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Pinball Wizard, Part 5: In-Running Aids and Hacks

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Previously on… Pinball Wizard Betting… We looked at how I approach the In-Running Market and my strategy for winning, writes Russell Clarke. You can read that here. And earlier episodes are here: Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

Along the way I have picked up some hacks that many of you will find useful, and also the use of some aids that often enable the hacks. The most important hack I can share is to spend five minutes at the end of each day’s trading to quickly summarise what you feel you did well, what you didn’t do well, and any mistakes you made.

My crib sheets are kept in a notebook and after each race I scribble the result and any immediate feeling I have: this takes no more than 30 seconds. Then, at the end of the day, I can read through those comments, and I make bullet points of ‘Lessons Learned’. I found them invaluable when starting out, and still do it today out of habit. I will go back and read them after I have had a poor day and they reaffirm learning points.

Look to use the options on your bet placement software that suit your style of trading. Whether you are using Bet Mover or Bet Angel you have tools and servants that will place your orders into the market to give you the best chance of being matched without sacrificing too much in terms of value.

For example, you can instruct the software to place your lay orders at x number of ticks above the current back price or vice versa for back bets. In fast moving markets this gives you the best chance of being matched with some protection from offering outlandish prices. If you are using a ladder, such an aid is not required. Fill or Kill is another option that is more than useful. This essentially cancels any unmatched bets within x seconds of placement. This is especially helpful if you are inexperienced and could forget to cancel an order. Offsets and Servants provide other options for you to explore. The bet placement software tools are excellent and you should use them to their fullest.

Your surroundings when trading in-running are vital. It obviously takes more concentration than pre-race betting and you need to concentrate fully. Ideally, you should have an office space that “ain’t got no distractions” as Mr Townshend might say. You will be using your eyes and ears and making split second decisions, so you need to have a clear strategy or plan that you do not deviate from or are distracted from.

You should be constantly honing your in-running skills. You can certainly make notes on jockey styles that catch your eye by watching replays. Picking up characteristics should pay dividends in identifying possible entries before others. I have to admit, this is an area I have neglected personally.

TPD (Total Performance Data) is essentially a quantitative analysis of what you can (and can’t) see on the live pictures. If you choose to use it, you should produce screen capture videos of races and your trading of the numbers. This analysis will quickly highlight scenarios that are advantageous, speeding up the learning process. The numbers are not infallible but they will help inform decision-making.

Be aware of the type of race you are trading. Handicaps involving horses with plenty of experience and form are unlikely to yield many clues pre-race. In contrast, in fields of inexperienced juveniles, the paddock and pre-race preliminaries can inform far more. These types of races are also more heavily influenced by what is happening live and so don’t hold on to pre-race expectations set by BSP as long as you might in a field of grizzled handicappers.

Remember that “everyone sees the obvious”. So, in general, don’t hit the lay button directly after a bad jump. The market initially overreacts as everyone does the same thing and then comes back to an equilibrium a few seconds later. You will just be left with an entry level way above the current level that could be costly to trade out of, if you need to do so later. The exception to this rule might be in a big field where the mistake has been hidden from view somewhat. Similarly, on the Flat, don’t be too keen to hit the lay button after a tardy start. The market typically overreacts and then comes back and you don’t want to be left holding the baby, especially if a slow start is typical of the horse. Of course, if it is atypical, then you might want to have a go at ‘fastest finger’.

Avoiding the end of a race when you are starting in-running trading is a golden rule. Treat 3f or 2f out as the end of the race for your purposes (slightly further over Jumps). By that time, you should either be comfortable with your trade or have traded out for a green or red. The end of a race is chaotic in terms of the market and you are unlikely to have the experience to cope with the volatility. In addition you could be competing with people on-course and their time advantage is much more potent at the end of a race.

Finally, practice before you start. Use small stakes and develop the style that suits you best. That may be as a trader or a backer or a layer. You might prefer some degree of automation or manual trading. You may prefer one-click or the ladders. You might want to read the whole race, or just one or two horses. You might want to use numbers or just visuals. Or any combination of the above. But your practice time will allow you to try different methods without costing you too much in mistakes.

I hope this series of articles has been useful for both experienced and less experienced in-running players. Apologies for the painful The Who references. “I Can’t Explain”, and perhaps it is only “My Generation” who have picked them up. It remains a mystery how I failed to get “You Better You Bet” into the article!

- RC

 

p.s. Bonus Material! Below is an example Crib Sheet from a recent race meeting. These are the essence of how I make in-running betting work for me, so I hope you'll find the layout interesting and useful if you'd like to get started.

Ripon 22/07/23

2.46 5f Maiden

MUTASAWI (bsp 3.11)…Sire was 3/8/43 for 2yo’s, though he has a clear form chance.

CAST NO SHADOW (bsp 8.26)…Debut

TROPICAL ISLAND (bsp 2.91)…Debut

A tricky race to trade because I had 3 horses on the crib sheet and it was a 5f race, thus leaving little time for decisions. In these instances, I try and latch on to the one that looks weakest as early as possible.

