fewer runners. I have analysed data from the past seven full seasons in the UK (2016 to 2022) looking solely at 5f and 6f handicaps.

To start with let's look at the run style win strike rate splits for all 5f handicaps with 7 or fewer runners. I am splitting the results in the same way that Geegeez does, into four sections – Led (4), Prominent (3), Mid Division (2) and Held Up (1). The number in brackets is the run style score that is assigned to each section. These scores can be found in racecards, on the Pace Analyser tool and on the Query Tool on the site.

 

 

As we can see, early leaders / front runners (L) have a definite advantage over prominent racers who in turn have an advantage over horses that race in mid division or are held up. The A/E indices correlate too – A/E (Actual vs Expected) is an indicator of value where a figure of 1 or more is a positive:

 

 

Early leaders/front runners have an A/E index of 1.2 which is strong. Indeed, if your crystal ball for predicting the front runner in these 5f handicaps had been in tip top order, then backing all these runners would have yielded a profit of £346.62 to £1 level stakes giving returns of 22p for every £1 staked. That is at starting price, the figures to BSP are roughly double that.

This front running bias can also be seen when we look at the run style win strike rates for favourites:

 

 

Favourites that led early or raced prominently both made a profit to SP assuming we had been able to predict their running style pre-race. Mid-division favourites lost 11p in the £, with hold up jollies losing double that at 22p in the £.

A look at the official going now to see if that has any effect in small field 5f handicaps. Here are the stats for front runners / early leaders by going:

 

 

Other than on good to soft going the win strike rate has exceeded 20%. It seems that front runners have a decent edge regardless of ground conditions in small field five furlong sprint handicaps, with potential profits across the board and A/E indices of 1 or greater for all.

Jockey data for front runners in these races is a little limited (only four riders led early in 30 or more races). However, I do want to mention Jason Hart as he has won with 12 of his 30 front running rides (SR 40%). Hart's A/E index stands at an outstanding 2.48. On prominent runners he has a goodish record scoring just under 18%, but on mid div / hold up horses he managed just 1 win from 29 (SR 3.4%). Hart also has a very good record from the front in 5f handicaps with fields of eight or more runners (SR 29.9%), so he clearly is a good judge of pace when taking his horse to the front early. Hollie Doyle has a good record on these 5f early leaders, too, with 12 wins from 32 (SR 32.4%; A/E index 1.89).

Time to go up a furlong and look at the 6f handicap stats in races of 7 runners or less.

 

 

Front runners are once again clearly the most successful, but the other three groups are much more even than in their five furlong equivalents. Prominent racers are no longer in a clear second place over this extra furlong. Checking the A/E indices we see a correlation once again:

 

 

Early leaders / front runners hit an impressive 1.18, virtually the same as the 5f handicap figure of 1.20. The other three are fairly closely matched, as their win strike rates were.

Below is a bar chart showing the fate of 6f handicap favourites in small fields by run style.

 

 

The front running bias remains when focusing on favourites only, with over 40% of front running favourites winning, and they would have been profitable, too. The other three groups would have yielded loses.

A look at the going now. Over 5f the figures for front runners / early leaders were relatively even and positive across the board. What about at three-quarters of a mile?

 

 

Once more, we see positive figures across the board with strike rates all above 20% and A/E indices all above 1.10. It should be noted that for both five- and six-furlong handicaps the 'soft or heavy' A/E index was the highest as was the win strike rate. Maybe the front running bias is slightly stronger on soft and heavy ground but I would personally need more evidence to be confident of this.

A quick mention of jockeys: I noted earlier that Hollie Doyle had decent figures on 5f front runners, and she has a similar record over this extra furlong with 14 wins from 38 rides (SR 36.8%; A/E index 2.19). She must be a very good judge of pace in small field sprint handicaps.

Before I close, allow me to share some front running data for trainers. I have combined 5f and 6f handicaps to give us bigger samples (45 runs+ qualify, ordered by strike rate):

 

 

Some impressive figures here especially for Archie Watson, Kevin Ryan and Tom Dascombe. Indeed, 13 of Watson’s 25 winners were ridden by Hollie Doyle and this trainer/jockey combo scored 43% of the time with front runners.

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

It is clear that even in smaller field handicaps over 5 or 6 furlongs, horses that grab the early lead have a definite advantage. Over 5f the bias is stronger, but the edge over six is still playable. The age old problem is being able to predict the early leader before the start of the race. From previous articles that I have written on this site, we have seen that the run style / pace scores found in the racecards are a definite help. Horses with the highest last four run pace totals do lead more often than those with lower pace totals.

Before I finish, here is an example of a six-runner handicap from earlier this year, so not a race within this article's sample data, where the last four pace totals seemed to indicate a very strong candidate for a horse that would lead early:

 

 

Bare Necessity had led in three of his previous four runs and had a four-point advantage over the second highest pace scoring horse, and he had the inside stall. Not only that, of the 20 runs of the other horses combined, just one of these races had seen a horse take the early lead. Now we can never be certain pre-race that a horse will lead, but this is about as good as it gets. As it turns out Bare Necessity did lead early and made all the running to win:

 

 

As I am sure you will agree, 28/1 winners are not to be sniffed at! It goes without saying that races do not always pan out perfectly like this, but ultimately if you could predict the front runner most of the time in such races, you would not really need to do much else: no need to check the form, whether the horse goes on the ground, how fit is the horse, etc, etc. Maybe we should have a challenge for members – to find a method to predict the highest percentage of front runners. I’m in!

- DR

Dave Renham: A Window into My World of Racing Research, Part 2

/in /by

On January 25th of this year I wrote a detailed piece which I hope gave readers an understanding of how much work can go into researching horse racing ideas when some, or all, of your research requires a race by race approach, writes Dave Renham. This was the only method of research in the old days before computers and racing databases, and this is what I primarily did going back to the early 1990s.

Of course, nowadays 99% of my articles are sourced by solely using databases such as the Geegeez Query tool, the Geegeez Draw Analyser, etc. However, there have always been significant advantages to this old fashioned slow data collection method, primarily because you do get a proper ‘feel’ and understanding for the data you are collating. You can see patterns that might be missed if simply pressing a button and just getting the raw stats breakdown. The downside is obviously the time it takes to go through race by race.

In my first piece I looked at a specific group of races – these were all-weather handicap races run around a bend with eight runners, over the sprint trips of 5f and 6f. I looked at data for four seasons which equated to 190 races. I chose the sprints simply because I have always been a fan of handicap sprints and most of my bets occur in such races. I looked at the effect of the draw, running style/pace data, market factors and Peter May speed ratings. The key findings from this research were:

  1. As a general rule, on turning sprint tracks a lower draw is preferable due to its position closest to the inside rail;
  1. The top three in the betting combined broke even to BSP;
  1. Horses with higher Geegeez pace/running style total scores based on their last four runs win more often than those with lower totals;
  1. Horses from the top three of the speed ratings scored much more often than those fourth to eighth, although profits/losses between the two groups were similar.

 

You can review that article here.

 

So what have I looked at this time? Well, I've started with a similar group of races to before, only this time I have focused on UK 5f handicaps only, on the turf. I did exclude 2yo nursery handicaps as such races have more limited past data. I expanded the field size to include races between 8 and 11 runners, while keeping the same four year time frame (2019 to 2022). This gave me a much larger number of races to research – just under 540 in fact. With a greater data set to examine I hoped that it may lead to some angles that we can use to our advantage in the future.

At this point I should add that there was a small tweak in terms of what I focused on compared with the original article. I did not examine the draw this time, because of the different nature of the various five-furlong course constitutions. There are some straight 5f tracks, some round ones, and also there can be different stall positioning on some straight tracks. All this means there is no uniformity so it made sense to focus on other things. Hence, for this research I not only collated the Peter May ratings again, but I also added the Topspeed speed ratings as well; and I looked at the Geegeez pace/running style data from the past four races, as I did last time. Market rank was also once again looked at.

Now, I could not have done this much research by simply pulling out each race result, then writing each horse, course, finishing position etc into a spreadsheet. That would have meant manually typing in 16 distinct columns of data for 4953 rows of individual runners. I mean, I like my research, but 79,248 cells to type a number or word into is too much even for me! I’m all for finding racing angles that others don’t, but personally typing numbers and words into nearly 80,000 cells would be a tad crazy!!

Instead, I used two databases, one being the Geegeez Query Tool, in order to get most of the columns into the spreadsheet far more speedily. This gave me my starting point as 12 of the 16 columns were done, but there were four missing that I needed to add individually - these being the specific run style (pace) data, market rank and both sets of Speed Rating data. Now market rank was relatively ‘easy’ to add using some excel tricks, but it did leave me the run style (pace) data and speed rating positions to add manually.

As you can imagine, manually adding run style and speed ratings data race by race for over 500 races took some time – a lot of man hours. Thus, for both sets of speed ratings and the pace/run style scores, I decided to add the top three ‘rated’ horses only to the spreadsheet. If I had manually added every single ranking position to those columns the research would have taken twice as long, maybe longer.

Having set the scene it’s almost time to dig down and share what I found, but first I want to show you where you can find the relevant data on Geegeez.

In terms of speed ratings you can go to the ‘CARD’ tab on a specific race and you will see the Topspeed figure for each runner (column headed TS) and the Peter May Rating (column headed SR). The 2022 race from Chester (below) was one of the races in the 537 race sample:

 

 

Once I scrolled to this page I could sort the columns to display the horses that were in the top three of each rating column (e.g. the highest three figures). In the example above I have ordered the Peter May figures (highest at the top). We can see that Le Beau Garcon had the highest speed fig (81), So Smart had the second highest (67) with Riversway third (65). Once a race was sorted like this I labelled the three horses 1, 2, 3 on my spreadsheet. I then sorted the Topspeed ratings and repeated the process.

For the run style / pace data I wanted to find the top three horses in terms of their pre-race Geegeez run style/pace total from their previous four runs. To find what I needed I clicked on a race result, and once the result came up I then clicked on the ‘PACE’ tab. From there I ordered them with highest totals first – an example of what I mean is shown below from a 5f handicap at Catterick in 2021:

 

 

Here, Autumn Flight was top ‘pace’ rated with 15, Major Jumbo second on 14 and Militia third on 13 and, as with the speed ratings, I labelled the three horses 1, 2, 3 on my spreadsheet. Now, occasionally you will see a horse that had a ‘U’ rather than a number in one of the last four race columns. This occurs occasionally when it is unclear from the in-running comments what pace number should be assigned to that specific run. For these horses I double checked different sources, or even watched the start of the relevant race so that I could add the right figure. I would then recalculate those specific horses’ total.

It should also be stressed that there are times when you get horses with identical four race pace totals, which means it is potentially difficult to get an exact ‘top three’. In the event of tied four race totals, I look at the most recent race first (LR column) and compared the horses who have tied. The horse with the highest figure in that first column would take priority. If the scores are the same for the LR, I would then compare the next column (2LR) and keep going until one out scored the other. Here is an example of such a case:

 

 

This Thirsk race saw three horses tie for second with 12 pace points each. However, if we compare the LR column we see Spanish Angel scored 4, Boudica Bay 3 and Dandy Spirit 1. For this race Spanish Angel was placed second behind Birkenhead, and Boudica Bay third in terms of their run style/pace position.

OK, it is time to share my findings...

 

Topspeed Ratings

Starting with the Racing Post Topspeed figures, and comparing win strike rates.

 

 

In truth, it was a little disappointing to see a relatively even split. OK, the 4th+ speed rated horses did have the lowest strike rate, but I had expected / hoped their strike rate figure would have been lower. Not only that, the 4th+ rated horses actually turned a very small profit to BSP.

 

Peter May Ratings

Let us now look at the performance of the Peter May (SR) Ratings – again comparing the top rated, 2nd rated, 3rd rated and combining those rated 4th or lower:

 

 

This is a more encouraging picture – in terms of win success at least. There is a clear drop off when we look at the horses with a speed rating position of 4th or lower. In terms of returns, the 2nd top rated horse made a profit of around 9p in the £ to BSP if backing every single one ‘blind’.

 

BSP Market Rank

Let's look at market rank now. I was able to rank all horses, not just the top three and here are the strike rate splits:

 

 

We can see a familiar sliding scale here: favourites winning close to 30% of the time, whereas outsiders ranked 6th or lower in the betting market combined to score just under 5.5% of the time. Favourites would have almost broken even with a loss to BSP of just 2p in the £; while second favourites got closer still, losing just a penny in the £.

 

Run style / pace

This is my favourite area of research, especially in sprints, because in general, there is a strong front-running bias in shorter distance handicaps such as these. Therefore I was hoping for some relatively positive stats. Here is the breakdown for the top three Geegeez pace/run style rated horses, as well as the combined results for horses rated 4th or lower:

 

 

In general these figures are encouraging, especially when we look at the profit/loss column. The top three rated horses have combined to be far better value than those rated 4th or lower. The strike rates are much closer, although the top rated runners have secured the highest win rate.

When we dig a bit deeper, it is worth noting that the profit and loss figures are not skewed due to the higher rated pace horses having more big-priced winners. In fact, if comparing the odds of the ten highest priced winners from the top rated pace group against the fourth or lower group, we see the following:

 

 

Clearly, the lower rated pace / run style runners have had bigger priced winners overall. The average BSP price for these ten runners for 4th+ rated is 51.68; for the top rated it is 33.45.

I have mentioned numerous times in previous articles how important it is to look deeper into profit and loss figures. You need to make sure the bottom line is not giving a false impression.

I want next to look at a couple of angles concentrating solely on the top rated pace/run style runners. Firstly a look at the yearly breakdown:

 

 

It is very promising to see that three of the four years turned a profit to BSP. The strike rate in 2019 was a fair bit lower, but when horses win on average 12.9% of the time, it is not unusual to see a 10% strike rate over 150 races.

Now I am splitting the top rated pace/run style results by number of race runners:

 

 

Obviously, ignore the diminishing strike rates as field size grows: that is to be expected as it is easier to beat seven rivals in an 8 runner race than it is to beat ten rivals in an 11 runner race. Again, three of the four sections have produced positive returns and the other broke even.

The final area I wanted to look at was combining ratings with the Geegeez pace/run style ratings. So, firstly, how did horses do if they were in the top three of all three? That is, they were one of the three highest Topspeed ratings, one of the top three in the Peter May ratings and one of the top three in the four-race Geegeez pace/run style totals. Well, 316 horses qualified, of which 51 won (SR 16.1%) showing a small profit of £26.96 (ROI +8.5%). This was encouraging.

Let me compare these results to horses that were not in the top three of any of the Topspeed, Peter May and pace ratings. There were of course far more qualifiers – 1775 to be precise. 161 of these won, equating to strike rate of 9.1%, which is quite a difference. However, those lower-rated qualifiers made a slightly larger absolute profit of £50.09, but with a smaller ROI of just 2.8%.

This feels positive overall, especially the strike rate difference (16.1% versus 9.1%). While both groups turned a small profit, when I again dug deeper and looked into the biggest winning prices for each group, we can see the variance in their five highest winning priced runners:

 

 

Looking at this clearly demonstrates that horses that are rated in the top three positions of all three - Topspeed, Peter May and Pace ratings - are far better value - and less susceptible to skewing - than horses that lie 4th rated or worse in all three of the ratings.

Before I finish, I guess you may be wondering how horses that were top rated in all three ratings got on? Well, the problem here is number of qualifiers – there were only 24 runners that ticked all boxes over this four year period. Having said that 10 did win (SR 41.7%) for a BSP profit of £34.44 (ROI +143.50). Now whether these runners will continue to perform as well in the future is difficult to say as 24 runners is such a small sample. However, I personally will be keeping an eye for them. [Stop press: since researching this piece, Rajmeister was a 10/3 winner for this angle on the 22nd April]

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Well, this has been quite a journey for me and a long one at that. Having to go through race by race is hard work, but ultimately I think the research uncovered some interesting findings. Not only that, it has inspired me to do some more digging around these themes, albeit it will no doubt be a rather slow excavation!

Before I finish I should mention that all BSP profits and losses have taken a 5% commission into account, as that gives the truest reflection of real life returns using that medium. Many punters are now paying only 2% commission, so if that's you, you can mark up the profits published above accordingly.

I hope you have enjoyed this journey and I hope it shows the usefulness/importance of some of the Geegeez data you can get from each racecard. I’ll be back next week looking at run style in smaller field handicaps. Until then...

- DR

Two-Year-Old Runners on 2nd Start: Part 2

/in /by

This is the second of two articles looking at two-year-old runners (2yos) on their second career starts. The first piece looked at last time out (LTO) performance, LTO course, market factors, sires, damsires and some jockey stats. You can read that here. This one focuses exclusively on trainer data. I have collated stats from UK flat racing for six full years, from 2017 to 2022, and this includes both turf and all weather data. I have calculated profit and loss to Betfair SP (BSP for short), with commission of 5% taken into account.

Overall 2yo second run stats for trainers

I am going to start with a full table with all trainers who have had at least 100 two-year old second starters in the past six seasons. I have ordered the trainers by win strike rate:

 

* C Johnston in 2023; ** Jack Channon in 2023

 

A familiar face heads the list – Charlie Appleby. His 37%-plus strike rate is remarkable but, despite that whopping win percentage, he has failed to make it into blind profit. This is, naturally, because many of his runners start at short prices. Seven other trainers have secured strike rates of 20% or higher with juvenile runners making their second career starts, which again is extremely noteworthy. Just one of these seven in profit though: Hugo Palmer.

In terms of A/E indices Messrs. Palmer, Dods, Dalgleish, Osborne and Tinkler are above the magic 1.00, although Nigel Tinkler, with a strike rate of under 5%, is not a trainer for the faint of heart to follow.

At this juncture it makes sense to compare the performance of trainers' 2yo debut runners with their 2yos having a second run. In the following table I have broken this down by strike rates and A/E indices for each trainer. I have ordered them by trainers who have seen the most improvement in strike rate from first to second start:

 

 

In the final column I have divided the second run win percentage by the debut one to give us a type of Impact Value. I call it a Comparison Strike Rate (CSR) and I also used this idea in the previous article when comparing sire stats. The higher this figure the more improvement the runners show on their second run compared to their debut. I have highlighted any CSR figure of 2.00 or more in green as these are much higher than the average. The CSR figure to bear in mind is 1.52. This is the average CSR figure when looking at the strike rate comparison for second starters compared with debutants; that is, on average a two-year-old is 1.52 times more likely to win on its second start compared with its debut (7.96% vs 12.08% in case you were curious).

