Racing Pot Pourri

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As regular readers will know I do a lot of research and write regular articles, including for geegeez.co.uk, writes Dave Renham. Sometimes though there are some ideas or questions I want to research but decide against it because there would not be enough ‘meat’ for a whole article. So, today I plan to put that right and will share some of my findings with you. Data has been taken from UK flat (and AW) racing going back to 2017.

Comparing a horses’ current handicap mark with their highest winning mark

In handicap races horses are given weight to carry based on their Official handicap rating (OR), or handicap mark. When horses win a race, the Official Handicapper will reassess their handicap mark and almost always the horse is given a higher rating. This means they will have to carry more weight and/or run in higher grade next time, the idea being the weight will slow the horse down a little.

Hence, I decided to examine the results for horses in handicaps that were running off a higher mark than their highest winning mark, the same mark as their highest winning mark, and those racing off a lower mark than their highest winning OR. Here are the splits:

 

 

This seems to give clear evidence that horses higher in the ratings compared to their highest winning mark win more often and look slightly better value.

Digging a bit deeper into those horses winning off a higher mark than their previous best, the age stats are worth sharing:

 

 

As the table shows, once the horses get to 7 or older their performance level and value drops off markedly. Hence older horses trying to win off a handicap mark higher than their previous ‘best’ should be treated with some caution.

 

Favourites and position in the weights/handicap

Next, I wanted to know whether the weight position within a handicap race makes a difference when the horse starts favourite. We know that higher weighted horses win more often than lower weighted ones, but the market adjusts prices well to compensate.

In the chart below I have split the results for favourites into three weight groups – the top three in the weights, those that were 4th to 6th in the weights, and those that were 7th or worse.

 

I looked first at strike rate:

 

 

As you can see, favourites that were in the top three of the weights have won more often than the other two groups. I had expected this, but I had reckoned on a slightly smaller percentage difference between the higher weighted favs and the rest. However, in terms of value it is the favourites that were lower in the weights that did best:

 

 

Those favourites 7th or lower in the weight position had the highest A/E index at 0.97 and losses to SP were much smaller than the other two groups. In fact, betting the '7th+ position in the weights' group of favourites to BSP would have secured a small profit of £114.93 (ROI +2.1%).

 

Older horses that are favourite for the first time

I wanted to see whether first time favourites aged four or older were good or bad value. For a horse not to have started favourite in any race aged two or three but which did so when four or older, I guessed there would be a relatively modest pool of horses that qualified. That was the case with around 2400 horses earning favouritism for the first time over this period stretching right back to 2017. Here are their combined results:

 

 

These are quite strong figures for any group of favourites. I am not sure what I was expecting but I suppose slightly poorer performance. Indeed, if betting to Betfair SP you would have secured a profit of £69.52 (ROI +2.9%).

It is also worth sharing the results by age as they are probably what one would expect:

 

 

Four and five years that start favourite for the first time ever have been far more successful than horses aged six or older.

 

Horses that wore headgear last time out (LTO) but return to track next time without headgear

In the past I have researched horses that have worn different types of headgear. So what about horses that wore headgear LTO, but had it taken off on their next start? Here are the figures:

 

 

Nothing earth shattering here, but after some further digging, I did discover something that I thought was worth sharing. It is the stats for horses that won LTO in headgear, but then had it removed for their next start. This idea is a little alien to me as I am guessing it is to many – why would you remove the headgear if it clearly has worked LTO? However, it has happened 444 times and of these only 65 managed to repeat the win and you would have lost a whopping 31 pence in the £ if backing them.

 

Horses switching from a Grade 1 track to the all-weather

I had assumed that horses that were racing on the sand who had run last time at one of top tracks would do quite well. I guessed they would possibly be overbet, but by how much?

 

 

As you can see the strike rate is acceptable but when viewed as a whole the returns are poor. These horses do indeed look overbet. However, I have gone further and looked at some of the top trainers to see how their charges have fared. Here are the trainers with the highest win strike rates:

 

 

There are some strong figures here for many trainers – John and Thady Gosden, Saeed bin Suroor and Roger Varian have done especially well with these runners. Also, Hugo Palmer, (Roger and) Harry Charlton and Richard Hughes have very positive stats too.

 

Revisiting Price Movement from Opening Show to SP

In a recent article I examined some data pertaining to price movements between the opening show and the final SP. In the comments a question was raised about trainers who have low career strike rates asking if their horses shorten in price during that 10-minute period before the off will they produce a fair-sized loss to the pound? They were wondering if this could become a possible lay angle? So I took a look.

My database allowed me to check trainers whose overall win strike rate in the past two seasons had been 7% or less – so the lower end of the trainer spectrum in terms of win success. Firstly, I wanted to check what proportion of their runners shortened in price between opening show and SP. The graph below shows the splits:

 

 

This pattern was seen in the main article with more horses drifting. Focusing in on those that shortened in price, here are the overall results for all qualifiers:

 

There is a lowish strike rate and relatively poor returns to SP and BSP. Having said that, these runners would have lost you money if you tried to lay them. However, horses that started favourite having been backed late have some ‘lay’ potential. Lay profits quoted below are based on a simple £1 a lay method:

- Favourites, including joints, won 547 from 2059 runners for a BSP loss of 7.43%. If laying all such favourites you would have made a tiny £6 profit. If you restricted it to handicaps, favourites could have been ‘layed’ to a profit of £39.

- Trainers who have not had a winner in the previous two weeks have a poor record with these ‘shorteners’. This is particularly true when the horse has started favourite. There have been 1184 qualifiers of which 24.5% of them won (290 runners). If laying all 1184 runners you would have made a profit of £75.77.

- Favourites priced 2/1 or shorter would have provided a lay profit of £34.98.

- Fillies and mares when favourite have a poor record when their price has shortened. Of the 514 qualifiers 121 won (SR 23.5%) and laying all such runners would have yielded a profit of £59.28.

 

It is always nice to get feedback and questions in the comments section under my articles and it will be interesting to see if this piece sparks any interesting responses.

 

Losing favourites on debut

Horses on debut are an unknown quantity. Yes, we know who the trainer is, we have sire data to look at, the cost as a yearling, future entries, etc. But we are still somewhat in the dark. Horses that lose on debut when favourite are a group of horses I wanted to dig a bit deeper into.

Looking at their second starts after their debut loss, their figures read:

 

 

Despite a fair strike rate losses are still relatively steep at nearly 18p in the £. However, there are a few angles both positive and negative that I’d like to share with you.

1. Horses that were beaten favourite at Ascot on debut have bounced back well on their next start winning 10 of 25 (SR 40%) for a profit of £10.97 (ROI 43.9%).

2. Beaten favs on debut when dropped in class for their second career start have done well. 90 wins from 252 runners (SR 35.7%) for an SP profit of £11.27 (ROI +4.5%). To BSP the figures improve to +£34.42 (ROI +13.7%).

3. If the second start happens to be on an all weather surface, these runners have broken even to SP. To BSP profits stand at £41.56 (ROI +10.5%).

4. Horses that finished second on debut when favourite have been poor investments next time. They have won 33% of the time (111 from 336) but losses were a steep £89.59 (ROI -26.7%). You would have made a profit of £55.65 if laying these runners to BSP instead of backing them.

 

Onto to my final port of call.

 

Horse changing stables

Horses change stables from time to time for a variety of reasons. Maybe the owner has moved location, maybe the performances have been below par and owner wants to try a different trainer and training environment. Occasionally horses switch after racing in sellers or claimers.

Let's therefore look at the first run results when sent to a new trainer. Does any yard do particularly well with new recruits? Here are all the trainers who have had 100 or more qualifiers:

 

 

Archie Watson’s figures are superb while Kevin Phillipart de Foy's and Mick Appleby’s stats are also extremely decent. Keep an eye out for Hollie Doyle riding one of Watson’s new recruits. When she takes the ride, their combined record is outstanding – 17 wins from 48 (SR 35.4%) for a profit of £66.51 (ROI +138.6%).

Mick Appleby has done well with a small group of 2yo new recruits winning 8 from 28 (SR 28.6%) for a profit of £37.71 (ROI +134.7%). He has also done well with runners over shorter distances. Sticking to 5f to 1-mile races only his record with new recruits reads 54 wins from 261 (SR 20.7%) for a healthy SP profit of £76.25 (ROI +29.2%).

 

So, there you have it. Hopefully there has been a bit for everyone here. There are certainly a few worthwhile takeaways for backers and layers alike.

- DR

Non-handicap juveniles in late turf season

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Blink and you’ve missed it. Yes, the British summer is coming to an end, and horse racing is soon to be heading into the last two full months of the turf season, writes Dave Renham. In this article my focus is from the start of September to the end of the turf flat season which is about a week into November. I want to concentrate on two-year-old (2yo) turf non-handicaps in the UK during this time frame. Data has been collected from 2015 to 2023 with profits/losses quoted to Industry Starting Price. Betfair SP figures will be quoted if appropriate.

Some of the larger stables send their better 2yos out at this time of the year so the trainer findings should be interesting. However, let's begin with the betting market.

Betting Markets

For this section I have combined ‘joints’ so for example the favourite includes clear favs, joint and co favs, etc. I want to start by looking at the value metric of A/E indices – here are my findings:

 

 

Favourites tend to offer more value than punters realise, but the gap between favourites and second favourites in this juvenile non-handicap context is much bigger than we usually see. Taking such runners across all months over the last nine seasons the A/E index for favs is 0.92 and second favs is 0.88. The gap between the two is more than twice this in the latter months of the sample years, as you can see in the graph (0.94 v 0.84).

Let me compare the returns to SP and the strike rates now:

 

 

Favourites have been winning close to 40% of the time and have been twice as successful as second favourites in terms of strike rate. Losses to SP have seen favourites lose only 6.7% compared with second favourites 17.3%, showing strong correlation to the earlier A/E index chart. To Betfair SP favourites would have lost you only 3.5p for every £1 bet and in three of the nine years they would have made a profit. Once we get to fifth or bigger in the betting the winning chances become very low indeed, and they offer horrendous value.

Sticking with favourites here are some additional stats to share:

1. Favourites starting at less than 1.50 have won 80.2% of the time (77 wins from 96) for a profit of £5.07 (ROI +5.3%).

2. Female favourites have broken even to BSP.

3. There are not many 2yo races that are longer than a mile, but when the distance hits 1-mile ½ furlong or more, favourites have won 76 of their 181 starts (SR 42%) for a small profit to SP to £7.10 (ROI +3.9%). To BSP after commission you would have had another 59p in your pocket on top of that!

4.  Favourites at this time of the year who are unraced or have had just one previous career run have provided the worst value. This group have provided 910 qualifiers of which 323 won (SR 35.5%) and backing all would have seen losses to SP of £117.03 (ROI -12.9%). To BSP losses are still edging to 10%.

5. In Class 1 or 2 races favourites have almost broken even to SP losing just 1p in the £ and turning a small profit to BSP.

 

Position Last Time Out (LTO)

Onto a look at the most recent piece of form based on finishing position.

 

 

Perhaps the takeaway stat is for last time runners-up. They have the strongest figures across the board. In terms of A/E indices, the best value may lie with LTO 2nds, 3rds and 4ths. It looks best to avoid horses that finished fifth or worse LTO and also debutants (the ‘no run’ group). LTO winners have a relatively modest record, too, and don’t look a solid play in the round.

 

Female runners

I want to briefly share some interesting filly (female) data. Earlier it was noted that female horses when favourite have performed well. Now I want to look at these runners as a whole group, and specifically their record when running against their own sex as compared to when running against the ‘boys’. Here are the splits:

 

 

There is a clear pattern here where female runners fare better when racing against their own sex. They have a much-improved strike rate in these races and, more importantly, losses are 16p in the £ better to both Industry SP and Betfair SP.

If we look at mixed sex races in a bit more detail, we can see that the higher percentage of male rivals there are, the harder it becomes for the females. The graph below shows the win strike rate across different percentage bands of male runners:

 

 

Once we hit over 75% of the runners in the race being male, the chance for any female runner becomes very slim in terms of winning. If we now look at the return on investment figures now, we can see that once more than half of the runners are male, females would have lost you a considerable amount of money:

 

 

So, the data is clear when it comes to considering female runners in 2yo non-handicaps on the turf at this time of year: generally stick to races against their own sex, or if considering a wager in a mixed sex race make sure that most runners in the race are female.

 

Trainers

Onto the area of greatest interest to me trainers. Here are the top performing trainers in terms of strike rate – 20 in total. To qualify they must have had at least 100 runners (ordered by win strike rate):

 

 

It is quite surprising to see nine of the twenty with a profit to industry SP, and a further two (Beckett and Varian) hitting a plus to BSP. Charlie Appleby has the best strike rate but has offered punters quite poor value. Saeed bin Suroor stats should be treated with caution as since 2020 he has had only 19 runners.

I thought it would be interesting to compare the records of these trainers with that of their earlier season form, i.e. their 2yo turf non-handicap record between March and August. I have created a table comparing A/E indices and strike rates over the two monthly groupings:

 

 

I should mention average field sizes are notably larger later in the season (9.5 v 8.7) which means we should expect lower strike rates in the Sept-Nov group. However, that factor is the same for all trainers so each individual handler comparison is fair.

Looking at the table, the numbers for two of the trainers have inspired me to do a deeper dive on each. Firstly, the Gosden stable. Their A/E index is much better from September onwards as is their strike rate (despite the bigger fields). Hence, after doing some digging here are strongest stats for the Clarehaven Stables yard:

1. There are three courses that stand out. Firstly Newmarket, despite the quality of 2yos on show at this time of the year. Team Gosden has saddled an impressive 35 winners from 177 runners (SR 19.8%) for a profit of £10.35 (ROI +5.9%) – A/E 1.07. Newbury has provided excellent results, too, returning over 26p in the £ from an impressive 29.6% strike rate (13 from 44). Yarmouth is the third track to mention with 13 wins from 50 (SR 26%) for a profit of £19.46 (ROI +38.9%). The BSP returns have naturally been even better.