In this instance, it was quite clearcut. Mutasawi was quickly away, but both of the debutants made poor starts and so I concentrated on them. Tropical Island had reasonable TPD (Total Performance Data) numbers as the race settled down. In contrast, Cast No Shadow had a very high cadence number in the very early stages and that is a little worrying for a 2yo on debut as it suggests over exuberance/greenness. All of this was established within the first furlong. I decided to concentrate on Cast No Shadow.

Of course, it was also possible that Cast No Shadow could be a very fast 2yo (as I had no racecourse evidence) and so my approach here is to look for visual confirmation of the  Crib Sheet and the numbers. He did look green, raced on the outside and then got carried further over. I laid him at this point at an average of 11. In fairness he ran well. It felt like a safe entry and I never needed to consider trading out.

3.20 6f Novice Stakes

MINACK….. slowly away in both runs to date. Negative pace/draw bias (0.28 PRB).

CAPITAL GUARANTEE….First run for new trainer whose record in such situations was 5/10/49.

Minack ended up with a bsp of 100 and Capital Guarantee was a non-runner. I watched the race in case I saw something, or the TPD numbers threw something up, but there was no trade.

 

3.56 10f Handicap

CASILLI (bsp 12.0)……. A negative pace/draw bias of 0.44

GAREEB (bsp 5.93)….Stable relatively out of form….Slowly away on 2 of his last 3 races….Sire record at this distance 9/24/104 compared with an overall 53/130/372 (which is a place percentage of 23% v 35%) and this is his first try at the trip.

In the race, Casilli did race 5 or 6 lengths off the pace and I considered a lay at around his bsp, but my eye was immediately taken by Gareeb who was rushed up from a moderate start (clearly to avoid being slowly away again) but then got trapped behind horses and started to pull. This was somewhat hidden on the pictures. My thought process was that, given the stamina doubts, pulling hard cannot be a good thing (ordinarily I don’t penalize horses pulling too much as I think it is oversold by the market). He traded below his bsp until well into the straight and I could (and probably should) have taken advantage of that. Instead, I was more cautious and waited for a real sign of weakness and then laid him heavily. I averaged just over 11 and didn’t need to trade as he was beaten very quickly. It was a profitable trade, but, in hindsight, I should have trusted my Crib Sheet and eyes earlier and looked to trade rather than waiting for a cast-iron lay.

4.30 12f Handicap

DARK JEDI (bsp 9.74)…….Trainer/Jockey combination have horrific numbers of 7/45/281 with IV and A/E figures of 0.34 and 0.23. However, in the past, he has won on this ground off this mark.

In the race itself, Dark Jedi had a very good cadence number in the early stages and I saw no visual clues until his price had gone way above his bsp. My eye was taken by Sir Rumi (bsp 11.18) who raced in last position off a relatively modest pace. He had poor TPD numbers and was having to be niggled along by his 7lb claimer and then hung throughout the straight. He was certainly a potential trade but never got close to his bsp and I didn’t get involved.

5.05 8f Handicap

WOBWOBWOB (bsp 13.37)….. A winner over 6/7f and there was a doubt about his stamina on soft ground at 8f.

INNSE GALL (bsp 19.2)….Negative Pace/Draw bias.

In the race itself, Wobwobwob unseated as he came out of the stalls. I was too slow to take advantage. Innse Gall was held up, but it was clear from the par charts that the race was truly run and so the negative pace bias wasn’t likely to pan out. Young Fire caught my eye in the race. He was trapped on the inside (arguably well placed) but wasn’t travelling with much fluency. His TPD numbers were poor and yet he was trading around his bsp. I entered the trade at an average of around 9.2 at the first sign he was under pressure. It wasn’t with maximum confidence and so I was poised to trade out. He didn’t pick up and again I didn’t have to trade out.

 

Overall, an uneventful day (which is always a good sign). Three profitable trades (none of which were traded) and, although the prices were a little higher than I would normally like, all were close enough to bsp for me to be confident I was getting a value entry. Gareeb was my most confident and most profitable trade of the day. But, it would also get the award for the least well executed trade. There's always more to learn and improve upon!

Pinball Wizard, Part 4: The Practice of Winning

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Previously On… Pinball Wizard Betting... We looked at the Theory Of Winning and the utilization of edges. You can read that here. [And part 1 is here, part 2 is here.] Now, we examine the theories being put into practice and how I personally approach the in-running market, writes Russell Clarke.

Clearly there are lots of angles and strategies to try and beat the in-running market. I know a number of successful traders in the market and they use a myriad of methods. Some bet early, some bet late. Some focus on one horse, some follow the top two or three in the market, some follow the whole race. Some will trade every race, some will be more selective. Some bet, some trade, some back, some lay. Some utilise options such as automated trading, some use servants, some trade manually. In short (was that short?!), there are many ways to tackle the challenge and your pathway will depend on your individual strengths and edge.