Ed Dunlop has a very high CSR figure but that is because his debut runners having won less than 0.6% of the time. His second starters still only win on average once in every 15 or 16 races. Ed Walker, Michael Dods, William Haggas, Hugo Palmer, Charlie Hills, Sir Michael Stoute and Andrew Balding are the group of trainers who I would be expecting to see excellent improvement between first and second runs. Some of their runners should offer us decent value.

Brian Meehan is one specific trainer whose second starters look poor value, especially when comparing the stats to his debut runners. With debutants his A/E index stands at an impressive 1.36, for second starters this drops markedly to 0.76. Eve Johnson Houghton has a similar slide (1.38 to 0.79) which is also worth noting. Ths is essentially saying that Brian and Eve have their two-year-olds ready to fire on day one, which in itself is well worth noting.

 

Distance breakdown: trainer performance in 5f and 6f races

I want to split the trainer data by distance now and for this piece I am combining the sprint distances of 5 and 6f, and then will be looking at races of 7f or further. This is because it gives better sized data sets. So, to start, here are the win strike rates for trainers who have had at least 75 two-year-old second starters over 5f / 6f. I have split the data into two graphs – the first with strike rates of 16% or more:

 

 

William Haggas stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of win record. He also has an A/E index in excess of 1.00 (1.09), as do three others - Michael Dods (1.24), Andrew Balding (1.15) and Clive Cox (1.02). For the record these three have made decent profits to BSP, while Haggas would have just about broken even. Of the remaining trainers, all made a loss bar Tom Dascombe, who made a small profit. Dascombe will be interesting to follow this year in his second season after the move from Cheshire to Lambourn and without the support of Chasemore Farm.

Now for those with strike rates under 16%:

 

 

There are still some relatively decent strike rates here as well, on the left-hand part of the graph at least, although only Keith Dalgleish managed a BSP profit. No trainer in this group had an A/E index of 1.00 or more and, for the record, Richard Hughes and Tim Easterby had the poorest A/E indices (0.64 and 0.54 respectively) with both making significant losses.

 

Distance breakdown: trainer performance in races of 7f or further

There are 10 trainers who have secured a strike rate of 16% or more in these longer distance races:

 

 

Charlie Appleby strikes at a preposterous close to 40% and backing his runners would have seen you break even to BSP. Here are these trainers' A/E indices which give us a better indication of overall value:

 

 

Hugo Palmer, Archie Watson and the Charlton stable have figures above 1.00 and they are trainers who, over 7f or more, I think we should keep on the right side (more often than not).

At the other end of the scale, these are the trainers with lower strike rates over 7f+. As there are quite a few I’ve put their results in tabular form rather than in a graph.

 

 

Andrew Balding’s bottom line looks impressive but he had a 232.24 BSP winner in 2020 which accounts for most of his profit. Having said that, even without that outlier, Balding still made a positive return. The three trainers at the bottom – Richard Fahey, Sir Mark Prescott and Tim Easterby - are trainers I think should be swerved with 2yo runners at 7f or beyond when making their second start.

Before moving on there are a few points worth making.

Firstly, Clive Cox has a vastly contrasting distance record: over sprint distances his second starter strike rate is 21.9%, over 7f+ it is just 8.8%. A/E indices also have a chasm between them at 1.02 vs 0.60.

Secondly, Richard Fahey has a similar bent to his stats with much better sprint results: strike rates of 15.6% compared to 6.9%; A/E indices of 0.88 to 0.59.

And third, Roger Varian’s stats are somewhat remarkable from the point of view that his strike rate has been exactly 20% for both distance groups and his A/E indices are almost identical, too, at 0.67 and 0.68.

 

Market breakdown: trainer performance with top three in the betting

As we know, profit figures can be easily skewed by big priced winners. Hence it makes sense to analyse trainer data where it is a more level playing field – or at least where we can perform a fair price comparison. Here are the data for trainers when their 2yo second starters have figured in the top three of the betting. A minimum of 75 runs has been used as the cut-off point:

 

 

It seems right that Charlie Appleby hits a small profit considering his overall figures.

Any trainer with an A/E index of 0.90 or more I feel can be considered much more a positive than negative when it comes to their more fancied runners. Ten trainers have achieved that, of which six have edged into profit. These are Charlie Appleby, the Johnston yard, Archie Watson, Team Crisford, Hugo Palmer and Tom Dascombe. The other four - William Haggas, Charlie Hills, Clive Cox and Richard Fahey - made losses and only Cox had losses of worse than 7 pence in the £.

On the other side of the coin, Saeed bin Suroor’s record is surprisingly poor with qualifiers from the top three in the betting – a win rate of roughly one in six, but losses close to 30p in the £ and a very poor A/E index of 0.56.

So far in this article I have looked at more general trainer stats – but now I want to focus in on a few specific trainers starting, not surprisingly, with Charlie Appleby.

 

Individual Trainers with Second Start Two-Year-Olds

Charlie Appleby

We have seen already that Charlie Appleby has an impressive overall strike rate, but this does not mean he is a money making machine for punters. If only it was that simple! Strike rate is important but betting is essentially about getting a value price - having 50% of winners at 10/11 keeps you in the game but loses you money, whereas 15% of winners at 8/1 means long losing runs but wins you money. Such is the challenge for us punters: winners, or profit?

From my personal experience it is harder to find value with short prices and this is why one cannot just blindly back Appleby runners, or indeed almost any other short-priced 'no brainer' angle. This is perhaps neatly illustrated when we breakdown Appleby’s profit with horses from the top three in the betting. As the previous table showed, these runners did make a small 5p in the £ profit for him. However, all the profits came from horses second and third in the betting. These combined to produce returns of just under 26p in the £, whereas favourites lost just over 4p in the £.

I have dug deeper into the Appleby stats and one angle that does stand out is jockey based. I touched upon jockeys in the first of these articles when I compared second starters that were ridden by the same jockey who had ridden them on debut, with those who have seen their jockey change. As a general rule I found that horses ridden by the same jockey outperformed those which were not. For Appleby this bias is pronounced as the table shows:

 

 

William Buick has been responsible for 72 of these 103 ‘same jockey’ runners. His strike rate was 45.8% and backing these runners would have returned you £16.06 (ROI +22.3%). James Doyle has had an even better strike rate albeit from a much smaller group of runners. He had a success rate of 52.2% (12 win from 23) for returns of 19p in the £. Hence any 2yo second starter from the Appleby yard who is ridden for the second time by either Buick or Doyle is a horse that potentially offers some value.

We have seen good consistency before with Appleby runners and his second starters seem no exception. They have proved versatile by going / ground conditions as the graph below shows:

 

 

All the strike rates are above 30%; it should be noted that the highest one (tapeta) is from a small sample (7 wins from 15) so this may be artificially high.

Here are some additional Charlie Appleby stats, both positive and negative:

  1. Appleby 2yo debut winners have a relatively modest record when running for the second time. They have backed up this win just 14 times from 60 (SR 23.3%) for a loss of £25.02 (ROI -41.7%).
  1. The value in terms of debut performance has come from horses that finished 5th or worse on debut. On second starts Appleby has secured 19 winners with these runners from 58 (SR 32.8%) for a profit of £10.59 (ROI +18.3%).
  1. At the highest level (Class 1 races) Appleby's runners on second start have won just 7 from 41 (SR 17.1%) for a loss of £18.07 (ROI -44.1%).
  1. Second time runners returning to the course where they debuted have done well, scoring nearly 50% of the time. 16 wins from 33 (SR 48.5%) have created a BSP profit of £17.36 (ROI 52.6%).
  1. Appleby has done well when sending second starting 2yos to Newmarket. He has been rewarded with 24 wins from 53 (SR 45.3%) for a healthy profit of £19.48 (ROI +36.8%).

 

Richard Hannon

I have chosen Richard Hannon next as he has had the biggest number of second starters in the past six seasons.

The eagle eyed of you would have seen already that his record in sprint events is better than 7f+ races; specifically, he has a strike rate of 17.3% for sprints compared to 10.6% for longer races. Here are some other Hannon second starter stats I would like to share.

  1. Just like Appleby, having the same jockey on board that rode the horse on debut has been a plus. These horses have won 37 of their 224 starts (SR 16.5%) for a small profit of £11.29 (ROI of 5.0%); the record of horses with new / different jockeys is 53 wins from 450 (SR 11.8%) for a loss of £73.50 (ROI -16.3%).
  1. 2yos returning to the track within two weeks of their debut have a surprisingly good record. 40 have won from 244 (SR 16.4%) for a healthy profit of £90.27 (ROI +37.0%). Amazingly, Hannon has made a profit with these runners in five of the six years which shows good consistency.
  1. Horses that finished first or second on debut have a good record with 26.1% of them winning on their second starts (35 wins from 135) for a profit of £40.06 (ROI +29.9%).
  1. Hannon has scored nearly 41% of the time with second time starter favourites, making the smallest of profits, £1.93 (ROI 1.8%).

 

Richard Fahey

Another Richard and another trainer who has had a decent number of runners. His overall strike rate with second starters stands at just under 13% and I have found a handful of useful stats – positive, negative and neutral.

  1. Clear favourites for Fahey have secured 33 wins from 73 2yo second starters (SR 45.2%) for a profit of £11.68 (ROI +16.0%).
  1. 2yos that won on debut have proved profitable on their second starts thanks to a strike rate of 17.9% producing returns of 56p in the £.
  1. Second starters who race at Beverley have scored 26.5% of the time (13 wins from 49) for a break even scenario.
  1. Having the same jockey on board as on debut has once again seen a big difference in performance, just as we saw with Appleby and Hannon runners. Fahey horses retaining the same jockey for the second run have won 19.8% of races (A/E index 1.06); those horses whose jockey has changed have won just 8.4% of their races (A/E index 0.60).
  1. Second starters racing on all weather tracks have a poor record with only 7 wins from 104 (SR 6.7%). Losses have been steep at 54p lost for every £1 staked.
  1. 2yos that have had their second start in September or later in the year look worth avoiding. Just 11 wins from 153 (SR 7.2%) for a loss of £67.11 (ROI -43.9%). For the record, if the horse was not favourite or second favourite Fahey saw just 3 wins from 121 runners.

 

Other trainers

Here are some individual stats that I have unearthed related to other trainers:

  1. Andrew Balding has an excellent record with horses that finished 1st, 2nd or 3rd on debut. On their second starts they have gone onto win 25 times from 89 (SR 28.1%) for a profit of £31.68 (ROI +35.6%). Balding has secured profits with these runners in four of the six years.
  1. Kevin Ryan has reverse stats compared to Balding. Horses that finished in the first three on debut would have lost a whopping 46p in the £ if backed blindly on second start.
  1. Sir Mark Prescott has sent 99 2yo second starters to all weather tracks, and only one has managed to win.
  1. Tim Easterby has a dreadful record with horses running again within two weeks of their debut, with just one win from 104 runners.
  1. William Haggas has a good record with 2yos that have dropped in class since their debut. He has secured a 34.2% strike rate thanks to 26 winners from 76. These runners have returned a profit of £9.84 (ROI +12.9%).
  1. Karl Burke is another trainer that does particularly well when retaining the same jockey who rode on debut – 36 wins from 150 rides (SR 24%) for a profit of £45.34 (ROI +30.2%).

 

MAIN TAKEAWAYS

Below is a summary of my main takeaways from this article; but there may be stats above that are far more important to you, so keep that in mind!

  1. Ed Walker, Michael Dods, William Haggas, Hugo Palmer, Charlie Hills, Sir Michael Stoute and Andrew Balding all enjoy much higher strike rates on second starts compared to debut runs.
  1. Brian Meehan and Eve Johnson Houghton are two trainers whose second starting 2yos offer relatively poor value, especially when comparing second runs to debuts.
  1. William Haggas, Michael Dods, Andrew Balding and Clive Cox have good records with 2yo second runs in 5-6f races. In contrast, Tim Easterby looks a trainer to avoid.
  1. Hugo Palmer, Archie Watson and the Charlton stable do well in races of 7f or more with their second starters.
  1. Charlie Appleby, the Johnston stable, Archie Watson, the Crisford stable, Hugo Palmer and Tom Dascombe have good records with second starters when in the top three in the betting. Saeed bin Suroor has a particularly poor record with these fancied runners.
  1. Charlie Appleby runners have a very good record when the same jockey who rode on debut rides on the second start. In particular, look out for William Buick and James Doyle. Appleby also does well with horses that finished out of the first four on debut, as well as horses that ran at Newmarket.
  1. Richard Hannon does well with horses that return to the track within two weeks of their debut. He also does well with debutants that won or finished second on debut.
  1. Richard Fahey second starters that start clear favourite have a strong record. On the negative side, avoid second starters if racing on the all weather, or if racing after August.

 

There is a fair bit to get your teeth into in this article and hopefully it has started to point you in the right direction, as well as steering away from some treacherous paths. For those readers who do not generally bet in 2yo races, I hope this, and the previous three articles, may have changed your mind.

- DR

Two-Year-Old Runners on 2nd Start: Part 1

/in /by

Having delved into two-year-old (2yo) debut data in my two previous articles (part 1 here and part 2 here), it is time to move on to 2yos on their second starts, writes Dave Renham. I will split the research up once more into two distinct pieces: this first one will look at a variety factors such as LTO (last time out) performance, LTO course, market factors, etc. The second will be drilling into numerous trainer based angles.

Once more I have researched UK flat racing results for six full years, from 2017 to 2022, and this includes both turf races as well as all-weather. I have calculated profit and loss to Betfair SP (BSP) with commission of 5% taken into account.

Firstly let me compare the win strike rates and the win and placed (each way) strike rates for 2yo debutants versus 2yo second starters:

 

 

As you can see, having that racecourse experience makes a significant difference, both in term of winning chances and placed ones too.

These strike rates are similar year in, year out for second time starting 2yos – the graph below shows this clearly with two virtually straight lines:

 

 

Of course the betting market takes these percentages into account when setting the prices so, although second time out juveniles win more than debutants do, it does not mean they are necessarily more profitable. Let us then examine the performance of 2yo second starters by price.

 

Market Factors

The prices shown in the table below are Industry SPs just because they fit to a more uniform price pattern – profits / losses / returns, however, are presented to BSP as previously started:

 

 

From these figures we can see that the shorter priced runners have been quite poor value, specifically those priced 9/4 or shorter. The biggest profits have come from the 25/1 or bigger runners but take out one winner at a BSP of 560.0 and suddenly we see a 100 point deficit. Add into the mix that there were three more winners priced between 300.0 and 500.0 (396.7, 312.79 & 485.27), as well as a miserly 1% strike rate, and we can see that backing such runners is not a sensible option, even if you are patient enough to wait on average for that one win in 91.

 

LTO position (finishing position on debut)

This was not an option to check with debutants (for obvious reasons), but for second starters it is an area we can dive into.

 

 

The first thing to note is that horses that came second on debut actually have a better strike rate than those who won on debut. This is not usually the case – looking at ALL races over the past six seasons (any age group / race type), the strike rate for all LTO winners is slightly higher than for all LTO runners up. Here there is a 7% differential, which may be down to the weight penalty most winners are obliged to carry next time. Having said that, the returns are virtually identical – within one hundredth of a pence per every £1 staked.

The value seems to have been with those horses that finished 5th or worse. Again, though, we need to be aware that those four huge priced winners mentioned earlier all came from runners who finished 5th or worse.

 

LTO course (course they made their debut)

Focusing on the course where a 2yo made its debut. what difference does this make? I have included all LTO courses that have had at least 80 qualifiers. That means just two courses miss out: Epsom and Wetherby. Courses are initially listed alphabetically and I have split Newmarket into results for both the Rowley course and the July one:

 

 

As we can see there is quite a mixed bag in terms of strike rates, returns and A/E indices. In general, I think that the strike rates and A/E indices are more significant than profit/loss, as some course data will have been skewed by very big priced winners. Also I would urge punters to be equally aware of the poorer performing LTO courses. Juveniles which had debut runs at Bath, Beverley, Brighton and Chester look horses to avoid on second starts in general terms; not only do they have poor strike rates, their A/E indices are under 0.70.

There is a significant difference however, when we compare LTO turf courses with LTO AW courses:

 

 

That better than 3% differential in strike rates with 2yo debutants coming from turf courses last time out equates to a 32% relative improvement over those returning after a debut on the all-weather. Likewise, the profit and loss figures to BSP (£1 level stakes) are similarly different:

 

 

All in all, one would prefer to be backing a 2yo on second career run that raced on the turf on its debut, rather than the sand.

If we break the data down further, by looking at horses that started in the top three of the betting on their second start, the LTO course surface made a difference there as well. These more fancied runners scored 26.2% of the time if their debut run was on turf, compared to 23.2% if their debut run was on the all weather.

A debut run at Newmarket has often been considered a positive and we can see the table shows debuts at both the Rowley and July courses have produced high second time out strike rates and good returns to boot. In addition the win percentage / strike rate has been consistently good year on year as the graph shows:

 

 

Three of the six years would have produced a blind profit to BSP, and at this juncture I would like to share more specific data looking at the horses that finished 2nd or 3rd at Newmarket on debut. These runners have secured a one in three win ratio (SR 33.5%) and a small level stakes profit of £18.09 (ROI +7.7%) on their next starts. However, the most remarkable thing is that despite this modest profit, five of the six years have been winning ones:

 

 

It is clear that any horse which finished 2nd or 3rd on debut at Newmarket is worth looking at in some detail on their next outing. In fact all horses that debuted at Newmarket should be looked at as possible betting opportunities especially if other factors offer positive vibes.

 

Sires

Onto sires next, and here is a table of all sires with at least 100 offspring to have had two (or more) runs as two-year-olds. I have ordered them by strike rate:

 

 

There is quite a difference when comparing the likes of Dubawi at the top, with his better than one win in four ratio, and Heeraat at the bottom, whose record is roughly one win in every 50!

Now, in the previous article I looked at sire stats for 2yo debutants so it makes sense to compare the individual sires and their debut and second run stats; here, I will be comparing the 2yo strike rate and the A/E indices.

In the final column I have divided the second run win percentage / SR% by the debut one to give us a type of Impact Value. It is not a ‘true’ IV and I call it a Comparison Strike Rate (CSR). I have used this type of calculation before in some other Geegeez articles. The higher this figure the more improvement the runners show on their second run compared to their debut.

Horses highlighted in green have seen their strike rates at least double; those in red have seen their strike rates fall. A CSR figure to bear in mind is 1.52. This is the average CSR figure when looking at the strike rate comparison for ALL sires. The table is ordered by CSR.

 

In terms of A/E indices, the same trick of dividing one number by the other is an option to compare the two values. However, I think it is simply easier to work out the difference between the two. Here is a list of any sire whose A/E index is at least 0.3 points better for second starters compared to debutants:

 

 

Twilight Son and Poets Voice have both proved to be far better value with their 2yo runners on second start compared to debut. All six in the table see significant differences. This is something we need to take into account if looking at runners sired by these six.

