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Monday Musings: Of The Kid and DRF

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Amid all the extravagantly impressive performances of Wilie Mullins’ three winners on the first day of the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown on Saturday, I must say I was transfixed by one less predictable show a little nearer to home, writes Tony Stafford. Anyway, that’s how I would describe Musselburgh for us down south.

I had spoken to Nicky Richards on Saturday morning about the chance of The Kalooki Kid in the bet365 Scottish Champion Handicap Chase over 2m4.5f, surprised that his seven-year-old was as short as 11/4 for this £100k, £51k to the winner prize.

Nicky was optimistic, saying he had jumped very well at Doncaster (only second time over fences) and he was hopeful as long as the jumping held up.

Let’s put it in perspective. After a debut for the season when second over two miles at Ayr (12 fences) and a win where a few of the potential dangers fell at crucial stages when admittedly he had already taken charge long before the 15th and final fence, he came to Musselburgh having jumped 27 fences in public.

Now, off a tough enough 131 having been raised 7lb for Doncaster, the son of marathon flat-racer Gentlewave, out of a Flemensfirth mare, faced 11 opponents on Saturday. You can add to his two chase runs, six with two wins over hurdles last season, but a starting price of 2/1? Never.

The said opponents had all won over fences and in terms of experience had The Kalooki Kid by his extremities. None had raced fewer than eight times previously over fences, with four of them having won five times each. Adding their hurdles tally to the chase totals, the least number of runs was 16 – in one case – and it was mostly around 20, compared with the Richards’ horse’s eight. More pertinently, the 11 had collected 38 wins in chases before Saturday.

As I said, Nicky was hopeful the jumping would hold up. Regular partner Danny McMenamin settled him on the inside from the start; initially in around fifth in the running and going past the stands was soon in third, the leaps uniformly accurate without being in any way flashy.

By the time they turned for home with four to go, The Kalooki Kid was in a close second place, poised to tackle the long-time leader Saint Segal. A superior jump four out soon had him in front and still going easily.

Saint Segal had bolted up the time before for the Jane Williams stable at Newbury in December, his third win over fences and fifth in all. He battled bravely as for the second time running, The Kalooki Kid reckoned he’d done enough once clear on the run-in, but he still had more than two lengths to spare at the line.

So here we have a horse, bought at the Landrover sale in Ireland by Richards for €40k in June 2021.  Allowed to mature just as his father, the late Gordon W, would have done in his years bossing Greystoke Stables, and now the rewards should be flowing in the yard’s time-honoured manner, granted the required good luck.

With a pedigree like his, three miles should not be a problem, so now it’s down to the trainer to plot the right path. At 68, it’s remarkable that Nicky was still riding out until last autumn when he had an awful fall, breaking his pelvis among other injuries. The rehabilitation has been going steadily, and it would be great to see him back on track in time to witness the future triumphs from his new stable star.

The 2024/25 season has been building up nicely with 21 wins (and almost £400k in prizes) so far and, as well as The Kalooki Kid, he can look forward to further success with the likes of recent impressive bumper scorer They’re Chancers.

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It was to be expected that Galopin Des Champs buttoned up the first part of the unheard-of triple double when adding a third successive Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown to the two Cheltenham Gold Cups which he has collected in between.

He might have been beaten twice since Cheltenham at right-handed Punchestown by Martin Brassil’s Fastorslow and then stablemate Fact To File, but as Willie Mullins would say, it’s not what you lose that matters, it’s what you win.

The same Fact To File was in this three-miler on Saturday and like three or four others was poised just behind the champion as he as usual led the field into the short home straight with one to jump. Then, Paul Townend asked and Galopin Des Champs delivered. The finishing burst obliterated any challenge.

It was a similar situation with last year’s Triumph Hurdle winner Majborough as he made it two from two since Cheltenham. In a display of raw power rather than slick jumping he made the considerable opposition in the Irish Champion Chase look much less that it had appeared beforehand.

Now he is poised for yet another of those titanic Mullins/Nicky Henderson battles in ‘the’ Arkle at Cheltenham with Sir Gino. Two emerging giants – redolent almost of the Mill House/ Arkle jousts in the 1960’s which so enthralled racegoers for almost three years until Arkle proved his immortality.

The third Mullins winner came in the opening race. The fact that the horse to be called Final Demand was sold for €230k as long ago as June 2022 suggested somebody knew something. The buyer waited until last March before sending him to a point-to-point which he won with ease.

He was then persuaded to let him go and it would be interesting to know how much Brian Drew and Professor Caroline Tisdall needed to shell out for him.

Anyway, they won’t be crying after an easy win at Limerick between Christmas and the New Year and Saturday’s exceptional 12-length victory in the opening Nathaniel Lacy and Partners Solicitors €88k to the winner Novice Hurdle over 2m6f. Mullins had four back-up runners in this and far from creaming the place money, all he had to show was 4th, 5th and two pulled ups including the second favourite Supersundae.

Final Demand will be a banker to follow Ballyburn in the 2m5f novice hurdle at Cheltenham while Ballyburn showed he was back in business after finding Sir Gino too speedy over two miles at Kempton at Christmas time. Back to the distance of last year’s hurdle win at the Festival, Ballyburn slaughtered yesterday’s opposition in the Ladbrokes Grade 1 Novice Chase.

Briefly returning to Final Demand, a son of Walk In The Park, he has the same broodmare sire, Flemensfirth, as The Kalooki Kid. Walk In The Park has been a shining light among Coolmore’s main jumps station, Grange Stud, for the past ten seasons in which time fee has always been advertised as “private”.

His story is odd enough. Runner-up in Michael Tabor’s colours in the Derby, a son of Montjeu, also a Tabor horse and a dual Classic winner (French and Irish Derby), Walk In The Park won only once (as a juvenile) in 14 career starts. Initially standing at stud in France, the year before his transfer to Ireland, his last publicised fee was €1,500. How do they do it? Like Willie Mullins, no doubt, talent and dedication.

We were promised a thriller between two Mullins horses in the Irish Champion Hurdle. State Man had won the last two along with last year’s Champion Hurdle proper in the absence of Constitution Hill, but the market settled on the younger mare Lossiemouth who had put in a spirited show when second to Constitution Hill in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton.

But the clash evaporated into a damp squib down the back straight as Lossiemouth fell, leaving State Man, who narrowly avoided being caught up in the tumble, to collect the €112k first prize. Daddy Long Legs, in the winner’s second colours of Mrs Donnelly, stayed on best to get the “measly” €38k second prize for what was almost a school round until he was asked to go faster in the last half mile and beat two other no-hopers. Was there no UK horse thought capable of nicking one of those lavish place prizes?

Well done then to Warren Greatrex for his enterprise in sending over Good And Clever for the novice hurdle won easily by Mullins’ Kopek Des Bordes. Kopek will be a strong favourite for the Supreme Novice at Cheltenham, but Good And Clever collected €13.5k for his owners Jim and Claire Bryce, as the sole UK runner on the day. That following an unplaced Henry Daly runner – 33/1 as top-weight in a three-mile handicap hurdle the previous afternoon.

- TS

When NH Trainers run two in the same race

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Back in July 2021 I shared some research connected with UK flat trainers when they saddled two runners in the same race (which you can read here), writes Dave Renham. In this article I will do likewise with UK National Hunt trainers. Clearly, there are occasions when trainers saddle three or more runners in a race but, to make the research and writing process easier, for this offering I will once more focus on exactly two runners saddled.

It is likely that in the past some punters have been lured by the prices on two runners from the same stable: if one is 3/1 and the other 14/1 the chances are the focus will be on the more fancied runner of the pair. I, for one, have been guilty of this before.

The data in this analysis has been taken from UK National Hunt races between January 1st 2016 and December 31st 2024. All profit and loss figures have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price less commission. For the shorter priced horse of the pair, I will call this the “first string”, the bigger priced runner will be known as the “second string”.

Overall trainer performance when running two in the same race

Let me first look at trainers who have had two or more runners in the same race on at least 100 occasions (hence at least 200 runners overall). There have been 28 trainers that qualify in the study period using that stipulation:

 

Below are the combined results of all runners for each trainer (i.e. both first and second string horses). The trainers are listed in alphabetical order:

 

 

Not surprisingly, just four of the 28 trainers show a profit when looking at both runners combined. It is unlikely that backing both runners for every trainer in every race is going to make a profit long term as the overall stats clearly show. Indeed, the four in profit owe that accolade to some huge prices going in.

Let us see what happens when we break the data down and compare trainer win strike rates between first and second string runners. The plan is not to compare the raw win percentages with each other, but to add up the winners for each of the two market ranks and work out what percentage of all the winners came from the trainer’s first string (shorter priced runners) and what percentage came from the second string (longer priced runners).

In other words, if we use Donald McCain as an example, he has had 60 winners when running two horses in the same race, of which 45 were his first string runners (75%); 15 winners came from his second string runners (25%).

To show this comparison for each trainer I have split their data into four separate graphs, so as not to overcrowd the pictorial evidence. The orange bar represents first string runners, the blue bar is for second string.

 

 

As the graphs show, the stats vary greatly from trainer to trainer. For example, Nigel Twiston-Davies has two percentages that are close together (57.1% and 42.9%) having done particularly well with second strings, whereas Phil Kirby’s figures are poles apart (95.8% and 4.2%). Overall, when combining all 28 trainers, 75.7% of the winners have come from their first string entries, 24.3% from their second string. These figures are almost a carbon copy of those calculated in the flat trainer article back in 2021.

 

Trainer performance with first string runners

Eight trainers have made a profit with their first string runners and their figures, ordered by BSP profit, are shown in the table below:

 

 

Caution is advised regarding the profit figure for Christian Williams as he had BSP winners equating to 165/1 and 179/1, and yes, they were his first string runners despite the high prices! Chris Gordon in contrast has not had any big-priced winners and overall, his record with first string runners is excellent. If you restrict Gordon’s first string runners to those priced in single figures (at BSP) his record reads a highly impressive 29 wins from 82 (SR 35.4%) for a profit of £33.90 (ROI +41.3%).

Paul Nicholls has had over 400 first choice runners in this double-handed context, and his biggest priced first string winner was BSP 13.0 (12/1). Hence his bottom line has not been skewed by numerous scorers at very big odds. If we look at all his first string runners priced BSP 13.0 or less he has secured a healthy profit of £90.23 (ROI +27.2%) from 332 qualifiers. If we look at the Nicholls profit year on year with this subset of runners we see the following:

 

 

2021 was the year that produced over half of the profit but even taking that out of the equation the performance and consistency has been excellent. Over the nine years of study, seven have shown a profit.

Phil Kirby’s figures are also not badly skewed by horses winning at big prices. Sticking to a price cap of BSP 13.0 or shorter, Kirby has secured 20 winners from 68 qualifiers (SR 29.4%) for a profit of £24.02 (ROI +35.3%).

Nicky Henderson did not secure an overall profit with his first-string runners but the jockey booking seems to have made a difference. When Nico de Boinville has been riding the Henderson first string, the results read 49 wins from 224 (SR 21.9%) for a profit of £21.67 (ROI +9.7%). When any other jockey has been on board the Henderson figures read 46 from 241 (SR 19.1%) for a loss of £74.80 (ROI -31%).

Dan Skelton is a trainer who has performed extremely well over the past few seasons across the entire National Hunt sphere, but when we focus on his first string runners (of two) in chases his stats make very poor reading. From 95 qualifiers only 11 won (SR 11.6%) for hefty losses of £46.44 (ROI -48.9%).

Trainer performance with second string runners

Five trainers have produced a BSP profit with their second-string runners. Clearly big prices have made the difference here with all strike rates under 8%:

 

 

As profits go these should largely be taken with a pinch of salt, but I wanted to share them all the same.

It may be more useful to share a list of trainers with a very poor record with their second string runners, so below are those trainers with the worst returns across the nine year review period:

 

 

Based on these figures it seems sensible to all but rule out second string runners from trainers in the above table.

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One trainer whose data has not been shared as yet is Irish maestro Willie Mullins, simply due to him not quite saddling enough UK NH runners to make the cut. For the record his figures for both first and second strings are good with blind profits to BSP for both. His first string runners have secured returns of 26p in the £, his second string runners 28p in the £.

Harry Fry is another trainer who had less than 200 runners of this type overall, but his first string made a blind profit. Indeed, when focusing on these first string runners using the earlier price stipulation of BSP 13.0 or less, Fry has secured 14 wins from 48 (SR 29.2%) for a profit of £26.31 (ROI +54.8%).

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Trainer statistics are used by many punters when contemplating a bet. These stats come in different forms such as course stats, recent form stats (e.g. last 14 days), favourite stats, horses on debut, etc. The ones I have shared in this article generally fly under the radar but, hopefully, you have found them useful for either pinpointing possible value bets or, just as importantly, helping to avoid poor value ones. Unsurprisingly, given the overall stats uncovered in this article, the evidence points firmly towards focusing most attention on the shorter priced first string runners.

- DR

Monday Musings: The Trials of a Champion

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They crammed into Cheltenham on Saturday, intent on watching possibly the best hurdler of all time go through a public work-out where the betting market suggested there was only a single chance in 13 that he might not retain his unbeaten record, writes Tony Stafford.

Constitution Hill, back from his year’s inactivity with a smart success in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton, was getting paid £71k for his troubles and, as he and Nico de Boinville approached the final flight in a clear lead, even those who risk such odds as a matter of routine often “in-running” were counting their impending returns.

But then it almost ended in, if not tragedy – we’ve seen enough of thise in the UK and elsewhere in the world lately to know the difference – at least horse-racing turmoil, as the big horse crashed through that last obstacle.

 

 

He’s clever, though, is Constitution Hill, and landed efficiently enough while de Boinville wasn’t as complacent as his idling mount had been and stayed on board. Ignominy would have been his fate, but normal service was resumed up the hill, with Brentford Hope merely achieving best of the rest status and a very nice second prize of 26 grand.