 

Pre-Race Preparations: The Crib Sheet

My day starts with compiling my Crib Sheet for the day. The Crib Sheet is where I will jot down anything that could be useful from an in-running perspective. I’m not looking to analyse form or pick the winner or find value. This makes the process much quicker and very focused. Using Geegeez, I open a race and, if it is a flat race I look at the effect of the draw and the pace. I may change the parameters such as ground to give me a greater sample size if required. Primarily I am looking for extremes. You can see tutorials on how to use Geegeez on the site and so I won’t repeat that here, but my preferred measurement is PRB (percentage of rivals beaten) as this covers all runners in the race rather than a % won/placed. So, if I spot a combination with a low number, I will highlight the horses who could fall into that. As an example, if low drawn hold up horses have a PRB of 0.32, then I will highlight those.

My next stop are the statistics for each horse. Here I use my Report Angles. I primarily use Trainer and Sire Angles and have them set up on my settings as ‘Any’. This gives me a number of stats on each horse and I look for negative numbers with a reasonable sample size. I quickly scan for low IV, low A/E and low %placed for any of my stats. I will then check that the stat is likely to be relevant to today’s race/circumstance and make a note on my crib-sheet of any extremely negative stat that may have relevance. Examples might be a trainer with an exceptionally poor record with horses that haven’t run for 60 days, or with runners in a chase (if the horse is making a chase debut) or a sire with a poor record at a certain trip (if the horse is moving up/down in distance). The point is that the negative stat has to be relevant.

I will then check the write-ups on each horse to look for quirks/idiosyncrasies. These are many and varied. Is he temperamental, does he display any quirks (and do these quirks predicate performance) or show any patterns of form/performance? They can then be checked in his history and I can occasionally unearth gems such as performing below par when sweating, or upset, or when pulling too hard, or when ront-running, or wearing headgear, etc. Again, these are noted on the Crib Sheet.

For each race, I can have any number of notes on any number of horses on the Crib Sheet. I try to keep the list and notes as brief as possible and look only for extremes. I do this for a number of reasons. You can only watch so many horses in-running and I am looking for confirmation of my notes. For example, if I have a draw/pace angle of 0.32 and this is confirmed in-running. Extremes produce better results because they give more room for error and listing marginal advantages/disadvantages would simply produce ‘noise’ in terms of results.

I then make a note of the silks of the noted horses and quickly scan the field to see any similar colours. This is important and will stop you following the wrong horse in the heat of the battle! Finally, I make a plan for the race and all of the noted horses. This is simple and goes along the lines of… “if this is confirmed, do this… if not, do that.” It’s a form of discipline that I have found useful. It sounds like a lot of work, but I can normally complete two meetings in 90 minutes. I only trade when I can do two meetings. This alleviates the boredom between races but allows enough time to paddock watch, listen to interviews and watch horses to post.

 

The Race Itself…

Ideally, I watch for the ten minutes prior to the start of the race. I look for paddock clues, misbehaviour and running to post. Sometimes, I am looking for Crib Sheet confirmation, other times a horse may enter the Crib Sheet based on something I see or hear in an interview beforehand.

During the race I watch the horses on my Crib Sheet, but also watch the data I receive from TPD (Total Performance Data). TPD place transponders in the saddle of all runners at a number of tracks in the country. These are essentially the tracks you see on Sky Racing. They also cover a lot of American racing. The transponders send information about the speed and position of the runners. They can also measure other data such as stride length, but for the purposes of this series of articles we will deal only with speed.

The data is an array of miles per hour, position, and sectionals, along with a very clever par chart (adapted to account for class, ground and age) for the race, against which you can measure the pace of the race. The team at TPD have gone further still and produced easy to understand numbers that disemminate all the information. Three sets of numbers can be used, Velocity Fluctuation (which measures how smoothly a horse is running), Velocity Error (which measures how a horse is running against the par) and Cadence Error (which measures the cadence of the horse against a par). These are all placed on a scale, with 100 as an ‘average’ and normalized for all runners. These are produced in real time and therefore fluctuate throughout the race. Extremes are easy to spot as they are colour-coded. They are not without fault, as the technology is fallible, but they provide great information for the in-running trader and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

During each race, I continually flick between watching the Crib Sheet horses on the live feed to the TPD visuals, to the market, and back again. This is where the pinball analogy is strongest. I follow the plan on the Crib Sheet and look for confirmations. If I have the TPD numbers for the race, I’m looking for extremes that I can trade. For example, there may be a horse with a high Velocity Error number because he is either a front-runner who is racing far above par (too fast), or, in contrast, a hold up horse in a race that is being run well below par (too slow). Occasionally the stars will align and a Crib Sheet horse will be confirmed by visuals and also have poor TPD numbers.

 

Execution: Pulling The Trigger

If I’m betting early in the race, my execution is guided by the BSP (betfair starting price), which I have as part of my screen set up. The BSP is the best guide to the chance of a horse pre-race. I covered the wisdom of the crowd in a previous set of articles here on Geegeez. Its importance diminishes as the race progresses, but in the early stages, it is a good gauge of value. Let us say I have a Crib Sheet horse with a BSP of 6.6. If it is ‘confirmed’ early in a race, I will look to place a trade if the price is around that BSP. My logic is that if 6.6 was an accurate price before the race for my Crib Sheet horse and now we have additional evidence via a confirmation, its chances have significantly decreased. If I can lay at 7.2, I would consider that a value entry. If it was now trading at 13.5, I wouldn’t enter, despite the confirmation. I have a similar process for TPD numbers. As the race progresses, I take less notice of the BSP as the additional evidence begins to outweigh the knowledge of the market beforehand.