2. Both male and female runners from the stable have proved profitable to back blind and their strike rates have been virtually the same at 22.7% and 22.3%.

3. Sticking with gender and looking now at the ‘sex of race’, the Gosden stable has done especially well when their horses stick to same sex races as the table below shows.

 

 

Based on these figures, I would be ideally looking for same sex races if wanting to back a Gosden runner.

4. The team is 9 from 17 in Group 2 races. A small sample, but worth sharing.

 

Onto the second trainer I want to highlight - Ralph Beckett. Let’s share some Autumn 2yo turf non handicap stats:

1. Take note of any Beckett favourite, the stats are eye-watering – 45 wins from just 87 favs (SR 51.7%) for a profit of £35.51 (ROI +40.8%). The A/E index stands at a crazy 1.33.

2. If the yard has sent the 2yo over 200 miles that looks material. There have been 83 such runners of which 29 won (SR 34.9%) for a profit of £18.38 (ROI +22.1%). For the record Beckett is 6 from 10 at Pontefract, and 5 from 11 at York.

3. Female runners from the Beckett barn have been the stars scoring over 21% of the time. In fillies’ only contests they have returned 8.5p in the £ to SP, 20p in the £ to BSP.

4. Take serious note if the money seems to be coming for their runners. Horses that have started at a shorter SP compared to the Early Morning Odds have produced superb figures – 62 winners from 214 runners (SR 29%) for a healthy profit of £83.34 (ROI +38.9%). To BSP this increase to +£114.75 (ROI +53.6%).

 

The latter months of the season can be a challenge for punters especially with the weather becoming less predictable; two-year-old races especially can seem a minefield. However, the findings in this piece should help to point us in the right direction.

- DR

 

Price Movement from Opening Show

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In my previous article - which can be read here - I looked at favourites and specifically their Early Morning Odds compared to their Starting Price, writes Dave Renham. In this piece I am drilling into patterns of price movement from opening show to SP. This considers all runners, not just favourites. Data has been taken from the three full years from 2021 to 2023 for UK flat and all-weather racing and I have used William Hill bookmaker data.

The opening show for most races occurs around 10-15 minutes before the race is due to start. Each horse will have its opening price and then, as money is bet during the time before the race starts, the prices will fluctuate. Here are two randomly selected examples from Friday 26th July showing how prices can move. The first race was the 3.00 at Ascot which was a 10-runner handicap over seven furlongs. The prices in red were the opening show odds, and the table shows how the odds changed (moving from left to right).

 

 

In that race, four horses lengthened in price from opening show to SP, five shortened in price, and one stayed the same. The winner, Billy Mill, drifted from an opening show of 9.0 (8/1) to a final SP of 13.0 (12/1). The second race was earlier on the same day at Thirsk at 2.00. This was a 9-runner Novice contest also over 7f:

 

 

The market looks less lively than the Ascot one and this time five horses lengthened in price, two shortened, while two remained the same. Angel Express remained the same price (17.0) for the whole time, while the winner Ryka drifted slightly from an opening price of 4.0 (3/1) to an SP of 4.33 (100/30). The favourite, Tutu Star, was a positive in the market and shortened a point from 5.0 (4/1) to 4.0 (3/1) but finished only sixth.

 

It is time now to look at ALL runners over this three-year period to see what percentage shortened in price, lengthened/drifted in price, or stayed the same price when comparing their opening show to their final Starting Price odds. Here are the findings:

 

 

As can be seen, nearly half of the runners drifted or lengthened in price. I am not surprised by this as traditionally bookmakers used to give themselves a bigger margin when publishing their opening show. I am not sure whether the increasing influence of Betfair has impacted this dynamic, as I do not have data pre-Betfair. Let me now share the turf flat versus all-weather price change percentages before moving on:

 

 

These figures indicate that on the sand a slightly higher proportion of runners drift in price from opening show to SP when compared to the turf flat. I am not sure why this is the case, possibly due to risk aversion related to a higher number of lower grade races, but it is a stat worth taking note of. I did look at the individual course breakdown and in general the figures were similar. However, Ascot was slightly out of kilter with the percentage of horses that drifted/lengthened in price, at 41.6%. It is also interesting to note that the five courses with the lowest ‘drift’ percentages were Grade 1 courses – Ascot, Epsom, Goodwood, Newmarket and York. Perhaps the better courses have more accurate - or confident - opening shows? That would make sense given the generally larger volumes of turnover on the early prices (i.e. before the opening show).

 

Market movement during this short period before the start of arace is a good indicator of ‘chance of winning’ as the graph below shows when we examine the win strike rates of the three groups:

 

 

Although horses that shorten in price win more often, if we look at Betfair SP returns it is the ‘stayed the same’ group that have edged it by a couple of pence in the £. They have lost 4p in the £, those that shortened have lost 6p and the drifters lost 7p. It always amazes me how efficient a racing betting market is.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph those runners whose price lengthened or drifted have lost 7p in the £. However, if we restrict drifters to those whose opening odds were 7.0 (6/1) or less we get the following figures:

 

 

This is getting close to breaking even – losses of just 1.5 pence for every £1 bet. Using the same price considerations for horses that have shortened in price they won more often (25% of the time) but losses were still over 5p in the £.

Going back to drifters, when their opening show is 15.0 (14/1) or bigger, they have produced much greater losses at more than 11p in the £. Hence, all things being considered, horses that go out in price from an opening show of 7.0 (6/1) or less have offered the best value.

My focus now is to look at price movement from opening show to SP within different price bands. The figures are split by percentage of qualifying runners:

 

 

These price bands are based on big sample sizes so we can be confident that the general principles will be replicated in future. Possibly the most eye-catching numbers are those for bigger priced runners. Once we get to an opening show of 18/1 or more, over 50% of these runners will drift in price. There also seems to be difference to the overall ‘norm’ when it comes to those priced up between 100/30 to 13/2. The percentages between shorteners and drifters are close to parity. To see this more clearly let me graph the comparison:

 

 

The graph clearly shows this ‘close to parity’ situation with the 100/30 to 13/2 opening odds price bands. Either side of that, drifters occur more frequently than shorteners and in many cases the difference is significant. For punters this type of information should be really useful – having the overall stats gave us a good ‘feel’ but breaking it down into price bands has given us much more knowledge and understanding of how certain prices may change in that pre-race period.

Now of course, a good proportion of punters back horses on the exchanges rather than with traditional bookmakers. However, if you are still someone who bets with the bookies the info shared should help your decision making about when to place your bet. This is especially true if you tend to bet close to the ‘off’ and/or at Starting Price. Even if you only bet on the Exchanges, the price movements for traditional odds and Exchange odds tend to mirror each other, so this data should serve either way and help to inform your timing of bets. The best strategy for placing a bet at most price points seems to be to wait for SP / BSP because your horse is more likely to drift late on. With instances of opening show odds of between 100/30 and 13/2 though, it is far less clear-cut in terms of the best time to place that bet.

The last area I want to take a quick look at is trainers. I thought it may be a good idea to group the data for the top five trainers in terms of win strike rate over this three-year period. The qualifying trainers are Charlie Appleby, John and Thady Gosden, William Haggas, Saeed bin Suroor and Roger Varian. Firstly a look at the splits in terms of what percentage of these trainers’ runners have shortened in price, lengthened in price, or stayed the same price when comparing their opening show to their final Starting Price odds.

 

 

These combined figures see a difference in percentages between the two main groups of just 7%, compared with a 15%+ difference in the 'all trainers/runners' graph earlier in the piece. Logic suggests that this would have been the case – runners for more successful trainers are likely to be ‘stronger’ in the market than the norm. But it is good to see it in black and white (or green and orange!)

What is even more interesting is when we combine the results of these five trainers. Here are the findings:

 

 

Horses that have been strong in the market for these five trainers have combined to produce a fair profit. Indeed, four of the five trainers made an individual profit with their runners that shortened in price from opening show to SP – the Gosden stable was the only one to make a loss.

To conclude, understanding how a betting market may evolve from opening show to SP is an area that is rarely analysed. I have found it enlightening doing the research and some of the findings in this article should provide punters, as well as myself, with a better feel of how a market may develop on the show.

- DR

Examining the Final Market Rank of Morning Favourites

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In this article, I will examine market patterns with horses that are clear favourite when the bookmaker’s early odds are set, writes Dave Renham. This is typically from 9am on the day of the race in question. For favourite backers especially, having a better appreciation of how likely an early morning favourite is to remain market leader is a key part of the betting puzzle. For the record, I have taken data from UK flat/AW racing going back to 2016.

Rate of early favourites remaining favourite at the 'off'

Firstly, let me examine how many early morning clear favourites remain as a favourite come ‘the off’:

 

 

As the graph shows, just under 64% of early morning clear favourites retain this position at the head of the market come the start of the race. That rises to nearly 70% if we include joint-favourites, while just above 30% do not retain favouritism.

These figures account for all runners, so let's drill down into various sub-categories.

 

Handicap vs. non-handicap final market rank

To begin with, I have divided the races into handicap races versus non-handicap races. One would expect to see a difference here, with non-handicaps more likely to see early morning favourites retaining their primacy come ‘the off’:

 

 

Over 73% of early morning jollies remained clear favourites in non-handicap races by the start of the race – roughly 15% above the average in relative terms.

Onto the handicap splits now:

 

 

For handicap races, less than 60% of early morning favourites have remained at the head of the market. As predicted, there is quite a difference between both race types.

 

Handicap Favourites: Early price vs. SP

Sticking with these early morning favourites in handicaps, let me examine actual price movement now. How many of morning jollies shorten in price, how many lengthen, and how many stay the same? Here are the findings:

 

 

Over half of early morning handicap favourites drift, which is perhaps to be expected given the data shared above regarding the percentage of early favourites that fail to retain SP favouritism. Of this subset of drifters, just under 34% remain clear favourites, 8% start as joint favourites, and 58% end up second choice or lower in the betting.

Therefore, if you are keen to back an early-priced favourite in a handicap, waiting until much later in the day to place your bet makes more sense. Of course, you can use the Best Odds Guaranteed option, but the downside is that if the horse drifts during the day, you’ll end up getting Industry SP, which is not as good as Betfair SP. BSP has paid around 10p in the £ more than Industry SP with these drifting early favourites throughout the study – that’s huge.

 

Early Favourites by Class of race

I want to look at class of race next to see if that makes a difference to the market behaviour of early morning favourites. Clearly, with literally 99.9%* of Class 1 events being non-handicaps, one would expect Class 1 races to see a higher percentage of horses retaining favouritism. In the graph below, I am comparing the percentages of early morning clear favourites that maintain their status at the head of the market by class of race:

*12153 out of 12165 on the flat in UK in the last five years

 

 

Class 1 races are by far the most likely to see the early morning favourite keep that honour. Interestingly, the 77.7% figure is well above the average figure for non-handicaps shared earlier (73.4%). It is also worth noting that the two lowest classes have the lowest figures, and most of these contests will have been handicaps.

Going back to ‘better’ races, if we split Class 1 races up for early morning favourites, we see the following in terms of their final market position:

 

 

The data tell us that the better the race class, the more likely the early morning favourite retains favouritism at the start of the race. This makes sense as we'd generally expect odds compilers and punters to have a stronger handle, as well as level of confidence, on the best races. Moreover, there tend to be ante post markets for such races which allows more time for prices to settle.

 

Early Favourites by Day of the week

Let's now see if the day of the week makes any difference to favourite price movement from morning to 'off' time. My theory is that Saturday may see early morning jollies retain their status the most, but let’s have a look:

 

 

In fact, Friday has seen the highest percentage of consistent favourites, with Saturday following just ahead of Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday are both noticeably lower, which may indicate the general quality of racing on the first two days of the week. Aside from the Monday/Tuesday component, there are no clear patterns or takeaways here.

 

Early Favourites: "The Dettori factor"

I now want to see if there might be what I've called a 'Dettori factor' when it comes to jockeys. Some punters still have jockeys they follow and probably follow over a cliff occasionally. So, I am trying to unravel whether any such rider is more likely to retain their position at the head of the market from morning to race time. I have chosen 20 jockeys with a good data set to analyse. They are ordered alphabetically:

 

 

There is quite a spread here when analysing the ‘Clear SP favourite %’ column, with James Doyle the highest at 77.9% and Shane Kelly the lowest at 55.5%. For Shane Kelly, one of the reasons it is low is because 71% of his rides have been in handicaps. That said, his figure is significantly below the average for all races/jockeys, at 59.1%. Therefore, one may expect that James Doyle’s splits for handicaps versus non-handicaps would be the opposite of Kelly's, with around 70% of rides in non-handicaps. However, the split is actually very even, with 53% of his rides being in non-handicaps and 47% in handicaps.

17 of the 20 jockeys have ‘Clear SP favourite’ percentages above the average (63.7%), with most of them well above. Maybe this is more of an indication of the stables they generally ride for. Perhaps it relates to the fact that they will ride more often in a higher class of race than your more journeymen/women jockeys. Maybe it is a combination of the two. Perhaps it is a combination of all three – jockeys, trainers, and classes.

 

Early Favourites by Trainer

Having looked at jockeys, I will now examine some trainers to see what their stats bring to the table. As with the pilots, I am looking at whether any trainer is more likely to retain their position at the head of the market from morning to race time. Here are my findings (I have chosen 35 individual trainer stats to share):

 

 

Generally, the higher figures in the Clear SP Fav% column come from high-profile stables that attack better races and meetings. Aidan O’Brien’s figure of 87.4% stands out. One would expect him to be at or near the top, but that number is still impressive. Most of his early morning favourites retained SP favouritism and more of them shortened in price during the day than lengthened: specifically, 53.7% shortened in price, 34.5% lengthened in price, and 11.8% stayed the same. This goes against the grain because if you look at all early morning favourites in all races, only 40.6% shorten, while a more significant 50.5% lengthen with 8.9% remaining the same price.