Reversing the idea now, here are the sires whose A/E index is at least 0.3 points better for their debutants compared to their second starters:

 

 

All five of these sires have been far better value with their 2yo debutants, and they essentially buck the general sire trend. Any 2yo on second start sired by one of these might warrant a red flag against it.

As a stats man, my mantra is the more information the better. It is true that sometimes ‘more’ can confuse the issue, but in the case of sires, comparing, analysing and having a better understanding of first and second career run data will improve our chances of finding value if backing 2yos on a regular basis.

 

Damsires

As per the first 2yo debutant article, I want to share some damsire data, too. Here are the top 15 performing damsires with 2yo second starters from a strike rate perspective (100 runs / horses minimum).

 

 

Of these 15, five secured a BSP profit (Dalakhani, Dansili, Dark Angel, Oasis Dream and Shamardal); four had A/E indices of 1.00 or higher (Dalakhani, Dubawi, Dutch Art and Bahamian Bounty).

Of all the damsires mentioned I think three are worth keeping an eye out for this year and they are the top three in terms of strike rate – Dubawi, Dalakhani and Shamardal; their figures are solid across the board. For the record, backing all 2yo second starters that were priced 6/1 (Industry SP) or shorter from any of these three would have seen 88 wins from 245 runners (SR 35.9%) for a BSP profit of £45.65 (ROI +18.6%).

 

Jockeys

An area that I thought would be interesting to look at was whether it was better for the 2yo second starter to be ridden again by the same jockey who rode them on debut. My hypothesis was that if the same jockey rode the horse again it should be a slight plus, due to the fact that the jockey would have prior knowledge of that debut run and performance. Also I am assuming that a fair proportion of these 2yos have been ridden at home on the gallops by the same pilot. Let’s check out the findings then:

 

 

It is always heartening to see a theory produce the type of stats expected. As we can see, horses that are ridden by the same jockey for a second time in their career outperform those who have a different pilot. This is true for strike rate, returns and A/E indices.

What is also comforting to see is that the yearly strike rates for these same jockey bookings have been very consistent:

 

 

There are less than 1.3 percentage points difference between the ‘best’ year in terms of win percentage / strike rate and the ‘worst’. In my second article, I plan to break this data down further by looking at individual trainer results – I am hoping a few trainers will offer up some strong stats.

 

MAIN TAKEAWAYS

To close, here are the bullet points from the above.

  1. 2yos win just over 12% of the time on second starts compared to just under 8% on debut
  1. Second time starters priced 9/4 or shorter have proved relatively poor value
  1. Horses that finished second on debut have an excellent strike rate of nearly 28% in their follow up run, but they still lost 11p for every £1 staked
  1. A debut run at either Bath, Beverley, Brighton or Chester can be considered a negative
  1. A debut run at Newmarket should often be considered a positive; 2yos racing at Newmarket who finished second or third on debut have a very solid set of figures on second runs
  1. Sires Twilight Son, Poets Voice, Bated Breath, Acclamation, Fast Company and Zebedee see their progeny perform significantly better on second starts compared to debut
  1. Dubawi, Dalakhani and Shamardal are three damsires that are worth keeping on the right side (as a general rule). This is especially true if priced 6/1 (Industry SP) or shorter
  1. Second time starters ridden by the same jockey that rode them in their first run have a much better record than if the jockey has changed

 

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I hope this article has highlighted some useful stats for Geegeez readers. It will be trainer data that comes under the microscope in that follow up. Until then...

- DR

Two-Year-Old Runners on Debut: Part 2

/in /by

This is the second in a two-parter looking at two-year-old (2yo) debut runners, writes Dave Renham. The first part - which you can read here - looked at market factors, gender, sires and damsires. This concluding half hones in on a plethora of trainer data. I have collated data for UK flat racing for six full years from 2017 to 2022, and this includes both turf and all-weather. I have calculated profit and loss to Betfair SP (BSP), with commission of 5% taken into account.

 

Overall 2yo debut stats for trainers

I am going to start with a full table of trainers who have had at least 75 two-year old debut runners in the past six seasons. I think it is important to share as much raw trainer data as possible. I have ordered the trainers by win strike rate:

 

* C Johnston from 2023; ** Jack Channon from 2023

 

Any trainer from Eve Johnson Houghton upwards deserves credit, with ten of those eleven in profit as well as having a decent strike rate. Sticking with strike rate, Charlie Appleby stands head and shoulders above the rest and I will be digging deeper into his stats later in the piece.

 

2yo debutants in 5f races

I want to split the data by distance so I am looking at the minimum trip first. There are fewer 2yo races over 5f compared to six and seven furlongs, so that does need to be taken into account. Here are win strike rates for those trainers who have had at least 50 debut runners over 5f:

 

 

There are three trainers with excellent strike rates of over 20% (Archie Watson, Clive Cox and the Johnston stable); at the other end of the scale Tim Easterby is a pretty dismal 1 from 118. Not surprisingly Watson, Cox and Johnston have all made a blind profit with their runners to BSP. Having said that, I would personally be a little wary about Watson as the last three seasons have been less good than before with only three winners from 27 (admittedly he has had a few near misses).

Another trainer worth mentioning is Michael Bell. He did not have enough runners to qualify for the graph above, but of his 39 juvenile debutants over five furlongs, 10 won (SR 25.6%) for a BSP profit of £17.41 (ROI +44.6%).

 

2yo debutants in 6f races

Up an extra furlong now to three-quarters of a mile, or six furlongs if you prefer. Again, a trainer must have saddled a minimum of 50 qualifiers to appear in the table. Here are all the trainers who qualify, this time in tabular form:

 

 

As can be seen, the profit / loss figures are all over the place – you only have to look at the stats for Jamie Osborne to see that. Just one decent priced outsider winning can turn a very poor run of results into a profitable set.

Richard Hannon has comfortably secured the most winners, but he has had the most runners over this trip. Four of the six study years have actually turned a profit, with only one poor year which was 2020. Hannon's profits have come from maiden races rather than novice events and he has recorded a 19% win strike rate in the month of May. In fact his winning percentage when combining May, June and July results is almost double that of his August to December figure (13.9% versus 7.2%).

 

2yo debutants in 7f races

Onto to 7 furlongs now. The data is based on 50 runs minimum once more and the focus is on the trainers with the highest win percentages:

 

 

Charlie Appleby remains head and shoulders above the rest, but one other stat that stood out was for the Johnston stable. Their record in June in 7f races has been excellent with 14 debut winners from 49 (SR 28.6%) for a BSP profit of £40.41 (ROI +82.5%). Not only that, 12 further horses were placed. I am wondering if this is down to excellent race placement: June is the first full month of 2yo 7f races and many of the big juvenile stars of the future tend to be seen later in the season. Hence the standard of 7f races in June are likely to be weaker in quality compared with later in the year.

Before moving away from the June Johnston data, it is worth sharing that 12 of his winners figured in the top three in the betting from 32 runners returning an impressive over 90 pence in the £.

 

2yo debutants in 1m+ races

A look at the longest distances now. The furthest distance a two-year-old runs is 1 mile 3 furlongs and that has only occurred twice in the last six seasons. Just over 70% of races at 1 mile or more are actually raced at a mile.

Let’s look at the trainer splits (50 runs or more):

 

These are the only trainers to qualify, mainly because longer distance races for 2yos are less common. Indeed, there are nearly twice the number of 7f races compared to races of 1 mile and up.

Charlie Appleby again tops the table to make it a clean sweep at distances from six furlongs to a mile, so now it is time to dig deeper into his record with 2yos making their racecourse debut.

 

Charlie Appleby's 2yo Debutants

To begin with let us look at the yearly breakdown in terms of win percentage / strike rate:

 

 

As the graph shows he has struggled to maintain those staggeringly high figures from the first three years in the review window. However, the figures for 2020 to 2022 are still pretty darn good.

I want to look at jockey data now; William Buick and James Doyle are the two riders Appleby uses the most as the table shows:

 

 

As punters, these type of findings are clearly important. Buick and Doyle have scored twice as frequently when compared to all other jockeys that have ridden 2yo debutants for Appleby. Clearly we should focus our attention on the mounts of Buick and Doyle only.

In terms of price, most of Appleby’s runners are at, or near, the head of the market. I have split his results by different Industry SP price bands but with the results calculated once again to BSP.

 

 

The table suggests that the very shortest priced runners are poor value. From this past data it seems better to focus on horses that are likely to be priced between 13/8 and 7/1.

Here are some other Appleby stats I would like to share:

  1. 2yo debutants over 5f are rare which is why he did not appear in the 5f stats earlier. However, from his 20 5f runners, an amazing 13 won (SR 65%) for a BSP profit of £26.95 (ROI +134.8%).
  2. Appleby has a similar strike rate with male and female runners – male runners have won just over 28% of their starts, females just under 27%.
  3. He does not send that many runners out early in the season. However, if we combine April and May data he has secured 22 victories from only 51 first starters (SR 43.1%) for a profit of £26.48 (ROI +51.9%).
  4. He sends more debutants to turf courses (245 versus 99) but again has similar strike rates. On turf it is 28.6% and on the sand it 26.3%. The A/E indices are almost identical as well (0.91 and 0.92).

 

Trainers and 2yo debutants in the top three in the betting

Moving away from a specific focus on Charlie Appleby now, I want to examine trainer records when their debutants start in the top three in the betting. This avoids big-priced winners skewing the profit and loss figures. It also makes it a relatively fair comparison between the trainers. I have used 50 or more runs once again as my qualifying mark:

 

 

I find this type of table illuminating. Considering the prices (96% of all the qualifying runners were single figure prices), any trainer in profit has fared extremely well. The top five in terms of strike rate - Appleby, Charlton, Watson, Bell and Cox - have secured a profit, and I feel these trainers are worth noting this season when one of their runners is in the top three of the betting.

At the other end of the scale, Andrew Balding has a really poor record: of his 18 favourites just one has prevailed. In Balding's defence, the stable is very much known for horses improving through their early starts. His runners won just 8.2% on debut in the six-year study period, but that shot up to 17.4% on second start, 22% on third start and 26% on fourth start. Not strictly 'on topic' but worth noting.

The A/E indices are shown in the table but I think it worth graphing them as well to see which trainers have been the best ‘value’ according to this metric:

 

 

The seven trainers with the highest A/E indices are also the seven trainers with the highest strike rates (albeit not perfectly in the same order). The trainers with the lowest five A/E indices (all under 0.65) are the trainers that fill the bottom five places in the strike rate order. As a general rule, you would expect to see that type of correlation with strike rates and A/E indices, but it does not always happen like that.

 

Trainer Jockey combinations with 2yo debutants

Earlier we saw the importance of jockey booking when looking at Charlie Appleby debutants. Well, there are a couple of other trainers where we find similar stats. Firstly Archie Watson:

 

 

Oisin Murphy has not ridden for Watson for over a year due to his suspension, but it is clear from this data that if he, Danny Tudhope, or Hollie Doyle especially is on board then a good run is expected. The 11.1% figure for ‘All other jockeys’ is poor in comparison.

Likewise when we examine the Gosden stable we see a similar pattern. Robert Havlin has ridden 220 of the 512 2yo debutants and his win record far outstrips the rest:

 

 

There is a huge difference in A/E indices, too, with Havlin at an impressive 1.07 and all other jockeys combining to average out at 0.76. The final stat to mention here is that Havlin / Gosden runners have proved profitable over the 220 debut rides to the tune of 34p in the £ at Betfair SP.

 

Trainers and Courses for 2yo debutants

Data is a little limited here so I would not go headlong into backing every combo in the table. However, I still want to share the most impressive course stats for some trainers. The vast majority have produced a six year profit and all bar one have produced a strike rate of 20% or more. The one that did not was close to that mark (19.35%) and, due to a good sample size (62 runs), I thought it was worth including:

 

 

This table is a bit of a 2yo debut Trainer Track Stats, to use Matt's previous trainer-based report terminology. Personally, during this upcoming season, I will be taking note of any of these combinations that have secured a double figure number of wins – I will not back them blind, but I will look at the relevant runners in some detail in order to determine whether I would deem them to a potential bet or not. The Gosden / Yarmouth combo is one I will certainly look out for.

Before I finish, let me summarise some of the key stats this article has highlighted:

 

MAIN 2yo DEBUTANT PART 2 TAKEWAYS

  1. Charlie Appleby has by far the highest win percentage and he is consistent across all race distances. His 13 wins from 20 runners in 5f races is arguably the highlight despite the smaller sample size.
  2. In 5f races the stables of Archie Watson, Clive Cox and Charlie Johnston have the best strike rates of those with 50+ runners over the six-year period.
  3. Over 6f Charlie Appleby and the Crisford stable are the only ones to have secured strike rates in excess of 20%.
  4. The Johnston stable has had an excellent record in the month of June in 7f races.
  5. Over 1 mile+ Charlie Appleby, Ralph Beckett and the Gosden stable have the strongest looking stats.
  6. Charlie Appleby, Roger and Harry Charlton, Archie Watson, Michael Bell and Clive Cox are trainers who have secured good strike rates with 2yo debutants from the top three in the betting. In addition they have all secured individual profits.
  7. Saeed bin Suroor, Sir Michael Stoute, Charlie Hills and Andrew Balding have poor records with 2yo debut runners which start in the top three in the betting. All are famously patient trainers.
  8. Charlie Appleby does twice as well with juvenile debutants when either William Buick or James Doyle are on board when compared with all other jockeys.
  9. Archie Watson and Hollie Doyle, and the Gosden stable with Robert Havlin are positive trainer / jockey combos.
  10. There were 12 wins from 41 2yo debutants from the Gosden stable making their racecourse bow at Yarmouth. These runners have produced profits of over 92p in the £.

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I hope you have found the two articles on 2yo debutants useful. I certainly enjoyed uncovering these interesting angles. 2yo debutants will now take a back seat, editorially speaking, with my attention switching to 2yos on their second starts. That is next on the agenda for researching and next week I will be sharing my findings with Geegeez readers.

Until then...

- DR

Two-Year-Old Runners on Debut: Part 1

/in /by

Two-year-old (2yo) races on the flat are a bit ‘marmite’ – some people really focus on them, others avoid them like the plague, writes Dave Renham. The issue with 2yo, also called juvenile, races is often lack of form / information. This is especially the case when it comes to a 2yo making its racecourse debut.

In this article I wrote last year I looked at some basic trainer data for 2yo debutants, but did not go into any real detail. What follows is first of two parts where I will expand upon these initial findings by looking at many other areas, as well as updating any figures from that 2022 piece.

I have gathered data for UK flat racing for six complete years from 2017 to 2022 and this includes turf and all weather. I have calculated profit and loss to Betfair SP (BSP for short), with commission of 5% taken into account. [If you have a 2% Betfair account, keep that in mind with the quoted figures]

Market Factors with 2yo Debutants

Let me begin by looking at the performance of 2yo debutants by price. The prices shown are Industry SPs because they fit to a more uniform price pattern – profits / losses / returns are to BSP as previously started:

 

 

As we can see, the shortest priced 2yo debutants have been very poor value – those priced evens or shorter would have lost you nearly 20 pence for every £1 staked. There has been better value in bigger priced horses – those priced 15/2 or bigger. It is interesting that the 15/2 to 9/1 bracket has provided five winning years out of six; likewise five out of six winning years for the 10/1 to 14/1 bracket also. The two biggest price brackets proved much more volatile as you would expect with some big winning years and some years with heavy losses.

Now we know using ‘starting price’ as a basis for a bet is not perfectly possible as we do not know the SP or BSPs until after the ‘off’. However, if betting late we can at least get very close to betting at the desired price.

 

Top three in the betting

Sticking with market factors, I want to do a little bit of digging into debutants who start in the top three of the betting. From the price data we have seen so far it seems unlikely that we will find many profitable avenues. However, as with all stats busting, it is not just positive angles that are useful to find; finding negative stats is equally worthwhile as horses that are avoided due to these adverse findings will certainly aid our bottom line come the end of the year.

I want to share two specific areas in terms of 2yo debutants who were in the top three in the betting. Firstly let's review some course data. I have only included courses that had at least 100 qualifiers. The table is ordered by strike rate:

 

 

There is quite a difference between the ‘top’ course, Yarmouth, and the ‘bottom’ one, Sandown, in terms of strike rate, returns and A/E indices. Both courses have similar field sizes and in general it is a fair comparison. Now Yarmouth traditionally has been a course that some of the top trainers target with their juveniles. I am not sure if that is why debutants from the top three in the betting have done well there; however, it is always worth checking course stats in conjunction with other factors to see if we can gain any edge.

Of course, this subset of data is reporting on the last six seasons only so, with course stats, I often back check a different subset of data to see if results correlate. When I went back further and looked at the previous six years (2011 to 2016) I noted that four of the top five courses - Yarmouth, Nottingham, Leicester and Doncaster - all had virtually identical strike rates and A/E indices. Therefore I would hope and expect that similar results will occur this year and in the near future, at these four courses at least.

The second area I want to look at is time of year. The graph below shows the monthly breakdown of the performance of 2yo debutants in terms of A/E indices, when in the top three of the betting. I could have equally shared strike rate data as that correlated showing the same pattern.

 

 

The value in these runners clearly lies in April and May. In fact this cohort made a profit in both months, with May showing solid BSP returns of 13 pence in the £. Therefore if you are looking to back horses near the top of the betting April and May seem to be the months to focus on. In contrast June and July have seen very poor results. The A/E index for ALL 2yo runners in ALL races is 0.89 which gives you a useful figure for comparison purposes.

In general though, my personal market advice if using price as a guide, is that there is more likely to be value in those horses that are around the 15/2 mark or bigger. Hence, I would not be put off bigger priced runners, especially if I had other valid reasons for betting the horse. Of course these animals will have a low strike rate, even if they are ‘good value’, so it is not a strategy for the short term or the faint-hearted.

 

Gender of horse with 2yo Debutants

I always look at this factor when I research anything racing wise. Males as we know outperform females from a strike rate perspective across all race ages / types etc. That does not always mean that you should prefer male runners over female runners as prices will compensate for the general strike rate differential. If we compare ALL 2yo runners in the past six seasons (not just debutants), we will see that males had a win strike rate of 12.05%, females at 9.61%. Let us look at the 2yo debutant figures now:

 

 

The strike rates have narrowed, but there is a chasm between the two in terms of returns. Why is this the case? The simple answer is that most of the really big priced debutant winners have been male over the past six seasons. Is this likely to continue in the future? Well, there’s the million dollar question. My guess is ‘not’ for two reasons. Firstly I cannot find a logical reason to explain why males have had more big priced winners in this time frame. Secondly I did back check a previous six year period (2011 to 2016) and for this series of results females actually came out as the profitable sex. Sometimes we have to accept that there is no pattern or edge to be truly found regardless of what the raw profit and loss figures indicate. The relatively lowly A/E number is a strong reminder to 'proceed with caution'.