After an entry, I then watch my trade like a hawk; but I also take note of how other fancied contenders are trading to get an overall view of the market and the race. I view every bet as a trade initially and will exit without hesitation if my reason for entering the trade disappears. This could be that the TPD numbers improve in the race, or, my Crib Sheet confirmation gets reversed in any way, or even (in exceptional circumstances) other fancied runners are clearly running below expectation.

Exiting the trade can either be done gradually by backing the horse with a lesser stake or immediately via the green button. The discipline to ‘take a red’ is vital to avoid a heavy loss. Most of the time, I allow the trade to run and get full value.

In the fifth and final episode… In-Running Aids and Hacks to shortcut the learning curve, PLUS an example day's trading. Read there here.

Pinball Wizard, Part 3: The Theory of Winning In-Running

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Previously On… Pinball Wizard Betting… We looked at the psychological difference between betting and trading, including a typical journey into in-running betting and whether a one-click screen or a ladder is best for in-running. You can read that here, and Part 1 is here.

In this article we get to the ‘good stuff’ with the theory of winning in the in-running markets, writes Russell Clarke.

Just like the pre-race markets, to produce a long-term profit, you require an ‘edge’. An edge is a factor, a combination of factors or a strategy that is unknown to the market or underestimated by the market. In layman’s terms, betting 6/4 on the flip of a coin.

The skillset to bet with an edge in-running can be different to that which is required in the pre-race market. It can also incorporate elements of pre-race analysis. Edges that I have seen utilised by successful in-running traders can be very diverse and I have highlighted many of them in this article.

Gamer skills can be useful. Do you have the hand-eye coordination that makes you the fastest finger on the ladders? Could you bet on a race without actually watching the race in question? Are you capable of being ‘Pinball Wizard’ Tommy and playing the market ‘blind’? Filling gaps between back and lay offers and reading the market liquidity and direction to trade a profit over a lengthy number of races? It sounds a stretch, but I know of at least one successful trader who achieves this. I know another who relies heavily on this ability, without it being his sole modus operandi. Using the ladders means you are totally in control of the prices you take or offer, both on entry and exit. You close the margins against you. I could not personally trade successfully this way, but it is interesting to know that it is possible.

Perhaps you are an experienced and expert race-reader? In-running betting is the place to test those skills! Many of us have watched thousands of races and, like football pundits, are very confident in our own opinions and expertise. Testing oneself is relatively easy because replays of races are available free of charge and effectively unlimited. Watch replays and see if you can predict the winner at the 3-furlong marker, 2f out and 1f out. Test your ability to spot losers after 1f, 2f or three furlongs. You may be surprised! Knowing how much the picture can change could be an in-running superpower!

You will certainly find yourself learning when watching lots of races through this lens. The lessons learned then have to be tested against the market. Thousands of pairs of eyes are watching the same race as you, so you need to either spot things earlier than the majority, or see things that the majority don’t see. You can only really test your theories or race-reading abilities on live races and that will be your acid test. Do it to small stakes!

Some like to believe they can read a horse’s behaviour in the paddock, on the way to post or at the post. Certainly, this can be of real interest among lightly raced horses where there is limited racecourse form or experience. Today, we are better served than ever. Racing TV, Sky Racing and ITV racing all cover the paddock and pre-race to varying degrees. They also offer interviews with those closest to the horses. It is often possible to spot something before the market and trade that information before the race even goes in-running.

To my knowledge, there hasn’t been much quantitative analysis of a horse’s pre-race behaviour. What effect does a horse sweating pre-race actually have? What about misbehaviour in the paddock or reluctance to enter the stalls? Such analysis was attempted by Geoffrey Hutson in his book Watching Racehorses, but the sample sizes were limited and the nuances are almost too difficult to evaluate. For example, if a horse always sweats or misbehaves it is probably of little consequence, but, if it is a new trait, then greater significance could be placed upon it. I have found this area more lucrative than I thought. It doesn’t throw up opportunities that often, but they are worth waiting for.

Can you use your pre-race analysis skills to produce in-running opportunities and profit? Are you a keen student of the draw? Or pace? Or draw and pace combination? As a Geegeez subscriber, I’m pretty sure you already utilise these resources as the site has some unique tools to analyse this area.

For example, if you know over today’s course/distance/ground/field size that horses that are held up from a low draw have a PRB (percentage of rivals beaten) of 0.35, that is valuable information. Pre-race it still suffers from the unknown of the pace element of the equation. In-running, that unknown becomes known and therefore even more powerful! Not only can you be 100% certain who has been held up, you can also quickly know if the overall pace means that run style is a disadvantage or not.