Sticking with O’Brien for a moment, when Ryan Moore has been riding the early morning jolly, these runners have remained favourite slightly more often than his average at 88.7%.

Charlie Appleby is the only other trainer hitting over 80% in this category. What is interesting about Appleby’s stats is that his figures are not skewed by race class. Below are the Clear SP Favourite percentages across the different class bands for Charlie Appleby's runners:

 

 

These figures are pretty level across the board with the lowest classes of race - those class 5, 6 or 7 races - seeing the highest percentage. Appleby’s figure for handicaps is 76.3%; for non-handicaps, it is 82.9%.

At the other end of the scale, Tim Easterby has a figure of 54.2% for early-morning favourites retaining final favouritism. However, with 88% of his qualifiers running in handicaps, one can see why this figure is low. Having said that, the 54.2% figure is also comparatively low – given that the average figure for all trainers is bang on 60% of handicap morning favourites retaining that status as the gates open.

Summary

This type of research has been new to me, and looking at early morning favourites offers a useful starting point in understanding how the top of the market may develop during the day. Clearly, every individual betting market will evolve differently, but even from what I have looked at so far there are definite patterns in terms of those early morning market leaders. There are also scenarios where it is more likely for the early morning favourite to still be the favourite come ‘the off’. The three strongest are:

1. Non-handicaps
2. Class 1 races, especially Group races
3. Runners from the stables of Charlie Appleby and Aidan O’Brien

I am further interested in researching how markets evolve during the day. Regarding early-morning favourites, I plan to examine early-morning prices coupled with the number of runners in the race. That may take a while, but it is on my ‘to-do’ list. And looking at price/rank movement for other market positions is also on that list.

Finally, if readers have any other topics/ideas they would like me to research for potential future articles, please post them in the comments below.

-DR

A day in the life of the Tote Placepot: Part 2

/in /by

This is the second article in a two-part series where I am looking at the Tote Placepot, writes Dave Renham. The data have been collated from the first six months of 2024 to give readers a good overview of this popular type of pool bet. I have included both UK and Irish racing. Part one can be found here.

The maths

The first point worth making is that the final pool size is less important than one might think in terms of your potential to win big. Let me explain mathematically why by comparing two hypothetical Placepot pools that, in terms of race-by-race outcomes, effectively mirror each other. I will assume that in each race, the placed horses account for 30% of the remaining units. Here’s how the maths work:

Placepot 1 – Final Pool Size £50,000

 

 

As you can see, the final winning units figure is £36.45. To calculate the Placepot payout, we need to divide £50,000 by £36.50, which gives a final dividend of £1,371.74 for a £1 unit stake.

 

Placepot 2 – Final Pool Size £400,000

 

 

In this example, we have £291.60 units left, but if we divide this figure by £400,000 to get our payout, lo and behold, we get the same final dividend of £1,371.74 for a £1 unit stake.

This happens because Placepot payouts/dividends are based on the percentage of the pot that is left. 10% of £1,000 and 10% of £2,000,000 is still 10%! Indeed, with a low starting pool of £79,000, the largest payout in the six months leading up to June's end came at Chelmsford. The payout to a £1 stake was just shy of £40k for a £1 unit stake. In addition to this payout, the third highest dividend in this time frame came at Tramore (£11,230.30 for a £1 stake), and the pool that day was just £13,667.

Average Placepot Dividend by Month

Having clarified some of the maths, let me start to look at some dividend data. In my previous article, I mentioned that in most years, the average dividend across all courses is around £400 to £500 to a £1 stake. Regarding the first six months of 2024, the average dividend has been £438. However, when we compare the average dividend month by month, we see how it can fluctuate:

 

 

As you can see, the January and February averages were much lower than the other four months, with January surprisingly modest at just £123.30. March and June have the most significant averages, just above the £600 mark. One cannot say whether these monthly figures indicate the ‘norm’, but with the Cheltenham Festival in March and Royal Ascot in June, I guess these two months will be at the higher end of the scale most years. Both have been the scene of monster dividends in the recent past.

Average Placepot Dividend by Country

It's time to break the data by country – UK versus Ireland.

 

 

Both nations are over the £400 mark, with the UK edging it. This is partly because Irish meetings take 30% out of the pool rather than the UK figure of 27%. It is, however, another example of how the payouts over time tend to average around these marks.

Distribution of Placepot Dividends

Now, I want to look at how the dividends have been spread across in terms of actual payouts. The table below illustrates this:

 

 

As can be seen, most payouts have been £100 or under – roughly 40% of pots have returned £50 or less, while 57% of all Placepots have been £100 or less. At the other end of the scale, payouts of over £1000 have occurred at 7.4% of meetings. As a regular Placepot punter, it pays to have patience – big payouts will occur, but they won’t happen day in and day out.

Placepot Dividends by Course

Regarding Placepot data for individual courses, data is limited for some tracks due to only six months of data. However, any course that has seen 12 or more Placepots in 2024 is shown below with their average dividend. I have ordered them by the number of meetings:

 

 

There is considerable variance between some courses, but that is to be expected, given the nature of this specific bet. These fluctuations are also more likely to be seen given the number of meetings we are dealing with. For example, in the courses with only 12 meetings, it just takes one significant dividend to increase the overall average markedly. This happened with Fairyhouse, as it turns out, thanks to a £7424 dividend, changing the average from £471 to £1051.

Course Dividend Example: Newcastle

The five all-weather courses at the top of the table have had a decent number of meetings. Let me share all the dividends for the top three courses in the table to help build a picture for each. Looking at Newcastle, here are all 45 dividends:

 

 

27 of the 45 (60%) were under £100, so just above the average for all courses (see earlier). Also, there were no payouts over £1000. This helps explain why the average dividend is down at £152.85. Newcastle hosts mainly all-weather racing (37 of the 45 meetings in the sample), and the average dividend on the sand was £172.64. Eight National Hunt meetings had a very low average dividend of £61.31.

Course Dividend Example: Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton had 44 meetings with the following dividends:

 

 

28 of the 44 dividends (63.6%) were under £100. There was one significant payout of £1349.80. Again, these numbers explain the modest average figure of £135.96.

Course Dividend Example: Southwell

Southwell, like Newcastle, hosts both NH racing and all-weather racing. The average figure for the NH meetings was £1088.03; for the all-weather, it was just £133.80. Let me split the individual dividends up this time – first, the NH:

 

 

There is quite a variety within this small subset, with seven dividends under £112 and five over £500 – three of those over £2K.

Onto the Southwell All-weather dividends:

 

 

There was nothing big here on the dividend front, with just one payout of more than £500. This means the four highest payouts came from the 12 NH meetings rather than from the 27 AW ones.

Breakdown of a Monster Placepot Dividend

To finish, I would like to go back and look in detail at the biggest Placepot payout in the last six months, which I mentioned earlier, was at Chelmsford. It occurred on 29th March, so let me take you through race by race.

Race 1 – The money wagered on this meeting was £78,973.19. After the 27% deduction, the starting pot was £57,650.41. The result for the first race was as follows:

 

 

With only two getting placed and the favourite missing out in third, around 81% of the pot disappeared, with £11,075.02 remaining going into race 2. Just over 50% of that 81% were units on the favourite.

Race 2 – A 12-runner event next, meaning three ‘placers’:

 

 

Although both the favourite and second favourite placed, the first three runners accounted for less than 40% of the remaining units, leaving £4273.85 in the pot with four races still to go.

Race 3 – Another 12-runner race for the third one:

 

 

The favourite placed again, as did the third favourite. This time, a smaller chunk was lost (around 37% of the units), leaving £2702.75 in the pot.

Race 4 – A 16-runner handicap was next on the card, meaning four horses would ‘place’:

 

 

I am sure all readers will be looking at the prices of the first four and appreciating that this result decimated the pot. Three huge prices were 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, while the winner, Merrijig, was 6th best in the betting at 14/1. Only 1.4% of the pot survived this race, leaving a paltry £37.28 for the last two races.

Race 5 – A 15-runner race was next, and at this point, a huge payout was on the cards. The last two races would ‘decide’ how big:

 

 

The favourite and third favourite placed, but even so, 75% of the remaining units were lost, leaving under £10 left - £9.75 to be precise.

Race 6 – The final race saw the following result:

 

 

Two joint third favs made the frame, but 85% of the remaining money was lost, leaving just £1.46 to be split between the winning punter(s). The final dividend was £39,486.50 for a £1 stake.

This dividend was so significant due mainly to the result of race 4, with the four placers at 14/1, 40/1, 80/1, and 40/1. However, race 6 played a more significant part than you might think. If that final race had seen the top three in the betting come 1,2,3, then the dividend would have been cut to £11,960.67. That nearly 12K is not too shabby, but it is a long way off, almost 39.5K!

**

 

Summary

The Tote Placepot is an excellent bet with enormous potential – it can only take one or two shock results to enhance the final dividend significantly. In theory, you could have five favourites placing and have a decent payout. Imagine a scenario where five favs have already placed, and the last race was a 7-runner affair where the first and second were priced 50/1 and 100/1. In this case, the pot would probably flip from an expected £10 dividend to potentially £2,000 or more.

Having the scope to build in more permutations is key for long-term success IMO. This is where the Tix software comes into its own. Using Tix, you can have several favs in the perm, a few mid-priced runners, and a few outsiders. This gives you cover for minimal stakes. If you haven’t used it – try it today!

-DR

A day in the life of the Tote Placepot

/in /by

In this article, I will look at how the Tote Placepot panned out on a randomly chosen day this year and what led me to research it, writes Dave Renham. I have chosen May 1st, not for any other reason than it was the first of the month and was not too long ago. I wanted to select the day randomly rather than trawling through some results and focusing on a day when there was a considerable placepot dividend or two. Punters who regularly attempt the Placepot know there are plenty of meetings with low dividends, but the fact that some huge payouts do occur makes it a bet worth considering. In fact, the average payout for the Placepot is usually between £400 to £500 in any given year.

As most readers will know, the Placepot is a bet you can place at any race meeting, and it works by choosing a selection or selections in the first six races on the card of the relevant meeting. The aim is to have a selected horse or horses to finish in the placings in each of the six races. It is important to appreciate that the number of placings per race depends on the number of race runners and, in some cases, whether it is a handicap or a non-handicap. The finishing positions that constitute a place in any race in the Placepot are as follows:

2 to 4 runners – 1st

5 to 7 runners – 1st and 2nd

8 to 15 runners – 1st, 2nd and 3rd

Non-handicap 16 or more runners – 1st, 2nd and 3rd

Handicap 16 or more runners – 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th

If a selection becomes a non-runner, your choice in that race moves to the favourite. You can choose ‘favourite’ in your selection process rather than a specific horse if you’d like – that is an option. It is also worth sharing that if you are on the favourite and there are joint- or co-favourites, the one with the lowest racecard number becomes your selection.

Selecting just one horse in each of the six races will create one betting line. You can, of course, choose more than one horse in a race if you wish to spread the risk, which will increase the number of betting lines. Most seasoned Placepot punters mix up the number of selections for each race to widen the net, as it were.

For those using permutations, calculating the outlay (cost) of your Placepot bet is relatively straightforward. Ultimately, you need to know how many selections you have in each race to determine your betting lines. To do this, multiply those six figures together. Hence, if you chose two horses in three races and one horse for the other three races, you will create 8 betting lines (see below).

2 x 2 x 2 x 1 x 1 x 1 = 8 lines

The cost of the bet will depend on your unit stake – if your unit stake is £1, then the cost will be £8:

8 lines x £1.00 unit stake = £8.00 total stake

You can adjust the unit stake to suit. For example, you may want to use a unit stake of 25p instead, which means the overall cost of the bet would be £2.00 (8 x 25p).

Placepot dividends are paid to a £1 stake. Hence, if the Placepot dividend is, say, £100, and you have one winning line with a unit stake of 25p, your dividend would be a quarter of £100 because you are using a quarter of a £1 stake. Your payout in this scenario would be £25 (£100 divided by 4).

For any Placepot player, though, you need to be aware of the excellent Tix software, a staking optimisation tool built by Matt and Nigel Dove. The Tix software gives far more scope for perming your selections using different stakes, should you wish. Find out more about Tix here.

The upside of the Tote Placepot is that it is a ‘pool’ bet, which means you are essentially pitting your wits against other people rather than the bookmakers. Also, a fair number of Placepot bets per day are struck at the racecourse by racegoers who are simply having a fun bet whilst on a day out. Therefore, I feel I should have a significant edge regarding my betting ‘opponents’.

However, before getting too carried away, the bet has a downside: the Tote takes out 27% of the money put into the Placepot betting pot. Hence, if £100,000 is bet on a specific Placepot, only £73,000 of this is available to win. It is essentially like a Bookmaker’s overround where they build in their profit margin.

 

OK, with that explainer done, let me share the Tote Placepot data for the five UK meetings that raced on May 1st:

 

 

Overall, the day was not the most productive one for Placepot players with three meagre payouts. The payouts are calculated by dividing the Adjusted Final Pool Size by the remaining winning units. Hence, the Ascot dividend of £139.90 comes from £85,632.55 divided by 612.02.

I want to analyse one of these Placepot meetings in detail—the biggest one on the day at Ascot.

Race 1 – 1.10

This was a six-runner Class 2 conditions race for 2yos. Hence, two Placepot places were up for grabs (1st and 2nd). Below shows how many units went on each horse, what percentage of the pool that was, the Starting Price of each runner, and their Finishing Position.