 

Sires of 2yo Debutants

Onto sires (fathers of the horses) next. Here are top ten performing sires in terms of win strike for 2yos on their debut (minimum 100 runs):

 

 

What is useful about this specific sire data, is that each horse has just run once. Sometimes sire stats can be skewed when horses rack up multiple wins; this is not the case here.

For those of you who have read my sire articles before, most of these stallions will be very familiar to you – Shamardal, Kingman, Dubawi, Frankel are ‘regulars’ when it comes to good win records. Unfortunately, Shamardal won’t be having any 2yo debutants this year or indeed in any future year as he sadly passed away in 2020.

Of course win strike rate is not the only statistical ‘measure’ we are interested in. A/E indices, which we looked at earlier, are another measure I like to analyse where possible. The graph below shows the sires with A/E indices above the magic 1.00 figure:

 

 

It is good to see four sires appearing for the second time – Night of Thunder, Lope De Vega, Mehmas and Kingman were all in the win SR% top ten. These four in particular are worth close scrutiny this season when a 2yo debutant is sired by one of them.

Looking in more depth at Kingman, we can see that there has been excellent consistency year by year. Here are his 2yo debutant win strike rates split by year:

 

 

His first season as a sire with runners on the track was 2018 so there is no data for 2017. The strike rates show good correlation, which is unusual for sire stats, especially debutant sire stats. One would hope to see Kingman hit the 20%+ mark once again in 2023.

Before moving on from Kingman, it should be noted that his record with these runners is better over ‘further’. Generally his 2yo debutants perform better at 7f or further compared to the sprint distances of 5 and 6f. This is actually the case when you look at all of his 2yo runners as a whole.

Dubawi is a sire who has scored slightly better than one win in every six on 2yo debut, but overall would have lost you 21p for every £1 bet. However, sticking to debutants at races of 1 mile or more, we could have secured a profit of 13p in the £ thanks in part to a healthy strike rate of 21.2% (25 wins from 118).

We know that for all the positive angles we come across there are bad stats too. Indeed, there are typically more bad ones than good ones. Thus it makes sense to look at sires with the poorest records over the past six seasons. Below are those sires who have the lowest win strike rate percentages with 2yos on debut:

 

 

Not only do they have low win percentages, but the A/E values are very poor (Adaay excluded). I would not be keen on backing a 2yo on debut if sired by one of these ten. Combining these sires in one group, and excluding any horse that started favourite, their collective record reads just 39 wins from 1285 runs (SR 3.0%) for a loss to BSP of £644.27 (ROI -50.4%).

 

Damsires of 2yo Debutants

Damsires are the final port of call for this first article. Damsires are the sires (fathers) of the dams (mothers) of the respective horses. The grandfather on the female side as it were – sometimes known as maternal grandsires. Here are the records of all damsires who have had at least 100 2yo debut runners (minimum win strike rate 10%):

 

 

There are a fair few in ‘the black’ but, as we know, most of these profits are likely to be down to a big priced winner or two. However, any 2yo making its racecourse bow whose damsire has an A/E index above 1 is worth keeping an eye out for. Nine of the damsires in the table have achieved that – Dark Angel, Sea the Stars, Marju, New Approach, Galileo, Teofilo, Iffraaj, High Chaparral and Barathea.

Galileo has been the damsire of nearly 450 2yo debutants in the past six seasons and it is worth noting that there is a fairly significant difference in strike rates with turf runners versus all weather runners:

 

The turf strike rate is about two-thirds better than his all-weather win percentage, and there is a clear difference in A/E indices as well. Do not be fooled by the profit figures, however; these have been heavily skewed by two of the all weather winners which were priced at 130.0 and 41.61.

As I did with the sire data, it is worth sharing the poorer strike rates as well – below are those damsires with a strike rate below 6%:

 

 

It is perhaps best to avoid these damsires, although I did find some interesting data regarding Oasis Dream when it came to distance stats, as the graph below shows:

 

 

Clearly for this damsire, what distance the 2yo debutant is running over makes quite a difference. At the minimum distance, the 10.1% strike rate is actually above the average figure for all damsires. Obviously the 7f and 1m+ figures are way below the average. Hence any Oasis Dream debut runner over 5f should not be immediately dismissed from calculations. Whereas I think you can safely draw a line through most such runners trying 7f or more. Going the extra mile in terms of research will occasionally bring some greater insight that has the potential to keep us ahead of the crowd.

 

MAIN TAKEWAYS

  1. Very short priced debutants (evens or shorter) have been poor value.
  2. Horses from the top three of the betting have done well in April and May. In contrast these runners have performed poorly in June and July.
  3. In general horses priced 15/2 or bigger are likely to prove better value than shorter priced runners.
  4. 2yo debutants sired by Night of Thunder, Lope De Vega, Mehmas and Kingman should be seen as a positive.
  5. Sire Kingman has been extremely consistent and it is worth noting he has a better record at 7f or more.
  6. Adaay, Australia, Bated Breath, Holy Roman Emperor, Helmet, Zebedee, Poets Voice, Twilight Son, Equiano and Heeraat are sires to avoid. This is especially true if the relevant juvenile debut offspring are not favourite.
  7. Damsires Dark Angel, Sea the Stars, Marju, New Approach, Galileo, Teofilo, Iffraaj, High Chaparral and Barathea have all offered some value in the past six seasons in terms of 2yo debut runners.

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In the second and final part of this juvenile debut series, the focus will be on trainers. Until then...

- DR

April on the Flat: Focusing on the turf

/in /by

For flat fans the wait for the new turf season is almost over, with the Lincoln fixture taking place this weekend, writes Dave Renham. Indeed, for fans of Irish flat racing, it has already begun! For me it is the most exciting part of the year as all the winter number crunching and research I have done gets ‘tested’.

In this article I will be looking at results in April (UK racing only) going back ten seasons, focusing on turf racing only and hence excluding the all-weather. Due to Covid there was no racing in April 2020 so I have gone back to 2012 to get the tenth year of data. Profits / losses have been calculated to Industry SP, and also quoted to Betfair Starting Price when appropriate.

I will be concentrating on general factors including market data, trainers and last time out (LTO) performance. I will drill deeper when applicable, for example to make comparisons with handicap and non-handicap results. So let’s get cracking:

Market Factors in April Flat Racing

So how do fancied flat horses fare in April on the turf? Here is the breakdown of the performance of top three in the betting:

 

 

In terms of returns to SP, second favourites have lost the least amount of money (just). To BSP second favourites have again done best of the three, losing just 2.4p in the £. Favourites would have lost you 7p in £, and third favourites a similar amount (7.1p).

Moving onto strike rates, second and third favourites have won as often as they should when comparing the data with other months of the year. Taking the ten years as a whole, favourites have under-performed in April when compared with other months. The overall strike rate for turf flat favourites (all months over 10 years) is 31.7%, so the 29.39% figure for April is just over 2 percentage points lower. I suppose this is to be expected – we have a good proportion of favourites making their seasonal debut after several months off and so fitness and form lines are likely to be a little ‘blurred’. Favourites therefore have not been particularly good value at this time as year, when looking at the whole data set. However, I do want to look at favourites in more detail and, as will be seen, recent favourite performance has seemingly ‘improved’.

Favourites in April

First things first, let me look at the yearly win and each way strike rates. Each way strike rates combine and win and placed horses:

 

 

The last five years has out-performed the previous five for both winning favourites and each way market leaders. If I group this 5-year data in a table it may be easier to see the recent trend more clearly:

 

As the table shows there has been an uptick in strike rate, returns, A/E indices and Impact Values over the past five seasons. The win & placed (EW) strike rates reflect this also with the last five years showing 4.5% more favourites filling an each way position. So a better recent record for favourites, but despite this improvement their figures are still a little shy of favourites at other times of the year in terms of strike rate and returns.

 

April Favourites by race type

Time to compare handicap market leaders versus non-handicap ones:

 

As one might expect, non-handicap favourites have by far the higher strike rate. However, returns are virtually identical for both groups in terms of A/E.

One positive stat worth sharing is that if we focus solely on 3yo only handicaps, favourites have actually made a small profit in this month. 3yo handicap favourites have had 194 wins from 663 runners (SR 29.3%) for a small profit to SP of £7.28 (ROI +1.1%). This profit edges up to £40.68 (ROI +6.1%) when betting at BSP.

Looking at a relatively poor favourite stat now from April handicaps – horses that were favourite in 4yo+ handicaps won 23.2% of the time, but lost nearly 16p in the £ to SP (12p to BSP).

 

April Favourites by age

A look at the age of favourites now. Having seen the 3yo handicap data, I am expecting that age group to edge this:

 

 

As I had expected 3yo favourites across all race types have secured the best results – in terms of strike rate, return on investment, A/E index and Impact Value. 3yo favourites actually would have broken even to BSP if backing every single one in April going back to 2012. One age group where favourites perform relatively poorly in this month is 2yos. If we graph 2yo favourites across all months we can see that April is the month with the lowest strike rate, and compared to May to August there is a significant difference. (I have not included March as there were on 13 2yo favourites in total during the time frame).

 

 

Hence I would be wary of backing 2yo favourites at this time of the year. This makes sense as, in most 2yo races in April there is virtually zero form to go on, with 73% of juveniles making their debut in this month. This is likely to be a key factor in the lowish strike rate.

With 2yo favourites struggling a little there must have been value elsewhere. Amazingly perhaps, if you had backed all 2yos 5th or bigger in the betting market you would have made a profit, even to Industry SP! OK, the profit would have only been £38 to £1 level stakes which equates to around 3½p in the £. To BSP, though, these figures would have seen around £500 in profit, returning over 45p in the £. On average you would have only had 5 or 6 winners from roughly 100 bets each year, and there were five winning Aprils out of the 10. I wonder if there are any brave punters out there who will try this out in 2023?!

 

Trainers: April Turf Flat Racing

Let us now analyse trainers on the turf in the month of April. Let me begin by looking at the ten-year figures as a whole. I have included trainers who had at least 100 runs in April and have secured a strike rate of 11% or more, and I have ordered them by strike rate:

 

 

There is a fair smattering of profit as you can see – just under half the trainers on the list have proved profitable to SP. It should be noted that this will often be due to the odd big priced winner. Hence let us look at trainer performance with only the runners priced in single figures (minimum runs 60):

 

 

There are now nine trainers in profit to SP; however this figure increases to 15 if using BSP.

Let's dig into Charlie Appleby who heads both lists – first, here is his overall turf record in April (all prices). 197 of his 213 runners have been priced in single figures and, as the two tables above show, he has made a profit with all runners and with shorter priced runners only. His figures on the face of it are mightily impressive. Appleby's first year with results was 2014 and he had just one winner from 17 runners. From there he has ‘flown’. Here is the yearly breakdown by Win Percentage (SR%):

 

 

Five of the eight Aprils have proved profitable to SP; to BSP this becomes six (2017 profitable). Four of the last six Aprils has seen a strike rate in excess of 35% - Appleby has a good record all year round, but he clearly has his string ready to fire from the get-go.

I find it interesting that Appleby's win percentage in handicaps and non-handicaps is remarkably similar, as the next table shows:

 

 

There are comparable returns, too, with both race types returning over 20 pence in the £. This shows a good level of consistency. That consistency can also be seen when we look at his returns (ROI%) to SP across different market ranks:

 

 

As the bar chart shows Appleby has seen profitable returns across the board. He definitely looks a trainer to keep on the right side of this coming April.

Before moving away from trainers, here are some additional statistics that will hopefully give us more chance of making a profit through the first month of the flat turf season:

  1. Along with Appleby, the following trainers have been profitable to SP with favourites – William Haggas, Roger Varian, John (JJ) Quinn and Richard Fahey.
  2. Roger Varian has proved to be profitable when saddling runners at Newmarket in April thanks to a strike rate close to one in four. Focusing on his runners that started favourite or second favourite, his record at HQ reads a very impressive 13 winners from 22 (SR 59.1%) for a profit to SP of £25.25 (ROI +114.78%). To BSP this improves slightly to returns of 121p in the £.
  3. Irish maestro Aidan O’Brien has not sent many runners over in April, but as a rule they have struggled with just four wins from 49. He is just 3 from 32 with horses priced in single figures, and has had only 1 win from 16 with favourites.
  4. Richard Fahey tends to be a fast starter in April. He has secured profits at the following courses – Catterick, Leicester, Beverley, Redcar and Thirsk. Not only that, but his strike rate at all five courses has been 20% or higher. Horses from his stable that are making their seasonal debut have also made sound profits to SP; to BSP these runners would have returned you a profit in eight of the ten Aprils. In addition to this, Fahey has secured a 23.5% strike rate with his 2yos and six of the ten seasons would have secured profits to BSP. His overall figures with his 2yos show a 24p in the £ return to SP, 40p to BSP.
  5. If you are looking for a trainer to spring a surprise in April, then Richard Hannon is arguably the most likely. He has saddled eight winners priced 25/1 or bigger in April from only 72 qualifiers. The next best any other trainer has achieved in the time frame is three wins – one of those, Tim Easterby, had 250 qualifiers to obtain those three wins!

 

Last time Out (LTO) Factors

The final area I wish to look at in this piece is connected with LTO factors. Firstly, a look at the race code of the last run. Now, because all weather racing goes on all the year round, there is a good percentage of turf runners in April that had raced on the sand LTO. Some horses also raced LTO in a National Hunt race as the table below indicates. I have added Betfair SP data to the table this time:

 

LTO runners who raced on flat turf have the best strike rate but to BSP they are the only group to make a loss. Now, of course, big prices can skew vast data sets like this, and so what the data tell me is that there seems no real edge to what type of race code the horse ran in last time out.

Moving onto last time out finishing position – the graph below gives us the spread in strike rates:

 

 

It is interesting to see horses that finished second LTO actually won slightly more frequently than LTO winners (in percentage terms). As a rule the graph shows the normal type of trending down as we go from left to right. LTO winners actually have broken even to BSP, so don’t be put off by a horse that won LTO, even if that win occurred the previous turf season.

 

MAIN TAKEWAYS for APRIL TURF FLAT RACES

  1. As far as the market is concerned, second favourites have proved to best value, especially to BSP.
  2. Favourites have produced very similar returns in non-handicaps and handicaps.
  3. Favourites in 3yo only handicaps have made a small profit.
  4. 2yo favourites generally under-perform, as do favourites in 4yo+ handicaps.
  5. Charlie Appleby tends to start the season in very good form. His runners deserve close scrutiny regardless of price.
  6. Favourites from the yards of Charlie Appleby, William Haggas, Roger Varian, John Quinn and Richard Fahey have been profitable in the past ten Aprils.
  7. Roger Varian has an excellent record at Newmarket, especially with horses from the top two in the betting.
  8. Aidan O’Brien is one of the best in the business but his UK runners in April have really struggled recently.
  9. Richard Fahey is a trainer to generally keep on the right side of.
  10. LTO winners have broken even to BSP during the period of study.

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So there we have it; hopefully this article will help your punting this month. It is not an easy month to make a profit so I would urge selectivity where possible.

However, before I go, as a bonus here are three pointers to the first big meeting of the year at Doncaster.

  1. Favourites have had a poor record in the last ten meetings losing 31p in the £ to BSP. Favourites have performed particularly poorly in handicaps with just 10 wins from 93, losing 43 pence in the £ to BSP. Odds on favourites have made a small profit however (11 wins from 15).
  2. Third, fourth and fifth favourites have all made a profit to BSP.
  3. Richard Hannon is the only trainer to secure a strike rate in excess of 20% from those trainers who have had at least 25 runners (11 wins from 52).

- DR

National Hunt Sire Data: An Edge? Part 2

/in /by

This is the second part of a double header where I am examining sire data in National Hunt racing to see if we can gain any type of edge. You can read part 1 here. Once again I am using UK data from 1st January 2018 through to 31st December 2022 and the profits/losses shown in all tables have been calculated to Industry Starting Price. I will also quote Betfair SP if appropriate. Virtually all of the data shared in this piece has been sourced using the Geegeez Query Tool.

At the beginning of the first article I shared a table with the top 50 sires in terms of number of runs, and I looked at Authorized, Shantou, Ask, Presenting and Yeats, highlighting some interesting facts and figures. To begin part 2, I am going to highlight two more noteworthy sires before looking in detail at a pair of specific racing angles.

Individual sire analysis

Fame and Glory

Fame and Glory is a relatively new sire having had his first runners back in 2017. The sad thing to report is that Fame and Glory died five years ago, so the current group of horses in training will not be added to. On the plus side there are around 100 still in training all aged 9 or younger. Hence he will be of interest as a sire for four or five more years, which is why I am sharing some of his data.

His overall strike rate over the five years stands at 14.9% and his yearly figures have been unbelievably consistent as the graph below indicates:

 

 

There is less than one percentage point between the highest and the lowest yearly win strike rates (SR%) - 0.79% to be precise. It is highly unusual to see this type of uniformity, something many punters would love to embrace as so many angles or systems incur wild swings of variance.

If we examine Fame and Glory’s record as a sire there are several angles that underscore this consistency. For example, male runners have won 15.3% of the time, females 14% - almost exactly what we would expect the figures to be. Likewise, strike rates in chases and hurdle races fit the overall average pattern with his chase win% at 16.7 and his hurdle one at 14.2. This gives him a chase to hurdle C.S.R. (comparison strike rate) of 1.17 where the average for all runners is 1.25 (see table in previous article).

However, indications suggest they may be a slight distance bias, certainly in terms of success rate. Here are the splits:

 

 

Horses racing at 3 miles or more have a poorer strike rate as you can see. There are potentially two logical reasons why this is the case:

  1. Fame and Glory was a flat horse who was bred as a flat horse. It may be that distances of 3 miles-plus are stretching the stamina of his progeny;
  2. Up to the end of the 2022 season the oldest runner sired by Fame and Glory was 8. We know as a rule that some older horses do step up in distance so maybe we have not got enough overall age data yet.

As I have mentioned several times in the past, it is so important when doing this type of research to appreciate that there is often no right or wrong answer. One of these reasons may be a contributing factor, both of them may contribute in some way. And neither may actually have anything to do with it! Unfortunately, with research we are often having to guess a bit; logically where possible, of course. Indeed, the first reason I gave could be contested with some validity because Fame and Glory won at 2m4f on the flat, hence it makes sense that his progeny would ‘get further’ over the sticks. For most arguments there is often a counter argument. Suffice it to say it will be interesting to see what happens in the next year or two.