That 0.35 pre-race figure covers all races under consideration, both fast run and slowly run. If we now know that this race is slowly run, that 0.35 is probably lower still because being held up in a slowly run race inhibits winning chances further. Other pre-race analysis may reveal reasons you feel certain horses may underperform or overperform. These reasons may then be confirmed in-running and thus increase confidence in your entry point. Idiosyncrasies among horses may also reveal themselves. For example, a horse may underperform when pulling or when held up or when missing the break etc. These can then be confirmed (or not) in-running. All of the above can be found quickly via Geegeez.

Are you aware enough to spot track biases as they present themselves? Are front-runners favoured or might there be a ‘golden highway’ by a rail? Days when ground changes occur due to drying weather or excessive rain often lend themselves to this type of knowledge. On days when there has been a lot of rain, or perhaps it is raining during racing, can be particularly interesting. I have often noted at jumps courses that certain parts of the track become heavily favoured and horses that run on the unfavoured part have virtually no chance of winning. The in-running market seems slow to react to this knowledge.

How good is your pace analysis? The pace at which a race is being run conveys advantages and disadvantages to horses in certain positions. I utilise the fantastic service run by TPD (Total Performance Data) to give me important insights into this factor. In the next article, I will go into greater depth about their service and how I use it, but they produce excellent Par Charts that each runner’s progress is compared against. These instantly show how quickly or slowly a particular race is being run. Clearly this is a huge uplift on ‘judging’ by eye.

Jockey styles are varied both in their habits (where they like to position themselves in races – see David Renham’s great articles on this) and their visual appearance. Both factors can shed light on what you are seeing in-running. Knowing your jockey styles can give you a head start on the market. Some jockeys are quiet on a horse and any movement can be a sign of weakness, others are more energetic and could mislead you into believing the horse is under pressure. Often, being able to spot these differences gets you ahead of the market and thus able to secure a better entry/exit price.

All of the above can constitute edges; and all of the above are used by successful in-running traders that I know. Some use only one, some a combination, but I think whatever they use it reflects upon their own personal strengths. In-running betting opens up potential edges that are not available pre-race, but the margins can be harder to overcome and the liquidity is lower. These have to be accounted for by much stronger edges than those used by successful punters pre-race.

Next up… I outline my personal approach in ‘The Practice Of Winning’. You can read that here >

- RC

Roving Reports: An Unwelcome Hat Trick

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It's been a while since you had a blog from me as, to be honest, there has not been a lot to report back on since Ascot, writes David Massey.

For every week you find yourself working a Goodwood or a Newmarket or the Royal Meeting, there are two or three Southwells, Stratfords and Leicesters; and, whilst they all have their charms, there's usually little or no action in the ring.

Saying that, for those that complain the books are all the same, one Midlands bookmaker, in an effort to do something different, has started betting extra places on selected races. Come racing!

I've actually had time to go and enjoy myself at the races and went to Newmarket's Ladies Day with my friend Paula, who likes a day racing, and has her own retired ex-racer for a hack. Remarkably, despite living in Cambridge, she'd never been to Newmarket and was absolutely amazed by their woody pre-parade ring, which is surely one of racing's hidden jewels. I could sit in there all afternoon, just making notes and watching the horses. I think you learn a lot in there. Can I recommend you get Dubai Treasure, second to Sacred Angel in the fillies maiden, in your trackers? She had no clue pre-race and was very green going to post, too. Given how much energy she expended, I expected her to drop right away, but she stuck willingly to the task and will know a lot more next time. I suspect she's very good.

Anyway, in terms of actual work, it's been thin on the ground. I've done a couple of Southwells and worked York's John Smith's weekend, which can easily be summed up in a short sentence: wet, and disappointing business. The Friday was awful, with rain all afternoon and it leaked under the waterproofs. The money required drying out (you've never seen so many tenners on a bathroom floor) before it could be cashed up, and my socks needed wringing out.

Saturday saw a different kind of rain, one that wasn't as constant as Friday but was more ferocious when it hit, with two warnings given out by the track for lightning.

One of those came just as we were getting going betting on the first race, and it rather killed it; probably just as well, as Blue For You was well backed. Results weren't bad, with Pride Of America almost unbacked for the John Smith's Cup, surprisingly given his liking for soft ground, but there you go. The biggest bet I took all day was a £300 one on Hamish for the Silver Cup at 1-2, and the punter was made to sweat considerably more than I think he thought he might, although he got his £150 profit in the end. That, by the way, shows you the level of business; York, rails, on John Smith's day, and the biggest bet I can take is £300.

I'm not known by friends as The Rainmaster for nothing; it seems to follow me around like a bad smell and, sure enough, Doncaster on Saturday night saw us get another drenching. It wasn't as bad as expected and the worst of it came just as we were packing up, but it put the tin hat on a night of what-can-go-wrong-nexts.

We have a Saturday night crowd who are there to see Abba tribute act Arrival after racing, so we know what we are dealing with. This is confirmed by the number of "this is my first bet ever" ladies that come up before the first. It never ceases to amaze me that people in their forties and fifties have got this far in life and never had a bet. I think I'd just about reached my eleventh birthday before my first wager.