 

 

The horses in red were the two Placepot ‘placers’. Interestingly, the most ‘pooled’ money was not on the favourite, Diligently; it was on the second favourite, Rock Hunter. Because of this, slightly more of the pot remained than one might have expected. Hence, £45,939.17 was left in the Placepot pool as we entered race 2. This equated to around 39% of the Adjusted Final Pool.

Looking at the % splits for each horse, we can also see that Sex on Fire had more than double the amount of money placed on him than Atherstone Warrior (11.1% of the pool versus 5.33%) despite their prices being virtually the same at 17/2 and 9/1. I do not have a bulletproof reason why this might have been the case, as you would expect the amounts on each horse to be closer to each other. However, data on any 2yo race is limited at this time of the year. In this particular contest, you had two debutants, three horses having their second career start, and one having their third. Hence, even the most seasoned punter finds getting a confident handle on this race more difficult. That is probably part of why there was such a discrepancy between the two horses. I am guessing there was a jockey factor in play, too, as Hoyle Doyle was riding Sex on Fire. She is a famous jockey, and I suspect some occasional Placepot punters would have seen her name and simply based their judgment on that. Another could be how their prices fluctuated during the day, but more of that discussion later.

Race 2 – 1.40

This was a Listed race with only five runners, so again, there would be two ‘placers’ counting. Here are the splits:

 

 

Again, the SPs do not quite match up with the % of pool figures. The second favourite, Docklands, had the most pool units, 3% more than the actual favourite. Likewise, there were two horses at 4/1, and there was a 6% difference between the two, equating to around 2700 units.

This was the second race in which the favourite had failed to place. Generally, better dividends occur when favourites have a poor day in terms of placing. Hopefully, this makes perfect sense, as favourites will be popular with Placepot pickers.

Race 3 – 2.15

This was another five-runner affair; this time, a Group 3 contest. Let me share the data for this one:

 

 

This time, the favourite comfortably had the most units staked on him, but again, the market leader failed to place. With the 11/1 outsider coming second and having a meagre 1.55% of the pooled money (354.82 units), this result increased the chances of a big payout. 78% of the staked units before this race were lost, leaving a pot of £5255.03.

Race 4 – 2.50

A 10-runner Group 3 sprint over 6f was the next action on the day, and a more extensive field of 10 runners went to post. Three to count this time, and here are the figures:

 

 

This race was not helpful in terms of a chance of being a very big Placepot payday. The two horses with comfortably the most units staked finished second and third. The 28/1 outsider Jakaiaro finished a neck away in 4th. If that had reversed placings with the third, it would have caused a serious dent in the remaining ‘pot’ and increased the chances significantly of a big payout. So, there was just under £3100 left in the pot with two races to go.

Race 5 – 3.25

An eight-runner sprint handicap was the penultimate Placepot race at Ascot that day. Here is how the remaining units were split between the runners:

 

 

The favourite placed for the second race running and, despite being 7/2, had over 37% of the remaining betting units. This could have been nearer 20-25% of the remaining units based on the actual SP, which again would have increased the final dividend considerably. Based on the upcoming Race 6 results, if the favourite Woolhampton had secured 25% of the remaining Race 5 units rather than 37.48%, the final dividend would have increased by around 22%. That’s significant. However, it highlights that we are dealing with unit sizes for individual runners that can fluctuate perhaps more than one would expect, given the so-called ‘true’ chance of the horse placing based on the SP.

Race 6 – 4.00

The second division of the handicap sprint was the final race as far as the Placepot was concerned. Again, we saw eight runners go to post. There were 2078.18 units remaining before the race:

 

 

The favourite failed, and the two horses with the most units (top two in the market) could not place. 29.45% of the units of the remaining units survived, leaving £612.02 left in the pot from the initial £85,632.55. The Placepot payout was a reasonable, if not huge, £139.90 to a £1 stake.

Being basically a ‘numbers man’, it is interesting for me to scrutinise each of these six races in some depth. What struck me was the correlation between the individual horses’ SPs and the units staked on these horses. It certainly was not always a positive correlation in line with expectations.

I decided to graph some Ascot data by looking at the individual horses’ SPs and the % of Placepot pool units staked on these horses. It shows all horses with SPs of 6.0 decimal odds (5/1) or shorter:

 

 

The graph does slope from the top left to the bottom right, but it is far from smooth and has plenty of outliers/anomalies.

Here is a tabular format with the exact %s (to 1 dp) for the number crunchers out there. I have highlighted in red what I perceive to be the main outliers:

 

 

As you can see at the top of the table, we have three different horses priced up at 3.0 (2/1), but one has 38.8% of the money in the pool, and the other two are much lower at 28% and 26.2%. Arguably, there is an even more significant differential when we look at the three 6.0 (5/1) runners with pool %s ranging from 5.4% to 18%.

You will get fluctuations when analysing price versus pool %, but I must admit, I was initially surprised when I looked at these Ascot results. Of course, the data is limited to just six races, but even so, I did expand my digging to the other four meetings that day and found that of all the horses priced 2/1, the lowest pool % for one horse (Cajetan) stood at 22.3%, and the highest was 38.8% (Sweet William) at Ascot. Then, I looked at some bigger price brackets than I did for Ascot and found that two horses priced 6/1 (7.0) were poles apart when it came to their pool %s – one had 20% of the units in the pool, the other just 7.4%.

Now, it should be stated that prices of horses often change from the early odds to their final SPs, so I surmised that this must be a significant contributory factor in this wide pool % of variances we have seen from such limited data. Hence, I continued to do some more digging. I looked at the two 2/1 SP shots I mentioned in the above paragraph (Cajetan and Sweet William) to see their Early Odds (e.g., their odds in the morning). Lo and behold, the 38.8% pool horse Sweet William was 15/8, a notch under the 2/1 SP, and the 22.3% pool horse Cajetan was a much bigger price ‘early doors’ at 9/2. In this comparison, therefore, it seems likely the early odds were the main reason behind the Placepot pool % variance. So, it got me thinking... obviously!

I thought it might be worthwhile to check out some horses whose prices remained the same during the day. I decided to check out some horses with early odds of 2/1 and, also a final Starting Price of 2/1. I expect these runners should be with a few percent of each other in terms of pool percentages. This type of research must be done slowly, race by race, so I have only looked at the last 30 qualifiers (at the time of writing). That should give us a fairly good overview. Here is what I found:

 

 

As you can see, we still have some significant variances. The highest figure was 47.3%, more than double the lowest figure of 22.1%. OK, they were the ‘extremes’, but even if you ignore, let’s say, the highest and lowest three figures, there is still a difference of over 10% from highest to lowest (39.4% versus 29.1%). The average figure for all 30 horses is 33.8%, which is what I would have expected.

So, what does that tell us? Clearly, fluctuations in ‘expected’ pool %s will occur regularly. Is it possible to pinpoint patterns and predict likely pool %s for some horses? That is the 64-million-dollar question. My guess is that the make-up of all the prices within each race plays a key role, not just the individual prices themselves. I am sure there are other factors, and I have some ideas, but that is for another time (and a huge chunk of research).

Of course, some punters may argue that the important thing from their perspective is that they get at least one horse placed in each race and have a slice of the Placepot dividend. That is a fair point, but I’m guessing you would rather win one pot in ten if the dividend is, say, £5000, compared with winning five pots in ten, all paying under £20. We could all win more ‘pots’ if we stacked our selections with all horses from the top end of the betting. However, any such ‘wins’ will produce low dividends and give you no chance of securing a long-term profit. In fact, you will be haemorrhaging money! You need a better strategy than that to win big at the Placepot!

**

Summary

It's time to wind up this first foray into the Tote Placepot. I appreciate that I have inadvertently created more questions than answers. Still, I hope you might now have an increased appreciation of the Placepot and how much there is to the whole conundrum. For me, it’s time to do some more research into this Tote pool bet, and I will share that with you next time.

-DR

2-Year-Old Handicaps: Nurseries Part 2

/in /by

This is the second article examining nursery handicaps – handicaps for 2-year-olds, writes Dave Renham. In the first piece, I looked at various factors, including the betting market, position last time out (LTO), the sex of the horse, weight carried, career starts, and run style. You can read that one here.

In this second article, I will look at fitness in terms of when their most recent run was, LTO price, and trainers, amongst other things. The data are sourced from the last nine seasons of UK flat and all-weather racing (2015 to 2023), and profits and losses are quoted to Industry SP. I will quote Betfair SP where appropriate.

Days since last run

This is a metric most punters take notice of. The general pattern for all flat races is that the shorter the time since racing, the higher the strike rate. However, the market is well-adjusted to this and prices are usually balanced accordingly. Let’s see, though, whether an edge can be found, either positive or negative, from the 2yo nursery stats:

 

 

The strike rate pattern can be seen here, as mentioned above. Horses returning to the track within five days are comfortably hitting the best strike rate but are the third worst in SP returns. They also provided the worst returns to BSP of all the groupings. The one group to avoid, though, is the group that has had the longest time off the track (61+ days). These have offered the worst returns, the lowest strike rate, and the lowest A/E index.

 

Surface switch (or not)

I want to share some data on what surface the nursery was run on (e.g. turf or all weather) compared with the horses' previous start. Hence, there are four possible combos to look at:

 

 

So, what do the stats say? The A/E indices suggest that one of the four combinations offers far better value than the other three. The graph below shows the figures:

 

 

Horses switching from a run on the all-weather LTO to the turf this time have offered punters by far the best value. This is also reflected in the returns for both SP and BSP.

 

 

The Flat / LTO AW figures for SP returns are better by over 7p in the £ than the other three. In addition, the BSP returns are positive at around 5.5 pence in the £. This is probably due to the market slightly downgrading the chances of young horses switching from the sand to the turf. With limited race experience on both surfaces, it can be challenging for bookmakers to price up these surface switchers accurately.

 

LTO Race Type

Next, look at the LTO Race Type, splitting by handicap vs. non-handicap.

 

 

It has been a slight advantage for nursery runners to have run in a nursery handicap on their most recent start. Regarding non-handicaps LTO, you might want to avoid any horse coming from a claimer, as they would have lost you 77p in the £. Also, horses coming from sellers have done poorly, losing over 32p in the £.

 

LTO Price

I often look at this metric: the price of the horse on its last run. To begin with, I will look at some LTO Starting Price Bands, focusing on the value metric, which is the A/E index:

 

 

When examining last day starting price, we see a scenario similar to the one in the first article – the maxim is the shorter, the better. Horses priced up 6/4 or shorter on their most recent start are ones to watch closely. Backing these runners blind to SP would have yielded a slight loss, but to BSP a return of nearly 6p in the £ would have been achieved. Also, if you had been a bit more selective with these 6/4 or less LTO runners, sticking to those that started in single figures next time, then you would have been rewarded with 177 wins from 689 runners (SR 25.7%) for a BSP profit of £85.84 (ROI +12.5%). You would have also made a profit to SP with these runners to the tune of £27.27 (ROI +4.0%).

 

Class Change

Does a change in class of race make any difference? Here are the splits:

 

 

There is not much to choose between the three here, although the ROI% is better for class droppers. Class droppers have been profitable at Betfair SP but these results have been skewed by several high prices hitting the mark.

 

Trainers

My final port of call is to look at trainers. Firstly, let me examine the trainers who had at least 70 nursery runners during the study period and obtained a strike rate of 14% or higher. I have ordered them by win strike rate:

 

 

Ten trainers have managed a profit of which eight have an A/E index above 1.00. All eight of these trainers should be classed as positive in these races. I will revisit some of these in a minute, but before then, onto those trainers who have recorded a strike rate of below 8%:

 

 

All eleven in this table have seen losses of over 40 pence in the £ to £1 level stakes, and I would be avoiding these trainers in nurseries unless some other impressive stats could convince me otherwise.

As often with trainer data, to avoid high prices potentially skewing profits let me focus on trainer performance with runners that started in single figures (e.g. 9/1 or less). For this group I have relaxed the qualifier restriction to 50, including 48 trainers that had at least 50 qualifiers by using this price restriction:

 

 

Ralph Beckett has the stand-out single price stats, producing returns just shy of 26p in the £. He also has an excellent A/E index of 1.21. Breaking down his results for these 9/1 or shorter nursery contenders, I notice that his male runners have completely outgunned the female ones. The first article noted that male horses comfortably outperformed their female counterparts in mixed-sex nurseries. Here, the contrast is even more stark. His male horses (when 9/1 or shorter) have won over 31% of their starts returning 47p in the £; his female runners within the same price bracket have won just 18% and would have lost you over 6p in the £.

The stats are also very interesting for Beckett when looking at ALL his runners across ALL SP prices – we see the following based on A/E indices:

 

 

There are no winners in the 10/1+ bracket – he is 0 from 48 with only two placed. The message is clear – any Beckett runners priced 9/1 or shorter should offer excellent value; any priced 10/1 or bigger offers little or no value.

Returning to the latest table, other trainers to keep on the right side would be Sir Mark Prescott, Rod Millman, Ed Walker, Archie Watson, and runners from the Crisford stable. I would also keep an eye out for all the others highlighted in blue near the top of the table.

I think any trainer in the bottom quarter of the table whose A/E index is under 0.75 should be treated with caution.

 

Five Key Trainer Angles

Before finishing, I would like to share five of the most vital trainer stats I could find:

1. Charlie Appleby at Newmarket has secured 14 wins from 37 (SR 37.8%) for an SP profit of £13.29 (ROI +35.9%).

2. At Grade 1 tracks (Ascot, Doncaster, Epsom, Goodwood, Newbury, Newmarket, Sandown, and York), the Crisford stable has won 10 of 30 starts (SR 33.3%) for a profit of £17.91 (ROI +57.9%). This is an excellent effort considering these nurseries are some of the most competitive.

3. George Boughey has a strike rate of 41.8% with nursery favourites (28 wins from 67) for a profit of £12.65 (ROI +18.9%).