Kapgarde

Kapgarde was a successful French hurdler and chaser in the early 2000s, as an entire (obviously), which is rare in UK but less so across the Channel. His offspring seem to prefer chases to hurdles as the table below shows:

 

 

The chase stats become even more interesting when we look at chase results by age. Horses aged 8 or younger have won 19.5% of the time; for those aged 9 or older this drops to 10.5%. Now it should be noted that there have been far more qualifiers for the younger age bracket, so we need to be careful not to be too judgmental here. However, the each way stats correlate strongly (37.1% v 24.6%), as do the A/E indices (1.01 v 0.73), which gives me at least more confidence that there is something in this. It is often the case the French-bred NH runners show precocity rather than longevity, so Kapgarde aligns with an overall trend.

I would also like to share that Kapgarde chasers priced 12/1 or shorter would have secured you a 14p in the £ return to BSP from just under a 22% strike rate.

*

It is now time to home in on possibly the most important area as far as sire research in NH racing goes and that is the ground conditions / going.

NH Sires by Going

One area where I believe sires can pass on a trait or a preference is when it comes to handling the going. Ground conditions vary markedly depending on the weather, time of year and the drainage of the track. Some horses seem adept on any ground, others clearly do better on either softer or firmer.

To begin with, a couple of baseline figures are that the average horse/sire wins 12.57% of the time on good or firmer ground whereas on soft/heavy this drops slightly to 11.63%, a function of field size.

This is important because below I compare each sire’s record on fast ground (good or firmer) with their record on slower (soft or heavy). To be clear, in order to achieve a proper distinction, I have ignored good to soft going descriptions.

As with the first article I am going to divide the two percentages to give us a type of Impact Value which I call Comparison Strike Rate (CSR). The average CSR figure should be 1.08. Scores above this suggest the sire performs better on firmer ground than he does on softer ground. Conversely, scores below 1.08 imply the opposite. Here are the findings – they are ordered by highest CSR figure to lowest (the midpoint of 1.08 is highlighted in green):

 

 

Robin Des Champs tops the list with a CSR figure of 1.68. Sadly this sire died in December 2018 so his horses will only be active for possibly three or four more years. However, that still leaves some time to take advantage of the fact his progeny appear far better on good or firmer ground. Backing all runners on good or firmer would have yielded a 19p in the £ profit over the past five years; backing all his runners on soft or heavy would have yielded a loss of 35p in the £ to BSP.

Yeats lies second in the table and, in the first article, I highlighted this sires’ record on good or firmer. Yeats as a racehorse performed on good to firm ground nine times winning all nine races. He also raced once on firm once, winning that, too. He only raced on soft or heavy four times; he did win once but two of his losses saw him beaten 60 lengths and 32 lengths respectively. It should be noted that he was a long distance flat horse, but regardless of that, his going traits do seem to have been passed on to his offspring.

Presenting is third in the list showing a definite preference for sounder surfaces. However, as I mentioned in the preceding article, Presenting runners generally produce poor returns, and even on good or firmer ground backing all his runners would have seen a loss of 25p in the £ to BSP.

At the other end of the spectrum, Schiaparelli has the lowest CSR at 0.60 suggesting he is far better on easier going. Indeed his runners on soft or heavy ground have produced excellent returns of 61p in the £ to BSP. Further, you would have made a profit on these runners in four of the five years in review. Schiaparelli was highlighted last time as being more effective over fences than over hurdles, and if you combine chases on soft or heavy ground, his offspring have produced 17 wins from 64 runs (SR 26.6%) for an SP profit of £38.36 (ROI +59.9%); profit to BSP has been £53.76 (ROI +84.0%).

There are plenty of other sires here near the top, or the bottom, of the table that readers may want to investigate further using the Geegeez Query Tool, but for this article it’s time to look at A/E indices.

 

Actual vs Expected

A/E, or Actual vs Expected, is a measure of sustainable profitability where indices of 0.95 and above are generally considered good, with indices north of 1 suggesting good overall value. You can find more information on A/E, and other metrics used here on geegeez in this article.

First let's look at sire performance on good or firmer ground. The table below shows those whose A/E index is 0.95 or above. They are ordered left to right alphabetically:

 

 

Horses sired by any of the above are worth keeping an eye on when racing on good or firmer. Here are their full stats in terms of wins, runs, returns to SP etc.

 

 

Three of the thirteen have made a blind profit to SP, which increases to 11 of 13 if betting to BSP. Only Midnight Legend (BSP ROI -4.6%) and Sulamani (BSP ROI -0.6%) missed out at exchange starting price, albeit both marginally. Naturally, I am not suggesting you should bet all 13 sires blind on better ground, but they are definitely worth considering combined with other race reading factors.

Now let's take a look at the records of sires on soft or heavy whose A/E index is 0.95 or above. Once more they are ordered left to right alphabetically:

 

 

Ask, Dylan Thomas, King’s Theatre, Malinas and Sulamani appear in both this list and the good or firmer list showing real versatility in terms of going requirements. It should come as no surprise that all five of these sires are profitable to BSP with ALL runners on ALL goings. This quintet could be a bit of a blind spot in the betting markets currently.

Here are the complete soft/heavy stats for all 14 sires with an A/E index of 0.95 or above:

 

Seven of the sires have produced a blind profit to SP on these soft surfaces; 13 of the 14 are profitable to BSP. Only Winged Love is in the negative.

It is often worth checking profit and loss stats where bigger priced runners are ignored; this helps to avoid ‘skewed’ results. Below are the performances of these sires on soft/heavy ground at prices of 12/1 or shorter:

 

 

These are very positive when taken as a whole; all but four have made a blind profit to SP and three of these would have made a profit to BSP. When the going rides soft or heavy, horses sired by these runners should definitely be on our radar.

 

Age

Below are some data relating to age of the horse, looking for any sires which have different patterns to the norm. Age wise, I have split horses into three groups – those aged 3 to 5, 6 to 8 and 9 and older. In terms of strike rate the average figures for ALL horses are as follows:

 

 

The 6 to 8yo age group win more often than the other two, while the older brigade have the poorest strike rate. In terms of A/E indices the figures are 0.85 for 3-5yos; 0.88 for 6 to 8yos; and 0.84 for horses aged 9 years-plus.

With these figures in mind here is a table with 40 of the leading sires comparing their strike rates and A/E indices across the age groups. With a ‘par’ A/E index for all sires at 0.87, I have highlighted A/E indices of 0.95 or higher (in green) – these are essentially positive. A/E indices of 0.79 or lower (in red) are essentially negative:

 

 

This should be useful table to use ‘at a glance’. Sires with green A/E indices within the specific age band are worth keeping an eye out for, as they are much more likely to offer some value. Likewise, red values are combinations of sire and age that we should perhaps avoid, or at least be wary around.

Here are some more age-based sire stats that I have uncovered – some positive, some negative:

  1. The offspring of Authorized aged 3 to 5 that started favourite or second favourite have provided 59 wins from 136 (SR 43.4%) for an SP profit of £26.28 (ROI +19.3%). To BSP returns increase around 10 pence to 29p in the £;
  2. Mahler with 3 to 5yos that started favourite also has an excellent record – 34 wins from 66 (SR 51.5%). Returns of 32p in the £ to SP; 40p to BSP. Splitting these results by race type we see that of the ten National Hunt Flat favourites eight went on to win (returns of 167p in the £); 24 wins from 45 for hurdling favourites and just 2 wins from 11 for chase favourites.
  3. Trans Island with runners aged 9 and older has a strike rate of below 5% as can be seen in the table above. Narrowing down these older runners to those priced 9/1 or shorter, this has seen just 4 winners from 51 (SR 7.8%) for loss of £26.50 (ROI -52.00%);
  4. Excluding horses that started favourite, Vinnie Roe has produced just 9 winners from 208 (SR 4.3%) with runners aged 9 or older. This equates to losses of over 45p in the £ to SP;
  5. Passing Glance has a decent record with older runners (aged 9+). They would have produced returns of 24p in the £ to SP if backing all runners blind (30p in the £ to BSP). Digging deeper and looking at performance by run style, older runners that raced close to or up with the pace (e.g. prominent or led) won 25.8% of the time; those who raced midfield or near the back early won just 3.6% of the time (2 wins from 56);
  6. Offspring of Ask have a moderate record once they get to the age of 9 or older. In fact if you exclude favourites or second favourites their record is dire – just 4 wins from 90 runners (SR 4.4%) equating to losses of 65 pence for every £1 staked.

 

MAIN TAKEAWAYS

Before winding this two-parter up, here are some positives and negatives to take away from this piece. I have chosen the sire stats that I feel are the strongest. Some I have highlighted in more detail already, others I have taken from the tables:

 

I guess sire research for some is like Marmite; but personally I think it is an under-researched area and that, under certain circumstances, can offer up a fair edge. The problem of course is that this type of data can be interpreted in so many different ways; we just have to interpret it better than most of your fellow/rival punters!

- Dave Renham

National Hunt Sire Data: An Edge? Part 1

/in /by

Back in the Spring of 2021, I wrote a four-part flat series on sires and damsires (which you can read here), but this is my first departure into National Hunt sire research for Geegeez. There is plenty to get the teeth into, so I've spread the research over two articles, this being the first half.

The use of breeding as a winner finding / betting tool has become more popular in recent years, especially in flat racing: some astute punters who bet in two-year-old maidens will use sire stats to try and help predict how a juvenile with little or no form will run. Sires are the fathers of the respective horses, and sires have a more discernible influence on their offspring (progeny) than dams (mothers) due to the size of the respective samples: dams can produce only a single foal annually whereas sires can produce 100 and more.

For this first article I will be using five years' worth of UK data, from 1st January 2018 through to 31st December 2022, and profits/losses shown in all tables have been calculated to Industry Starting Price. I will also quote Betfair SP if appropriate. The vast majority of the data for this piece has been sourced using the Geegeez Query Tool.

The Top 50 National Hunt Sires by Win Strike Rate

Firstly let us look at the top 50 sires in terms of number of runs in the last five years. I am only including sires which had runners in 2022. The sires are listed in order of strike rate (win%):

 

 

As the table clearly shows, backing sires ‘blind’ is not a profitable avenue as far as Industry SP is concerned. Just one sire has made a profit to SP with all his runners in the past five years (Walk In the Park). However, using BSP, several made a solid profit after commission including Shirocco, Passing Glance, Ask, Dylan Thomas, Great Pretender, Flemensfirth, Brian Boru, Schiaparelli and Gold Well.

It is time to dig a bit deeper...

Individual Sire Analysis

Authorized

Let's look at some of the leading sires in more detail, starting with Authorized who heads the list in terms of win strike rate. One snapshot worth sharing is his record at different race distances, because as you will see from the table below, the progeny of Authorized seem to prefer shorter trips:

 

 

It should not surprise you to note that races of 2m2f or less have produced a BSP profit given the very small industry SP negative return on investment. It also is worth noting that at these shorter distances an Industry SP profit could have been achieved if focusing on runners priced 8/1 or shorter. Such runners won 93 races from 321 starts (SR 29.0%) for an SP profit of £50.47 (ROI +15.7%).

It should also come as no real surprise that there is also an age bias for Authorized runners. With a fair proportion of horses stepping up in distance as they get older, one might expect this given the more profitable form was shown by progeny in shorter races. Horses sired by Authorized aged six or younger have a far stronger record than horses aged seven or older:

 

 

It should be said that one would expect younger horses to have a slightly higher strike rate (average figures for all horses aged 6 and younger during this time frame was 12.4%, whereas for 7yos and older it was 11.3%). However, as you can see, the difference is far more marked here.

 

Shantou

I would have looked at King’s Theatre next, but he has hardly any runners any more (just 65 runs in total in 2022). Hence Shantou is the next sire about which I want to share a couple of interesting findings. Firstly, let us compare male runners to female ones in terms of win percentage/strike rate. The graph below shows Shantou’s figures as well as the stats for ALL sires:

 

 

As you can see males score more often than females as a general rule, but Shantou’s figures show a significant difference between the two. Taking this a stage further, a really eye-opening stat is when we look at Shantou’s female runners once their SP hits 7/2 or bigger: just 12 such runners have won from 265 runners (SR 4.5%) creating steep losses of 47 pence in the £. It is not just the really big priced runners that have affected this, either, because 69 female runners have been priced between 7/2 and 7/1 and only three have won.

It's not easy to explain why this should be the case, so if any readers have a theory do leave a comment below this post.

One further Shantou stat worth sharing is his record with runners on debut. Of 120 debutants 24 have won (SR 20%) for an SP return of 38p in the £, BSP return of 65p in the £.

 

Ask

British sire Ask has some interesting weight carrying stats that I would like to share. The graph below compares light weights of 10st 6lb or less with heavier weights of 11st 5lb or more. The graph shows Ask’s figures and the ‘ALL sires’ figures:

 

 

As we can see horses carrying more weight win far more often than those carrying less weight (N.B. the market takes account of this so backing higher weighted horses is not a license to print money, I’m afraid!). However, we can see with Ask that the differential is far greater than the norm. Some horses are built to carry weight better than others and Ask seems to fit this ‘type’. Perhaps his progeny are somehow bigger, or more robust, than the average. Again, does any reader know?

 

Presenting

One thing to be aware of is that sire results / strike rates and so on do fluctuate from month to month, year to year. However, some sires can be very consistent and an example of this is Presenting. Below we can see his yearly strike rate in terms of win and each way:

 

 

There is very little fluctuation in either set of yearly figures. Knowing what ‘you are going to get’ on a consistent basis can be important. The sad part as far as Presenting runners is concerned is that his runners look overbet, even allowing for - or probably because of - his consistency, and hence finding profitable angles is virtually impossible.

 

Yeats

Yeats is also one of the more consistent sires, but from a punting point of view does give us an angle to try and exploit. His record on firmer ground is much better than on softer, and if we focus on races on good ground or firmer, his record is extremely good – 217 wins from 1203 runs (SR 18.0%). To SP he made a small loss of just under 8 pence in the £, but to BSP this becomes a profitable return of the same amount (8p in the £). That figure improves further if we restrict races on good or firmer going to three miles or longer. Here the strike rate improves to 20.5% (93 wins from 453 runs). Backing horses at £1 level stakes you would have seen rewards of £97.57 (ROI +21.5%) at SP, and a BSP profit of £169.39 (ROI +37.1%).

 

National Hunt Sire Performance by Race Code

I have several areas I want to cover in detail in the follow up article, but there are two specific subjects that I want to focus on in this piece - starting with a review by race code.

Chase and hurdle races

The first thing to appreciate is that hurdle races have more runners on average than chases so when we compare win strike rates we need to be aware of this. What this means is that individual chase strike rates should higher than individual hurdle strike rates. The average horse (and, by association, the sire) wins 13.7% of the time in chases, whereas in hurdle races this drops to 11%. This is important because I am going to compare each sire’s chase and hurdle strike rates.

I have divided the chase strike rate by the hurdle strike rate to give us a type of Impact Value. It is not a ‘true’ IV so I’ll call it a Comparison Strike Rate (CSR). The average CSR figure should be 1.25 (13.7/11 = 1.245). Scores above this suggest the sire performs better in chases than he does in hurdles. Conversely scores below 1.25 suggest the sire's progeny perform better in hurdles than in chases. Here are the findings – they are ordered by highest CSR  figure to lowest (the midpoint is highlighted in green):

 

 

Dr Massini stands head and shoulders above the rest with a C.S.R fig of 2.5 although backing all his runners in chases would have only seen you break even on Betfair. This is partly due to the fact that the win strike rate was still a relatively modest 12.61%. Schiaparelli also has a high CSR figure of 1.93 and his runners in chases have secured a 16p in the £ profit to BSP.

Another measure to look at are the A/E indices for each sire in chases. A/E, or Actual vs Expected, is a measure of sustainable profitability where indices of 0.95 and above are generally considered good, with indices north of 1 suggesting good overall value.

 

 

Malinas (1.18) and Passing Glance (1.15) have the best two indices, and have proved profitable if backing all their runners in chases. Specifically, Malinas has seen 48 of his 222 runners win (SR 21.6%) for a BSP profit of £66.29 (ROI +29.9%), while the offspring of Passing Glance have won 37 from 177 (SR 20.9%) for a BSP profit of £162.55 (ROI +91.8%). Both made a profit to Industry SP as well.

The next four highest sires in terms of A/E indices were Great Pretender (1.09), Dylan Thomas (1.07), Shirocco (1.05) and Brian Boru (1.04); each of these also individually produced a BSP profit in chases. Indeed, you would have won £489.33 to £1 level stakes if backing the runners of all four sires in all of their chases. Ah, wonderful hindsight...

Moving briefly to hurdles, Winged Love and Walk In The Park were the two sires with the lowest CSR figures meaning they had thus far performed better over hurdles than in chases based on their win strike rates. Both horses made a blind profit to BSP in hurdle races, to the tune of 6p and 15p in the £ respectively. In chases they have both struggled, losing 21p and 22p in the £ respectively.

As an aside, I use the Comparison Strike Rate (CSR) idea quite a lot in my personal research. I also compare A/E indices and place strike rates in the same way. It just gives a bit more of an insight, and helps me to compare stats quickly.

Right and Left handed tracks

For the last section of this first half, I would like to compare sire performance at right-handed tracks compared to left-handed ones. Some horses have what Nick Mordin in his iconic book Betting For a Living called ‘the right-hand/left-hand pattern’. He mentioned the great Desert Orchid as a prime example of the right-hand pattern. This horse had a brilliant record on right-handed tracks but a relatively poor one in comparison when racing left-handed. Mordin believed that this pattern occurs a lot, generally with steeplechasers, more especially the right-handed pattern. Some horses simply don’t jump straight all the time and have a tendency to jump across the fence either right or left. Hence horses with a tendency to jump out to the right are going to struggle on left-handed tracks as they are constantly going wider on the track, especially if the jump is on or near a bend. Of course it works the other way round, too, with horses that jump to the left losing ground when racing right-handed.

Below is some sire data on left- and right-handed tracks in chases (minimum 100 runs to qualify). I am effectively grouping individual horses together here as we are looking at sire stats, but it is possible that sires pass on a preference that they had to jump to the left or right. I have graphed seven sires below in terms of strike rate on both right- and left-handed tracks. Their figures suggest each of the seven potentially show a right- or left-handed pattern:

 

 

Poliglote, Scorpion, Kayf Tara and Westerner have much better records on right-handed tracks; the other three enjoy better records on left-handed tracks. Naturally, one cannot definitively say that these results are down to a right/left pattern, but it would be an idea to delve into these sires and their individual horse records to see how many horses show a strong pattern one way or the other. The sample sizes are generally quite big which lends credence to the notion that there might be something going on here.