Anyway, all the kit is working fine, we're off and running, business is steady and results are okay. What could go wrong?

Race 3 sees the first issue. Chiefman is withdrawn at the start after having stalls problems, which sees a 10p Rule 4. As ever, the muffled announcement goes unnoticed by much of the crowd and there are a few punters a bit miffed that they aren't getting back what is telling them on the docket. "It says here I should get £40," says one irate bloke. I also inform him his docket says "a Rule 4 may apply" but he's not interested in that bit. I am informed I am a "robbing bastard" for which I thank him, and start serving other, less irate, punters.

I've banged on enough about how the courses need to use the big screens more and I won't go on again - suffice to say someone who had a decent bet on Chiefman is yet to pick his money up at the time of writing. If I'd seen him I'd have given him a shout, but never did.

Worse is to follow, as favourite Sir Thomas Gresham is withdrawn at the start of the next. A whopping 20p deduction. If matey boy thought he'd been robbed for the previous race, he's not gonna like this much. And then... a dead heat. My head is in my hands.

Most people are fairly understanding about the situation and are happy to accept that they are getting back less than half of what it says on the docket, but there's always a few. One is convinced I'm totally wrong and does the maths I've given him to do, at which point I do at least get an apology. The rain starts to fall and I'm cold. Can't be any more withdrawals, surely?

There is. The unwelcome hat-trick is brought up by Handel in race 5, who doesn't go with the field. Another 10p deduction. I'm fairly sure people think we're doing this on purpose. It also takes the field down from 12 to 11, so a quarter the odds down to a fifth. It's just one thing after another!

We start packing up after the last and it starts to belt down, just to compound the misery. After expenses, we have won... six quid on the night. Well worth turning up for. As I push the gear towards the exit, a bloke comes running up to me with a docket. "Sorry I'm late, pal", he says. I look at his ticket. He's got two quid back from a non-runner. I don't even bother getting the money back out, merely reach in my pocket for two quid of my own. As the band strike up with Waterloo, I shake my head, and get the hell out of there...

- DM

Pinball Wizard, Part 2: The Psychology of In-Running Betting

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“There has to be a twist”

Previously On… Pinball Wizard Betting… I hopefully persuaded you that betting into the in-running market was a relatively level playing field and we are no longer swimming with sharks, writes Russell Clarke. All you need is bet placement software, Geegeez, and Betfair TV. If you haven't yet read Part 1, you can do that here.

In this article, I’m going to run through a fairly typical journey for an in-running newcomer. This will be useful because it may help you to avoid mistakes as well as provide an insight into the psychology that undoubtedly influences in-running betting. Let’s meet him…

Our in-running virgin has been betting for any number of years. He may be successful or unsuccessful, but he understands a betting exchange and is probably at least one step up from a recreational punter who has a Bet365 account and very few or no others.

He has used bet placement software because he tried pre-race trading a while ago, but never really got the hang of it and it wasn’t for him.

He’s read on twitter or watched videos on youtube about a guy who wins on almost every race betting in-running. And he has an over-inflated opinion of his race-reading skills.

Any combination of the above characteristics fits our debutante.

Armed with the knowledge he’s picked up from his social media analysis he takes his first steps. He likes the idea of being a layer primarily. That’s because he can generally spot who is not going to win when watching a race and enjoys the idea of winning most of the time. So, he cautiously sets his stakes at a tenner and promises to himself that he will trade out of the lay (by backing the horse or hitting the green button) if it looks like the horse might win.

Plan in place, what could possibly go wrong?!

The first race goes like a dream. He notices the jockey starting to row on the 6/1 3rd fav, it shows at 9.6 on the one-click screen. Without hesitation he clicks, the bet isn’t matched, but he clicks again and secures 11.5. It’s a slightly bigger price than he wanted to lay, but any concern is quickly put to rest. The beast doesn’t respond to the jockey’s urgings and fades quickly. A £9.80 profit. He’s got the game cracked and after 3 more similar lays, he finishes his hour stint at the computer ahead by £39.20.

On the following day his first lay is on a 14/1 shot. The horse comes under pressure and he clicks and lays it at 19 on the exchange. Initially, it looks like another easy tenner, but the horse begins to respond to the pressure and shortens on the exchange to 7.2 to back. Greening up now involves losing £15 or so. He hesitates and the horse shortens further to 4.3, the potential loss now stands at more than yesterday’s total profit. He looks at the screen and the horse does have a chance but so do others. His heartbeat quickens but he crosses his fingers and the horse fades. He lands another £9.80 and congratulates himself on keeping his nerve! He lands two more lays without any scares and is £29.60 up for the day.

This pattern repeats for a few days, with some scares along the way. These are rationalized as “I was too early “, or “I shouldn’t have laid that one because (insert any excuse)” until one day his strategy of ‘picking up pennies in front of a steamroller’ backfires badly. The ‘scares’ have made him more cautious but that has only had the effect of pushing him out towards outsiders in the market which, so far, have been well beaten when showing signs of distress. This time the lay at 27, responds to pressure and quickly contracts in the market. 27 becomes 2.7, a red of over around £200 is too much to take. Fingers are crossed again, but this time to no avail and all profits are wiped out from the previous week and his balance is down around £100!