4. Ralph Beckett has an excellent record with LTO winners thanks to 14 wins from 37 runners (SR 37.8%) for a profit of £19.63 (ROI +53.1%).

5. Tom Dascombe, like Beckett, has done well with winners LTO, scoring 33.3% of the time (18 from 54) for a profit of £43.67 (ROI +80.9%).

**

That concludes my analysis of nursery handicaps, which are a betting medium that can certainly form a part of one’s betting portfolio. I hope some of these angles can give you that vital edge over the crowd.

-DR

2-Year-Old Handicaps: Nurseries Part 1

/in /by

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

 

The market

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

Position Last Time Out (LTO)

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

 

 

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

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

 

Weight carried

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

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

Career Wins

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

 

 

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

 

Sex of horse

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

Run Style

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

**

Part 1 Summary

In conclusion, here are the key points:

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

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

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

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

5. Male horses outperform female horses.

6. Horses that lead early have a considerable edge.

 

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

-DR

What Happens After Royal Ascot?

/in /by

A few months back, I looked at the performance of horses on their next start having had their last race at the Cheltenham Festival, writes Dave Renham. I will revisit that idea in this post but the focus now is on horses that raced last time out at Royal Ascot. Royal Ascot finished on Saturday so now is a great time to examine the numbers.

The data was taken from 2009 to 2024 (prior to this year's Ascot meeting), and profits and losses were calculated to Betfair Starting Price less a 5% commission.

All runners

Looking at all runners coming from Royal Ascot on their next start – they have scored 14% of the time with losses to BSP of 10 pence in the £.

Finishing position at Royal Ascot

My first detailed port of call is where the horse finished in their race at the Royal meeting. Let’s see the splits:

 

 

Last time out (LTO) winners and runners-up score better than one win in five on their follow-up run. LTO winners from two stables should be noted – firstly, Royal Ascot winners from the Aidan O’Brien stable have gone on to score next time 22 times from 55 runs (SR 36.4%) for a profit of £5.26 (ROI +9.6%; A/E 1.00). The Gosden stable has produced similar figures with 12 wins from 38 (SR 31.6%) for a profit of £3.95 (ROI +10.4%; ROI 0.98).

LTO runners-up have edged into profit, but this is down to one huge-priced winner (BSP 75.0), which completely skews the figures. Ultimately, finding an edge from where they finished in their Ascot race seems complicated.

One interesting comparison to make is between the performance of horses that beat more than half of their Royal Ascot rivals (excluding winners) and those who beat fewer than half of them. Below is a graph comparing win and each way (win & placed) strike rates for both groups:

 

 

As you can see, horses that finished in the top 50% of runners in their Ascot race have completely outperformed those that did not in strike rate (both win and each way). They would also have lost you 6p less for every £1 bet compared to the 0 to 49% group.

Digging a bit deeper, if we restrict this 50% to 99% group to those that ran in Royal Ascot handicaps, these 1360 qualifiers would have turned a profit of £84.50 (ROI +6.2%). These handicap stats are not hugely skewed by the winning prices either.

 

Course (next time)

Course data next. Which courses fare better than others when Royal meeting runners visit on their follow-up run? Here are the courses that have had at least 100+ qualifying runners:

 

 

Five courses have turned a profit: Chester, the Curragh, Haydock, Newbury, and York. The Newbury results include three winners priced between 40.0 and 60.0 BSP, so this profit figure can be ignored. Meanwhile, York had a massive 200.0 BSP winner, so this is the second course to have unreliable BSP profit figures. Sticking with York, horses that raced next time at the York Ebor meeting in August have an abysmal record with just 17 winners from 210 (SR 8.1%) for a BSP loss of £90.07 (ROI -42.9%). The A/E index stands at an extremely low 0.60. The other three ‘positive’ courses (Chester, the Curragh, and Haydock) have not had their results badly skewed, and visits to these courses after Royal Ascot can be viewed as a positive. Haydock figures, I would say, are the most reliable as they managed a profit to Industry SP.

The Goodwood next time stats are poor. Most of these qualifiers appeared at Glorious Goodwood – 724 of the 768 runners. Of these, just 78 won at the Goodwood Festival for losses of £190.40 (ROI -26.3%). Personally, I would ignore the vast majority of LTO Royal Ascot runners reappearing at Glorious Goodwood.

Before moving on, it looks best to disregard horses that switched from the turf of Ascot to the all-weather on their next start, as their combined figures read a disappointing 52 wins from 369 runs (SR 14.1%) for hefty losses of £133.56 (ROI -36.2%).

 

Days since the Ascot run

Let me now examine the performance of these Royal Ascot runners based on how quickly they return to the track. Below is a graph mapping their A/E indices:

 

 

Horses returning to the track between 8 and 14 days later have provided the best value. So, keep an eye on them in the next few days. On average, per year, 40 to 45 horses return to the track within that time frame. They have won just over 18% of their follow-up starts. They have not been profitable if backing ‘blind’, but they are horses that undoubtedly require a second glance. Horses off the track for more than four months (121 days +) have offered the poorest value and have the lowest strike rate amongst all groups.

 

Class Change

A look at Change in Class of race next – here are the splits:

 

 

Clearly, horses dropped in class have by far the best record, with comfortably the best strike rate and losses at just 4.1% compared with 17.7% and 19.9%, respectively.

 

Trainers

It's time to look at the performance of trainers. A tiny proportion of horses switch trainers after Royal Ascot, so the data I am sharing is based on trainer results, with horses running for the same stable as they did at the Royal meeting. Here are all trainers with at least 70 LTO Royal Ascot qualifiers. They are in order by win-strike rate:

 

 

Two trainers have impressive A/E indices, with horses having their first start after Royal Ascot: Bin Suroor (1.19) and Fahey (1.06). Runners from both stables are worth keeping a close eye out for. Five trainers have made a profit, but to try and avoid big-priced winners skewing the figures, let me show the performance of the trainers above if we restrict their runners to those who started in the top four of the betting on their next start:

 

 

This table is a better one to concentrate on from a trainer's perspective. The top six have some excellent stats regarding strike rate – all have proved profitable, and four (Bin Suroor, Cox, Fahey, and Beckett) have A/E indices above 1.00. It is interesting to see Charlie Appleby's very modest figures, as he is usually a trainer who has excellent stats.

 

Additional Stats

1. Horses whose SP was 7/2 or shorter at Royal Ascot have gone on next time to win 83 times from 302 runners (SR 27.5%) for a minimal loss of £4.58 (ROI -1.5%).

2. In contrast to the first additional stat, horses whose SP was 40/1 or bigger at Royal Ascot have won next time 166 times from 1679 runners (SR 9.9%) for significant BSP losses of £323.47 (ROI +19.3%).

3. 2yos beaten more than five lengths at Royal Ascot have struggled next time out, scoring 15.9% of the time and losing over 23p in the £ to BSP. Compare this to the 2yo winners from the Royal meeting who have gone on to win over 30% next time out, losing just 3p in the £.

4. 3yo Royal Ascot winners have gone on to win next time in 35 races from 148 starts (SR 23.7%) for a break-even situation.

**

 

Conclusion

It is challenging to make blind profits using a specific angle from LTO Royal Ascot competitors. However, based on all the findings, I feel LTO handicappers are worth keeping a close eye on as long as they didn't win and beat at least 50% of their Royal Ascot rivals. Several will pop up and win next time, many going under the radar.

Regarding trainers, Saeed Bin Suroor and Richard Fahey head my list, with Ralph Beckett and Clive Cox close behind. This is especially true if their Royal Ascot runners start in the top four of the betting next time.

Horses heading to Haydock after Ascot and those making their trips to Chester and the Curragh have done well. I would be wary of any Royal Ascot runner reappearing for the first time subsequently at Glorious Goodwood or the York Ebor meeting.

Horses dropping in class are far more likely to win than those which do not. Finally, horses returning to the track 8 to 14 days after their Royal Ascot spin are the best-performing group regarding time off since their Ascot run.

-DR

Statistical Guide to Royal Ascot 2024 Mile Handicaps

/in /by

By the time you read this, Royal Ascot will be just days away, writes David Renham. It is one of my favourite meetings of the year, and I am guessing that will be the same for many readers. In this article, I will delve into Royal Ascot data going back 15 years (2009-2023) in preparation for the upcoming festival. Any profit/loss has been calculated to Industry SP, but I will quote Betfair SP where appropriate. My focus will be exclusively on Royal Ascot's mile handicap races.

There are four one mile handicaps scheduled for this year’s meeting: the Royal Hunt Cup, Britannia, Sandringham, and the relatively new Kensington Palace. The first three are run on the straight course; the Kensington Palace transpires on the round course. These races tend to have big fields, especially the straight-track ones. Going back to 2009, 41 of the 49 mile handicaps at the Royal meeting have seen at least twenty runners go to post. Only one of these took place on the round course.

Market Rank

Firstly, let us look at the performance of different positions in the market. Any ‘joints’ have been combined, so when it says ‘favourites’, it includes joint favourites. I have added each way percentages as many punters bet each way in big field handicaps:

 

 

It is interesting to note how well favourites and second favourites have fared, scoring in 17 of the 49 races. This equates to winning 34.7% of the races from just 8.7% of the total runners. If you focused on clear favourites, their results improved to 9 wins from 43 (SR 20.9%) for a profit of £6.75 (ROI +15.7%). Betting to BSP would have slightly improved matters to +£10.02 (ROI +23.3%). From a place perspective, it certainly looks worth considering putting either the favourite or second favourite in any placepot perm.

Horses outside the top ten in the betting have a poor record, as you would expect. Big-priced winners will occasionally pop up, but losses of over 65p in the £ for these outsiders do not inspire me too much to look beyond the more obvious. The biggest-priced winner has been 40/1 (Rising Star in the Kensington Palace in 2022), and she is the only winner from 357 horses that have started 40/1 or bigger.

Race Type Last Time Out (LTO)

Looking at the type of race these runners ran in last time out has uncovered a potential edge as the table below shows:

 

 

Horses that contested a handicap last time have a much better record than those who raced in a non-handicap. Regarding Betfair SP returns, LTO handicap runners lost less than 1p in the £, while LTO non-handicap runners lost a whopping 53p in the £.

Beaten Distance Last Time Out

My next port of call is to look at LTO performance, focusing on how far horses were beaten. The graph below looks first at the win strike rate (LTO winners are grouped with horses that were beaten less than a length):

 

 

Winners/horses beaten less than a length LTO have certainly got the better of the ‘battle’ from a win strike rate perspective. How does that equate to returns to SP? Here are those findings:

 

 

We see a good correlation here with the previous graph—losses of around 13p in the £ for LTO winners/horses beaten less than a length. In fact, at BSP, this 13% loss became a 12.5% profit. In contrast, there have been enormous losses for horses that were beaten one or more lengths in that most recent spin.

Finally, for this section, a look at the A/E indices:

 

 

There is a further positive correlation here, and all the data gathered points to keeping a close eye on any LTO runner that won or ran the winner to less than a length.

Market Rank LTO

Whenever I am interested in backing a horse, I always look back at their last run's price or market position. Indeed, personally, I often look at their previous three or four races in terms of odds/market rank. Hence, I thought seeing what I could find for these Ascot races would be worthwhile. Here are my findings:

 

 

As you can see, the percentage play is to be backing horses in the top five of the betting LTO rather than those 6th or higher on their most recent outing. They are better value; they have more chance of winning and more chance of getting placed. Regarding BSP returns, horses first to fifth in the betting last time would have lost you 13p in the £, and those 6th+ would have stung you for 41p in the £.

Draw Position

The draw in big field straight course races at Royal Ascot has been discussed in past articles, including this one. Arguably, it can be the most important factor, especially if one section of the track seems to be at a significant disadvantage. Here is some draw analysis of the last nine Royal Ascot straight track mile handicap races, covering the years 2021 to 2023:

 

 

Taking all nine races in combination, a draw in the top half (middle to high) has tended to be favoured.

There are other big field handicaps run at the meeting, including the Wokingham over 6f and the Buckingham Palace raced over 7f. Last year, both these races displayed a higher draw bias, so taking these two races in conjunction with the three mile straight track handicaps, you have to conclude that higher draws generally held sway at the 2023 Royal meeting.

What will happen this year? Well, that is the 64-million-dollar question. Only time will tell...

Running Style

Onto an area that is finally starting to get more attention from the racing press, and it is one I have been championing and studying for a long time. For this section, I have focussed on the forty 1-mile handicaps with the most extensive fields (20+) run on the straight course, contested between 2009 and 2023.

21 of the 40 races (52.5%) were won by a horse that was held up early in the race. Hold-up horses account for 36% of all the runners, so they have won around 1.45 times more than they statistically should. It should also be noted that hold-up horses have been twice as likely to get placed compared to prominent runners.

I thought comparing the Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB) for all running styles in these 20 runner+ straight course races would be useful. Here are the splits:

 

 

Based on the data shared previously, it is no surprise to see hold-up horses comfortably doing best.

As we have already seen, these races contain plenty of big-priced runners/outsiders, so below I have narrowed down the run style data and homed in on those runners that started at 20/1 or shorter. Did the PRB figures project a similar trend? Here are the splits:

 

 

We see the same pattern as before. Hence, looking at both sets of figures, the ‘ideal’ type will be a horse that comes from off the pace and delivers a challenge late, be it from a position near the back early or from a more midfield sit.

**

Summary

These big field mile handicaps certainly seem to have some general trends that we can apply to all four races. This is even though all four have differences (e.g. sex of runners, age restrictions, etc). In terms of the general trends, favourites and second favourites perform above expectations; last time winners or those beaten less than a length have proved much better value than those beaten LTO by one length or more; horses that ran in a handicap LTO have outperformed those that ran previously in a non-handicap; horses that were in the top five of the betting LTO are better betting propositions than those who were 6th or bigger in the betting.