Not bad for an afternoon’s work when the winner is rated 29lb his superior. Congratulations are due for Harry Derham to identify such a potential reward.

So now it is straight to the Festival, for which Constitution Hill is a 4/5 chance ahead of the Irish trio of Lossiemouth, Brighterdaysahead and last year’s stand-in winner State Man. Maybe next weekend’s Dublin Racing Festival will offer further clarification of where the potential dangers lie, but 4/5 with the guarantee of non-runner no bet seems value to this jaundiced eye. I said earlier, possibly the best we’ve ever seen. Sorry, he’s the best and you can’t get away from it.

Before Saturday’s other most interesting contest with the Festival in mind, there was general concern that East India Dock, the overnight 8/13 favourite for the JCB Triumph Trial Juvenile Hurdle might be a trifle “skinny” in face of a strong back-up field for this juvenile contest. He started at 2/1 on and won as he pleased.

 

 

This was the race in 2024 where Sir Gino, Constitution Hill’s “shadow” in the Nicky Henderson yard, demolished Burdett Road’s hopes of Triumph Hurdle success when the James Owen gelding had been market leader after his bright start to jumping.

In the event, neither horse was there to try to stem the irresistible force that Willie Mullins was able to bring to the race which he has dominated for the past two seasons with Lossiemouth and then Majborough who won at Cheltenham last March from Kargese.

Sir Gino, having missed Cheltenham, took out Kargese at Aintree and then deputised for Constitution Hill to win the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle in November. With Constitution back in time to run over hurdles at Christmas, Sir Gino was allowed to switch smoothly to fences and impressed so much in beating Ballyburn at Kempton that he’s odds on for the Arkle Novice Chase even though Majborough has also made a winning switch to the larger obstacles. Again, Leopardstown might give us an inkling as to where the Mullins team is now.

Henderson’s skill at earmarking a lightly-raced French import as a Cheltenham Festival contender had, until Saturday, had a serious influence on the Triumph Hurdle market. Lulamba, the easy UK debut winner for Henderson of his juvenile hurdle at Ascot remains the 5/4 favourite despite East India Dock’s ten-length win on Saturday. The third horse home had been 18 lengths behind him when they met previously over the course, now it was 28 lengths back to that Nigel Hawke runner, Torrent.

In between them in the J P McManus colours was Stencil, a good winner two runs back in France for the George/Zetterholm team, but a well-beaten sixth last time out, both races at Compiegne.

Lulamba had raced only once before his smooth success, that was for previous trainer Arnaud Chaille-Chaille (so good they named him twice – still can’t resist it!) at Auteuil. He contested a 15-runner AQPS race and started almost 8/1 yet bolted home by five lengths from another George/Zetterholm juvenile.

Compare that history with East India Dock, who went off in front and made all on Saturday. That was his third unbeaten hurdle race following a busy campaign on the flat where he won twice with three places from ten, running at two miles and ending with an 89 rating. Two different ways of arriving at the same point.

Which do you choose, the battled-hardened ex-flat racer or the totally untested dual hurdle winner? I know which type Henderson would favour and with the immediately-preceding example of Sir Gino who came a similar route in 2023, it’s hard to pass over Lulamba, but I think it would be great for racing if James Owen did have a Festival win.

Incidentally, it seems he still intends having a shot at the Champion Hurdle with Burdett Road. The Greatwood Hurdle winner is up to 150 after his latest third to Constitution Hill and Lossiemouth in the Christmas Hurdle and you are entitled to believe he would have finished closer but for a very bad mistake at the last, which brought a tired effort to the finish thereafter.

Running for third or fourth at Cheltenham is still a worthwhile objective. Last year, the places behind State Man were around £100k, £50k and £25k. With the chance of a smallish field, where can you be getting such value for money? Also, the proud right in your later days to show your grandchildren the race card with your horse and the greatest hurdler of all time contesting the same race.

My grandchildren have had the odd day at the races, but it’s their parents who have the recollection of the day they came to Cheltenham late in January 1986 to see my horse (owned with Terry Ramsden after he bought half my share) win Sir Gino’s and East India Dock’s Triumph Hurdle Trial. The silver trophy was and is very nice, and I’ve promised it to my elder daughter. I just had a look and it needs a clean.

The race in those days was sponsored by the Tote and was worth ten grand to the winner. Tangognat started second favourite for the big race but finished tailed off on fast ground. Peter Scudamore, who had ridden him to that win and also on January 1 at the same course, was forced to ride for his boss David (The Duke) Nicholson despite protest, and won on 50/1 shot Solar Cloud, his and Nicholson’s first winner at the Festival.

When earlier I played a couple of times in football matches against David Nicholson – press versus trainers – I came away with heavily-bruised shins, he was such a tough bugger. But deep down there was a great degree of kindness, too.

A few years later and after the football, a horse I’d bought for two grand off Robert Sangster for an owner of Wilf Storey’s had proved a money-spinner. That horse, Great Easeby, was by Vincent O’Brien’s and Sangster’s French Derby winner and later champion stallion Caerleon and was adept both as a hurdler and a flat-race stayer.

He lined up for the 24-runner Hamlet Cigars Gold Card Handicap Hurdle (precursor to the Pertemps Final) and won all out from fast-finishing Gillan Cove, with Nicholson’s Pharanear a close third.  The stewards interviewed the jockeys to see if Great Easeby had caused interference to Pharanear and 7lb claimer Richie McGrath was entitled to be nervous.

Nicholson, however, instructed his jockey Richard Johnson not to object, which might otherwise had given the race to Gillan Cove. The Duke – more a King to my mind.

Incidentally, 29 years on, the same Richard Johnson signed the chit at Cheltenham’s Tattersalls sales on Saturday night at 230k for an Irish point-to-point winner. The not-so-young McGrath is also busy with a preparation yard in Middleham and remains a great friend and help to his old mate Graham Lee.

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I note trainers are being recommended by their trade organisation the NTF to request payment for interviews and Dan Skelton is quoted in yesterday’s Racing Post as agreeing with the idea.

I wonder how much trainer Evan Williams would be expecting to price up his “inside information” after Saturday’s 4.20 race at Uttoxeter. Interviewed by Andrew Thornton and asked about his Owl Of Athens that had been backed from the overnight 66/1 to 85/40, he said, “you must be clutching at straws if you backed it”. Owl Of Athens won by eight lengths.

- TS

The Maths of Multiples, Part 2

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In my previous article, the discussion moved to each-way doubles and how the makeup of certain races / markets has the potential to give punters an edge over bookmakers, certainly in terms of the place part of such a bet, writes Dave Renham. You can read that article here. In this follow up, we are going to dive deeper into the world of the ‘each-way double’.

For these bets to be profitable in the long run, we ideally need to have achieved a value price on both of the two selections, in terms of the win part as well as the place part, for every bet that has been struck. In other words, the actual chance for both parts of the bet for both selections are higher than the percentage chances on offer from the bookmaker. Technically we could also make a long-term profit if one of the two parts of the bet always offers enough value to compensate for the part that does not. It goes without saying that achieving any sort of edge is far from easy.

To try and illustrate this in numbers let us imagine an each-way double where we have place terms of one quarter the odds, and the price on both selections is 5.0 (4/1). The true percentage odds for a horse priced 5.0 to win is 20%; the true percentage chance for a place with quarter the odds stands at 50%. (N.B. a ‘win’ constitutes a ‘place’, so effectively ‘place’ means ‘win or place’). Therefore, if both horses are priced over 5.0 to win, we have a value bet.

To help crunch the numbers, I have created an excel spreadsheet to simulate a series of each-way doubles with a specific price / percentage chance for each selection. The number of simulated each-way selections for each series of bets has been set to 1000. This is a huge number of races but due to each-way doubles rarely achieving two wins, it makes sense to use such a large number. Ultimately it is easy to tweak the number of bets/races for each simulated series, so I could adjust the number of races up or down. Within each simulation I can adjust the win/place percentage chance of these ‘runners’ (above and below the ‘true’ percentage chance) to examine the long-term outcome from a profit/loss/returns perspective.

So, to kick off I'll return to the example of the two 5.0 priced runners given in the third paragraph, where we have place terms of one quarter the odds. If we assume each 5.0 price is always the ‘true’ price, then over 1000 bets we would break even. The maths look like this based on a £1 each-way stake (£2 in total) on these 1000 each-way doubles:

Races with two wins – 40
Races with ‘place’ wins (e.g. Win/Place or Place/Win or Place/Place) – 210
Races where the bet was a loser (e.g. at least one horse unplaced) - 750

Thus...

The 40 successful win bets would have paid £960 profit and £120 profit on the place part of the bet;
The 210 winning place bets would have paid £630 profit for the place part but would have lost the £210 placed on the win part of the bet, leaving a profit of £420.
The 750 losing bets would have seen a loss of both the win stake and the place stakes equating to £1500.

Adding the profits of £960, £120 and £420 we end up in credit to the tune of £1500, but subtracting the losing bet total of £1500 we arrive at that break-even situation as mentioned above.

This 5.0 / 5.0 example shows what happens when the horses win and place as often as they theoretically should do based on their odds / percentage chance. In this case we know already that a true 5.0 shot should win 20% of their races and win or be placed in 50% of them. So, what happens when these percentage chances differ from the ‘true’ percentage chances? This is where my spreadsheet comes in to save time.

The first graph will look at the effect that different win and placed percentages have on the long-term Return on Investment figure (ROI%). Remember we will be theoretically placing 1000 each-way doubles on two horses priced 5.0 with quarter the odds a place. In order to help explain the graph, the table below shows how I have adjusted the win and place percentages:

 

 

 

 

There is a neat symmetry to these results. As is shown, if we could increase the average win chance by 2% (from 20% to 22%) and the placed percentage also by 2 (from 50% to 52%) the long-term return would be a pleasing 14% or 14p in the £.

Let’s look at another example. This time we will assume both horses are priced 6.0 (5/1) but the place terms are 1/5 of the odds. I have tweaked/changed the percentages in exactly the same way as I did in the first example. For the record the true win percentage chance here is 16.7% (to 1 decimal place), with the place chance being 50%. Here is what I found:

 

 

We get a similar pattern as one would expect although not quite the exact symmetry of the previous example. It should be noted at this juncture that the 1000 bet simulation using this particular price point could show that a horse has won 39.89 times in the 1000 races! Clearly this is not possible, so I have simply rounded the ‘expected’ win or placed results to the nearest whole number. Therefore, one could argue that the 7.8% ROI for let’s say the W17.7 P51 group is not 100% accurate, but it is as near as doesn't matter in the context of these simulations.

Time now to look at two horses with different prices; I am going to consider horses priced 3.0 (2/1) and 5.0 (4/1), using one quarter the odds a place. This is more difficult to show on one graph because we now have effectively two win percentages and two place percentages being used for each ROI% calculation. Hence, I am going to share two separate graphs.

In the first of the two graphs the ROI%s shown are based solely on the win percentages for each horse changing compared to their true win percentage chances. In this case I have assumed that the place percentage chance has remained the same for both horses for this simulation. The bottom of the graph has a key which I will now explain:

TW stands for the true win percentage chance for each horse based on their prices of 3.0 and 5.0 (which 33.3% and 20%)

TW+1 stands for the true percentage win chance +1% (34.3% and 21%)

TW+2 stands for the true percentage win chance +2% (35.3% and 22%)

TW+3 stands for the true percentage win chance +3% (36.3% and 23%)

TW-1 stands for the true percentage win chance -1% (32.3% and 19%)

TW-2 stands for the true percentage win chance -2% (31.3% and 18%)

TW-3 stands for the true percentage win chance -3% (30.3% and 17%)

 

To be clear, the graph below shows the effect on the ROI% of only theoretical changes in the long-term win percentages. All place calculations are based on their true percentage place chances which for the 3.0 priced horse is 66.7% (to 1 decimal place) and for the 5.0 priced horse it is 25%.

 

 

Assuming we can improve our percentage chance of each horse winning by 3% compared to their true chance we would make close to 13p in the £ over the long term. Conversely, if the percentages for both horses dropped by 3% we would be losing just over 11p in the £.

The second graph will show theoretical changes in the place percentage while keeping the win percentages at their true figures. I will again use +1, +2 idea but this time I will use TP meaning true place percentage:

 

 

As we can see a change of 1%, 2% or 3% in the placed percentages has less influence on the ROI%. However, if we can gain a place edge while keeping parity in terms of the win percentage then we will make money over the longer term. Clearly if we can gain both a win edge and place edge your profits should mount up nicely.

It is time to look at some ‘real life’ data now, based on actual horse racing results and prices going back to 2010. I looked at all 12-runner handicaps over this time frame which covered over 90,000 runners. I looked at the prices of different runners and extrapolated their actual long-term win and placed percentages. I then used these figures to work out the potential returns on a series of 1000 each-way doubles with said percentage chances. As I was simulating 12-runner handicaps for each of the 1000 races, the place terms were set at one quarter the odds. Here is what I found:

 

 

This does not make for pleasant reading. The reason behind such poor figures is, of course, the bookmaker edge I discussed in the first article. The average prices of the runners do not reflect their true chance of winning, or indeed placing.

Readers may note that the 5.0 / 5.0 figures see a loss of 16.6%. If we go back to the first graph in this article which examined a 5.0 price / 5.0 price simulation, we can see that when the win% was set at 18% and the place at 48%, this lost 14%. Given the real-life figures gave us an ROI% just below that at 16.6% it is no surprise to know that the actual win and placed percentages based on the 2010-2024 average figures were just below these at 17.97% for the win and 46.67% for the place.

Understanding how probability works is important when it comes to betting singles, but I would argue it is even more important when it comes to combining two or more horses in a bet. Probability can be a complex subject at a higher level but, fortunately, for betting purposes it is relatively straightforward. Just remember, for those of us betting doubles, trebles, fourfolds, and so on, we need to multiply the percentage chances together to give the overall percentage chance.