Our friend curses his ill-luck, reloads his betfair balance and starts again. He perhaps changes his modus operandi a little but essentially repeats his initial effort. His reluctance to accept a red, his lack of a coherent plan or a provable ‘edge’ ensure that this second coming is no more than a rinse and repeat of the first.

The third time, he acknowledges his shortcomings and looks for help. He purchases some courses from traders who look reputable online. In fairness, the courses are comprehensive and full of sound advice, and he learns plenty. He takes some time to digest his new knowledge and starts afresh. He avoids the mistakes that plagued him on his first two forays and applies some of the ‘edges’ he has picked up. But the root of his problem is that he finds it difficult to take a ‘red’ when a position goes against him and his appreciation of value (either at entry or exit) is limited or non-existent. In fairness, in such a fast-moving market the assessment of value needs to be fairly instant and that is a different skill.

The above scenario or various iterations of it are commonplace. It is almost a rite of passage. A variation of it was my own journey. Much of the steepness of the learning curve is caused by the change from being a pre-race backer/layer to becoming an in-running trader. It would be far better to begin your in-running journey as a backer/layer. That way, there isn’t such a huge jump in mentality. You can decide as you progress if you want to take the next step to being a trader or not. The lure of becoming a trader is the promise of ‘guaranteed’ profits. That is a mirage and also an added confusion when moving to in-running.

Related to this question of betting or trading is the decision of whether to exclusively back, exclusively lay, or do both (non-exclusively) in-running? The answer lies in both your temperament and your skillset. Are you naturally more comfortable backing or laying? Which do you find easier to spot in-running, a likely winner or a likely loser? Interestingly, as you progress, your skillset can change.

Finally, related to all of the above is the decision on whether to use the one-click screen on your bet placement software (as we have assumed so far) or to use the ‘ladders’. They have pros and cons and to an extent it will depend upon your personal preference and experience. The one-click screen is self-explanatory and it can be pre programmed if you wish. For example, you can set it to x number of ticks away from the current price.

If you were laying, the button you click could be set for 10 ticks above the current back price, for instance. You would be matched at 10 ticks above or less if there is liquidity when you click. The advantage of this is it helps with getting matched in a fast-moving market. Similarly, with a back bet you could set your button to be 10 ticks below the current lay price. The downside here is, of course, you need to take into account such margins when clicking.

The ladders are more the domain of the fast-fingered traders. They can often trade between gaps in the market and put in offers. This is more efficient in terms of margin but the downside of the ladders is the number of horses you can have on the screen and how quickly they move up and down during a race. They are a skill set in themselves and some traders I know use them for in-running without watching the actual races! It is probably not possible to utilize race-reading skills and ladder trading skills simultaneously as you need both ‘gamer fingers’ and two sets of eyes!

You should try both one-click screens and ladders with small stakes and see which suits you best. The ladders do take more practice, so factor that in when trialing them.

In Part 3… I examine the theory behind winning in the in-running market. You can read that here >

- RC

Pinball Wizard: An Introduction to In-Running Betting Part 1

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In many ways, horse racing doesn’t really lend itself to in-running betting when compared with sports such as football, tennis, cricket, or golf, writes Russell Clarke. All of those aforementioned sports produce results over hours (or even days) compared with the minutes that are involved in the sport of kings. During a football match you have at least 90 minutes to evaluate odds as a game progresses, in horse racing you may not have 90 seconds! Like in a game of pinball, your eyes are fixed on the movement of the ball (odds) and your fingers click in response.

It is fast moving, betting on steroids! Enthralling and frightening in equal measure. The odds move around at a far greater pace than pre-race. They appear to flit around, like the silver ball, in a random dance, giving the impression of a ‘lottery’ and yet, on closer inspection, the dance is choreographed to a degree, predictable to a degree, trending to a degree and yes, in part, random. The odds respond to pre-race expectation, pace, tactics, horse and jockey idiosyncrasies, distance remaining to the line and human psychology.

Betting ‘in-running’ on horse racing is a marmite pastime. It currently represents about 20% of the betting turnover on any given race on the betfair exchange. The description is apt because there can’t be more than a fifth of the population that get involved in marmite consumption, can there?

For the past year I have become more engrossed in the fresh challenge of betting in-running. I have spent more hours than is healthy in study and research and, of course, practical application. It has given me new insight into our sport and rekindled a passion.

In times gone by, the playing field for in-running betting was rarely level. It was more like Derby County’s Baseball Ground. Those that were reliant upon TV pictures were at a disadvantage compared with those who invested in ‘fast pics’, SIS feeds, betting from rooms at the tracks and, more recently, drone footage. That ‘time delay’ handicap was generally enough to ensure losses in the long term for those who were ill-prepared. The reality today is that the pictures you receive via your betfair account are approximately 0.5 seconds behind ‘live’. I tested this myself recently at Stratford racecourse on my mobile phone. Suffice to say, the current playing field is as level as it has ever been.