As regards the big field straight course handicaps, we can add that a higher draw has been preferable recently, but it is important to keep an open mind. In terms of run style, the winners will typically race mid-pack or towards the back early.

-DR

Comparing Exacta and Computer Straight Forecast: Part 2

/in /by

In recent weeks, I have been looking at ‘exotic’ bets, writing two articles on the trifecta/tricast and one on the Exacta/Computer Straight Forecast (CSF), writes Dave Renham. This is the second part of looking at the two 1-2 bets of the Exacta and Straight Forecast.

In the first article, Exacta looked like the better option, coming out on top nearly 62% of the time. In addition, the average payout was bigger for the Tote bet, and virtually every course saw the Exacta outperform the CSF. It was also noted that the edge for the Exacta increased as the field size grew. For example, races of 17 or more runners saw a 57% edge for the Exacta based on average payouts. In this article, I will continue my research with the same six-month data set to determine other valuable facts.

 

Courses Revisited

In the first article, I compared individual courses in terms of which of the two bets came out on top more often. I did this for races at both National Hunt courses and Flat ones. This time, I will compare the average payouts of the two bets, starting with the flat. There must be at least 30 qualifying races to be considered:

 

 

The Exacta ‘beat’ the CSF 34-3 – the three ‘wins’ for the CSF are highlighted in red (Brighton, Chester, and Hamilton).

In the first article, it was noted that the edge at Irish courses in terms of average payouts/dividends was nearly double that of UK ones, and this is borne out again with some significant differentials in qualifying Irish courses. Of the six that made the list, five of them – Cork, the Curragh, Dundalk, Gowran Park and Leopardstown all saw the Exacta’s edge standing at over 25%. On the UK side, Ascot had a considerable edge over the Exacta, which was expected considering the Royal Ascot stats I shared last time. York, Doncaster and Newbury were the next best three.

To the NH course averages now. As before, to qualify, a course must have had 30+ qualifying races:

 

 

The Exacta has come out well on top again, with just three courses (in red) seeing a ‘win’ for the CSF. There are very positive Exacta figures at Punchestown and Cheltenham, while 15 courses saw an edge for the Exacta of over 20%.

The Kilbeggan stats caught my eye immediately, where the CSF average was nearly double the Exacta. However, digging into the course results, I noticed a race I had not previously noted where the Exacta had not won. It is the only race of 6000 odd races I’ve analysed where no punter chose the correct 1-2 combo. The CSF paid a massive £3206.34 as a 66/1 horse beat a 200/1 shot into second place. That explains it!

 

Day of the Week

While researching this, I speculated whether the day of the week made a difference. For example, I wondered if Saturday, as generally the busiest day, would potentially offer the Exacta more of an edge. I also wondered if the reverse was true on Sundays. On average, Sunday is the quietest day regarding the number of meetings, so I hypothesised that the Exacta edge would be less. Therefore, let me compare the seven days of the week to which of the two bets came out on top more often. Here is what the numbers told me:

 

 

So, my Sunday theory proved correct, but not the Saturday one. Indeed, Saturday was only the 6th ‘best’ day for the Exacta. Monday and Tuesday saw the Exacta ‘beat’ the CSF more often, albeit there is not a massive difference between the best day of Tuesday and the worst of Sunday.

 

Price of winner

I wanted to see the effect of the winner's price on which of the two bets came out on top more often. This is graphed below using Industry SP price bands:

 

 

The graph shows that the shorter the winner's price, the more competitive the CSF was. Indeed, the CSF edged it for horses priced Evens (2.0) or shorter. However, once the price got to 100/30 (4.33) or bigger, there was only one winner, and it was a comfortable one at that. For those who prefer looking at these comparisons in a table, here are the same figures from the graph.

 

 

Once the winner's price hits 17/2 (9.5) or bigger, then the Exacta has ‘won’ more than three times as often as the CSF.

 

Strongest ways to utilise the Exacta edge

In the two articles, Exacta has had the edge over the CSF in most circumstances. We have just seen that this edge is very strong when the winning price hits 17/2 (9.5) or bigger, and in the first article, I shared the fact that the bigger the field, the better as far as the Exacta goes. What about combining the two? Hence, what were the results when the winning SP was 9.5 or bigger, and the number of runners was 17 or more? Well, I can share that with you now. There were 108 races where both parameters were met, and firstly, here are the results in terms of which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

The Exacta beat the CSF in 102 of the 108 races, equating to a percentage of close to 95. That is somewhat one-sided!

A look at the average payouts now over these 108 races and, as expected, the Exacta’s figure is much higher:

 

 

Under these circumstances, the Exacta has had a 67% edge in payouts/dividends.

Hence, if you fancy a horse destined to start around 17/2 or bigger in a big field race and want to predict a 1-2, you’d be mad to choose the CSF based on this evidence.

Cutting the number of runners to 14 or more plus a winning SP of 9.5+ still gives you a massive edge, with the Exacta beating the CSF in 254 of these 285 qualifying races. That equates to 89.1% of races where the Exacta prevailed.

I did one more tweak to this runner/SP combo, looking at 14+ runner races where the winner was priced 6/1 (7.0) or bigger. Thanks to 366 wins from 410 races, the Exacta win percentage over its counterpart is maintained at 89%, with the CSF prevailing on just 44 occasions.

Before finishing, let me share one more useful nugget about utilising the Exacta edge. This comes when examining the results in terms of where the favourite finished. The table below shows which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

Clearly, having the favourite in second in an Exacta is a good strategy, especially when attempting to beat the CSF. The percentage edge for Exacta over the CSF when the favourite places second is just under 30%.

 **

 

Summary

The second article confirms the findings from the first: that is, the Tote option, the Exacta, has a solid overall edge over the CSF. Considering both articles, this edge increases most in races with bigger fields and when the winner’s SP is bigger (specifically 14+ runners, 6/1+ winning SP gives an 89% 'win' for Exacta over CSF).

The Exacta's edge is also stronger in Irish races and when the favourite finishes second.

Finally, the eagle-eyed may have noticed that no data was shared for Haydock or Sandown. This was, unfortunately, due to an issue with my databases and spreadsheets. I need to manually add the data for both of these courses when I have time, and when I do, I’ll report back in the comments. Looking at the results I have (about 35% of them), both Sandown and Haydock offer a decent edge for the Exacta in line with other courses of a similar profile.

-DR

Comparing Exacta and Computer Straight Forecast: Part 1

/in /by

This article continues further research into ‘exotic’ bets, with the focus switching to predicting two horses to come first and second in a specific race, writes Dave Renham. As with the 1-2-3 trifecta and tricast bets, punters in the UK and Ireland have two options, namely the Exacta and the Computer Straight Forecast (CSF). The Exacta is a pool bet available with the Tote, while the CSF is a bookmaker bet that, like the tricast, has the payout/dividend calculated by a computer formula.

In this piece, I will compare the two to see if one is better than the other or at least one is better under certain circumstances.

With the Computer Straight Forecast, there is a method that you can use to estimate the likely payout for most races once you know the SPs. Essentially, you take the winner's price, add one point to the price of the second-placed horse, and multiply them together. Hence, in a race where the winner is 3/1 and the second is 5/1, you multiply 3 by 6 (5+1), and the forecast will pay around £18.00. Here are a couple of recent examples to help illustrate this. The first was a race at Windsor on 20th May:

 

 

Using the estimating method, the payout should be around £48.00 (4 x 12), and as you see, the CSF paid £47.18. A second example comes from the same day at Carlisle:

 

 

This time, the rough payout calculation is around £25 (2.5 x 10), and once again, the estimate is within £1 of the actual payout, which was £25.79.

Therefore, as a punter we can have a relatively good idea of this potential payout pre-race if we leave our CSF bet as close to the ‘off’ as possible and by having the latest live bookie odds to hand. These odds should be very close to the actual SPs, so a quick calculation can help us decide whether we feel the probable odds justify the bet.

As far as predicting the likely payout of the exacta pre-race, one can often have a rough idea, too. This is because the Tote Pool Exacta Info can be accessed live on the net. However, they will only show the most popular exacta combinations, so you may not see your preferred combo in big fields. Being a pool bet, these dividends/potential payouts are continually changing. Still, when you get very close to the ‘off’, and if the pool is a decent size, any late changes in potential exacta dividend will be quite small. This is unless someone places a late exacta bet with a decent stake, which, fortunately, is quite rare. Like with the late placement idea of the CSF, late exacta placement is possible if your combination is shown on the Tote screen. If it is, then this gives you a decent prediction of the likely dividend to again help you decide whether the bet is value or not.

It's time to review some history. The data for this article has been taken from six months of UK and Irish racing spanning from 1st January 2023 to 30th June 2023. This includes National Hunt racing, All-Weather flat, and Turf Flat, with the proviso that races must have at least five runners. I have ignored any race with a dead heat for the first or second, as the payout gets split and messy.

 

Average Payouts (Overall)

First, let me compare the average payouts for the CSF and the Exacta from the six months of qualifying races, of which there were nearly 6000 in total. The figures are rounded to the nearest pound:

 

 

As with the trifecta/tricast research, the Tote bet, in this case, the Exacta, has come out on top. The Exacta ‘edge’ has averaged out to just above 19%, a significant difference.

 

Average Payouts by Race Code

I now want to look at the average payouts across the three race codes: National Hunt, All Weather Flat, and Turf Flat. Here are the splits:

 

 

The Exacta trumps the CSF in all three, but the edge has been less pronounced in all-weather racing. However, these initial findings suggest that the Exacta is a better value option than the CSF across all codes.

 

Race by Race Comparisons

Let me compare race by race, which came out ‘on top’ with the bigger return/payout more often. Races where the payout had a differential of less than 10 pence, I have called ‘ a draw’:

 

 

Having already seen the average payouts, these percentages will be no surprise. The difference is not as pronounced as we saw in the trifecta/tricast battle, but again, when taking a general view, the Exacta offers the better option.

Average Payouts UK v Ireland

I’m back comparing average payouts/dividends with a look now at UK average payouts versus Irish ones. Here are the figures:

 

 

As the figures show, the payouts have been much higher in Ireland. However, the main reason for this is Ireland's bigger average field size. The average number of runners in Ireland during these six months was 12, compared with an average of just 9 in the UK. Regarding the percentage edge to the Exacta versus the CSF, Irish races have seen a much more significant advantage using the Tote bet.

Average Payouts by Field Size

Sticking with the field size/number of runners angle, let's examine the average payouts for both bets to see if the Exacta edge increases as the field size does. I have split the results into the following field sizes: 5 to 7 runners, 8 to 10, 11 to 13, 14 to 16, and 17 or more. The blue line represents the Exacta and the orange line is the CSF:

 

 

The smallest field has just favoured the CSF, with the bookie’s bet having a slight 4% edge over the Exacta. However, this is the only ‘win’ for the CSF as the edge for the Exacta increases as the field size increases:

 

 

As you can see, the number of runners significantly impacted how the Exacta matched up with the CSF. There is a 32% edge for the Exacta when we get to 14-16 runner fields; once we go 17 or more, the edge is nudging 60%. Essentially, the bigger the field size the better as far as the Exacta is concerned. I, for one, will not be contemplating CSF bets instead of Exacta bets in races of 11 or more runners. I would be mad to do so based on these findings.

There were 233 qualifying races with 17 or more runners, of which the Exacta paid more than the CSF in 210–this equates to just over 90% of these races.

Average Payouts by Race Type

My next port of call is to examine the difference between handicaps and non-handicaps by comparing the average payouts/dividends of the two bets. Here are my findings:

 

 

Handicap payouts/dividends are higher for both, but in terms of Exacta's ‘edge’ over the CSF in handicaps vs non-handicaps, it is just 0.3% - essentially the same. However, to try and get greater insight, let me split the results down into more specific race types:

 

 

I had expected handicap hurdle races to show the most significant edge for the Exacta because these races tend to have bigger fields, but novice hurdle and chase races have edged it. National Hunt Flat races have seen the smallest edge for the Exacta over the CSF at only 5%.

 

Average Payout by Racecourse

For the last part of this first article, I will look at how the Exacta and CSF played out at different tracks. I will begin this section by sharing flat/AW courses with 40 or more qualifying races, giving us a good sample size. It includes all races, so a mix of handicaps and non-handicaps. Therefore, let me compare course by course, which of the two bets came out on top more often. I have listed the courses in alphabetical order:

 

 

The six courses highlighted in red (Ascot, Bath, Gowran Park, Leopardstown, Musselburgh, and York) are those where the Exacta prevailed in at least 70% of races. Bath narrowly missed out by half a percent. The two courses in blue, Hamilton and Leicester, were the only two where the CSF beat the Exacta more often.

I'm sticking with Ascot because, with Royal Ascot just around the corner, I thought it would be interesting to look at the 2023 results to hopefully give us some pointers for the 2024 meeting. Here are the individual Exacta/CSF payouts for all 35 races (The rows in red are where the Exacta payout was bigger than the CSF one):

 

 

There were 31 wins out of 35 for the Exacta (88.5% of races), just three wins for the CSF and one ‘draw’. In 9 races (25.7% of races), the Exacta payout was at least double the CSF. 11 of the 12 handicaps (91.7% of races) saw the Exacta do best, of which 4 (33.3% of races) saw the Exacta paying more than double.

The average payout across all races for the Exacta was £400; for the CSF, it was £230. However, these averages were both badly skewed by the result of the first race on 22nd June, where a 150/1 shot prevailed. In that race, the CSF paid £3478.24; the Exacta £5369.6. Taking that race out, the average payouts over the other 34 races were – CSF £135 and Exacta £253.

The message is clear: if you plan to try and predict the first two home in a Royal Ascot race this year, the Exacta is by far the best option.