As an example, I looked briefly at the sire Westerner and pulled up the record of a horse called Mr Mercurial. Mr Mercurial’s chasing career spanned from 2015 to 2020 and his 24 chase starts were split thus:

 

Although we're now dealing with micro sample sizes, we can see a clear preference to right-handed tracks; and this strengthens further when I share that the other three runs at right-handed tracks resulted in three placed efforts. Indeed Mr Mercurial's PRB (percentage of rivals beaten) on right-handed tracks was an amazing 0.93 (93% of rivals beaten). Now, I appreciate this horse ran some of the time outside the 2018 to 2022 period on which I am focusing in this article, but hopefully you take the point.

I am not saying all horses from these seven highlighted sires will display a preference but the chances are some will. This type of knowledge, should you uncover it, will give you a useful edge over the average punter.

MAIN TAKEAWAYS

  1. Runners sired by Authorized have a good record over 2miles 2f or shorter. Horses priced 8/1 or shorter have been profitable to SP and BSP.
  2. Horses aged 6 or younger sired by Authorized have scored roughly one win in every five races for a small SP profit.
  3. The male progeny of Shantou score nearly twice as often as their female counterparts.
  4. Horses sired by Ask seem very adept at carrying big weights (11st 5lb or more). They have a poor record when carrying light weights(10st 6b or less).
  5. Runners sired by Yeats improve on better ground (good or firmer). This improvement is even greater when the race hits 3 miles or further.
  6. The progeny of Dr Massini, Schiaparelli, Malinas and Passing Glance are much better when racing over fences than over hurdles.
  7. The progeny of Winged Love and Walk In The Park are much better when racing over hurdles than over fences.
  8. The offspring of Poliglote, Scorpion, Kayf Tara and Westerner have much better records on right-handed tracks.
  9. The offspring of Jeremy, Doyen and Arcadio have much better records on left-handed tracks.

I'll be back soon with part two of this look into the characteristics of National Hunt sires… until then...

- DR

Chases, Jumping, Falling: An Analysis

/in /by

In this article I am taking a one-off look at chases and, in particular, looking at a key factor for any horse that runs in such races, namely jumping, writes Dave Renham. I am looking at data from 2015 to 2022 which covers eight full seasons and I am looking at both UK and Irish results. The main aim for this article is to try and have a better appreciation of what factors impinge on a horses’ jumping. That might be racecourse related, it might be going related, it might be a combination of these and other factors. Any profit / loss figures have been calculated by using Betfair Starting Price (BSP).

In 2015, both Tony Keenan and the editor Matt Bisogno produced some research in this area - which you can read here and here - and this article will both build on the earlier work and bring it up to date.

I think most racegoers will agree that being able to jump fences is a key requisite to be successful in chase races. Imagine a 3 mile chase where two horses of similar ability race against each other. If horse A jumps cleanly all the way and horse B makes numerous jumping errors, one would expect horse A to win a very high percentage of the time.

The difficulty of jumping fences varies: some courses have more challenging obstacles – the Grand National course at Aintree springs to mind. However, the ‘big’ tracks of Ascot, Cheltenham, Kempton, Haydock, Newbury and Sandown also have more challenging obstacles than the majority of smaller tracks. Clearly it should be more difficult to jump ‘stiffer’ fences, but there are other considerations to take into account, for example, the state of the grass either side of the fence. If the turf is slippery or slightly worn, then regardless of how difficult the fence is to jump, landing cleanly can become more problematic.

We also need to consider that some tracks have more fences than others at certain distances. Did you know, for instance, that the minimum number of fences per two miles is lower at Irish courses than it is at UK ones? As an example of this let us look at two racecourses, one in Ireland (Naas) and one in the UK (Wetherby); and observe the difference when it comes to a two mile chase. Naas first:

 

 

You can see that, for two mile races, horses are required to jump two fences in the home straight on the first circuit and then eight fences on the second circuit, giving a total of 10.

Let’s compare to Wetherby now:

 

 

Wetherby’s shortest chase distance is actually a furlong less at 1m 7f, but they have to negotiate 13 fences in total; four on the first circuit, nine on the second.

Also, in terms of number of fences, one could argue that courses with a higher concentration of fences closer to the finish might prove more problematic than courses with fewer fences at the business end. Another factor to consider is race type: some courses have more handicap chases than others; some have more races for novices etc. All these factors will play a role of some sort.

As will be becoming clear, there is plenty to consider here. My initial starting point from a stats perspective is to look at individual courses and which are hardest to jump round. To do this I am simply taking the number of chasers at each track and finding the percentage of runners that either fell or were unseated. I have ignored horses that were brought down; I am not saying this is the best or only method to test out which courses are the hardest to jump round, but it is logical, and horses that fall/unseat would have almost certainly produced a jumping error of some sort. Of course the fall may not necessarily be down to poor jumping, it could be down to jockey error. Alternatively it may be down to something I alluded to earlier - landing on a slippery or churned up section of ground. However, the majority of casualties will be down to a mistake / poor jump.

What is so important when doing this type of research is to appreciate that there is often no right or wrong way, no right or wrong answer. Also one needs to be aware that there are potential flaws in any idea/method and, where possible, one should try to address them when sharing the relevant data.

OK, back to the percentages of horses that fell / unseated by course. The UK first:

 

 

Aintree tops the list, as I am guessing most expected, and as it did in 2015. The Aintree stats include both chase courses, Mildmay and Grand National, but it will come as no surprise that for the National course the percentage increases to 23% in terms of fallers/unseated riders. For the record it is 24% for the Grand National itself (over the past eight years).

But would you have expected Fakenham to be second in the list? Or indeed Ludlow third? Now I have already mentioned other factors that are potentially in play here, but there are other points to consider as well as these. For example, class of race / horses differ from course to course – that could affect the percentages, as can the speed at which horses approach the fences. The going is another factor as generally it is harder to complete the course when the underfoot is soft or heavy as compared to firmer conditions. Hence courses that have a greater percentage of chase races on softer ground will see the percentages slightly skewed. Races that are run at a quicker pace will probably see more fallers, etc, etc. This is another example of what I meant earlier about being aware of potential flaws in any research of this type. The individual course plays a major role in how easy or hard it is for a horse to jump round, but there are more pieces to this complex puzzle.

Let us compare the above with Irish course data now:

 

 

It is not surprising to see Leopardstown near the top, but I wasn’t expecting Listowel to be at the head of the list. What is interesting is if we compare the percentage figures for all UK courses to all Irish courses.

 

 

As the bar chart shows, in percentage terms far more horses have either fallen or been unseated in Irish chases as compared to UK ones. One potential reason for this is that Irish races have bigger fields on average. Hence could there be more crowding / less space at certain fences, which could cause horses to make more bad errors that are bad enough to see the horse come down? That’s certain plausible.

Could this be partly down to the going? The reason I posit this is that in Ireland 40% of the chases were raced on ground described as soft or heavy, in the UK the figure was 34.8%. Hence, it seems now would be a good time to compare the fell/unseated percentages by going. The most obvious thing to compare is soft or heavy versus good to soft or firmer. Here are the figures:

 

 

Certainly there are more jockeys falling when the conditions are soft or heavy. It may look like a small difference, but due to these figures coming from thousands of races it is almost certainly a material factor. Further, when isolating races on good to firm or firmer only, the fall/unseat percentage drops to 6.2%. This is more evidence that supports the theory.

Let's now go back and dig deeper into the differences with the UK and the Irish data. Earlier we saw that horses in Irish races fell or unseated more often than in UK races, as a result of which I had a theory that any horse that fell or unseated last time out in a chase would perform better next time in the same race type if their mishap occurred in Ireland. The thinking was simple: for whatever reason jumping fences in Ireland appears harder, so horses that had their mishap that side of the Irish Sea may have had more of an excuse than their UK counterparts. Let us see if the stats back up this hypothesis:

 

 

OK, so this is the reverse of what I was hoping for! What do I know??! However, the differences at first glance do still look quite powerful.

We need to be aware that punters, as a rule, take last time out performance as a key factor when contemplating any bet. Horses that fall/unseat do not generally get positive attention from punters. Hence an obscure reason of which country the horse fell in a chase last time out will go under the radar of most people.

Not surprisingly, if you flip the idea slightly and just concentrate on which country the chase race was run (after falling/unseating), the stats are remarkable similar:

 

 

The stats are virtually the same because most horses do not hop back and forth racing in Ireland one week, then next time in the UK, or vice versa. A few of the better horses do switch occasionally especially for the big festivals or races. However, invariably not many of these horses would have fallen or unseated last time.

Now, of course, these stats may be skewed slightly by the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, Irish chases have bigger average field sizes. This certainly explains the difference in strike rates, but it does not necessarily account for the differences in profit/loss; or, more importantly, the significant difference between the A/E indices. However, once again, when analysing data we need to be aware of any extenuating circumstances that may affect our stats. Also, we need to appreciate that sometimes we simply cannot explain the results, or at least it may be difficult to offer a logical reason why they have turned out the way they have.

So what about distance: is it a case of the longer the distance the more fallers/unseated riders? That makes possible sense as a longer distance means more fences to jump. However, it seems to be that longer distances actually see slightly fewer horses falling or unseating their riders thank shorter trips in percentage terms.

 

 

So what could be happening here? A logical explanation is that shorter races are run at a quicker pace; a quicker pace potentially offers up scope for more, or more serious, jumping errors. However, whatever the reason, I must admit I had hypothesised beforehand that longer races would have had the slightly higher percentage.

I mentioned earlier that race type will have a potential effect on the figures so let's review this. One might expect less experienced chasers (i.e. novices) to make more jumping errors than seasoned handicappers, and therefore fall / unseat more often. Here is a look at the fell/unseated percentages across different chase types:

 

 

The stats definitely back up the theory; novice and beginner chases have the highest figures; handicaps have the lowest.

Something I did notice was that in 2022 Beginner Chases were restricted to Irish courses only. No Beginner Chases in the UK that year. I have since noted that at the end of Jan this year (2023) there was a Beginners Chase at Lingfield. I am not quite sure what happened in 2022, maybe Matt knows [I don't, but the fact that there has only been one double-digit field for a UK beginners' chase since 2015 ought to be a part of the reason- Matt]

What about jockeys? They must play some sort of role in all this. I am guessing some jockeys are slightly more adept at getting their horse to jump fences; likewise some jockeys may have a better ability to stay in the saddle when others might tip over. Here are a list of jockeys with their fell/unseated percentages – it gives their overall figure, their figure in handicaps (exc. Novice handicaps) and their figure in ‘all other’ races. To qualify they must have ridden in the last year and had at least 300 rides in handicaps, as well as 300 + rides in other chases combined. They are ordered alphabetical.

 

 

For the record, the average figure for fallers/unseated for all jockeys in all races (and indeed all horses) is 7.1%. Several jockeys in the list have an overall percentage of under 5% which I count as a positive - I have highlighted them in green. Just one jockey has a figure over 10% - that is Luke Dempsey who not surprisingly rides in Ireland. Indeed three of the four jockeys with the highest figures primarily race in Ireland (Blackmore, Dempsey and Kennedy). Brendan Powell has the worst record as far as a UK jockey is concerned, so you might be wary in the future if he in on board a suspect jumper.

Another interesting finding is that the more experienced jockeys in chases fell or unseated less often. Jockeys that had ridden in 1000 chases or more (2015-2022) had a percentage fall/unseat rate of 5.7%; jockeys who had ridden 500 to 999 chases had a percentage of 7.1; jockeys who had ridden in less than 500 had a percentage of 7.9%.

 

MAIN TAKEWAYS

 - A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat in Ireland

- A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat on soft or heavy ground

- A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat in Novice chases/Beginner chases

-  A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat when racing on the National course at Aintree

- A bigger percentage of horses racing in chases fall or unseat in races of under 3 miles compared to chases of 3 miles or more

- Horses that fell LTO in the UK have appeared to perform better next time than their Irish counterparts

- Sean Bowen, Paddy Brennan, Brian Hughes, Denis O’Regan, Sean Quinlan and Sam Twiston-Davies are the six jockeys with the lowest fall/unseat rate of the more experienced jockeys

- More experienced jockeys tend to have a lower fell/unseated percentage than less experienced ones

 

To conclude, I hope you have found this an interesting read. It is certainly a different aspect of racing to what I normally write about. I have only touched on a small part of this whole jumping idea, and if enough people comment they would like to find out more, then I’ll happily pen another piece sometime in the future.

Dave Renham: A Window into My World of Racing Research

/in /by

INTRODUCTION

I am writing the introduction of this article at roughly the midpoint of my research. Hence the style of this piece will be slightly different to my usual framework as normally I have finished the research and number crunching before I start to pen. Regular readers of my articles on Geegeez will know that I often produce a series of articles on a particular topic, but this is a 'standalone' piece.

Now, I would love to have been given a pound for every hour of horse racing research I have done in my life. If totalled up, that money would run into thousands upon thousands of pounds. Fortunately my research has been very varied in terms of what I have researched as well as how I have researched it. That has clearly been a good thing, as using different approaches and/or studying different themes or ideas has helped me to stay curious and motivated. I know from experience that as soon as the research becomes a drag, the likely resulting article is not going to be one of my best.

My research has changed beyond recognition from the late 1990s when I started. Back then, virtually all of my racing work was connected with draw research and especially draw biases. I wrote, or co-wrote, four books in those early years, but it is more the manner of how one researches which has changed so much. In those days, the internet was in its infancy and racing programs were rare. Hence I spent many an hour pouring over my Superform Annuals gathering the draw data I required, initially using pen and paper and numerous exercise books before moving onto basic spreadsheets in Microsoft Excel.

Clearly going through race by race, page by page, then writing down the relevant data or inputting it to excel took time. A lot of time. I lost count of the occasions I was still working at two in the morning; how I was able to get up for work at around 6.30 am is beyond me – it would certainly be beyond me these days! However, there were (and still are) significant advantages to this slow data gathering process. Primarily, this is because you do get a real ‘feel’ for the data you are collating, rather than pressing a button and being presented with the raw stats breakdown.

The first ‘game changer’ for my (and many others') racing research was Racing System Builder (RSB) – this came in CD form and once installed on your PC you had a huge array of variables that you could test either in isolation or in combination. You could create systems and the like to your heart’s content. It was also so quick – a press of a button and several years’ worth of data was collated in seconds. Unfortunately, from my draw research perspective, it was far from ideal as it split the draw into quintiles (fifths). I split the draw into thirds. However, in terms of becoming familiar with other potential research options it was fantastic.

As the years passed racing programs became more widely available as well as websites offering online research options. These programs gave more scope to research different ideas, or combinations of ideas, and with most of my articles being stats based, I could test so many more theories and gather a wider variety of data. So I analysed weight in handicaps, sire data, the effect of the market and of recent form, days since last run, last time finishing position, trainers, jockeys etc, etc. Articles could be researched relatively quickly – all I needed was an idea and the correct filters on the racing program. From there I would collate the data, interpret it and transfer it into the pieces. Obviously they still needed a bit of text and context which I added around the ‘numbers’.

I still research the majority of my articles in this fashion, but for this offering I will be combining the ‘old’ with the new. In other words, I’ll be partly using online databases, but also going through individual races one by one to pull out additional data I require. Not only that, I am going to walk you through exactly how I did it and how I tried to interpret it. Because, who knows, you might like to try something similar yourself!

 

RESEARCH STARTING POINT

Let me explain my initial thinking in terms of what I wanted to research. As a fan of run style and the draw I wanted to include those components. I also wanted to examine some of the speed rating data Geegeez uses, as well as studying anything around potential market bias. Having decided upon those four key areas, I set about deciding which type of races I would examine. I figured it would be a good idea to stick to similar races so I chose the following rules:

  1. All weather races in UK
  2. Handicaps with exactly 8 runners
  3. Sprint races only (5 & 6f)
  4. Races run round a bend

The last rule meant that I could include four courses - Chelmsford, Kempton, Lingfield, and Wolverhampton. The only difference in those four to be aware of is that Kempton is the only right handed course. However, I did not perceive this to be a problem.

 

AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

The aim of my research was to try to find an edge of some kind, which is the same aspiration each time I embark on some new research. Unearthing a killer angle is not always going to happen and, as a researcher, you need to be able to deal with that. Even if I do not find anything ‘earth-shattering’, the chances are I will uncover some worthwhile angles even if they may not quite be the "holy grail" life-changing ones we all dream about.

GATHERING THE DATA

I mentioned earlier that my research would involve a combination of quick database-generated research and the slow 'old school' race by race approach. I decided to study four years of results going from January 1st 2019 to 31st December 2022. That gave me roughly 190 races to start with. 190 races felt like a manageable number as I was going to need to study each one individually as well as reviewing the database output.

In order to get the vast majority of the data I required, I set the necessary parameters on two databases, one being the Geegeez Query Tool, in order to get all the runners from each race into an excel spreadsheet. This gave me my starting point as, once done, I had several columns of key info for each runner such as date, price, finishing position, course, distance, etc. However, there were still three columns missing that I needed, these being some specific run style (pace) data, draw positions and some Speed Rating data.

 

Speed Ratings Data

The Speed Ratings I was to be using are the Peter May ratings. These can be found in the daily racecards (in the column 'SR') as well as being available to back check in the Query Tool. To gather this info I used the Query Tool to firstly find all the top rated runners, then the second top rated, and finally the third top rated. I then assigned these positions to the relevant horses in the spreadsheet.

 

Run Style / Pace Data

For the run style data I wanted to find the top three horses in terms of their pre-race run style/pace total from their previous four runs. To find what I needed I clicked on a race result, and once the result came up I then clicked on the ‘PACE’ tab. From there I ordered them with highest totals first – an example of what I mean is shown below looking at the 8:20 race at Kempton on 17th March 2021:

 

 

In this example, Phuket Power was top ‘pace’ rated with 13, Spring Romance second on 11 and Capote’s Dream third on 10; thus I labelled these three horses 1, 2, 3 respectively on my spreadsheet. Now, as you can see there were a couple of horses that had a ‘U’ figure. This occurs occasionally when it is unclear from the in-running comments what pace number should be assigned to a specific run. For these horses I double checked different sources, or even watched the start of the relevant race so that I could add the right figure. In this example, the two horses with ‘U’s did not gain enough extra points to move into the top three. You can also see the speed ratings column (SR) I mentioned earlier in the screenshot in the furthest column on the right.