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I hope this has been an enjoyable and informative piece, and that it has tied in neatly with the previous one. Each-way doubles are bets that are worth considering given the right conditions of price to chance and race shape. I am in two minds about whether to dig a bit deeper with the potential to research and write a third piece. I will play around with some ideas in the next few weeks so watch this space!

*

Before I go, if anyone is interested in a more complex probability challenge please read on.

I would like to share a famous problem that I used to pose to my older students when I taught in schools. It is a version of what is known as the ‘Birthday Paradox’.

Imagine 30 children in a room all aged 12. What is the probability that at least two of them will share the same birthday? 

Now for those who have not heard this paradox before, then I urge you to take an educated guess at the chance of this occurring before reading on.

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When I posed this question to my classes over the years, their thinking generally went along the lines that there are 30 children, there are 365 days in a year and hence they divided 30 into 365. Having said that, most of them ‘rounded’ 365 to 300 to make the calculation easier, where 30 divided by 300 gives an answer of 10%. So, I would say 95% of all answers I received were in the ballpark of 10%. However, 10% is way off.

The actual answer is 69.68%.

Be honest now – how many saw that coming?

I am sure there will be a high proportion of readers that will be incredulous that this is the answer. However, if you Google it, you will see that the information above is accurate, and how the answer is calculated.

Until next time...

- DR

Monday Musings: The Lunatics Prove Me Wrong!

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A week ago, I sat down at this keyboard wondering who were the lunatics that thought staging the inaugural so-called Berkshire Winter Million over the following weekend was a viable project, writes Tony Stafford. The frost stood outside like snow on the whole of my car and temperatures had plunged to minus 5 degrees overnight.

Also, Ascot’s recent record with its mid-January Saturday fixture was hardly encouraging, the last two having been frozen off. The money on offer for the two days on the Riverside Royal racecourse and the sandwiched-in Ascot date was terrific, yet by and large the Irish left us to our own devices: they clearly thought the odds were against its going ahead.

But they, like most of the UK racing fanbase, starved of jumping for much of the previous week or so, were to be confounded.

Windsor has the luxury of wide swathes of turf that are relatively lightly worked all year, those Monday night cards giving the racecourse staff plenty of time between fixtures to repair the effect of pounding hooves.

The worry, having seen the first jumps fixture since Windsor briefly took over some Ascot cards when that racecourse was having its drastic and by now (if not at first) accepted to have been beneficial, not least to racegoers, transformation almost two decades ago, was the layout of the circuit.

Talking to Hughie Morrison on the Friday morning, he said he wasn’t convinced by it, but like trainers of the other 13 runners in the £110k - £57,000 to the winner Fitzdares-backed handicap hurdle - he was prepared to give it a go. He believed his family horse Secret Squirrel was “very well handicapped, but maybe not quite tough enough for a race of this nature”.

I was on a train, travelling back from four brilliant days with Victor Thompson at his superb Link House Holiday Cottages 100 yards from the beach in Northumberland, so didn’t see the race live, but I have since. That was the beach, maybe a mile away across the bay at Beadnell, where Gordon W Richards, father of Nicky, began his own training career in the 1960’s before transferring across country to Greystoke.

Back at Windsor, Hughie needn’t have worried. Indeed, far from being overawed by tackling much more experienced rivals, 11/4 favourite Secret Squirrel gained control over Knickerbocker Glory at the final hurdle and gradually pulled clear to the line, without Nico de Boinville needing to pick up his stick. You would imagine the William Hill Newbury Hurdle at Hughie’s home track in three weeks would be the next objective.

Secret Squirrel was bred by and runs in the colours of the Hon. Mary Morrison, Hughie’s wife, and is a son of Stimulation. Hughie trained Stimulation to win the Group 2 Challenge Stakes over 7f on the flat and supported him as a stallion throughout his time at Llety Farms, a 250-acre spread in Carmarthenshire, run by David Hodge.

On the flat, Stimulation’s best produce has been the staying mare Sweet Sensation, whom Hughie trained to win the Cesarewitch for Paul Brocklehurst. After Friday, Secret Squirrel will have become the sire’s outstanding jumper. Llety Farms have for now given up standing stallions and Stimulation has been sold and been based in Kuwait for the past two years.

Hughie and Mary had a day to remember as a few minutes later at Market Rasen, their recent acquisition Eyed added a second win on the course for the stable. In between he was unsighted going to the first fence at Lingfield where he unluckily came down. Eyed could also be on a steep upward curve as a three-mile chaser.

Back to last week, and I had suggested it was lunatics that framed the Berkshire Winter Million. On the same day as the two Morrison winners, one horse that was sold from the yard for 27,000gns last autumn almost made a winning debut for his new connections an hour or so earlier at Meydan. Lunatick – yes, that’s how they spelt it – got within a neck of bagging the £24k opener on the card, his strong finish thwarted only by Silvestre de Sousa on a 33/1 shot.

While with Victor the other day, preparing for what I believe (well, perhaps hope) will be a compelling book, we had a trip around the area near Newton-by-the-Sea and as far south as Lynmouth and Amble on the coast, seeing the sites where he was King of the Sea Coal industry for decades until the mines packed up. On the way, every few miles there were pockets of houses (amounting in total almost to one hundred): “we built those”, he said.

Then, on the way back for a late lunch at his beloved Purdy Lodge, where they serve the world’s biggest all-day breakfast – not that he or partner Gina Coulson partake – we took in the village of Felton, where in the 1980s he added farming to the strings of his very wide-ranging bow, acquiring four (three now sold) farms totalling 3,750 acres. He removed all the hedges and quickly became the leading corn grower in Northumberland.

As he mused at the time, “If farmers can farm, why not me?  It can’t be that difficult, if you are prepared to work; and all the Thompsons worked!” Until you drive along with Victor’s former farms on either side of the road seemingly on and on for miles – 3,750 acres is almost six square miles! – you realise what a massive undertaking that was. When you consider Llety Farms is 250 acres and many would regard that as a sizeable plot.

It all makes me feel tired! Luckily, I managed to upgrade to a First-Class seat on the way back from Alnmouth (319 miles to London), elected for sausage and mash over a lamb rogan josh and arrived home in okay shape. I didn’t feel it until Saturday evening when for once I slept right through!

The Irish challenge on Friday was restricted to a duo of Gavin Cromwell runners in lesser races and both finished in the money. Same again, two runners, on Saturday. This time it was Willie Mullins, chancing his arm, again, with one-time invincible Energumene, against Jonbon in the Clarence House Stakes; but the Nicky Henderson horse cantered home and will go to Cheltenham as a hotpot for the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Willie sent over a travel companion for his old champion, no doubt thinking 2/5 shot Kargese, last year’s Triumph Hurdle runner-up, would have a walk in the Royal park. That mare had to give best though to Dan Skelton’s improver Take No Chances who came out on top under Kielan Woods, by three-parts of a length.

Then to yesterday. Here we had to be a little more cautious as among five raiders, two from the more readable Henry de Bromhead in terms of expectation, there were three from less predictable sources.

We all know about back-with-the-licence Tony Martin. The form of his Zanndabad suggested he ought to be among the principals in the 2m4f novice handicap hurdle, but he faded in the home straight, proving correct his trainer’s fears about the soft ground.

Then it was the turn of Charles Byrnes, of whom you can never be sure until the money’s down. And maybe not even then.

Byrnes, like Martin, had a ban recently, but it doesn’t seem to have altered his way of going about his training. He had two runners, one a newcomer in the bumper for whom there was pre-race interest and another in the immediately preceding novice handicap hurdle.

That horse’s three runs this season had been 8th at 33/1, last of 17 at 33/1 and pulled up at 20/1. Despite this, serious money followed him in the 3m4f handicap chase into 9/1. He ran a respectable race in third behind 25/1 shot Planned Paradise, trained by long-distance expert Christian Williams. Watch out Eider Chase!

Byrnes was also on the premises in fourth in the closing bumper, won by winner-a-day over the weekend Harry Fry with Idaho Sun, who looks a very smart performer.

The Irish horses generally ran well, but none from nine was their winning tally over the weekend. So well done to the home trainers and to the organisers, Arena Racing. Even if Ascot is not in their ownership grouping, they do show its racing on their Sky Sports Racing channel. I think it’s fair to say you’ve proved so many of us wrong!

- TS

The Maths of Multiples, Part 1

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I am sure even the most disciplined of punters will have had a more ‘exotic’ bet at least once in their life, be it an exacta, tricast, placepot, double/treble, or some type of accumulator bet involving four or more selections, writes Dave Renham.

The lure of a bigger payout has a big appeal to many punters; I certainly include myself in that category in the past. I have been very lucky to have what I consider to be one monster betting payout in my life which was thanks to a tricast / CSF combo back in 2004. At the time this one bet paid the equivalent of around ten months’ worth of my take home pay from my teaching job. I wouldn’t mind that happening again now, I have to say!

The problem of course with any exotic bet is that the margin in favour of the bookmaker is usually bigger than it is if solely betting win singles. The more selections you have in an accumulator the bigger the bookmaker’s edge generally is. I am not going to dive deeply into the maths here but to give you a basic understanding of what is going on let me look at a hypothetical fourfold win only accumulator that has been placed with a bookmaker. I am going to assume that the four selections come from races with ten runners in each race and the decimal odds obtained for each horse are:

4.0, 6.0, 3.0, 7.0

In this scenario, the unlikely event of all four winning would net a profit of £503 for a £1 stake (£504 total return, including stake).

The problem is that the true odds of each of the four horses should be bigger. This is due to the inbuilt bookmaker overround/edge. On average the bookmaker’s edge in a 10-runner race will be around 20% (using a rough guide of 2% per horse). Hence when you add up the percentage chance of all the runners this will equal around 120%, not 100% which would, of course, give punters a fair playing field due to the odds be true/correct.

To find odds for these four horses much closer to their true odds we can look on the Betfair Exchange as their betting book for each horse race is always closer to 100%. This means the odds are as near to the true odds as we can get. Of course, we cannot place a fourfold on the Exchange, but I can at least borrow their ‘true’ prices to see what the winning return on this wager should pay, rather than the payout we saw earlier. Here are prices for our four horses that will be nearer to their true odds – the type of odds you would find on the Betfair machine:

4.6, 7.2, 3.25, 8.6

As can be seen each corresponding price is bigger, not by that much, but enough to make a huge difference overall. In this case, the winning profit on the fourfold would stand at a much healthier £924.70 for your £1 stake – over £420 more than would have been returned using the odds available from the bookmaker.

To make money on betting we need to get a value price. For example, if we can get odds of 2.2 on the toss of a fair coin, which should be priced at 2.0 we have value. Hence one could argue that multiple bets or accumulators can offer the punter value as long as all the selections are value prices. One immediate downside of course is that even if we are effectively getting value on each horse, we still need all of them to win!

Staying with the tossing the coin example, we can apply this to horse racing. Let’s assume that we have found four horses priced 2.2 that we believe have true odds of 2.0. If we combine them in a fourfold accumulator, the chances of all four winning equals 1 in 16. This is based on probability theory where we multiply the individual chance of each event together with each other – in this example each horse has a 50% or 1 in 2 chance of winning their respective race so we calculate thus ½ x ½ x ½ x ½ = 1/16.

Hence, we would be expected to win this fourfold bet one time in every 16 attempts. Of course it is not going to pan out perfectly like that in real life – we will not have 15 losing bets followed by a win, then another 15 losers followed by a win and so on. However, over the long term we will win with this type of bet on average around once in every 16 races (if we are correct about our true odds estimate).

But what is the edge on this bet?

Let us imagine we place £1 on each fourfold using the probability theory scenario of one win in 16. Over the 16 bets we would lose £15 on the 15 losing bets but win £22.43 on the one winning bet plus our stake back. This gives us a profit of £7.43 from £16 staked which equates to a Return on Investment (ROI%) of 46.4%.

As I have mentioned this calculation has been based on probability theory being played out perfectly in real life over 16 fourfold bets involving 64 horses priced at 2.0 with true odds of 2.2.

Let’s now compare the winning fourfold return with 64 individual win singles on these same horses using £1 stakes. With a 50% chance of winning this means we win 32 times and lose 32 times. The 32 losses lose us £32. Each win nets us a profit of £1.20 so 32 x £1.20 equals £38.40 giving us an overall profit of £6.40.

Now the eagle-eyed mathematicians will have noted that in the second example the total outlay of the bets comes to £64 and in the fourfold example it came to £16. We were correct, so comparing simply the two profit figures here is not a fair test. We need to calculate the ROI% as before by dividing the profit of £6.40 by the total stake of £64. This gives us an ROI of 10% - a good deal lower than the fourfold return. Therefore, by doing that comparison, we can see that fourfolds where we have value on each horse, potentially gives us extra value in the long term when compared to win singles.

However, this is all well and good, but a massive downside to the multi approach is finding four horses that offer value on the same day. For some of us it hard enough to find one each day, let alone four. In theory, four value selections combined in fourfolds offer us the chance to really enhance our long-term returns, but in practice it is going to be nigh on impossible to achieve it.

Even if we did find four value selections what are the chances these value selections will all be available with the same bookmaker? Not only that, but the example I gave looked at four very short-priced runners giving us returns on average once in 16 races.

If we instead consider say four horses that all had a bookmaker price of 4.0 (3/1) where their true odds were all say 4.3 (3.3/1), based on probability theory this bet is going to be landed just once in every 256 bets (because ¼ x ¼ x ¼ x ¼ = 1/256).

So, if we assume we are able to find four 4.0 priced horses with true odds of 4.3 on the same day with the same bookie, let’s say once every week, and we place them in a win fourfold accumulator, on average we will have one successful bet every 4.92 years! Perhaps this is starting to help explain why bookmakers push their multiple and accumulator bets so much!