Moving away from the flat, let's review the same statistics for National Hunt course results (minimum 40 races):

 

 

Cheltenham is the only other track to have exceeded 70% for Exacta ‘wins’, while three have seen the CSF edge it: Fontwell, Ludlow, and Stratford.

**

 

Summary

It is time to wind up this first half of my comparison of Exacta and CSF, with more to come in a follow-up piece next time. At this juncture, Exacta is holding a healthy lead over the CSF. I expect that to continue next time, although I am currently still in the research phase of part two, so let's keep an open mind for now!

-DR

A Comparison of Trifecta and Tricast Payouts in Horse Racing: Part Two

/in /by

This is the second article in which I have compared two exotic bets - the tricast and the trifecta, writes Dave Renham. The trifecta was the better option in the first piece, which you can read here, considering all qualifying races. It paid out more than the tricast in roughly eight out of every ten races. In this follow up, I will share some more of my findings.

 

The data was taken from UK and Irish turf flat handicap races run in 2023, in which there were between 10 and 14 runners. As I mentioned last time, this amounts to just over 1000 races, and I have excluded any race where there was a dead heat in one of the first three positions as the payouts get split. I have also excluded races where there was no trifecta payout. This happens occasionally when the pool size is small, and the first three horses home were unfancied/decent prices.

The first piece examined general comparisons and then delved into individual course data. In this piece, I will revisit some course data and examine some Starting Price data.

 

Trifectas at Specific Racecourses

In the first article, I compared average course payouts for trifecta and tricast and how often the trifecta ‘beat’ the tricast in percentage terms. Here, I want to share some findings regarding how frequently one of the bets paid at least twice as much as the other.

Looking at all 1011 qualifying races, the trifecta paid at least double the tricast on 145 occasions, and the tricast paid at least double on only 20 occasions. Hence, 14.3% of all races saw a trifecta payout of at least double the tricast (2% of races for tricast at least double the trifecta). Below is an individual course breakdown showing the percentage of races where the trifecta paid at least twice the tricast dividend. They are listed with the biggest percentages at the top.

 

 

The top three are all Irish courses, which is interesting. The Curragh tops the list, with the trifecta being twice or bigger than the tricast in roughly three out of every ten races. For those who remember some stats from the first article, the Curragh had the highest percentage differential when comparing average payouts. Hence, seeing the course also tops this list is no real surprise.

Chester lies at the bottom of the table, and I wonder whether this is due to the well-known low draw bias, especially over shorter distances. I can imagine, for example, that horses drawn 1 and 2 would appear in punters’ trifecta bets more often than at most other courses. Therefore, with the trifecta bet being a pool bet, if either or both draws 1 or 2 finish in the first three, the returns will be lower because of the extra money placed on these draws. I cannot categorically prove this, but that is my theory.

While discussing draw bias, the draw can also affect the computer-generated calculation on tricast payouts when three horses drawn close together finish in the first three. I am unsure how the deduction is calculated, but a serious one can occur. Let me give you an example of such a situation. The 2022 Victoria Cup had the following result:

 

 

The first three finishers came from the three highest draws. Usually, with prices of 16/1, 22/1, and 25/1, I would estimate that the tricast would pay around £8700 to £9300. However, on this occasion, the tricast paid just £4377. This is a clear example of where a draw-biased race sees a much lower return.

I tried to find another big field handicap where the prices of the first three were the same, and there was no draw bias in play. The closest I could find was the result of the Ebor handicap at York in 2019.

 

 

Hence, the 1st and the 3rd prices were the same in both races, but the second was three points bigger at 25/1. The tricast, on this occasion, paid £9605. Given the slightly higher price for the second-placed runner, I would estimate the payout may be bigger by a few hundred quid. However, the York payout was over £5000 higher than the Ascot one, which helps demonstrate that draw bias tricasts can be severely compromised.

 

Impact of odds of horses in the first three

I would now like to share my findings related to the prices of the runners within the first three finishing spots. I will start by looking at the winner's price and see what effect that had on which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

As the first line of the table highlights, when the winner was a short price, 2/1 or less, the trifecta win percentage dropped somewhat. The first article noted that the trifecta outperforms the tricast just over 80% of the time but drops to just over 70% here. However, the reverse was true when an outsider took the first spot with winners priced between 20/1 and 28/1, with the trifecta prevailing 85.4% of the time, and winners priced 33/1+ seeing that figure rise to 89.5%.

These figures suggest that trifecta bettors overbet short-priced runners, at least when placing them in first position in their 1-2-3 bet. In contrast, bigger-priced horses are underplayed in terms of being placed in the first position of trifecta bets. Placing runners priced 2/1 or shorter in the first position of your trifecta bet will yield more winning bets, but one could argue that the better value lies with bigger-priced runners placed in that first spot.

Now I will try a similar idea, investigating what percentage of races saw the trifecta beat the tricast based this time on the prices of the second-placed horses. The graph below shows the percentage of the races where the trifecta came out on top:

 

 

The graph illustrates that, in general terms, the trifecta’s edge over the tricast drops as the price of the second-placed runner increases. The two have no perfect correlation, but the trend is clearly downward.

These figures suggest that putting shorter-priced runners in the second spot in the trifecta is a good idea. This time, bigger-priced runners (20/1 plus) finishing second are not so ‘trifecta friendly’.

Time to share this type of data for horses that finished third:

 

 

We see a similar pattern to the second-placed results. Shorter prices in the third spot considerably improve the chances of the trifecta payout exceeding the tricast one. In contrast, horses finishing third and priced 20/1 or bigger see the trifecta edging closer to parity with the tricast.

The ‘price’ findings across all three finishing positions suggest that trifecta bettors can improve their chances even further of getting the bigger payout between the two 1-2-3 bets by considering prices in conjunction with the finishing position. Therefore, one would surmise that trifecta bettors could potentially increase their returns as well if adopting such considerations.

Of course, instead of a single-position price analysis, we should look at combinations of prices for the first three finishing positions. I have started to do this, but even using the price brackets from earlier, there are far too many potential combinations to crunch and analyse. Also, many such combinations would have occurred very rarely over these 1011 races, and hence, those findings would not be statistically significant. Consequently, I have looked at a few more ‘general’ cases.

 

General Case Studies

Case 1 – The top three finishers are all priced 11/2 or shorter

This scenario occurred in 60 races, so it has a good sample size. Here are the percentage splits for which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

A resounding success for the trifecta was when all three runners were at or near the head of the market. Now, a look at the average payouts of the two bets when these prices occurred:

 

 

On average, the trifecta has paid £37 more than the tricast, which equates to a 50% edge. Therefore, when the prices of the runners in your proposed 1-2-3 bet are within these parameters, you should use the trifecta.

 

Case 2 – The top three finishers are all priced 17/2 or bigger

This time, the prices of all three finishers are much higher. Indeed, 97% of all horses priced 17/2 or bigger from these races were outside the top four of the betting. Hence, this is quite an unusual occurrence and as a result we have only 28 qualifying races. So, this is a smallish sample, but let’s see what the stats say, starting with the percentage splits for which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

We see quite a different picture compared with the 11/2 or shorter results. The tricast came out on top more, albeit the difference equated to just one race (14 ‘wins’ to 13).

Onto the average payouts now:

 

 

A second win for the tricast averaging £377 more, giving the tricast close to a 13% edge per bet (on average).

However, I must share some extra information as two tricast payouts in this subset were unusually high. The first, at Newbury, saw the tricast pay £11,662, and the second, at Windsor, paid £16,900. The trifecta payouts, in comparison, were much lower - £6373 at Newbury and £5547 at Windsor. Taking those payouts away, the remaining 26 races where the first three were all priced 17/2 or bigger provided the following average payouts:

 

 

We are back to the usual picture painted in these two articles, where the trifecta averaged more than the tricast.

Ultimately, my two takeaways from races where the first three home were all priced 17/2 or bigger are:

a) trifecta payouts fluctuate much more, and b) the bigger the tricast, the more chance the tricast has of returning more than the trifecta.

The draw seems luckier for trifecta bettors within these price parameters. I guess smaller pool sizes may play a part in this, but I have not investigated this yet, so I cannot say for certain.

 

Case 3 – Top three finishers priced between 5/1 to 10/1

Ideally, I wanted to use prices that I hadn’t used in the previous two ‘case’ examples, but if I had used ‘the missing’ price bracket of 6/1 to 8/1 for all the top three finishers, there would have only been four qualifying races. Hence, I have extended the price boundaries on each side to give us a more ‘middling’ group of prices compared to the first two. That gave us a decent sample of 62 races. Once again, I will start with the percentage splits for which of the two bets came out on top more often.

 

 

This price spread amongst the first three horses has again favoured the trifecta. Now to the average payouts:

 

 

The trifecta has a significant edge here regarding average payouts, averaging £171 more per race than the tricast. This equates to 44%.

I have one additional stat that hopefully will be of interest. Focusing on this subset of results, 17 of them were run at Grade 1 courses (Ascot, Doncaster, Epsom, Goodwood, Newbury, Newmarket, Sandown, York), and the trifecta paid higher in 16 of the 17 (94%). At the same time, other races saw the same payouts (to the nearest £). I appreciate that this is a small sample but a worthwhile ‘share’.

**

 

Summary

Both articles contain quite a lot of data to digest but I hope they have helped those of you who dabble in these exotic bets to maximise your chances of getting better long-term returns than you may have previously.

Of course, not many of us will achieve long-term financial success from these bets. The edge the bookmakers or the Tote have to begin with puts punters at a significant disadvantage. However, these findingd should assist in taking a big chunk out of their advantage if nothing else.

From a personal perspective, when I have some time, I plan to dig further into combinations of prices for the first three finishers, as I feel I have only scratched the surface. I also plan to revisit the whole trifecta/tricast area from an article-writing perspective, as I would like to examine standalone National Hunt data and possibly all-weather data, too.

-DR

A Comparison of Trifecta and Tricast Payouts in Horse Racing

/in /by

In two back-to-back articles, I will examine the ‘battle’ between two exotic bets - the tricast and the trifecta, writes David Renham. These bets are incredibly difficult to win because you must correctly predict the first, second, and third horses home in a specific race. We all know that finding the winner can sometimes be a challenge, let alone the first three!

Introduction

Some punters are lured towards these bets because of the substantial potential gains if you are successful. For example, as I’m writing this piece, the Victoria Cup at Ascot has just finished, with the tricast paying £3,127.09 and the trifecta £7,636.50. I must admit I dabbled myself in this race on the trifecta and felt slightly hard done by as I had the first and second but not the third. To make it worse, the fourth and the fifth horses homes were part of my third-place combinations. I cannot complain, though, as my biggest ever winning bet came from a huge tricast payout, albeit 20 years ago.

As far as punters are concerned, the key difference between the two bets is how winnings are calculated. The tricast is a bookmaker bet, where the returns are computed and generated, giving the bookmaker a healthy margin, whereas the trifecta is a Tote pool bet. The Tote takes 25% of the trifecta pool in the UK and 30% in Ireland. Hence, as punters, you are up against it from the outset with a big overround in favour of both bookies and the Tote.

So which bet is best? Well, for this piece, I will compare handicap races with 10 to 14 runners. The data will be taken from turf flat races in the UK and Ireland during the 2023 season. This amounts to just over 1000 races (1011, to be precise), so it's a decent enough sample. For the record, I have excluded any race where there was a dead heat in one of the first three positions as the payouts get split, and it gets a bit ‘messy’. There were only six such races. I have also excluded races where there was no trifecta payout. This happens occasionally when the pool size is small, and/or the first three to finish were unfancied/decent prices.

 

General comparisons

Average dividend

My first port of call is to examine the average payouts for both bets in these 1000+ races. Here are the splits:

 

 

Frequency of higher dividend

As we can see, the trifecta has a much higher average payout, equating to an edge of around 26%. Digging into the numbers a little more, when the trifecta outperformed the tricast, the payout averaged out at 59% bigger; when the tricast was higher, the payout averaged 52% bigger. Let me now compare race by race in terms of which came out on top with the bigger return/payout more often:

 

 

Average dividend: UK vs Ireland

Four out of every five races saw the trifecta produce a higher return than the tricast. Regarding the ‘same’ return, I included any scenario where the returns were the same when rounded to the nearest pound.

I mentioned earlier that Irish races see a 5% extra deduction in the pool, so one would expect the UK results to outperform the Irish ones as far as the trifecta is concerned. Let’s see how this plays out in real terms, firstly looking at average trifecta payouts:

 

 

UK payouts, on average, are £153 higher, which equates to just over 24%. This is a significant difference – perhaps bigger than you may have expected, given the 5% difference in pool reduction.

Dividend Distribution

It is time to look at the payouts for the tricast and trifecta in more detail. I want to start this part by splitting the number of payouts into ten equal groups from £1 to £1000. Hence, I have totalled up the number of times the tricast paid between £1 and £100, £101 and £200, £201 and 300, and so on. Likewise, I have done the same for the trifecta. Below is a line graph showing the comparison:

 

 

The graph shows that more tricasts than trifectas were paid out when the returns were smaller (£400 or less). The reverse has happened when the payouts have been bigger than £400. Of course, this is to be expected given the average figures we saw at the beginning.

On to looking at payouts of over £1000 up to £3500 – this time, they have been grouped in batches of £250:

 

 

Regarding the payouts between £1001 and £1500, the trifecta wins hands down. It becomes more even after that but overall, the trifecta edges it slightly.

Finally, let me compare the number of payouts when the dividend paid more than £3500 – this time, it will be a straight comparison in terms of the number of times it occurred for each:

 

 

As can be seen, most of the biggest payouts came from the trifecta. However, the two biggest payouts came from the tricast - £11662 and £16900 respectively.

At this juncture, the trifecta looks the better value overall, and by some margin. However, there is plenty more digging to do and research to share.