There are times when you get horses with identical four race pace totals, which means it is potentially difficult to get a ‘top three’. An example of such a race is this one from Wolves run on the 5th January 2021:

 

 

As you can see, once ordered, four horses are tied in second with 13 pace points. My method to sort out which horse comes where is one I have always used. I compare the horses with the same score (in this case, four horses) starting with the last run (LR) as this is arguably the most relevant. In this example, Alsvinder and Bellevarde score 4, the other two score 3. Hence, Alsvinder and Bellevarde are the two horses that will fill the second and third pace spots as they score the highest on the most recent (and, for me, most important) run. To determine which way round these two came, I then looked at second last run (2LR) and compared their scores. Alsvinder scored 2, Bellevarde 3, so that meant Bellevarde was second rated and Alsvinder third. It is amazing how many races had joint firsts, seconds or thirds in the pace totals, so however you decide to split these 'same score' horses, you need to stick your method every time.

In terms of collating these pace/run style scores, I ignored any race where four or more runners did not have four recent pace figures such as the following race:

 

 

The four horses at the bottom, namely Bailey’s Afterparty, Anatiya, Night Narcissus, and Highest Ambition, did not have the required number of runs. Hence I did not add pace scores for this particular race to the spreadsheet and it was not included in any pace/run style calculations. This is simply my personal choice, but I think it makes sense to ignore this type of race at least from a pace and run style perspective.

 

Draw

For the speed ratings and the pace run style data I was simply interested in the top three – this was due to the vast amount of extra time it would have taken to add in all the remaining five individual hierarchy positions per race. As a researcher, I sometimes have to make sensible decisions in terms of how much time I am actually willing to spend researching something: input for output and all that. However, draw wise it did not take me too long to add the stall positions for each runner into the spreadsheet. I was able to do it in eight groups starting with draw 1 and moving up the draws to finish on draw 8. Essentially eight lots of copying and pasting draw data into a spreadsheet and just matching it up to the relevant race/horse. In terms of Excel, once I had all the draw data pasted in, it was merely using the ‘sort’ function to match each horse up to each draw. The beauty of Excel is that some of the basic functions are really useful from a research perspective; of course, I use more sophisticated functions and formulae as well, which makes it a package that ideally suits my research needs.

 

Market Data/Bias

For the market data I used the Betfair exchange starting prices (BSP) which I already had in the original starting spreadsheet. From here I sorted them and assigned a market position from 1 to 8 to each runner in each race. It made sense to use BSP because it typically avoids horses having the same price, as would be the case if using Industry SP. Market Rank is something that is easy to check on a database like the Query Tool, but I wanted to be able to combine 1sts, 2nds and 3rds and see whether there were any patterns that may help in pinpointing potential straight forecast and tricast type options. It would be unlikely as these types of exotic bet are clearly in the bookmaker’s favour, but as someone who has often used such wagers in draw-biased races in the past, I thought it was at least worthy of investigation. In fact, I wanted to check forecast and tricast results for all four of the key areas I was researching.

 

NUMBER CRUNCHING

With everything I needed now in the spreadsheet it was time to start crunching the numbers. When I get to this point I am obviously hoping to find some golden ‘nuggets’, but I am humble enough to realise that the percentages are not in my favour in terms of uncovering something with gilt-edged profit written all over it.

 

Draw

First stop was to look at the draw. Below are the win strike rates (blue) and the each way strikes (orange) for each draw/stall position. I have accounted for non-runners; so, for example, if the horse drawn 1 was a non-runner, then the horse drawn 2 would become draw 1, etc.

 

 

I have added two lines of best fit (the dotted ones) to show the trend. Horses drawn closer to the inside do have an advantage over those horses drawn wider. Now of course, this fluctuates from course to course and from distance to distance, but as a general rule, on turning sprint tracks a lower draw is preferable due to its position closer to the inside rail.

The BSP profit/losses and returns are shown in the table below:

 

 

This table clearly illustrates that the two widest draws have delivered the poorest returns. It is perhaps only what one might expect to find as a researcher, but it is nice when the numbers match the theory. Horses drawn 2, 3 and 4 have all secured a small profit to BSP and, ultimately, the focus draw-wise in these races should probably be on the four lowest stalls. Clearly, horses drawn 6 have actually produced the biggest BSP profit but, with winners at 95.0, 44.0 and 36.0, these figures are skewed somewhat. Whenever you look at profit and loss, it is a good idea to check the prices of all the winners in each respective group.

Looking at the intra-race exotic bets now, I decided to check out forecasts (CSF) and exactas combining horses drawn 1, 2 and 3; for tricasts and trifectas I combined the horses drawn 1 to 4.

Both forecast and exacta options would have produced virtually identical losses – around £140 to a £1 stake if perming the three lowest draws in each race in a full cover permutation (six bets in total). This would equate to losses of roughly 12p for every £1 bet. As far as tricasts and trifectas were concerned there was a big difference in the overall bottom line as one race saw the following result:

 

 

As you can see at the bottom of the screenshot the trifecta paid £3292.20, the tricast considerably lower at £1584.32. Overall, perming the lowest four draws in all 189 races in a full cover perm (24 bets) would have seen the trifecta in profit to the tune of 22p in the £ (ROI 22%); tricasts would have produced losses of 27%. This specific race with its trifecta payout perhaps illustrates why these types of bet can lure punters in. A huge payout is always a possibility and of course these types of bets can be wagered with relatively small stakes if you wish (eg. 10p a line would be an outlay of only £2.40 per race). My view is that in general they are a fun bet rather than a serious one, but having personally won £20k on a tricast back in 2004, these exotic bets are worth considering, especially if you feel you have a potential edge. However, you will almost certainly need a big win or two to make it pay over the longer term.

 

BSP Market Rank

Moving away from the draw, my next port of call was to look at BSP Market Rank. Here are the win percentages for each market position (1 = favourite, 2nd fav, etc):

 

 

We can see a familiar sliding scale here, with favourites winning close to one in every three races. Of course, strike rates are all very well but punters need to see the bottom line; so here are the profit and loss figures at BSP:

 

 

The top three in the betting have combined to effectively break even. The outsiders of the field have proved the most profitable thanks in the main to a 61.08 BSP winner.

On the exotic bet front perming horses from the front end of the market is generally a route to the poor house. Perming the bigger priced runners requires the patience of a saint, coupled with the requisite good luck. Also, as I have mentioned in many previous articles, the problem with any market based bet is that we do not exactly know what their final prices are going to be. Obviously we can back as late as is humanly possible, but even then we may not be completely accurate in terms of what we are attempting to do. For the record, the three biggest priced runners filled the first three places in just one of the 189 races, which would have yielded a humongous profit, but more about that particular occasion a bit later...

 

Run style

Run style / pace is next on my agenda. I wanted to examine the performance of the top three pace scoring horses (as discussed earlier). We know that run style/pace is key, especially in sprints, but of course these pace scores are based on the last four runs, not the actual race in question. One would hope that if a horse has shown early pace in recent races then there is a good chance of that happening again, but of course horse racing is not an exact science, so this is not a ‘given’. Here are the records of the top three scoring horses from the pace tab:

 

 

A 95.0 winner was the main reason for the 2nd top rated profit, but what I did notice was that, as a group, the top three pace rated horses outperformed the horses pace ranked 4th to 8th. The average win percentage when combining the top three pace scoring horses was 14.7% (81 wins from 552 runners); the average win percentage for horses ranked 4th to 8th was 11.2% (103 wins from 920 runners).

Sticking with the top three pace rated runners from each race, I compared the 5f handicap results with those for 6f handicaps. My expectation / theory is that they should be slightly more successful at the shorter trip. Here are the stats:

 

 

The 5f runners have produced a better win strike rate which backs up my theory, but the 6f runners have produced a better profit. However, that 95.0 winner I mentioned previously was from the 6f group, so this perhaps validates another of my long held theories even more: 5f races offer the strongest run style/pace bias of all the flat distances.

In terms of forecasts, exactas and the like, perming the top three pace rated runners in straight forecasts would have seen you effectively break even. Perming the top two instead (known as a reverse exacta/forecast) would have seen a 22p in the £ profit for exactas, a small 2p in the £ loss if going the CSF route. Trifectas/tricasts when perming the top four pace rated runners would have shown big losses equating to roughly 45p in the £.

 

Peter May Ratings

The final area to look at is the Speed Ratings data/results. As with pace/run style my focus was the top three speed rated runners in each race. Here are the results:

 

 

There are no prizes for guessing where that 95.0 priced winner popped up! Now, although the top two rated horses did not make a profit, on the plus side their strike rates were above the norm. With eight runners in a race, the average strike rate for each of the runners given a level playing field is 12.5% (12.5 x 8 = 100). So to have strike rate around the 18% mark is quite decent for all that the ROI is still in negative equity.

Perming the top three speed rated horses in forecasts made a small 5p in the £ profit over the 186 races that were rated; exactas though produced a loss of around 11p in the £. Tricast / trifecta perms of the top four speed rated produced a phenomenal overall profit across the four years of around 60p in the £ thanks mainly to this result:

 

 

This was the race I mentioned earlier regarding the three biggest BSP priced runners filling the first three places. As you can see, there was a massive payout for both the trifecta and the tricast of over £5,500 and, as the racecard below shows, these horses were not only in the top four of speed ratings, they were actually the top three speed rated:

 

 

This result is a second example of why some punters do like these types of bets. What is there not to like about getting £5,500 return from a £24 bet; or, to smaller stakes, a £550 return for a £2.40 stake?

The four key areas have now been studied but before winding my work up, I thought it might be interesting to combine certain factors together to see what would results they would have brought.

 

COMBINING TWO FACTORS/AREAS

Speed Rating / Pace

I wanted to check out what happened when a horse had both the highest speed rating in the race and the highest pace total from their last four runs. Unfortunately there were only 31 horses that matched this criteria. However, six did win creating a profit to BSP of £7.66 (ROI +24.7%). I decided to expand this to horses that had one of the highest two speed ratings coupled with one of the two highest four race pace totals. This gave me 108 qualifiers of which an impressive 28 won (SR 25.9%). To BSP they would have made you a profit of £26.15 to £1 level stakes (ROI +24.2%). This was highly satisfactory, especially considering there was only one double-figure priced winner (BSP 15.5). Also, a further 20 horses hit the post finishing second.

It is clear that 108 horses from 108 races is a relatively small sample, but it does offer some impetus to expand this idea by looking at other 5f and 6f handicaps on the turf as well.

After finding this interesting and potentially profitable idea, it seemed to make sense to combine the ‘top two’ from different areas from now on. Would any other combo get close to those impressive figures?

 

Speed Rating / Draw

Horses drawn 1 and 2 that were also one of the top two speed rated runners occurred in 111 races. Of these 23 won (SR 20.7%), but they produced a BSP loss of £13.55 (ROI -12.2%).

 

Speed Rating / Market Rank

Horses first or second in the betting that were also top two in the speed ratings produced the following numbers – 49 wins from 153 qualifiers (SR 32.0%) for a small BSP profit of £14.56 (ROI +9.5%). This is another area I want to investigate further. 

 

Pace / Draw

What about combining draws 1 and 2 with the top two pace rated horses? This partnership produced 98 qualifiers of which 19 were successful (SR 19.4%). A small loss of £1.02 was made equating to 1p in the £.

 

Pace / Market Rank

Looking at the top two in the betting who were also in the top two of the four race pace ratings, these runners won 29 times from 103 starts (SR 28.2%) for a minute profit of £1.92 (ROI +1.9%).

 

Draw / Market Rank

Onto the last pairing now. Horses drawn 1 and 2 that were either favourite or second favourite combined to score 33 times from 122 runs (SR 27.0%) for a small loss of £7.34 (ROI -6.0%).

 

"Top four combo"

My final stat to share is when a horse was in the 'top two' of all four of the sections at the same time; that is, horses from the top two in the betting, drawn 1 or 2, first or second in the speed ratings and having the highest or second highest last four race pace totals. Not surprisingly I suppose, there were only a handful of qualifiers, 14 to be precise. But... eight of those 14 did win! Profits of £10.28 would have been achieved equating to returns of around 73p in the £. The chances of this type of strike rate and performance being maintained is unlikely to say the least, but it's worth keeping an eye on!

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Well, this has been quite a journey for me and a long one at that. Having to go through race by race is hard work, but ultimately I think the research uncovered some interesting findings. Not only that, it has inspired me to do some more digging around these themes, albeit it will no doubt be rather slow digging!

Before I finish I should mention that all BSP profits and losses have taken a 5% commission into account, as that gives the truest reflection of real life returns using that medium.

Until next time,

Dave Renham

All-Weather Analysis: Wolverhampton Racecourse

/in /by

It’s time to head to the Midlands for the final article in this all-weather series, writes Dave Renham, the course in focus being Wolverhampton racecourse. I will be using racing data from 1st January 2017 to 31st August 2022 which has been once again been taken from the Geegeez Query Tool. Therefore all profits / losses have been calculated to Industry Starting Price. We all know that we should be able to significantly improve upon the baseline figures of SP and I will share Betfair SP data if appropriate.

I have written about Wolverhampton before in regards to running style, so I will be sharing the new data from the past 11 months as well as comparing with the long term figures. I have not analysed the draw in any real depth before so we will start off by looking at the long term data (2017 onwards) and take it from there. For both sections, running style and the draw, my focus will be handicaps of eight or more runners only. This is in line with previous research in those areas, except for Southwell where I used seven runners-plus due to the small time frame examined.

Wolverhampton races take place on a tapeta surface; this was changed in 2014, before which they had used polytrack. Let’s start to dig...

Running Style at Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton 5f Run Style Bias

First a look at the minimum trip of 5f. Here are the run style splits in 8+ runner handicaps covering the time since my last article (1st Oct ’21 to 31st Aug ’22):

 

 

In the past 11 months, front runners have triumphed in 13 of the 37 races which equates to 35% of all qualifying races. N.B. In some races, two horses have challenged for the early lead hence the 25.49% figure in the graph.

The A/E* indices for this recent time frame correlate positively (see below):

 

 

*A/E, or Actual vs Expected, is a measure of the profitability of an angle based on starting prices. Further details on A/E, PRB and all our metrics can be found here.

Going back to 2017 and taking the last six years as a whole (up to 31/8/22), front runners / early leaders have won just over 20% of the races (A/E 1.48). Meanwhile prominent racers have won around 12% races (A/E 0.91), so the long term figures suggest the front running bias is strong, and the recent data backs that up. Essentially, if your horse races midfield or near the back early, it is at quite a disadvantage.

Now, I rarely look at non-handicap data but if we look at the non-handicap 5f run style results since 2017 we get a very similar picture:

 

 

Arguably the bias is even more potent in non-handicaps, where there is likely an ability bias: those at the back will often not have the talent to get to the front! However, what we can say is that 5f races offer a strong front running bias in all races, not just handicaps. Backing all front runners in handicaps would have yielded a huge 70p in the £ return over the past six seasons, had the crystal ball been fully functional!

 

Wolverhampton 6f Run Style Bias

Onto 6f now and the run style splits from 1/10/21 to 31/8/22. There have been 56 races in this short amount of time so a decent sample:

 

 

There clearly has been a bias to horses that lead early or race prominently over six furlongs. The long term stats (back to 2017) correlate with this recent data, although the figures are not quite as strong, with front runners winning 14% and prominent racers 12% (mid div 8%, held up 7%).

Of course, we know predicting the front runner in a race is far from an exact science, but let us assume you were clairvoyant and had predicted all front runners since 2017 in 6f handicaps (8+ runners); in that notional case, there would have been a profit to SP of £117.80 for £1 level stakes which equates to returns of just over 22p in the £. Amazingly, backing all prominent racers would also have secured a profit.

Over 6f in handicaps therefore, a prominent pitch / early leading position is ideal, all other things being equal.

 

Wolverhampton 7f Run Style Bias

Onto the recent 7f handicap figures:

 

 

There is quite an even split here with three of the run styles, though hold up horses remain at a clear disadvantage. I think it is worth comparing these run style percentages with those from 1/1/17 to 30/9/21 to check on the correlation:

 

 

Essentially the correlation is positive: hold up horses have definitely had a tough time of it, although the long term stats suggest their chances are better than the most recent data indicated. Overall at this 7f trip I would probably look to avoid genuine hold up horses.

 

Wolverhampton 1 mile+ Run Style Bias

Once we get to longer distances a prominent run style seems to be very slightly favoured, but essentially I would not advocate using run style analysis in these races.

 

The Draw at Wolverhampton

All races are run on the round course, with the 7f distance starting from a chute:

 

 

Wolverhampton 5f Draw Bias

A look at the minimum trip first. There have been close to 250 qualifying races in this time frame so a huge sample. Here are the draw splits going back to 2017 for 8+ runner handicaps:

 

 

Low draws seem to have a solid edge from a win perspective. Let’s see whether the percentage of rivals (PRB) data backs this up:

 

 

These figures suggest that this is a playable draw bias. Also this bias has proved to be consistent year in, year out. Here are the PRB figures for both the bottom and top thirds of the draw broken down by year:

 

 

As we can see, low draws had yearly figures varying from 0.52 to 0.58; high draws from 0.40 to 0.46. In each individual year low drawn horses have clearly enjoyed a good edge over their high drawn counterparts.

In conclusion, I would always favour lower draws over higher ones. Of course we need to take run style into account too, so with that in mind here is the draw and run style heat map for 5f handicaps (PRB figs):

 

 

This map illustrates that run style is a more potent indicator than draw, as front runners can win from anywhere including high. However, the remaining run styles when drawn high have a very poor time of it; especially horses racing in mid-division or near the back early.

 

Wolverhampton 6f Draw Bias

There have been 359 races since 2017 so an even bigger sample. Here are the draw splits in terms of win percentage:

 

 

This looks a much more even playing field than it did over 5f. How about the PRB figures – what extra insight do they give us?

 

 

It seems that high draws are again at a disadvantage. Low and middle draws are essentially on a par with each other.

Digging a little deeper, if we combine the four lowest stalls in every race it gives us a combined strike rate of 10.7% (A/E 0.87). Backing all of those draws in every race would have yielded a loss of 15p in the £ to SP. Combining draws 10 to 13 has given a strike rate of just 5.1% (A/E 0.69) and would have produced losses of 40p in the £. Hence, it seems that daws 1 to 4 are twice as likely to win as draws 10 to 13. Something to be aware of when the field size gets to double figures for all that it's not a profitable angle in itself.

The key takeaway here is perhaps the negative draw bias in relation to the highest third.

 

Wolverhampton 7f Draw Bias

Up another furlong and the number of races keeps increasing. This time there are nearly 400 races in the sample:

 

 

High draws are marginally worse off again and, once again, the PRB figures support the contention that there is a slight negative bias here with high numbers definitely worse off:

 

 

The highest draws (10 or bigger) have a PRB figure of just 0.42. Hence, it should be no surprise when we get to the two biggest field sizes (11 or 12 runners) that the top third PRB figure is a relatively lowly 0.43. In general, then, I would probably ignore horses from double figure draws unless I feel they have a clear edge over the rest of the field or can get to the front without burning too much gas.