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There is one type of multiple that some people believe can offer us some value though and that is an each-way double. An each-way double is when we place a bet on two horses to win and/or place. If both horses win, the win part is worked out in the same way as a win double. If both horses place, or one horse wins and the other one places, we will win the place part of our each-way double. And, naturally, if one or both horses fail to at least place the bet is a losing one.

Let’s look at example with prices. We’ll assume both horses are priced at 5.0 (4/1) and the place odds are ¼ of the win odds. Here are the possible outcomes based on a £1 each-way double (£2 staked):

 

 

Advocates of this bet will say that one advantage of an each-way double compared with a straight win double is that we can get a return even if both horses fail to win, as long as they get placed. They will also say, quite rightly, that compared to the fourfold accumulators looked at earlier we only need two horses to perform well, not four. Hence the bookmaker edge / margin is less pronounced.

Personally, I do play each-way doubles from time to time. When running my tipping service back in the early 2000s I put up the odd each-way double as actual main bets/selections, and I nailed an each-way double that returned a profit of £128 for an outlay of £2. So, with the right selections in the right race, I view this bet as having potential to make money long term. However, as with anything in betting, we need lots of patience to find the right opportunities.

The ideal type of race we are looking for is when we have a race with a very short-priced favourite, with the second favourite clear in the betting of the remainder. Such a race could look like this – let us assume it is a non-handicap:

 

 

We could find that a maiden or a novice chase/hurdle race could be priced up in this way. In this example the second favourite is ideal as one of our each-way double selections, because there will be value in the place part of the bet. The chance of the place based on the bookmaker price is even money (2.0) thanks to the place paying 1/5 of the odds, but in reality, the true chance of placing is much shorter, probably somewhere around the 1.80 mark.

The maths behind proving this is complicated, so I won’t bore you with that, but after the next race I look at I hope you are able to trust me on it. Therefore, allow me to now give a real-life example from a race in October 2024 with a similar market dynamic, because you will be able to see the place value more easily:

 

The ‘shape’ of the market for this race is not quite as good as my hypothetical example purely because the second favourite is only four points clear of the third favourite in the betting. However, the top two in the betting have the same prices (30/100 and 5/1) as in the imaginary race, and if we look at the Betfair place odds we see the following:

 

 

Now I noted earlier that Betfair odds on the win market are as close to true odds as we can find. It is a similar story for the place market, especially for the top two in the betting. Hence in the Sedgefield race we can see that the ‘true’ place price for Path Of Stars was 1.72. Remember the place part of this bet, if successful, would pay 2.0 at the bookies. This gives us the edge as far as the place part of the bet is concerned because the true chance of Path Of Stars placing in percentage terms was 58.1%, a full 8.1% higher than the bookmaker percentage chance of placing which was 50%.

Hopefully that makes sense, and you can see that there can be a place edge to be found given the right race shape / market make-up.

Unfortunately, before one gets too over excited, there is an issue with a possible each-way double even if you are able to find two similar place edges on the same day with the same bookie, which is that we have not considered the bookmaker win odds versus their true odds.

Ideally, we need to find horses that not only have this place edge, but whose exchange price is as close to the bookmaker price as possible. As we know, this does not happen often, but in this real-life example Path Of Stars was only marginally above his bookmaker price of 6.0 on Betfair as the BSP was 6.16. To give you some maths here, the chance of a true 6.0 priced runner winning is 16.7%, a true 6.16 priced runner has a 16.2% chance of winning.

For the record Path Of Stars did not finish in the first two, but that is not the point. The point is that in terms of the place part of the bet, the probability/maths was in our favour and he was very much a value play.

Five-runner races offer the best value from a place perspective when two horses count for places, hence why I chose that field size to try and illustrate my point. Likewise, eight-runner races offer the best value from a place perspective in terms of three placed horses where the bookmakers pay one fifth of the odds. These races also lend themselves to getting that place edge we have seen already. Below is an eight-runner race from 10th October 2024 which was actually a handicap. The race was at Exeter:

 

 

Again, we have a short-priced favourite, and the second favourite War Lord is again priced at 5/1. With 1/5 the odds a place, the second favourite once more has a 2.0 chance of placing according to the bookmaker odds. However, when we look at the Betfair Placed Odds we see that War Lord’s ‘true’ odds are 1.76 not 2.0.

 

 

This type of race offers the same place edge as before. Unfortunately, in this example War Lord’s win price on Betfair was significantly higher at 8.55. On the upside he finished third and did land the place.

At this juncture I should mention that using five- and eight-runner races for these bets has some inherent danger. One non-runner in either would scupper plans instantly as the place terms will be altered essentially turning the bet on its head. The value place bet would suddenly become a very bad value bet. Hence, it may be better to think about six-runner or nine-runner races as an option just in case, even though these are slightly poorer value in place terms. This is assuming of course you can still gain the same type of edge within the place part of the bet.

That’s all for this article. However, my plan is to go into more detail about each-way doubles in a follow up piece. I have spent several hours creating a spreadsheet that can simulate thousands of races where theoretical each-way doubles with specific prices can be placed, and the long-term returns can be calculated based on ‘true’ win and placed percentages.

Why an article solely looking at each-way doubles? Well, as I said, bookmakers hate these types of bet: they know that there can be a place ‘flaw’ in the type of races I have discussed. Bookmakers have been known to close accounts for people they consider to be successful “each-way double thieves”. [If you value your accounts, you’ll have more success placing these bets on the high street!]

Right, I’m off to play with my spreadsheet and I looking forward to sharing some findings with you next time.

-      DR

Monday Musings: A Perambulation

/in /by

At least we had South Africa’s biggest weight-for-age race to talk about last week, writes Tony Stafford. This time, it’s a perambulation taking in Exeter Stables near Newmarket, Manton in Wiltshire, and a couple of sports-themed restaurants and entertainment venues in London’s West End.

I’ve got to know Michael Solle, a senior executive of the wine/whisky company UKV International, and was delighted over the past two years to get an invitation to a couple of his company’s events. These were staged in part to reward and, more importantly, recommend to clients existing and prospective various potential future investments.

First in the deep winter – probably February of 2023 – it was to London’s Strand, between Fleet Stret and Trafalgar Square, that we all pitched up at Oche, where darts – obvious to anyone that watched Luke Littler and co a couple of weeks ago – is the gimmick.

The design was very clever, nine individual oches (if that’s the correct plural) with seating behind and alongside the thrower. Most of the 100 or so invitees had a go – your observer could not be persuaded to reveal his limitations.

Meanwhile copious amounts of finger foods arrived, and wine and whisky were later added after a senior sommelier from the top West End shop Hedonism Wines made a presentation, bringing a few exquisite examples of each for everyone to sample and hopefully add to their portfolios.

But I had another mission that day. I spoke regularly at that time with Sam Stronge, husband and assistant to trainer Ali, and he had mentioned to me a three-year-old they had where the original owners, who included a long-term pal Geoffrey Bishop, wanted to sell a half-share. That horse, Angel Of Antrim, originally a 37,000 Guineas yearling, was available for sensible money. He had run promisingly in his three runs at two, acquiring a handicap mark in the process, and was recently gelded.

Covid was just about finished and after I was introduced to the owner of Oche, I set about getting him interested. Unfortunately, Sam, who had intended to come along, was unable to be free at the last minute, so the sale wasn’t as easy as it might have been. Now it would be impossible as he has taken over much of the retired Dave Roberts’ team of jump jockeys including champion Harry Cobden.

I left that afternoon convinced we did have a sale, but a call the following morning soon ended that illusion. He stayed with his original owners, won a small race with Ali Stronge later that year, and another in 2023 for the same owners, but with Ed Dunlop.

In March 2024, he was sold for 6,000gns whereupon he joined Phil McEntee, again winning a single race for new owners Derek Lovatt and Colin Bacon. Lovatt has been around the racing game for a long time and, when Simon Lockyer had his brief spell of mega-multiple ownership with the late Shaun Keightley around 2020, Lovatt was a fellow owner there.

A real shrewdie, Derek always had a plan, but I doubt even he would have believed what an amazing transformation was in the offing. Now a five-year-old, Angel Of Antrim joined rookie trainer Jack Morland late last year in his new base at Exeter House Stables.

I had a happy connection with the yard as it is where Vince (later Victoria) Smith trained with a degree of success between 2004 and 2008. He deserved better than the five years and a total 54 wins he amassed during his spell there. Raymond Tooth did well with such as Majestical in the yard while, in the latter part of 2006, Vince gave William Buick rides when even his own boss Andrew Balding was hesitant. After several winners he was off, with Michal Tabor’s recommendation, to Todd Pletcher and thence a stellar career as multiple champion jockey with Godolphin and Charlie Appleby.

Probably a decade ago – time goes so fast – on my weekly Thursday trips to Brian Meehan’s Manton yard, where Raymond also had a serious involvement, I met Giles Morland, owner of some smart horses in the stable. Giles was also one of the early members of the Sam Sangster-arranged Manton Thoroughbreds syndicates.

Giles’s son Jack would often be around, and such is the passage of time that the young man, now 29, has fitted in a few years working in the top Australian stable of Ciaron Maher and David Eustace (now in Hong Kong), where he supervised a 20-horse barn, and subsequently five years as assistant to Ed Dunlop down the road from his present base. He took out his licence to train here on October 1st last year.

Now though, he has the gig at Exeter House Stables, owned by Charlie McBride, from where he, and Lovatt and Bacon’s Angel Of Antrim, after three wins in 23, has suddenly won four races in a row. The total prize money for the four wins is as paltry as it gets, around £15k, but this is the UK after all! I presume the shrewd owners have collected a few bob off the bookies, as long as their affordability checks panned out! The official purse money is not in truth much different two decades on than it was for Regional Racing.

I’ve often reckoned that the BHA, and especially their official handicappers, do not like small stables winning. Between wins one and four, Angel Of Antrim has been raised a whopping 34lb: up respectively 8lb, 5lb, 11lb and 10lb for his wins. I can think of a few trainers completing four-timers that would have got away with less than half that punitive imposition.

Jack Morland deserves great credit for the flying start (six wins so far) to his career and if he manages to win five in a row with Angel Of Antrim at Southwell on Wednesday, he will be looking at a mark in the 90’s and maybe even a run at one of the Royal Ascot handicaps.

On his site, there’s a picture of a smiling Jack, alongside his father and Brian Meehan, after a win from one of their horses at a Royal meeting. Maybe Angel Of Antrim or one of the other 11 horses in his care can get him to that trainer’s holy grail.

I had my last winner as an owner from Exeter House Stables, Vince and I finding a nice opportunity for Richie Boy in a claimer on one of the Saturday morning Regional (or banded) race meetings in October 2004. I had come to own Richie Boy as jockey Simon Whitworth – he rode my first solo winner at Beverley 22 years earlier - told me that his owner Andy Grinter had misread his colours watching the video of his final start and sent him mistakenly to Gary Moore. He wanted rid and quick!

I accepted the story, gullible as I am, and Richie Boy won on debut for us. I loved Regional Racing, with its succession of level-weights contests for low-grade horses. That day at Warwick the field sizes were 12, 17, 16, 13, 16 and 13. Again it was rubbish prizemoney, but it was 20 years ago. The best thing was the races were mostly 3/1 or more the field.

Paul Blockley, another sadly no longer with us, claimed him from us that bright morning. He offered to let me take a share, but I declined and watched two days later as he wasn’t off a yard but then was on him again two days further on. I was in a betting shop with Keith Sobey in Newcastle, the horse was at Nottingham and won at 50/1!

Blockley then had him in a seller at Redcar the following week (November 1) and he bolted up at 4/7. I went to the track and resolved to get him back, bidding all the way to 12k but gave up, leaving him bought in at 12,500gns.

So, I missed the boat, you would think. Not exactly, as Richie Boy was 11th of 12, last of 15 and 8th of 12 in three runs for Paul later in November.

Switched after that to Jennie Candlish, he graced the turf six more times, once in a hurdle race when as a 100/1 shot he was always behind and fell three from home. His flat placings were last of ten, ten, 12, 15 and 14 after which he passed into oblivion. Tough game that ownership.

When Noel Quinlan was based in what is now Darryl Holland’s Harraton Court stables, before Shaun Keightley, there was a small, neat, much more modern maybe 15-stall building close to the entrance. James Owen had his Arabian and point-to-point horses there, the first steps on the way much more recently to a brilliant start to his dual purpose Rules career, helped massively by the Gredley family.

I mentioned the handicapper’s treatment of Angel Of Antrim. One of the lesser lights (for now) in James Owen’s Green Ridge yard in the town is Carlton, acquired from the Gemma Tutty stable late last year. My friend Mick Godderidge is among the owners, the Think Big Partnership, and when he completed his four-timer at Chelmsford on Saturday (all over 1m6f at the Essex track) he was running off only 12lb higher than his starting point.

His style of racing hasn’t made for extravagant wins, generally coming late and fast, although Thursday’s more clear-cut verdict off 55 ought to result in more than the 5lb penalty he carried on Saturday. Each of the earlier wins was worth £4k. The team can add to that the ten grand they and Owen collected for Saturday’s win in a race only scheduled two days previously owing to the hit to jump racing by the weather. As I said, twice the money as Angel Of Antrim and considerably less of a handicap hike. Carlton was due to bid for his own five-timer in the opener at Wolverhampton this evening but is now a non-runner; it won't be long no doubt.

As to the other sports-featured experience in Central London, last summer we (me with my golf-playing son) went along to Pitch, one of two (soon to be three) golf hospitality venues. This one is close to Tottenham Court Road station, handily on the new and phenomenally-quick Elizabeth Line.

Another 100 or so adherents to the UKV International family now could smash a golf ball at one of nine screens depicting various holes on a golf course and have their distance assessed. The longest hitters got some very choice wines for their achievements.