 

Field size impact on dividend

What difference has the number of runners made to the payouts? Let me compare the average payouts for both tricast and trifecta for each field size:

 

 

Both graphs are generally on an upward trajectory as you would expect. Comparing the two, the trifecta edge over the tricast strengthens as the field size increases. In races of 12 to 14 runners, the trifecta has had an edge over the tricast of 25%+. This edge remains significant in 10 and 11-runner races but drops to around 14%.

 

Course Comparison

For the last part of this first article, I will look at how the tricast and trifecta played out in different courses. I have included courses with 15 or more qualifying races in 2023 as that gives us a decent enough sample size. First, let me compare course by course,  which of the two bets came out on top more often ['Draw %' means the percentage of races where the tricast and trifecta paid the same, to the nearest pound]. Courses in red are Irish, and four courses had enough races to qualify – I have listed the courses in alphabetical order:

 

 

Of the 30 courses, 20 saw the trifecta producing the bigger payouts over 80% of the time. The top five 'trifecta performing courses’ in terms of this metric were Ayr (90.6%), Brighton (89.5%), Leicester (88.5%), Catterick (87.9%), and York (87.9%). Hence, more than nine races saw the trifecta beat the tricast at Ayr in every ten.

There were four courses where the percentage was below 70%, namely Leopardstown (69.6%), Beverley (65.8%), Ripon (65.0%), and Musselburgh (61.5%). So quite a difference between the highest, Ayr, and the lowest, Musselburgh. At this point in my research, I cannot easily find a reason for such a variance between the two; perhaps I’ll find out with more digging. The table shows the consistency of trifecta success over tricast.

The second set of course data to share are the average payouts for each. I have included a column showing the percentage difference between the averages. 28 of the 30 courses saw a higher average payout for the trifecta. The two where the tricast ‘won’ have been highlighted in bold.

 

 

The Curragh has seen the most significant differential between the two – an 82% edge for the trifecta. I thought it would be interesting to share all the results from the Curragh, including the difference between the monetary and percentage payouts. The races highlighted in red are the ones where the trifecta paid more:

 

 

This is enlightening as it does highlight the occasional randomness of the trifecta. For example, the 3:20 on 13th August saw an unusually small trifecta payout; in contrast, the payout at 4:05 on 7th October saw the reverse, with a much bigger payout than one would expect, especially given the prices of 18/1, 11/2, and 4/1. Based on my research, I estimate that this type of price configuration would pay around £550-£650.

Let me now discuss Newbury and Windsor – the two courses where the tricast ‘prevailed’. I mentioned earlier that the most significant payouts over these 1011 races were tricasts - £11662 and £16900. As you probably can guess, one of these payouts came from Newbury and the other from Windsor.

There is quite a difference between some courses in terms of the averages. This will be influenced by the market position/prices of the first three homes. To give an illustration of this, I will compare Salisbury and Ascot in terms of the average price of the horses that finished in the first three:

 

 

The prices of the first three horses will strongly influence tricast/trifecta payouts, but having some actual numbers to back it up is good. It should be noted that there is more to it than just the average prices of the first three – the market rank of the horses can be significant, too; and, in the second piece, I will delve into that in some detail.

Summary

As far as the trifecta is concerned, the size of the pool is likely to play a role. Also, the 'make-up' of the punters who have put money into the pool probably influences things. What I mean by that is, ‘What proportion of the money placed in specific trifecta bets comes from savvy/regular trifecta punters compared with those that essentially are just trying their luck?’ I am guessing that at some big meetings, especially World Pool days, you will probably get a considerable proportion of racegoers who are not regular bettors compared to bog-standard meetings. Hence, some of these will probably have a dabble on the odd trifecta due to that lure of a big win for a small outlay. This is my hypothesis, and although it is impossible to pin down actual numbers/percentages of money placed by types of racegoers, I am wondering whether further research for article two may at least offer some clues.

Anyway, it is time for me to crunch more tricast/trifecta numbers. Until the follow-up...

- DR

Horse Performance: Course, Distance, and C&D Winners Compared

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I looked at course, distance, and course and distance National Hunt data a few months back, writes Dave Renham. I will revisit this area now but switch my attention to the flat. I will ignore all-weather racing to write about that in the future. Hence, these findings apply only to UK turf flat racing, and I have looked at the last eight full seasons from 2016 to 2023.

I mentioned last time that there is a perception that course form is necessary; likewise, some see it as a positive if the horse is proven over the distance. In the National Hunt article, previous course winners/distance winners/C&D winners won more often than horses that had not won at the course/distance/C&D. They offered slightly better value despite the market adjusting quite well. Let us see if we see a similar pattern ‘on the level’.

Course winners

I will start with course winners. As we know, courses in the UK are not uniform – the topography for each course varies. Hence, one would assume some horses act better on specific courses than others. I would like to begin by comparing the strike rates of course winners versus horses that have not won at the course (non-course winners). Both win and each way figures are shown:

 

 

Course winners clearly perform better from a win and a win-and-placed perspective.

Regarding returns to SP, course winners fare slightly better, although the difference between the two is barely 2p in the £. To Betfair SP, the roles are reversed, with non-course winners doing a little better. As we have seen in various previous scenarios, the betting market seems good at making the necessary adjustments.

Looking at the non-course winner group first, if we split them into two as follows:

1 -  those who have previously run at the course

and

2 -  those who have not run at the course previously,

then we see that those who have not run at the course have been slightly more successful in terms of win percentage, with an 11.3% strike rate compared to 9.9%. In terms of returns, however, they are virtually identical.

One statistic worth sharing is that horses with no course wins which have raced 15 or more times at the track in question have won just one race from 81 attempts. Such horses are rare but it looks like any future qualifier can be discounted.

Concentrating now on course winners, I would like to start by looking at horses with just one previous course win to their name.

Course Wins = 1

I will split the performances by number of runs they have had at the track. The reason behind this is simple: you could get some horses that have raced once at the course and hence are one from one, whereas you could get horses that are one from 10 or even one from 20. A horse that has just won once in 20 attempts at the same venue will not scream out as a horse that is particularly suited to the track.

Let me share the win strike rates for different numbers of course run groupings:

 

 

The graph clearly shows that one-time course winners with fewer previous course runs win more often. Horses that have won once at the track but raced there ten or more times have scored less than once in every 14 attempts.

Let's see if the A/E indices correlate with these strike rates:

 

 

The graph shows a strong relationship between the A/E indices and the strike rates. Any potential value in one-time course winners tails off once we hit seven or more previous course runs.

Course Wins = 2

I will look at the same idea for horses that have won twice previously at the course. Once again, I’ll start with the win strike rates for different numbers of course run groupings:

 

 

We see the same pattern as before. It should also be noted that horses with two course wins and that had previously raced at the course either twice or thrice broke even to BSP (ROI was –0.4%).

Onto the A/E indices now:

 

 

The two to three previous course run group has a very solid A/E index at 0.92. The 10+ group spoils the correlation, but if we look at the complete stats, we can clearly see that the returns to BSP indicate that the fewer previous course runs, the better.

 

 

Losses become significant once we get to seven or more previous course runs.

Course Wins = 3+

I will now lump together horses with three or more course wins to give a decent sample size. This time though, as we have different numbers of previous course wins, it makes sense to share the data using past course win percentages. Hence, a horse with three wins from 5 visits would sit at 60%, a horse with four wins from 25 would sit at 16%, and so on. This time I will go straight to a table showing all key stats in one area:

 

 

Horses with three-plus course wins and who have previously won at least two-thirds of their starts at the course - the 67-100% group - have by far the best overall figures. They have a much higher strike rate and the best A/E index and have made a small profit to BSP.

 

We have seen the same pattern across all data sets to date: horses with the best course win rates (based on all previous course runs) perform the best.

 

Before moving on to distance winners, I want to examine the results for individual courses. To do this, I will look at the A/E indices for horses that have won at least once at the relevant course. Here are the courses with the ten highest A/E indices.

 

*I am using A/E indices regularly in this piece and if you would like to read more about A/E use this link

 

 

Haydock and Epsom have particularly strong indices. Epsom is a unique track, and it will come as no surprise to many that it appears so high on the list. Two courses that have not made the cut, and which I expected to, are Brighton and Chester. They were joint 14th on the list with an A/E index of 0.87.

Three courses have recorded an A/E index of below 0.80: Yarmouth (0.77), Thirsk (0.75), and Carlisle (0.75). Wetherby also has a figure below 0.80, at just 0.71, but the data set is too small to be confident in at this stage.

Distance winners

It is time to switch our attention to distance winners. As with course winners, I will start by comparing the strike rates of distance winners versus horses that have not won at a distance (non-distance winners). Both win and each way figures are shown once more:

 

 

There is a slight edge to distance winners, but they have virtually identical A/E indices at 0.87 and 0.86, respectively. When looking ‘generally,’ winning previously at a distance does not offer much of an edge in turf flat racing. However, it is always worth digging a little bit deeper.

Let me compare past distance win percentages by grouping all past distance winners. Here are the findings:

 

 

Horses who have previously won at least two-thirds of their starts at a particular distance did best, and showed a very solid-looking A/E index of 0.92 with losses of just 2p in the £. This presents a similar pattern to when I combined the 3+ course win data earlier, especially when considering that top group.

Next, I decided to examine whether it makes a difference how recent the last distance win was. This is what the stats told me:

 

 

Unfortunately, this data offers little, with the only discernible general pattern being that the more recent the win, the more likely a horse is to repeat that win. That may very well be conflated with the fact that recent winners overall are more likely to win again the recent non-winners.

After further digging, I discovered the most interesting findings concerning distance winners.

1. Looking at horses aged 5+, if you restrict this cohort to having won once at a distance on their only start at that distance, they have proved profitable to follow. Hence, if backing ALL 5yos and older with one distance win from one distance start when having their second start at the relevant distance, you would have won 133 races from 862 qualifiers (SR 15.4%) for a BSP profit of £220.34 (ROI +25.6%). These runners have an A/E index of 1.01 and have been profitable for the past five years.

2. Horses with three wins from three starts at the same distance have proved profitable to follow when they have attempted to make it four distance wins out of four. They have won over 28% of the time (53 wins from 188) for a BSP profit of £62.52 (ROI +33.3%). The A/E index stands at an impressive 1.13.

3. Horses aged nine or older that have achieved two distance wins in their careers have proved to be poor investments, regardless of how many distance runs they have had. This group has provided 921 runners of which only 56 won, hitting a win percentage of just 6.1%. Backing all qualifiers to £1 level stakes would have lost you £216.64, which equates to over 23 pence in the £.

4. Two-year-olds with two or more distance wins have made a profit when attempting the distance again. They have 144 wins from 891 (SR 16.2%) for a BSP profit of £38.23 (ROI +4.3%).

Course and distance (C&D) winners

It is now time to combine the two elements. I will start by comparing the strike rates of C&D winners versus horses that have not won over C&D (non-C&D winners). Both win and each way figures are shown once more:

 

 

These are the highest win percentages we have seen for the ‘winning’ group to date, but only just. The returns to SP have been virtually identical, with a wafer-thin edge to C&D winners; but, to BSP, non-C&D winners have proved better value by nearly 6p in the £ (4% loss compared with 10% loss).

On to the win strike rates in terms of the number of C&D wins. Here are the splits:

 

 

The results for 4+ C&D winners are the reverse of the National Hunt findings. In NH races, horses that had won four or more times over course and distance scored 15.5% of the time, procuring a healthy return of over 41p in the £. On the flat, this group scored less than 10% of the time, losing over 34p in the £.

It is past C&D win percentages I want to look at next. I am using the same percentage bands/groupings as before:

 

 

We see the usual trend of the strike rates dropping as the C&D win percentages drop. Once again, the best overall stats are the group with the highest C&D Win% of 67% or more. It is possible that some value bets could be found within this group.

Individual course C&D data is the next port of call. Courses are listed alphabetically with ‘positive’ A/E indices (0.93 and above) shown in green and ‘negative’ indices (0.80 or lower) shown in blue. Profit/losses have been calculated to BSP less 5% commission:

 

 

Just two of the six ‘green’ courses (Chester and Newbury) managed a blind profit to BSP. Generally, though, the takeaway should be to avoid C&D winners from the courses in blue, especially Carlisle, Thirsk, Windsor, and York.

Finally, I want to share the trainers who have performed best with past C&D winners when comparing their performance to their non-C&D winners. Seven trainers are listed in the table below, comparing their win percentages for the two respective groups:

 

 

These seven all perform above the norm when it comes to past C&D winners. Five of the seven have produced blind profits to BSP with their C&D winners, with six hitting A/E indices of 1.00 or bigger. Here are the individual figures for these past C&D winners:

 

 

There are some solid statistics there. It will be interesting to see how these trainers fare in the next few years with their past C&D winners.

 

**

Summary

To conclude, previous course winners, distance winners and C&D winners clearly win more often than horses that have not won at the course/distance/C&D. However, evaluating the better value is more complicated. Generally, course, and course and distance, winners give better results than do distance winners.

I will leave you with what I feel are the most interesting findings:

1. For horses which have won once or twice previously at the course, stick to those horses that have raced six or fewer times at the venue.

2. With horses that have won three times or more at the course, focus on horses that have won at least two-thirds of their races (67%+).

3. Past winners returning to Haydock, Epsom or Ripon can be seen as a positive.

4. Horses that have won at least two-thirds of their races (67%+) at today's race distance are the best distance group to concentrate on (losses of only 2p in the £).

5. Avoid horses that have won four or more times over C&D. They tend to be over-bet.

6. Chester and Newbury are courses where C&D winners generally perform above the norm.

7. Be wary of past C&D winners at Carlisle, Thirsk, Windsor or York.

8. The stables of Mick and David Easterby, Charles Hills, Brian Ellison, Mick Appleby, Iain Jardine, Bryan Smart and Ed Walker have all done well with previous C&D winners.

Until next time...

- DR

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