Once we get to races of over 1 mile the draw is extremely level; in these races you can disregard the draw completely.

 

Wolverhampton Draw Summary

At Wolverhampton in 8+ runner handicaps, the draw is material at distances up to and including 7f with very high draws at a disadvantage, while low draws are definitely best over five furlongs.

 

Trainers at Wolverhampton

Nearly 3500 races going back to 2017 means we have a huge chunk of trainer data to drill down into.  Below are the trainers who have secured a win strike rate of 14% or more from a minimum of 150 runs (ALL race types included):

 

 

All-weather stalwarts Haggas, Gosden and Varian all have strike rates in excess of one win in every four runs. Let’s look at these three yards in more detail.

 

William Haggas at Wolverhampton

Haggas' Wolves runners performance based on run style is worth sharing. His front runners and prominent racers have combined to win over 40 races and secure a strike rate of a hefty 43.1%; while his midfield and hold up horses have won just 11 races from 78 (SR 14.1%).

Other key findings are that Haggas has proved profitable to SP with horses sent off both as favourites and second favourites (ROIs of 9% and 13% respectively); and he has produced a strike rate of 36% when teaming up with jockey Tom Marquand. A return of 11p in the £ for this pair is playable. Finally, Haggas has a better record in non-handicaps where his runners have essentially broken even; his handicappers on the other hand have lost 23p in the £.

 

John (and Thady) Gosden at Wolverhampton

Over the past six seasons there has been good consistency shown by the Clarehaven yard of the Gosdens. Looking at the yearly win and each way strike rates show this:

 

 

From a win perspective every year has been 20% or higher; for each way purposes (win and placed combined) Team Gosden has hit 50%+ in five of the six seasons. Indeed, the 2017 figure of 44.74% is still commendable.

It should also be noted that 96.5% of all their winners have come from the top three in the betting. Horses 4th or bigger in the betting have a poor record with just 2 wins from 40 (SR 5%). Their 2yos have just about sneaked into profit, while their non-handicappers have broken even, give or take.

Finally, there is one negative to share: Gosden hold up horses have won just 15% of the time, losing an eye-watering 44p in the £.

 

Roger Varian at Wolverhampton

Roger Varian has just about sneaked into profit to SP which is impressive. Here are his strongest stats:

  1. When Varian books Jack Mitchell to ride they have combined to win 24 of the 72 races (SR 33.3%) for a profit of £49.13 (ROI 68.2%)
  2. Over 60% of his 3yo's have won or placed. Backing them all to win would have secured a return of 19p in the £
  3. His strike rate with fillies and mares (female runners) has been higher than his strike rate with male runners. The ladies have secured a profit of £22.66 (ROI +28.3%)
  4. His win and placed strike rate has exceeded 50% in all six seasons
  5. Horses that raced prominently have won over 35% of the time

 

Trainer Comparison: Wolverhampton vs Other All-Weather Tracks

Before moving away from trainers, I'd like to do something a little different compared to previous articles. Below is a table comparing trainer strike rates and A/E indices at Wolverhampton with the same trainer's combined strike rate at the other five UK all-weather courses (Chelmsford, Kempton, Lingfield, Newcastle, Southwell). To qualify, each trainer has had at least 100 runners at Wolverhampton and at least 200 runners when combining the other five courses.

I have highlighted in green all A/E indices of 1.00 or more (strong positive); all indices 0.7 or lower are in red (strong negative). For context, the overall average A/E index for all trainers is 0.86, therefore any trainer between 0.92 and 0.99 I have highlighted in blue as I see these figures as a decent/positive mark.

 

 

It is interesting to note that most trainers have quite similar strike rates and A/E indices when comparing the Wolverhampton form with the wider all-weather circuit. Only Alan King seems to be a trainer who performs far better at Wolves than he does at other all weather courses combined, and that may very well be coincidence.

 

Jockeys at Wolverhampton

I'm not going to go into great detail about jockeys here, but I thought it worth sharing the riders who have secured an A/E index in excess of 1.00 at the course (100+ rides). Below is a graph detailing their win and win & placed (each way) strike rates at the course:

 

 

In order to prevent the data overlapping I have rounded the strike rates to the nearest whole number; I would see it as a positive if any of these jockeys was on board a horse I fancied at Wolves.

 

Wolverhampton Gender bias

We have seen a gender bias at each of the all-weather courses studied to date; here are the figures for Wolverhampton:

 

 

Once again males have the edge in all departments: Win%, ROI%, A/E and IV.

Females hold their own when comparing gender data from the top three in the betting, something we have seen at the other all-weather courses: specifically, male A/E index is 0.87, female 0.86; and SP returns show a difference between the two of just 1p in the £.

But males tend to outperform females at bigger prices – again, this is a pattern we have seen before.

 

Wolverhampton market factors

Let's now look at the win strike rates for different positions in the betting; starting with favourites and moving down to position 7th or more:

 

 

Favourites and second favourites have proved to be the best value as the A/E indices show:

 

 

Favourites have only lost 5.5p in the £ to SP; second favourites 9p in the £. At Betfair SP, favourites would have lost you 2p in the £ after commission, second favourites just a tiny loss of 0.5p in the £. Hence the top two in the betting seem to require close scrutiny here.

 

Sire Performance at Wolverhampton 

Next we'll examine some sire data. Here are the top 20 sires in terms of strike rate since 2017. (To qualify – 100 runs or more; and must have had runners somewhere in the UK during 2022):

 

 

We have seen many of these in other top AW course lists such as Sharmardal, Dubawi, Frankel, and Lope De Vega to name but four. Kingman heads the list here and he has a good spread of different winners, rather than one or two horses dominating his statistical profile. In fact, 28 different horses (for his 30 wins in total) have won for him as their sire. Likewise, Dubawi has had numerous different winners: 39 different horses winning his 42 races.

In terms of damsires here are the top 10 in terms of strike rate:

 

 

It is promising to see all ten damsires with A/E indices of 1.00 or more. It is also slightly surprising to see eight of the ten in profit to SP. I'm not sure whether this will be kept up in the long term but it is interesting to say the least! This winter I think it is worth noting any runner whose damsire appears in this table; I would see it as a positive.

 

Wolverhampton Horses for courses

My final port of call as always is to look at some horses that have excelled at the course since 2017. To qualify for the list they must have won at least four races at the track with a strike rate of 25% or more. Further, they must have raced somewhere in the UK in 2022. Here are the horses that qualify, listed alphabetically. I have included a PRB column too (Percentage of rivals beaten):

 

 

Just the ten horses on the list, and one of the ten, Cappananty Con, switched trainers some time back and has not raced at Wolves for three years, so that is worth bearing in mind. If any of the horses in the list appear at Wolverhampton this winter, they are worth a second glance for sure.

 

Wolverhampton Key Takeaways

Before winding up, let's look at the main takeaways for Wolverhampton:

  1. In 5f handicaps (8+ runners) front runners have a good edge from a run style perspective. They seem to have an even stronger edge in non-handicaps
  2. In 6f handicaps (8+ runners) front runners and prominent racers clearly outperform horses that race mid-pack or are held up at or near the back early
  3. In 7f handicaps (8+ runners) hold up horses have a poor record and are at a disadvantage
  4. Low draws have an advantage over 5f; the highest draws have a relatively poor record
  5. In 6f and 7f handicaps (8+ runners) it is a disadvantage to be drawn in a double figure stall
  6. In terms of trainers, Haggas and Varian are two to generally keep on the right side
  7. Male runners outrun female runners in general. However, when looking at the front end of the market there is little between them
  8. Favourites and second favourites have performed slightly above the norm
  9. Progeny of Kingman have a very strong record at the track
  10. Refuse To Bend, Iffraaj, Dark Angel, Kingmambo, Montjeu, Street Cry, Zamindar, Exceed And Excel, Cape Cross and Dubawi are damsires whose horses have performed well here

*

And that's all of the tracks analysed. I hope you have found this all-weather series informative.

Next time, I’ll be looking at National Hunt trainers, starting with one at the very top of his game.

- DR

All-Weather Analysis: Southwell Racecourse

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The all-weather track at Southwell racecourse was re-laid from fibresand to tapeta in the spring/summer of 2021, and racing resumed on 7th December 2021. Hence, for this sixth track in my all-weather analysis series, I will be using racing data from 7th December 2021 to 30th September 2022, writes Dave Renham. This gives us relatively limited data at this stage (293 races in total) but it will still be interesting to see what shows itself. My race data collection has once again been taken solely from the Geegeez Query Tool and therefore all profits / losses have been calculated to Industry Starting Price. I will include Betfair SP data when it is worth sharing.

Personally I liked the old fibresand surface as it offered some playable biases, but there’s no point dwelling on the past! Let’s start digging into the future, and the tapeta numbers.

Running Style at Southwell

For running style data I only examine handicaps and usually handicaps of 8 or more runners. For this piece, however, I am going to use 7 or more runners just to give us a little extra data to work with.

Southwell 5f Run Style Bias

Let’s start as usual with the minimum trip of 5f. It is a straight five at Southwell; the only distance raced on the straight course there. Here are the run style splits for the new tapeta surface (40 races):

 

 

Front runners have certainly had the best of it to date, and by some considerable margin. 40 races is usually enough to start building up a picture. The A/E indices correlate strongly as one would expect:

 

 

If these types of figures continue in the coming months, Southwell’s 5f trip will become one of the most potent front running biases on the sand.

I also thought it would be a good idea to work out the Percentage of Rival Beaten (PRB) figures for each run style in these 5f handicaps. These were manually calculated and an explanation of them can be found in my first Dundalk article.

Here are the PRB splits:

 

 

These correlate positively with the earlier two sets of stats. The beauty of PRB is that it includes all runners in all races, which creates a much bigger data pool. All things considered, I am confident there is currently a strong front-running bias in 5f handicaps on this new surface at Southwell.

 

Southwell 6f Run Style Bias

Onto 6f now and this is the first distance run around a bend.

 

 

Front runners continue to have a good edge according to the win percentages, although it doesn't seem to be as potent over this extra furlong. 41 races in the sample so similar to the 5f data shared earlier. A look at A/E indices next:

 

 

There is a positive correlation with the A/E indices and the win percentages once more. PRB figures now:

 

 

Front runners have a decent edge using this ‘measure’ once again, while the other three running styles are all around the same mark. All three data sets are giving a positive edge for front runners, and I am hopeful this trend will continue over the winter. There does not seem too much to choose between the other three running styles.

 

Southwell 7f Run Style Bias

There have been 32 handicaps with 7+ runners over this trip since the re-laying so the smallest sample to date. Here are the figures in tabular form:

 

 

As can be seen, front runners have not enjoyed the advantage over this 7f trip. Indeed I worked out their PRB figure and it is very low at 0.43. It is a smallish sample so I would not want to be making sweeping conclusions just yet, but my gut feel is that front runners are not the way to go at this trip. Currently run style is not a factor I would consider too deeply over this distance at Southwell.

 

Southwell 1m Run Style Bias

A quick look at the 1 mile handicap data:

 

 

There is very little between each group now in reality at this trip of 1 mile and, so far, it looks to play very fairly.

 

To finish this section I will combine all longer trips together into one group.

 

Southwell 1m3f+ Run Style Bias

This gives us just under 60 handicap races to breakdown:

 

 

Front runners over these distances have a poor record, while the best approach seems to be held up early.

It appears at this stage, therefore, that in terms of run style at Southwell, we have two main trips to focus on. Five furlongs, where the front running bias looks very strong, and six furlongs, where the front running bias is significant enough to be of interest. Also, when we look at 1m 3f+ races, it could pay to avoid front runners while potentially keeping an eye on hold up horses. 

 

The Draw at Southwell

Here is the Southwell racecourse map.

 

 

It is a 10f oval circuit with a 5f straight track. Let’s now drill down into the draw data:

 

Southwell 5f Draw Bias

The shortest distance first and, as mentioned, the only straight track race distance. Here are the splits since the course was re-laid to tapeta:

 

 

These stats potentially suggest that low draws may enjoy a very small edge, and if we look at the win and placed stats combined, this starts to look a more likely scenario:

 

 

In order to hopefully confirm that there has been a low draw bias of some description, we need to see the percentage of rivals beaten (PRB) data.

 

 

I think this underlines the fact that lower draws have had a tangible edge to date. Also, if you ringfenced stalls 1 to 4, their combined PRB figure stands at an even higher 0.57. The most successful stall has been the lowest one (draw 1) – this draw has seen its runners produce a huge PRB figure of 0.66.

It is also worth noting that if you had backed all low drawn runners in every qualifying 5f handicap you would have made a profit of around £19.00 to £1 level stakes equating to a return of around 12p in the £.

It is still early days, but the signs are we may have a low draw bias to try and take advantage of. The old 5f stats on the fibresand also favoured low which I guess may give us further confidence in these initial findings.

 

Southwell 6f Draw Bias

Here are the draw splits for the 6f trip:

 

 

Middle draws potentially fare best. How about the PRB figures?

 

 

There is nothing in it on PRB, which is the most accurate measure of potential draw bias. The A/E indices for each third are within 0.1 of each other, too, so taking all data into account it seems 6f is a level playing field so far from a draw perspective.

 

Southwell 7f Draw Bias

Onto 7f now and, like the 6f trip, they race around a single lefthand bend.

 

 

This race sample of 32 is the smallest to date and although these figures suggest middle draws are being squeezed a little, I personally don’t think there is anything significant going on here draw wise. The PRB figures will shed more light:

 

 

As we can see, middle draws don’t seem at a disadvantage after all. Low draws may have a slight edge but I would like to see another year’s worth of data to see if this is actually the case. It looks pretty fair at this stage.

 

Southwell 1m Draw Bias

Nothing to report over 1 mile really. The 30 races have seen 10 wins for low draws, 9 for middle and 11 for high.

Time to move away from the draw – it seems a level playing field from 6f upwards. As stated earlier, there may possibly be a small low draw bias over 5f.

From this point on I will be looking at ALL races, not just 7+ runner handicaps.

 

Trainers at Southwell

Clearly, recent data is going to be limited for trainers. Indeed just seven trainers have saddled 50 or more runners in this time frame. My starting point will therefore be to look at pre-tapeta data; specifically, reviewing fibresand trainer stats going back to 2016. Here are the top trainers from that period (minimum 70 runs; win SR% 13% or more):

 

 

From here I am going to focus on the top six trainers in terms of strike rate and look at their record over the past year to see if we can glean anything. Here are my findings:

 

 

The first thing to say is that there are limited data for all six trainers. However, the figures for the Balding and Barron’s stables look promising – they are in the same sort of ballpark as before. The others are below par although Karl Burke has had five second places and if, say, two of those had won his figures would be close to pre-tapeta levels. Likewise, if two of Archie Watson’s four seconds had won he, too, would be back to the 22% win SR.

Tim Easterby’s figures are slightly more concerning but it is still early days, so best to wait another year at least to see if his form picks up (Note: After this piece was researched Tim Easterby saddled two winners on 9th Oct 2022 at 9/1 and 40/1!)

Keeping with the Easterby family, the David and Mick Easterby stable have saddled 10 winners from 30 runners in the last year producing returns of 91p in the £. Their 2016 to 2021 fibresand data on the other hand produced just 9 winners from 148 runners. There are some racing statistics that simply cannot be explained!

Before moving on I thought it might be worth comparing the PRB figures for the six trainers across the two time frames. At least this way we get slightly more detailed data for the last year:

 

 

The figures for the last year are around what I would have expected for five of the trainers given what we knew from the fibresand days. It seems, though, that Karl Burke’s recent figures are not so different after all.

The three Bs of Balding, Barron and Burke are stables that are likely to go well in the coming months. I would not write off the other three yet – we need a few more runs in the sample for them I feel.

 

Jockeys at Southwell

I’m not going to go into great detail here due to the limited data, but one jockey who has started well since the resurfacing is Daniel Muscutt. At time of writing, he has ridden 13 winners from just 49 rides (SR 26.5%) for a profit of £32.51 (ROI +66.3%). What impresses me more than his bare stats is that he has ridden winners for 11 different stables. Hence there is no trainer bias going on here. Time will tell whether he can keep up this hot streak.

Before moving on, Ben Curtis and Clifford Lee both had excellent fibresand stats going back to 2016. Between them to date they have had only 32 rides between them on the new surface, so too early to tell whether they will maintain their high performance level in the future.

 

Southwell Gender bias

We have seen a gender bias at each of the all-weather courses I have studied so far. Here are Southwell’s tapeta figures:

 

 

For this angle, we have a decent data set and it seems the gender bias is occurring here, too. I also checked out the PRB figures and males have an edge of 0.514 to 0.468.

When we have another year’s worth of results I personally will dig a bit deeper into specific areas like market or distance / gender data.

 

Southwell Market factors

Time for a look at the win% strike rates for different positions in the betting; starting with favourites and moving down to position 7th or more:

 

 

Second favourites have performed above the norm so far but I would expect the 24.5% win SR% to drop to around 20% in time. Favourites are about par losing around 9p in the £ to SP.

A look at market rank A/E indices next:

 

 

These are a bit up and down, but this is almost certainly down to the fact we have less than a year's worth of data. The favourite figure, however, is approximately what we might expect.

Over time I would expect these figures to mirror other courses and, hence, I would focus most of my attention on the top five in the betting despite the mixed data we see above.

 

Sire Performance at Southwell

The data set for sires is really limited. Only eight sires have had 50 or more runners. We will need to wait at least two more years to start seeing any potential patterns. Damsire data is similar with just five damsires having 50 runs or more.

 

Southwell Horses for courses

Once again our data is limited for this section. One horse has actually won four times (from 9 starts) in the last year and that is Back From Dubai. He won four on the bounce in the early part of 2022, but since then is 0 from 4, his handicap mark taking a deserved hike in the process. Daafy is 3 from 8 (PRB 0.77) and Fine Wine is also 3 wins from 8 starts (PRB 0.67).

 

Southwell Takeaways

To conclude, despite there only being roughly a year of racing on the new surface we do have some key takeaways.

There looks to be a strong front running bias over 5f in handicaps.

At 6f, front runners also have an edge, although not as powerful as the 5f one.

Back to 5f, there is potentially a slight low draw bias, and it will be interesting to see how that plays out this winter.

Males outperform females as we have seen at all other all weather tracks, while favourites have produced a par performance.

Trainers wise, the Balding and Barron yards - as well perhaps as Karl Burke - are worth generally keeping on side.

 

That's all for this piece. I'll be back next week with the final chapter, looking at Dunstall Park, better known as Wolverhampton Racecourse.

- DR

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