Otherwise, it was a similar model to Oche and in the same ownership, although here brute force and ignorance held sway rather than the delicacy required to find treble 20. I wonder where Michael Solle has in mind for his clients (and me, I hope) this year. If we do return to either Oche or Pitch, I can’t wait to tell their owner how much he missed by not buying Angel Of Antrim. Like all the best bloodstock agents, I know which lines of form to highlight!

 - TS

My 2024 Betting P&L

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Every January since forever I have totted up my betting account deposits and withdrawals for the previous year to work out where I stand. For the last few I've done that publicly on here, though not last year - I've put that right below. [Shock, horror, it was a *losing* year - the full grizzly detail is in the second video ]

2024's tale of the tape is in this first video. To be honest, it's unimpressive in pure monetary terms - these videos almost always are - but that's not the point, as I am at pains to express.

When watching, keep in mind that stake size is personal: you might wager much more or much less, it absolutely doesn't matter.

And, as ever, I plead for leniency with regards to my cafe culture addiction which gets horribly exposed in these little moving picture skits. [As a side note, working from home means the daily trip to an egg and coffee house is a chance for a small bit of social interation as well as chowing down on the main food groups. Those who WFH often will understand: I've done it for more than a decade and it does take a toll].

OK, to 2024...

 

And here's 2023, gasp, a loser!

 

For the record, here are 2022, 2021 and 2020 (a very good year).

As I say, this is all done in the spirit of 'walking the talk' and with the notion that enjoying the ride is far, far more important than getting paid for enjoying the ride... but that those two, joy and pennies, are not mutually exclusive!

The best of luck with your 2025 wagering. I hope and believe that Geegeez Gold (and Lite) will help you have more fun and get closer to your betting goals. Here's the link if you're not currently a member.

Matt

Irish Trainers in UK National Hunt Racing

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As we start a New Year, I want to examine the performance of Irish trainers when they send runners to the UK, writes Dave Renham. The focus of what follows is National Hunt racing, and I have taken data going back ten years, to 2015. Profits/losses are calculated to both Industry SP and Betfair SP.

Now, I am sure virtually everyone reading this will be aware of the excellent record of Irish trainers versus the British trainers at the Cheltenham Festival in recent years. So let's begin by reviewing this. Subsequently, I will delve deeply into the broader picture to see if there are any angles that, as punters, we may be able to take advantage of.

Cheltenham Festival

This four-day feast of racing will be upon us sooner than we think – March may be two months away, but the time soon flies by. Below is an overall table directly comparing the Irish trainer record at the Cheltenham Festival with their British counterparts.

 

 

It's hardly breaking news, but the Irish have been so dominant in this time frame; they have a much higher strike rate - well over double - and in terms of returns they have trounced the British in at both SP and BSP. It should be noted that Irish trainers outperformed British ones in the ten years prior to that (2005 to 2014), too, but the gap was closer, certainly in terms of win percentage (Irish won 7.9% of races compared to 4.6% for the British).

 

It's time now to start a deeper dive into the overall Irish performance. To begin with here are the stats for all Irish runners in the UK since 2015:

 

 

As the table indicates, there have been blind losses to SP of around 17 pence in the £, but a small 4p return to BSP. Taking the Cheltenham Festival out of the equation produces a small loss to BSP.

Time to drill down into the Irish / UK performance across different parameters...

 

Performance by Year

From this starting point I am going to look at some yearly data. For this I have used a method based on a Nick Mordin idea that I've previously used in recent draw bias articles; this approach helps to avoid individual year fluctuations which can make possible performance changes harder to pick up. I am using rolling four-year timeframes to help spot any patterns. Here are the four-yearly data in terms of returns to BSP.

 

 

The graph shows each four-yearly time frame has produced a profit to BSP which is clearly noteworthy. However, the last couple of years (2023 and 2024) have been losers, hence the recent drop in the 2021-2024 figures. It looks as though the market has now fully 'cottoned on' to current Irish dominance.

Here are the A/E indices using the same principle:

 

The highest A/E index of 0.95 was seen in the period from 2018 to 2021 which coincides with the best period in terms of Betfair SP returns. Also, the recent BSP drop off is mirrored here.

Taking this performance as a whole, the stats are impressive. Irish raiders have consistently made punters money over the past ten years if betting on the exchanges. Of course, there are plenty of big prices that help to inflate these results but, even so, the results are highly noteworthy.

 

Performance by Course

We have seen some course data already in terms of Cheltenham, and its Festival in March. Below are the overall Cheltenham course figures along with any other course that has seen 100 or more Irish runners during this ten-year time frame.

 

 

All of the Cheltenham BSP profit was procured at the Festival. A very small loss has occurred when combining all other Cheltenham meetings together.

In terms of the other courses Aintree is one to mention: runners at the Liverpool track have done extremely well considering the BSP profit is not badly skewed by big priced winners. Indeed, focusing on Irish runners at Aintree priced at 8/1 or less (industry odds), they would have produced a profit to both SP and BSP. Specifically, 57 of them won from 246 qualifiers (SR 23.2%) for an SP profit of £21.86 (ROI +8.9%); to BSP profits were £53.19 (ROI +21.7%). As you would expect a big proportion of these runners ran at the Grand National meeting in April.

Of the lower profile courses, Perth’s positive BSP figures are entirely down to one 200/1+ BSP winner, while Cartmel’s figures are not as bad as you may initially think. When concentrating on horses priced 8/1 or less at SP, Cartmel runners have also seen a small profit to BSP to the tune of £10.05 (ROI +5.2%). The outsiders at Cartmel have been the ones to avoid with 0 wins from 75 for horses priced 14/1 or bigger.

 

Performance by Race type

I would like to compare chases, hurdle races and bumpers (NH Flat) next. Here are the splits:

 

 

 

Hurdle races have produced a healthy profit to BSP, although as one would expect this has included a few big odds successes. There have been five wins at 100/1+ BSP to be precise and all hurdlers priced in three figures have combined to produce around 75% of the hurdling profit. Having said all that, six of the ten years has seen a blind hurdling profit to BSP with two of the four losing years showing very small losses. Focusing on shorter priced runners of 12/1 or shorter would have seen a break-even scenario. Hence, it is fair to say Irish hurdlers have performed well as an overall group. Before moving away from this section, both non-handicaps and handicaps have offered positive hurdling returns. Non-handicappers have returned 16p in the £, handicappers 9p.

 

Performance by Industry SP

A look at the results in terms of SP prices now.

 

 

There have been only small losses for shorter priced runners (5/2 or shorter). One can surmise that with a little bit of additional form study one could probably have narrowed down this group of runners in terms of which ones to back, with the potential to edge into profit as a result.

At the other end of the spectrum, horses priced 28/1 or bigger would have secured a very big profit if backing them all to Betfair SP. This will come as no surprise based on the information shared to date in this article about some big prices having gone in. While I am sure many of you are writing off the idea of backing such big-priced runners due to the fact that for such a method to work you probably need let’s say those monster 100/1+ winners hitting the mark more than they statistically should; or at least the prices of most of the winners offering value. However, the point is that one or both of the above has happened.

If we compare the results of horses priced 28/1+ in terms of British runners versus Irish runners, we see that British horses have won less than 1% of the time (0.97%) and produced losses of 56p in the £ to SP, and losses of 20p in the £ to BSP. Irish-trained runners priced 28/1+, as the figures in the table show, have won over 1.7 times more often than their British counterparts and the returns have been better by 39p and 63p in the £ respectively.

Of course, it takes a brave person with a large betting bank playing to small stakes to back very big odds runners regularly. Huge losing runs undermine confidence and if the tank is not set up appropriately, it could easily run dry. However, I found that this has not been a one-off after checking the record of Irish runners priced 28/1 or bigger from an earlier time frame (2008 to 2014). I haven’t gone back further in time because 2008 was the first full year that the Betfair Starting Price was used. Overall, during these seven years the bigger priced Irish raiders won 1.51% of the time (17 wins from 1127) for a profit to BSP of £725.31 (ROI +64.4%). Excellent overall returns once again – hence I am wondering whether anyone might be tempted to back such runners in the future. I, for one, will be keeping tabs on it.

 

Performance by Race Class

I want now to assess the class of race and whether it makes any difference either positively or negatively with regards to Irish performance in UK NH racing. Let me share the Betfair SP Return on Investment percentages (ROI%):

 

 

The chart has the highest classes of race on the left, starting with Class 1 races, moving through to the lowest class of race on the right, namely Class 6. It seems the better the class of race the more profitable for backers of Irish runners. Put simply, the highest three classes have produced profits, the lowest three losses. The BSP results for the two lowest Classes (5 and 6) have produced significant losses and it looks best to avoid these races.

If we look into Class 1 races in more depth, we see that Irish runners in all three types of Graded race (1, 2 and 3) have made a profit.

 

 

Don’t be put off by the low Grade 3 win strike rate as these contests, all handicaps, have averaged 20 runners per race over the past ten years. The class / graded data suggests to me that the Irish target the better races with higher prize money. That makes sense given the travelling costs and so on.

Before moving on I want to compare these Graded results to the record of British-trained runners during this period. Firstly, let me compare the strike rates, both win and each way:

 

 

Irish runners are ahead in all six comparisons and significantly so in Grade 1 and 2 contests. Now let me compare their A/E indices:

 

Again, the Irish runners have been completely dominant over their British counterparts offering better value across the board.

 

Performance by trainer

Trainer data is always popular so I will share the results for all Irish trainers who have sent 100+ runners to contest UK National Hunt races during this time frame, as long as they had at least one runner in 2024. The table is ordered by win strike rate.

 

 

The big guns of Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott have sent a significant number of runners across the pond with good success. However, making a profit from either is not so easy due to their reputations; rheir runners do not go unbacked very often.

A few trainers in the list have shown a profit to BSP, but Gavin Cromwell and John McConnell’s results are the most impressive as they have not had a huge BSP winner to skew their results. Here are some additional stats for these two starting with Cromwell:

1. Cromwell has sent 36 runners to the Cheltenham Festival during the study period, of which six won (SR 16.7%) for a profit to SP of £20.63 (ROI +57.3%). This increases if backing to BSP to the tune of £36.20 (ROI +100.5%)

2. Sticking with Cheltenham, Cromwell's record at all other meetings at the course stands at 10 wins from 45 (SR 22.2%). Profits to SP have been £7.60 (ROI +16.9%), to BSP £11.36 (ROI +25.2%)

3. LTO winners from the stable have fared exceptionally well thanks to a 25% strike rate (16 wins from 64). Returns to SP were nearly 66p in the £, to BSP this increases to over 90p

4. Horses that started in the top two of the betting won 33 times from 105 runners (SR 31.4%) for a profit to SP of £8.74 (ROI +8.3%); to BSP £15.34 (ROI +14.6%)

 

Now onto McConnell:

1. Horses that finished in the first three LTO have been worth following thanks to 50 wins from 167 runners (SR 29.9%) for an SP profit of £23.22 (ROI +13.9%). To BSP this improves to £46.15 (ROI +27.6%)

2. McConnell's male runners have won almost twice as often as his female runners (26.6% versus 13.7%)

3. Horses that started favourite made a small SP profit of £8.16 (ROI +10.2%) thanks to a strike rate of 52.5% (42 wins from 80). Returns to BSP have edged up to just over 14p in the £

4. Hexham has been a good course for McConnell with 11 wins from 22 (SR 50%). He is only one win from 24 at the Cheltenham Festival, but at all other Cheltenham meetings combined he has saddled 10 winners from 44 (SR 22.7%) for an SP profit to £26.88 (ROI +61.1%); to BSP +£43.06 (ROI +97.9%)

-------------------

I hope this article has offered up some potential betting angles on Irish runners. It is widely known how well Irish runners perform at the Cheltenham Festival, but they also have competed extremely well at Aintree. In fact, Irish-trained horses' performance at Aintree is arguably more impressive than it has been at Cheltenham.

Bigger priced runners sent from Ireland to UK should not be totally written off as far more have won than statistically they should. Graded events have seen the Irish enjoy a clear advantage over British-trained runners, while the lower classes of 5 and 6 are generally races to avoid from an Irish perspective. There are two trainers that are worth keeping a particular eye on, namely John McConnell and Gavin Cromwell.

We have all heard the saying ‘the luck of the Irish’ but I think in UK NH racing terms there is a good bit more to it than that.

- DR

Monday Musings: G1 Fun in the Rainbow Republic Sun

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The commentator summed it up as he went over the line, writes Tony Stafford. One Stripe was one of only two three-year-olds in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday. “The Prince becomes a King”, he said, deserved praise indeed as the Vaughan Marshall colt by top local stallion One World weaved through from far back to win South Africa’s most prestigious weight-for-age contest in style.

In the history of a race that began in 1861 as the Queen’s Plate – a title restored when Queen Elizabeth II inherited the throne – there have been only ten three-year-old winners, and just two before One Stripe in the past 50 years.

If you needed testimony from someone near at hand, ask Oisin Murphy. Booked for rides in both the day’s Group 1 races, Murphy sat helpless on eventual fourth-placed Royal Aussie, more than four lengths behind, as One Stripe powered through late to emphasise his mastery over South Africa’s best older stars – admittedly most of them on the day running disappointingly.

 

 

The £75k winner’s prize is handsome enough when considered on its own. In the context of the 23 Rand to the £ official exchange rate, a prize of almost R1.74 million to the winner makes more eye-catching interest.

For many English winters, William Haggas has been a regular visitor, especially to Cape Town and, according to another UK-based handler Dylan Cunha, he was in attendance again for the big day.

Cunha, back on his old stamping ground, taking a pause from his exploits in only a second full season in the UK, was there even though he had had a couple of runners, both performing creditably, on the previous day’s action at the Dubai Carnival.

We all know about his smart handicapper Silver Sword, but a new name is likely to adorn the winner’s enclosures this year. Recent acquisition King’s Call only tired in the last furlong but still was beaten just more than a length. He was the sole 3yo in this field of experienced handicappers and will not be reaching his third birthday until March 22.

With such a wonderful exchange rate, anybody who visits South Africa seems to vow to return reporting that dinner for four in good restaurants can sometimes cost less than for one in London’s West End.

My reason for majoring this week on the Republic is not merely to record the exploits of One Stripe. The colt won the Cape Guineas only three weeks earlier, and that has been hitherto regarded as a double too difficult to attempt. This season has brought six wins and a place from eight starts and improving all the while. Well done, Vaughan.

I wanted to remind or perhaps more likely inform UK readers that something is stirring from what had been an almost moribund racing industry there a decade or even less ago.

I have the great good fortune to receive four times weekly a digest of South African racing and breeding from the online magazine, Turf Talk. You can subscribe from that link and I find it enjoyable and informative reading most weekdays. I’m sure you will enjoy it too, especially in the dull and dingy days of winter at home.

Without the South African interest this week, I would no doubt have gone on endlessly about the fiasco of the three Musselburgh inspections on Friday, the last of which was ten minutes before the first race were when the two runners were already in the paddock – seven others had already been withdrawn.

As I was writing on Sunday morning, Plumpton yesterday with a Premier Racecard and more than £100,000 in prizes available to the winners had declared at 8.30 a.m., “Racing goes ahead.”. Then, two hours later, “Sorry, it’s not.”

More rain than expected fell between the two events. No doubt Peter Savill, the course’s owner, will have been gutted as well as those arriving at the track encouraged by the earlier bulletin. An even later look revealed that Chepstow managed two races before calling it a day!

I digress. Since 2011, the exportation of South African horses to the European Union (and the UK) and elsewhere had been prohibited, because of a breakout in that year of African horse sickness. It took years of lobbying by the industry to get the ban removed. The much-publicised immediate outcome was the arrival in the US last summer of two high-class performers, each taken into the Graham Motion yard for their spell on the other side of the world.

The six-year-old gelding Isivunguvungu and the three-year-old filly Beach Bomb were the two trailblazers. Both competed at the Breeders’ Cup meeting in early November at Del Mar and neither could be said to have been out of place.

Beach Bomb, who almost a year earlier had won the Cartier Paddock Stakes, the Group 1 principal supporting race on the L’Ormarins King’s Plate card, had a couple of unlucky runs in defeat before turning out for the Filly and Mare Turf. Her chance was reflected in a starting price of 55/1, but she outperformed those odds finishing only three-and-a half lengths back in eighth. Two places and only half a length ahead of her was the Aidan O’Brien-trained filly Content, winner of the Yorkshire Oaks a couple of months earlier.

Isivunguvungu, a six-year-old gelding, warmed up for Del Mar with a nice win worth £70k in a black-type turf race at Colonial Downs. Although he finished only seventh in the Turf Sprint, he would have been much closer position-wise bar being snatched up in the scrimmage in the middle of the track as Ralph Beckett’s Starlust scraped along the inside rail to win.

This relaxation of exporting South African horses will no doubt be even more marked when the best-bred animals from such studs as Drakenstein come onto the market.

No doubt Dylan, with his knowledge of the land where he trained Group 1 winners before trying his luck in the UK, will be examining the possibility of picking up bargains from the best studs, given the exchange rate. Other leading UK trainers, exasperated by the tough buying conditions with such as Coolmore, Godolphin, Amo Racing and the rest from over here in competition at the top end, will also be testing the water.

Beach Bomb’s successor as winner of the Cartier Paddock Stakes on Saturday was Double Grand Slam, as with One Stripe an emphatic and well-backed favourite cheered home by the big crowd.

If information about South African racing seems to be limited to the odd big day such as the King’s Plate, with its 168-year history and the Durban July, I have been lucky enough to keep in touch via Turf Talk with its excellent mix of reports, previews and breeding news.

Gavin Lareda, who showed his excitement after passing the post in front on One Stripe, is one winer off the lead in the South African table behind 20-year-old Craig Zackie with 106 victories. Last year’s record-breaking champion Richard Fourie is third on a dangerous 99.

It’s not just in racing where enthusiasm is high in the rainbow Republic. The rugby union team is the current World Champion while its cricket side are in the middle of a test match with Pakistan, having made a first innings score of well over 600.

Cricket and racing have been closely allied there for many years. Craig Kieswetter, a wicketkeeper batsman with 71 white-ball appearances for England, is closely involved through his family’s Barnane Stud. With such icons over the years as Basil D’Oliviera, Allan Lamb, Kevin Pietersen and up to the latest, new fast bowler Brydon Carse, the England cricket team has owed much to South Africa.

Barnane are joint-owners of the Willie Mullins top-class chaser Il Etait Temps with the biggest South African ownership entity Hollywood Racing (formerly Hollywood Partnership). Il Etait Temps was third In the Arkle Chase for Willie Mullins’ yard last year but improved on that to win the two Grade 1 two-mile novice chases at Aintree and Punchestown. He has yet to appear this winter.

I didn’t have to look far though to spot the continuing influence on racing of a long-standing breeder and owner whose pre-eminence in his own sport extends back six decades. Gary Player, 89, won the first of his 12 Major golf championships, the 1965 US Open, at the age of 29. Since then, he has been a breeder and owner at a high level in his native land.

On Saturday at Kenilworth, Player was part-owner, with the country’s primary stud Drakenstein and Mr D D McClean, of Double Grand Slam, winner of the Group 1 Cartier Paddock Stakes. What a man!

Looking at what Gary is still achieving, maybe it’s not too late to go over there and get some of that invigorating sunshine, possibly next January. At least the pound will go a little further there than it seems to do here nowadays.

 - TS

New for 2025: Introducing the Trends Tab

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Happy New Year to you! Here's hoping 2025 is another year packed full of thrilling action on the track, and some terrific bets landed. More importantly, I wish you and yours the very best of health for the coming year.

Meanwhile, on geegeez.co.uk, we've got a brand new TRENDS racecard tab, woohoo!

It looks like this:

 

 

And on mobile, something like this:

 

 

Clicking on the TRENDS tab will reveal up to the last ten renewals of the given race (currently - we're working on adding all renewals going back to 2009 when our database began). Of course, if a race has been run fewer than ten times, you'll see commensurately less data rows in the table.

 

Let's take a look at the tab in more detail. Here are the trends for a Cheltenham handicap chase from yesterday.

 

 

The left hand half of the screen is focused on standard intel, like the winner, trainer, jockey and going. Note the red font for N Henderson: this tells us that Nicky had a runner in the race this year. His runner was Chantry House, which won at 8/1. Convenient 🙂

 

 

Clicking on a race date will take you to the result of that race. And all of the columns within the TRENDS tab are sortable, making it easy to see if a specific profile is emerging around any of the variables. For the less obvious column headings, hovering over them will display a fuller explanation - in this case I'm hovering over 'DSLR':

 

 

In this example race, we can see that the odds on favourite, Broadway Boy, was younger than most winners (though there were two recent scorers his age). Broadway Boy had been sent off 4/1 favourite last time while most recent winners of this race had been less fancied on that prior spin. Chantry House was third choice in a hurdle race on his last day. The sweet spot on DSLR was four to five weeks (30-35 days) and Chantry House last ran 33 days ago.

The point here is not really to pinpoint winners - after all, looking only at win trends is a narrow field of vision for such a thing - but, rather, to highlight potential red / green flags for horses that you are considering in the round of their overall form profile.

Here's this Saturday's Veterans' Chase Final TRENDS tab:

 

 

Lots of former winning trainers, and Sam Brown bids to be the first repeat winner in the past decade. Being aged 13 won't stop him - three such veterans prevailed since the race began in 2016. And it's not been a great race for the top of the market with just three of the nine winners coming from the top four in the betting.

There's quite a narrow band on DSLR - see below - and we're not looking for a recent winner typically. Four of the nine winners were well fancied last time (first or second favourite, i.e. (Rk) (1) or (2)); and one or two runs in the past 60 days is standard, though that will likely be nearly all entries. Five winners finished 6th or worse, or failed to complete last time.

 

 

Looking at all that, one might split a tenner at prices on this quartet, though given their uninspiring surface form they may be bigger odds on the day:

 

 

So that's the new TRENDS tab. It exists for big races and little races; and it's live for Lite and Gold subscribers right now.

Note, if the tab is greyed out, there are no past editions of that race. [And we're aware of a small bug where the tab is greyed out for second divisions of a split race - we'll get that fixed, but I didn't want to delay releasing this new tab into your information portfolios].

Matt

Starting 2025 on the Front Foot

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As we approach the end of another year, which for me seems to have gone even quicker than previous years, many of us will be examining our betting ledger and working out how we can improve in the next twelve months, writes Dave Renham. We need to understand what has worked, and what hasn’t, and tweak accordingly.

As January 1st, 2025 looms, I am sure there will be an optimistic feel across the punting community, as there will be amongst much of the training ranks, too. In this article I want to see if I can find any key trainer patterns that have occurred in the first two weeks of the year going back to 2017. To assist, I have carefully harvested trainer data from Jan 1st to Jan 14th, for the past eight years. Who starts the year quickly? Who has a Christmas hangover? I wasn’t sure if I would find anything useful but if one doesn’t dig, one doesn’t find out!

Profits/losses have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price (BSP) less 5% commission.

Overall Trainer Angles

Let me first look at the trainers with the 20 best strike rates (to qualify – 60 runners minimum):

 

 

Positive Trainer Angles

It was a surprise to see Sue Smith top the list when you consider her overall 2017-2024 strike rate stands at 11.2%. She averages only 8 to 9 runners per year in these first two weeks but nevertheless in five of the eight seasons her strike rate has hit 30%+, and two of the other three were over 20%. 2024 was a poor year by her standards with just one winner from 13, but she hit the post with a BSP 12.48 shot who finished 2nd and she had a close-up 3rd at huge odds of 73.80.

These findings encouraged me to look at Sue Smith’s record by month going back to 2017. Below is a graph plotting strike rates, both win and each way, by month. I have grouped May to September together as each month within this bracket had modest to small sample sizes, as well as basically being the ‘off’/summer season.

 

 

From my perspective this graph illustrates three things – firstly, how clearly the whole of January (not just the opening two weeks) stands head and shoulders above the rest. Secondly, that the stable takes time to come to hand at the start of each season but by December there is improvement, and this is carried through to February before it starts to tail off slightly once more. Thirdly, the form of the stable from May through to November is modest at best and I would be wary of backing any runner during this period. Before moving on, it should be noted that since the end of October 2024 Sue Smith has teamed up with Joel Parkinson so when looking for runners/results on Geegeez from that stable, you now need to look for ‘J Parkinson + S Smith’.

Going back to the first table, the Geegeez-sponsored yard of Anthony Honeyball lies in second place in terms of strike rate. It should be noted though that the last couple of years has seen a dip in success; overall, however, there are excuses as he has saddled fewer fancied runners in that time frame. If we focus on horses that were in the top three of the betting, these first two weeks of the year have been excellent for the Honeyball stable. This subset of runners has won 16 times from 36 qualifiers (SR 44.4%) for a BSP profit of £23.00 (ROI +63.9%).

Nicky Henderson lies in third place and has been consistently hitting strike rates of over 23% in six of the eight years. Only 2022 saw a really below par effort when he had just two winners from 30 (SR 6.7%). The horses to focus on for Henderson in these first two weeks are, as with Honeyball, those that started in the top three of the betting. These runners have won 53 of 143 starts (SR 37.1%) for a profit of £21.33 (ROI +14.9%).

Brian Ellison is another who has performed well in terms of wins to runs during the first two weeks of the year. Any runners at Sedgefield would have required close scrutiny thanks to eight wins from 15 but, typically, there is no Sedgefield meeting scheduled for the first two weeks of 2025! However, there is another strong Ellison stat that will have relevance which focuses on horses that finished in the top five LTO. These runners have won 13 of the 48 races (SR 27.1%) in early January for a profit of £67.89 (ROI +141.4%). It should also be noted that over the rest of the year runners from his yard that finished in the first five LTO have won 17% of their races, well below this 27.1% figure.

The start of January does seem to ignite the Ellison fires because his form in November and December is traditionally poor. Below is a graph comparing the A/E indices for the Ellison stable for the whole of January (not just the first two weeks) with November and December.

 

 

For the record, his strike rate in November over the past eight seasons has been 6.6%, for December 8.5%, but for January 21.9%.

Scottish trainer Sandy Thomson is yet another trainer who has traditionally started the year well, hitting close to a 23% strike rate. He has fared particularly well at Ayr and here are all his runners catalogued. To make things stand out the winners are in red, the placed horses in orange.

 

 

His record at Ayr in the first fortnight of the year is eight wins from 21 (SR 38.1%), with a further four placed. Profits to BSP stand at £12.33 (ROI +58.7%). As can be seen there are no big wins skewing the results, indeed the biggest winning BSP was just 7.00. There are two meetings scheduled at Ayr for early January so keep your eyes peeled for any of his runners.

Thomson has also done especially well in handicap races winning 15 of the 59 contests (SR 25.4%) for a profit to the machine of £15.87 (ROI +26.9%). Again, no big winners to skew the profits. Not only that, if you focus in on stable jockey Ryan Mania only in these handicaps the record improves to 12 wins from 31 (SR 38.7%) for a profit of £29.74 (ROI +95.9%). Thomson does look a trainer to keep an eye on in these two weeks, especially handicappers ridden by Mania, or any runners at Ayr.

Olly Murphy is another trainer with a good strike rate and excellent returns. What particularly impressed me was that he has had winners at 19 different courses and drawn a blank at just seven others. He has sent a sole runner to four tracks – Fontwell, Ffos Las, Plumpton and Sedgefield - and all four won. Murphy is also three from three at Bangor. Of those seven courses without a winner he has sent single figures in terms of runners to each. For the record, he has only had two runners at Kelso, three at Southwell, four at Wincanton and five apiece at Taunton and Donny, six at Chepstow and eight at Kempton.

Negative Trainer Angles

On the flip side, there are some trainers who seem to have a hangover from Christmas as the New Year starts. Kim Bailey is in this camp having sent out just 11 winners from 115 (SR 9.6%) for hefty losses of £78.07 (ROI -67.9%). The prices of his horses have been similar to those in any other period of the year, indeed 60% of his runners were in the top four of the betting. Digging deeper, if we ignore bumper races and focus on chase and hurdle races only Bailey’s record looks even worse – just seven wins from 99 (SR 7.1%) for losses of £78.64 (ROI +79.4%).

I felt it worthwhile to look at Bailey's monthly strike rates (both win and each way) as with Sue Smith earlier, to see how January as a whole fits into his overall monthly profile.

 

 

As with Sue Smith I combined the summer months (May to September) as one. January as a whole (not just the first 14 days) has been comfortably the worst month; not only the win strike rate but the each way strike rate too. The A/E index for January is down at 0.61 and losses were 24p in the £ worse than the second worst month.

Sometimes, as we know, trainer stats can be skewed due to prices / market position etc. Below, then, is a table of Kim Bailey’s monthly performance with horses from the top three in the betting:

 

 

As might have been expected based on the previous evidence, January’s performance is the worst. Compare that with the outstanding October record where the strike rate is basically double that of January with returns of nearly 50p in the £.

Looking at monthly data for trainers can be useful, especially as some do seem to display clear patterns. Bailey is one such handler, starting the season strongly in October and keeping that going into November as well. A slight dip in December is followed by a bigger blip in January after which he recovers with solid months from February to April. It seems the months of May to September are less important to the stable.

David Pipe is another trainer who has struggled to kick start the New Year with a high level of success. He has saddled just 13 winners from 154 runners (SR 8.4%) for a BSP loss of £75.20 (ROI -48.8%). One subset of his runners that have performed particularly poorly are his runners aged 8 or older, which collectively recorded just one win from 62 (SR 1.6%) for losses of over 82 pence in the £.

Of these runners less than half of them were bigger than 10/1 Industry SP, so it’s not as though they were all outsiders – far from it. A couple more negatives for Pipe in this period relate to individual courses: at Taunton he is 0 from 27, and at Plumpton one from 20 with nine of the remaining 19 runners failing to complete the course. Plumpton has two New Year meetings scheduled, for the 5th and 14th January 2025, and I personally will not be backing any Pipe runner regardless of how strong other factors may be.

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I hope this article will contribute to you getting a head start as we tackle the first days of 2025. Beginning the year strongly from a punting perspective can offer us more confidence to tackle the year as a whole, so good luck with your betting and may I wish you a Very Happy New Year.

- DR

Monday Musings: Nobody Else

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Who else could have handled it? Never mind Willie Mullins for all his mastery at winning championship races, writes Tony Stafford. Add those other Irish behemoths of jumps training, Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead. You could probably slip Joseph O’Brien onto that list now he has renewed his love of collecting Grade 1 jumping prizes, notably last week’s King George at Kempton with Banbridge.

As to the UK, after Paul Nicholls and Dan Skelton it’s hard to imagine anyone having the resources or flexibility to attempt Nicky Henderson’s Christmas equine gymnastics. He’s a man apart.

Go back to last month. He took two horses for a gallop at Kempton Park. One, the former Champion Hurdler Constitution Hill, was aiming at a third consecutive Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle having been absent since the last one. The other, the unbeaten four-year-old Sir Gino, was being prepared for an early first race over fences.

It was a publicised workout, so the racing press were there expecting to see Constitution Hill come out on top. Then, assuredly, to resume at Newcastle that daunting sequence of eight successive wins since being bought from Warren Ewing and former Seven Barrows stable jockey Barry Geraghty for €120k.

That represented a fair profit on the €16k they paid for him before he had his one racecourse defeat, possibly unluckily, in a point-to-point. What could match him? But Henderson never minds testing his best horses – “no point” he probably says, “sending them away from home to look good against trees”.

Anyway, this tree spread his branches and took exception to his sacrificial object role and came out on top. I pondered a few weeks ago here whether the gallop was possibly a fair representation of where they are now and there were, and since, elements in the form lines of some of Mullins’ best horses that back up that theory.  More of that later.

But it brought an instant change of plan, Henderson with that nimbleness of thought that has kept him at the top of the tree – the fact he wins fewer trainer championships as the relentless Paul Nicholls to my mind has nothing to do with it.

“Constitution Hill isn’t ready” was the message followed soon after by a minor lameness issue, so Sir Gino, would-be chaser, would have to step in and continue his own unblemished Rules career record at Newcastle.

Although eight turned up at Gosforth Park, it was billed as a straight match between four-for-four Sir Gino and five-from-six Majestic Power from the Mullins stable. By Galileo out of Annie Power, Majestic Power has the most awesome pedigree and an equally redoubtable trio of owners, Mrs Ricchi, Mrs Magnier and J P McManus. It was widely held that the Mullins steamroller could not be thwarted.

In those top two-mile hurdle races, though, only a hint of inefficiency over the obstacles will leave any horse flailing in the wake of the rest and so it proved with Majestic Power. Ahead of him, Sir Gino, fluent from the outset, hit the front when Nico de Boinville wanted and drew away to an easy win.

The identity of the runner-up was almost immaterial, except that Sam Thomas’s Lump Sum picked up a more than useful £24k lump sum for his owners. It made everyone start looking at Sir Gino’s credentials for the Champion Hurdle, especially with Constitution Hill’s potential readiness in doubt at that stage.

Sir Gino hadn’t managed to get to the Triumph Hurdle last March so was unable to pick a fight with the septet of Mullins juveniles, the first two among them Majborough who beat filly Kargese by one and half lengths.

Majborough didn’t go on to Aintree for the Boodles Anniversary Hurdle, but Kargese did and Sir Gino beat her by almost four lengths.

Any suggestion that the Mullins filly was below par on the day has no credence as she easily won the Champion 4yo Hurdle at Punchestown in May. Meanwhile Majborough, with so much hurdles talent for Mullins to juggle, was sent straight over fences for his first run since Cheltenham and won easily at Fairyhouse last month.

It didn’t take long for any question whether Sir Gino would be aimed at the Champion Hurdle or taking the chasing path. Constitution Hill came right in the days leading up to Christmas when it was decided he would try for a third consecutive Christmas Hurdle. Waiting to destroy his unbeaten record was the 2023 Triumph Hurdle winner Lossiemouth, hard trained after a facile two-and-a-half-mile win over smart Teahupoo this month.

The French-bred mare came to Kempton with nine wins and a dreadfully unlucky 2nd in her first season on her card. Easy winner of both mares’ races at the Cheltenham and Punchestown Festivals, the latter at 2/11, she would be a stern test for the returning champion.

While Constitution Hill raced fluently close behind recent Greatwood Hurdle winner Burdett Road in the four-runner race, Paul Townend was content to allow Lossiemouth to sit a few lengths behind - perhaps he just couldn't go the speed of his rival. At no time did Constitution Hill look in danger.

De Boinville urged – no more - Constitution Hill to the front before the last flight at which Burdett Road made a horrible mistake and Lossiemouth wasn’t fluent either, but still the margin of two-and-a-half lengths didn’t reflect the winner’s superiority. At the same time, Lossiemouth’s own exceptional ability was not dimmed on a track where stamina, her main asset, wasn’t the prime requirement on the day.

But for me, the Christmas race of races was the Wayward Lad Novices' Chase on Friday. Here Sir Gino was unhesitatingly pitted against possibly the biggest talking-horse ever to come out of Ireland since Arkle - and “Himself” was racing more than 60 years ago!

As Ballyburn went through his season as a novice hurdler last winter, the publicity machine, in some degree initiated and fuelled by those closest to him and greedily latched on to by the media, earned him the status in some parts as “unbeatable”.

True he made mincemeat – appropriate for this time of year? - of the opposition at Cheltenham in the 2m5f Gallagher Novices' Hurdle, but two-thirds of the opposition, and handsome place prizemoney collectors, were from the Mullins stable. Two UK upstarts, one each for Ben Pauling, last of six to finish, and Nicky Henderson, pulled up, made this an open goal for the favourite.

An even easier victory came at Punchestown, and he returned to the same track for a debut win over fences last month.

So when they lined up on Friday at Kempton, it was a slight surprise to me that Sir Gino was comfortably preferred in the market in a race where again, as in the Christmas Hurdle, it featured two no-hopers in a field of four.

Ballyburn, with the experience and the need to make it a gallop over the two miles, was sent to the front by Paul Townend, but Sir Gino, all the way round, looked the more assured jumper and it was no surprise when he was allowed to take the lead going to three out. The last trio of Pendil-like leaps – look him up if you cannot remember the 1970’s – took him clear and the margin of seven and a half lengths again was no accurate reflection of their relative performances.

So once more Nicky Henderson has trumped everything that could possibly have been thrown at him. The noisy Ballyburn adherents will be wishing their trainer had kept him for one of the multitude of Grade 1 options that litter the four days of Leopardstown and even the odd one at Limerick over their joint Christmas programme.

The two Kempton defeats did signal more than a hiccup for Mullins. On Friday, in all he had 32 runners and, while it’s fair to say there were a few outsiders among them, it must have been a rare if not unprecedented experience for him to come home from Kempton in the knowledge that only one of the 32 had been victorious. That came in a chase at Limerick where two horses in front of his runner fell independently, allowing his to come through to win.

I think already we must regard Sir Gino as the next Altior. Altior won the Wayward Lad during 14 consecutive chase wins a decade ago. But Sir Gino’s achievement should be considered in the light that Altior’s win at 1/9 came on his third start over fences. Of course he won the Arkle. Of course, so will Sir Gino, unless Constitution Hill has any reason to miss the attempt at recapturing the Champion Hurdle from Mullins' State Man (and Elliott's Brighterdaysahead, who blitzed State Man yesterday), then no doubt he’ll go there and win that. See if you can back him for that, non-runner no bet!

- TS

Monday Musings: Reliving Past Lives

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I don’t know if you have a story that you tell and retell where one of the two main participants (the hero) has disappeared from your life for at least half a century while the villain remains so visible that his comments round by round on the Usyk/Fury fight on Saturday night were there for all to see who look at the Daily Mail sport website, writes Tony Stafford.

I am about to abort that singular source of sports opinion not least because, over the past couple of months, its offering has been gradually going over to a fee-paying split with ever more of the output barred to the normal reader.

Also, its irritating policy of putting up potentially interesting headlines and forcing you to read three paragraphs before revealing just which (usually) Manchester United player is going out with which Love Island “beauty”, gets so annoying.

Back in the late 1960’s I was in my first stint with a newspaper, the Walthamstow Guardian. Its close rival for local coverage was the Express and Independent, more centred on Leytonstone. At the time, my friend Graham Phillips and I used to share coverage of the same now redundant football team, Walthamstow Avenue, travelling in the team coach to their away matches.

In those days, aside from the Football League with its four divisions, First, Second and, sensibly, Third, North and South – how the clubs in say National League South, such as my mate Steve Gilbey’s Aveley in Essex near the Dartford Tunnel, would love not to have to travel every other week to the likes of Torquay, etc.

The amateur game had its principal competition, the Amateur Cup, and Walthamstow Avenue had been one of the best teams in the 1950’s when the occasional amateur player even got in the full England team. Avenue’s star was Jim Lewis and he was still around to talk to us now and again as we watched the regular matches in the Isthmian League, as it was then.

Graham, my best man RTS (Dick) McGinn and I all played cricket together for Eton Manor. Dick’s father was the tenant in a great pub in Tottenham Court Road in London’s West End and that’s where we had the evening reception in 1969. Not long after, Dick’s irascible old man decided to hand in the tenancy without a word to his wife or two sons.

This tale though happened a few months before that shameful episode. I played every Sunday for Pressmen, a team largely of local paper journalists, with two “bosses” one of whom was Jeff Powell, at the time my sports editor at the Guardian.

If I say he was the worst footballer I’d ever seen it was an under-statement, especially considering what a high regard he had for his ability. The two things that I can still picture was his technique for trapping a ball, by jumping with both legs and blocking the ball with his shins.

Secondly, he was to display the same aggression as he has in his articles for the Daily Mail over more than 50 years. His favourite admonishment was to shout, “Stick it on him, son!” as one of his teammates went into a tackle.

Graham had played for England schoolboys and I’d asked him to come along to play for us. He agreed and after the first game, where his skill was largely wasted as balls were played behind rather than in front of him, our leader later declared back in the office, “Don’t rate him!”

So the man who was big mates with some of the Leyton Orient players he met while having that job with the only Football League team in our area, and later claimed to be pals with Bobby Moore, captain of the 1966 World Cup winning team, you could say, started out with questionable credentials.

Graham’s father, Charlie, was manager of the Eton Manor senior team which won its League title three years in a row. The coach during that period was one Alf Ramsey. They continued to converse for the rest of his and, as he became, Sir Alf’s lives. Charlie gave strict instructions to his sons never to make public the correspondence between them.

I’ve told the tale to literally hundreds of people over half a century and then suddenly on Friday a note came from the office saying a certain Graham Phillips had made contact and wondered if they could pass on a message to me. The last time we spoke was at least 50 years previously.

He was studying at Swansea University and he and his friend Pete Suddaby, later of Blackpool  FC where he played for almost ten years racking up 300 appearances, invited Dick and me down to go to the dogs at the flapping track at Forestfach, but known as Swansea Greyhound Stadium.

I remembered going there but recall very little of the occasion. I contacted Graham, relieved to find he was still up and about, and he said he has pretty much a photographic memory of everything that happened in that time of his life.

He recalled that I was doing my brains (nothing unusual there!) but for some reason I had recognised the name of a dog running in the last race from my days going to Clapton dogs in East London. Somehow, according to Graham, Daybreak Again had been injured but I’d known it was pretty good at Clapton. We got 8/1 and cleaned up and Graham remembers me as having tipped everyone and bought dinner for all the group afterwards. Do you think I can remember any of that!

He wanted to contact me as next April, there is going to be an event in Bishopsgate, London, covering the days of Eton Manor Cricket Club where we both played and the idea is to try to get anyone who did represent the club to come along. Can’t wait.

I stopped playing regularly when I got to Fleet Street, weekends being busy for me at work, but Graham played for another ten years. As to the football, a couple of weeks after the Forestfach weekend, he injured his ACL – as he says, he invented the injury - and never played again. Maybe Jeff Powell wasn’t wrong after all.

It was salutary to learn that Dick McGinn, at six feet tall, probably too tall ideally to be a wicket-keeper but very proficient for all that, died in Perth, Western Australia in 2009.

He had contacted me a year earlier and we sent emails back and forth, usually about Test Match cricket. He emigrated after getting disenchanted with the pub/hotel business in the UK. He got a nice job over there and played Grade cricket at a high level. I must say I was jealous at the time.

Suddenly, after a year, my emails went unanswered. He had told me he was ill and Graham said it was an aggressive form of cancer that he had been fighting. Even after knowing that was what must have happened, it still came as a shock.

The blows continued. People we knew that had died, some several decades ago. One teammate age 40 had early onset dementia and spent thirty years in care before finally passing. Then there was the joy of hearing of those that are still around. That call, which probably lasted an hour, brought home just how much life is a numbers game and when your number is up, off you go. The point was, mostly these were fit, active sportsmen and none you thought would have been singled out for such a fate.

I suppose you were wondering why I hadn’t said that I’d noticed yesterday how the days were seemingly (and actually) getting longer. Yes, we’ve passed the Winter Solstice, the shortest day and (so far) have survived to see another Christmas.

It was my dad that couldn’t wait to get me to join Eton Manor and the application went in on my 14th birthday. The grounds are now a part of the Olympic Park, while the clubhouse was demolished so that the A12 could be built to link Blackwall Tunnel with Redbridge and then on to the M11 and North Circular Road.

To have been able to experience all the facilities for all the sports you could wish to try, and the formative years where your own character developed – mine edging more into horses and dogs, betting and usually losing - was a privilege for someone in Hackney.

Even earlier, the horse racing gene developed over Christmas when, with my dad and two of his uncles and one cousin, we watched the King George every year on Uncle George’s ten-inch TV screen. Halloween (1952/4) and Galloway Braes, in between, were the names engraved on my brain. Then, between races it was back to playing Solo Whist, a fantastic game which I would love to have the chance to revisit.

Seventy years on, I can still smell the aroma of the massive turkey that was always provided coming through the passageway down to the living room in Clapham South. Dad always wanted to come to live in the equally massive upstairs flat, but the tenants refused ever to move. Still, it meant I could join Eton Manor. Thanks, Graham, for reminding me of all of it.

- TS

 

Revisiting All-Weather Draw Biases

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It has been a while since I looked at all-weather draw biases so with plenty more racing on those surfaces to come this winter it seemed a good time to revisit the stats, writes Dave Renham.

Introduction

When I think about draw biases in turf racing, they tend to be far less predictable or consistent than draw biases on the all-weather (AW). There are a few reasons why this tends to be the case:

1. Some turf courses are increasing the number of meetings and they move rails to alter where the horses run. This can nullify or even change a draw bias.

2. The positioning of the stalls can change at some courses altering the track location that the horses are running from each draw. For example, on a straight track a horse could be drawn 1 when the stalls are positioned far side and be next to the far rail, but if the stalls on are the stands’ side the horse drawn 1 could be out in the middle of the course. Hence, if we hypothetically assume that the ground next to the far rail is quicker than the ground down the centre, then a horse drawn 1 could have a big advantage if the stalls are placed far side. Conversely if the stalls are stands' side, then the horse drawn 1 does not have this advantage. Moreover, running against a rail is generally more of an advantage than running in the middle of the track.

3. Turf courses use watering which potentially can change the going on certain parts of a track: that may then have an impact on any bias.

As far as the AW is concerned, these three reasons are not much of an issue. At AW courses the rails are fixed so moving them is not an option, and the position of the stalls doesn’t change either. Also, the going tends to be very similar on all-weather – the surface they race on is clearly the same each time, and whether it rides ‘standard’ or slower than ‘standard’ depends on the specific course surface, any additional harrowing undertaken and possibly the weather conditions.

The table below shows the percentage of races at each course in the past three years that has ridden either ‘standard’ or ‘standard to slow’. Those are the only two going descriptions we have had since the start of 2022.

 

 

As can be seen most of the courses primarily race on ‘standard’ going. At Chelmsford, Lingfield and Wolverhampton they rarely race on slower going. Kempton has raced on ‘standard to slow’ at every meeting over the past three years (indeed every meeting since 11th July 2018 - when does that become the new 'standard'? - Ed.), while Southwell sees slower ground about one meeting in five.

Newcastle is the course where there is the most even split with just under two-thirds of meetings having raced on ‘standard’, the other third on ‘standard to slow’. It should be noted that between the months of June and September around 60% of the Newcastle meetings have been on ‘standard to slow’, so one could logically surmise that either drier or warmer weather has the most impact in terms of the going there. All the course data points to the fact that how an AW course rides is rarely affected by significant changes in going.

In addition to all of the above, four of the six UK AW tracks see all races run around a bend. This can help in terms of consistency when it comes to the draw. Running around a bend means horses running closest to the rail having to run a shorter distance, thus on round courses lower draws tend to have an edge because they are drawn closer to the inside.

This introduction has made the hypothetical case for more consistent draw bias on the artifical surfaces, so let us see if this has actually been the case. The draw data I have collated goes back to the start of 2017 with the focus on 8+ runner handicaps, which are the best races to analyse when it comes to the draw. I will be looking at four course/distance combinations in detail, arguably the four strongest AW draw biases, starting with the minimum trip at Chelmsford.

Chelmsford 5f

The 5f distance at Chelmsford should favour lower draws because the bend they run starts little more than a furlong into the race and then sweeps round for two further furlongs until they turn into the straight. The racecourse map is shown below:

 

 

Let us look at the draw splits for the whole-time frame in terms of win percentages within each third of the draw:

 


 

As expected, lower draws have an edge over middle drawn runners, who in turn enjoy an advantage over high draw runners. If there was no bias all these figures should be close to the 33.3% mark. The lower the draw the better with horses drawn 1 winning 31 races (18.3% of all races), horses drawn 2 winning 24 (14.2%). Combined, the two lowest draws have won 55 races, compared with the two highest drawn horses in each race who have collectively won 22 between them.

This suggests that horses drawn in the lowest two stalls are 2.5 times more likely to win than those drawn in the highest two stalls. This disparity increases when the number of runners increases, peaking at 4.3 times more likely when the field size is 11 or 12. It should also be noted that horses drawn 1 have made a profit to SP and BSP, as have those drawn 2. The profits are very small to SP, but with 169 runs for each stall position this suggests there is some value backing these two draws.

In terms of Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB) there is positive correlation with the win data with low on 0.54, middle 0.52 and high down at 0.45.

If we now look at the record of the lowest third of the draw by individual year we might expect to see big fluctuations, due mainly to small sample sizes and standard variances. To counter that, I have grouped the annual data in a slightly different way using a method I first saw in Nick Mordin’s excellent book, Winning Without Thinking. He looked at data in batches / groups of years, which is a good way to compare things more effectively due to more reliable sample sizes. You can also see patterns changing more easily – if indeed they do change. He used five-year batches; I’m going to look at four-year batches. Below is a graph comparing the win percentage for the lowest third of the draw using the batch/group method:

 


 

The bias has remained fairly consistent with all four-year batches showing 40%+ figures. The graph suggests that there may be a slight strengthening of the bias over the last eight years but, regardless of whether that is true, it is clear I hope that this bias is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Before moving on, there seems to be a draw bias ‘cut off point’ at stall 7. Specifically, horses drawn 7 or lower have won 144 races from 1183 runners (SR 12.2%). Those drawn 8 or higher have won 25 races from 424 runners (SR 5.9%). In addition, over this track and trip, horses drawn 11 or 12 (the maximum field size is 12) are 1 win from 50 (SR 2%).

My betting strategy as regards the draw over 5f at Chelmsford is to primarily focus on horses drawn 1 and 2, but I am prepared to look at horses drawn as high as 7. Those drawn 8 or higher will get a line through them unless they have several strong factors to bring to the table.

 

Chelmsford 6f

Remaining at Chelmsford we move up a furlong to six. With the bend being an additional furlong away from the start, one would expect that the low draw bias might be less potent than it is over 5f. Let’s look at the win percentages by third of draw first:

 


 

As expected the edge for low draws is less strong and, also, high draws have fared much better at this trip in terms of wins compared with 5f. However, in Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB) terms the figures are more akin to the 5f cohort, especially looking at the low third and the high third. The PRB for low draws stands at 0.55 (0.54 over 5f), middle lies on 0.49 (0.52 over 5f) and high at 0.46 (0.45 over 5f). These figures suggest low’s advantage over high is similar to that of the minimum distance. The win & placed figures are also very similar when comparing the draw thirds over the two distances. Essentially, I would say that from a win perspective, the bias is less strong over six furlongs while in terms of getting placed it is similar.

It should also be noted that the maximum field size over 6f is 14, two more than over five furlongs. It is rare that 13 or 14 runners come to post here but, for the record, no horse drawn 13 or 14 won in the eight-year period from 38 runners to try.

Looking through the value lens, however, using A/E indices, higher draws have scored best. Their figure of 0.92 is well above the low figure of 0.81 and middle one of 0.82. Perhaps bookmakers and punters perceive the bias to be stronger than it is at this distance.

My betting strategy as regards the draw over 6f at Chelmsford is to only rule out horses drawn 13 or 14. Hence for most races that means I would not be put off by any draw position. Indeed, as the A/E indices showed there is probably value looking higher than lower. [In fact, run style is arguably much more material at this course and distance - see this article (from late 2021), partially replicated below.

 

 

Kempton 6f

Traditionally this range at Kempton has produced the strongest and most consistent draw bias on the AW. For years low draws have held sway. There is a similarly strong bias over 5f, but qualifying races are rare with only three in the past three years (that trio were won by horses drawn 1, 1 and 2). Let us look at the win percentage splits for each third of the draw going back to 2017:

 

Low draws have won 46.5% of all races which is the biggest percentage for any all-weather course and distance combination using the 8+ runner handicaps condition. Additionally, the number of races during this time frame was 400 so a strong sample size. Backing horses drawn 3 or 4 would have yielded a profit to BSP of 10p in the £. In terms of Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB) these figure correlate positively showing that clear edge to lower drawn runners:

 


 

The low to high comparison of 0.57 to 0.42 further illustrates the strength of this bias. From a punting perspective low draws offer the best value as well, with an A/E index of 0.93 compared with 0.88 for middle draws and a lowly 0.68 for high.

Earlier I discussed a Nick Mordin idea of grouping data in yearly batches to give more accurate comparisons over different time frames / years. As I did with Chelmsford over 5f earlier, here are the four-year win percentages over 6f at Kempton for the lowest third of the draw using this grouping method:

 


 

As can be seen this bias has remained consistently strong over the whole of the eight-year time frame. I also used this idea for the PRBs, across all three sections of the draw, and we see excellent consistency once more.

 

 

Before moving on, it should be noted once more that the low draw bias increases as field size increases. The maximum field size is 12 and looking solely at races contested by 11 or 12 runners, the lowest third of the draw won more than half (52.2%) of the races with a PRB of 0.59; the highest third won just a sixth of the time with a PRB of 0.41.

 

Wolverhampton 5f

The fourth and final course/distance combination takes us to Wolverhampton and their minimum trip. Let's start with a look at the draw splits based on win percentage by third of the draw:

 

The implication is again of a decent low draw bias, with a repeat of the pattern seen above in terms of the lower the better. The PRB figures correlate positively with the win percentage splits as the graph below illustrates:

 


 

All things considered one would much rather be drawn low than high.

Let us now compare 2017-2020 with 2021-2024 rather than the 4-yearly groupings I used earlier. I am doing this for two reasons: one, to mix the article up a bit; and two, to clearly highlight the more recent struggles of higher draws. This would have been shown using the earlier Mordin method, too, just so readers know I’m not moving the goalposts in any way:

 


 

The chart illustrates how higher draws have diminished nearly 8% in terms of win success across the two four-yearly time frames. This is quite a steep decline but it is not easy to understand why. One reason may be because the average price of the highest three drawn runners has been slightly higher in the 2021-2024 period compared with 2017-2020. However, the average price difference is negligible really and it could be a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' due to this bias being subsumed in the market, so perhaps something else is going on. Maybe it is down to statistical variance? It is impossible to say.

My final graph this week shows the win success rate of each individual stall / draw position at Wolverhampton over 5f.

 

 

This presents a clear indication that stall 4 is probably the cut-off point for top bias. In fact, if you had backed stalls 1, 2, 3 and 4 blind over the eight-year review period you would have ended up with a profit to BSP of £102.79 to £1 level stakes. This equates to a 7p in the £ return.

Summary

To conclude, the draw biases shown have been highly consistent especially in terms of the strongest stall positions which, in each case, has been the lowest drawn third.

Wolverhampton 5f has been less consistent with its high draw data, but overall, the draw biases at these four track/range combos have virtually remained the same throughout the eight-year period. In addition, there is no reason to suggest this might change any time soon (although markets are likely to eventually further cotton on and adjust prices accordingly).

Finally, and the most important thing from a punter’s perspective, low draws continue to offer the best value at each of Chelmsford 5f, Kempton 6f and Wolverhampton 5f, while fielding against the bias with higher draws over 6f at Chelmsford - especially with runners capable of a forward run style - looks the way to go.

Until next week.

- DR

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