So, given this is a helter-skelter, whirly world of warp speed betting, the obvious question is… “why would I subject myself to that madness when I can carefully consider my bets in my own time pre-race?” It’s also a very good question! To answer it, I’m going to go back in time and a little into my personal history.

Almost 20 years ago I discovered that the in-play football betting market was less efficient than the closing line of the pre-race football markets. For a number of years I took advantage of that fact. The same is true, perhaps even more so, of the in-running horse racing markets (*I think*, which is the closest you will get to a disclaimer from me!).

In reality, the in-running market gives us more information. You can see the pace of the race, the tactics being deployed and how individual horses are running. All of that you can add to your pre-race analysis. It favours those who do their homework, it favours those who understand the effect of pace, it favours those who are skilled and experienced in race-reading. It is also a market full of traders taking poor value prices to ensure they ‘green up’ their screens. It is also addictive (in a good way… an ice-cream sort of way)

 

“How do you think he does it?” (The Tools Required)

To compete in such a fast-moving market, dedicated software is required. This is available at reasonable cost from any number of providers: Bet Angel, Gruss, Racing Trader, Bet Mover and others all provide bet placement with just one click of a key on your computer. They all place your bets (back or lay) in the most efficient manner possible. Personal preferences will be due to familiarity, layout, options, price etc.

In addition to software, you will need access to live coverage of the races. Betfair provides the coverage I mentioned earlier with a 0.5 second delay. A similar delay is experienced with Racing TV. However, Sky Sports Racing has much longer delays and, therefore, cannot be used for in-running betting, nor can terrestrial TV coverage.

You may (or may not… there are many ways to compete in the in-running market) require a subscription to a high-quality horseracing database where you can do pre-race study of pace, draw, stats and racehorse idiosyncrasies… oh wait, Geegeez is your friend here!

So that’s my introduction, I promise it will get more interesting as we progress. I’m now all-in on in-running betting. It currently accounts for the vast majority of my own betting and, although at 60 I’m far from being the fastest finger (or most supple wrist) at the keyboard, I can generally extract some value from the in-running markets.

In Part 2, I look at the psychology of in-running betting and whether you should bet or trade in such a fast-paced environment. You can read that here.

- RC

Monday Musings: A Diamond Studded King George in Prospect

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It looks as though we might be getting a twelve furlong Race of the Year in England just as Sandown’s Coral-Eclipse Stakes three weekends back provided a midsummer pecking order between the generations, writes Tony Stafford. Ballydoyle’s Paddington won that and now the Aidan O’Brien stable’s other 2023 Classic-winning colt is due to line up in Ascot’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes.

That horse is Auguste Rodin, coming on from the two Derby wins, emphatically at Epsom over King Of Steel, and a shade controversially against fellow Coolmore inmate Adelaide River in his home Derby. More than a few close observers of the Curragh race noticed a marked differential between the relative energies of Ryan Moore on the winner and Seamie Heffernan on the runner-up.

Adelaide River had been only eighth at Epsom, so as the favourite joined him on the outside at the head of affairs, a “see you later” type of accelerating flourish was on everyone’s minds, but it didn’t quite work out like that.

Then again, Adelaide River is a fair tool as he showed under Ryan in the subsequent Grand Prix de Paris on Bastille Day ten days ago. He ran a close second to the Pascal Bary-trained Kingman colt Feed The Flame, now a winner of three of his four career starts, all this year, with just the French Derby as a negative.

More easily quantified for Anglo/Irish observers was the presence in third in Paris of the Gosdens’ Oaks winner, Soul Sister, who saw off Savethelastdance at Epsom in a battle of the super fillies. Savethelastdance put her seal on the overall form picture with a Group 1 win of her own in the Juddmonte Irish Oaks on Saturday.

Lucky it wasn’t on Sunday as the two scheduled midsummer Sunday flat programmes, one each in Ireland and Redcar in the UK, were off through waterlogging as is Cartmel’s jumps card today. It was a bit wet at the golf and the cricket, too, but it was nice for the Athletics in East London.

So here we are, summer half over, the nights are starting to draw in and eight of the ten UK and Irish Classics are already done. Every year I say something similar. We’ve Ascot this week, Goodwood, York, the St Leger and not much else. And before the next month is out, trainers will be asking owners to re-invest at the upcoming yearling sales and chase all that generous BHA prizemoney.

But to return to the King George. Adelaide River and King of Steel, the two runners-up in the Epsom and Irish Derby wins of Auguste Rodin, form – along with their vanquisher – a three-horse bloc against 16 older horses at the latest entry stage. We will know after midday today how many have stayed in. The most likely port of attrition is O’Brien, who had nine still engaged up until last night. That number is sure to be trimmed by a few.

The first question of course is whether Auguste Robin will be pitted against the Roger Varian-trained Amo Racing colt, King Of Steel. Varian had been very forthright about the chance he thought the son of Wootton Bassett had on his stable debut at Epsom having been trained previously by David Loughnane.

Starting at 66/1, a furlong out he looked to have won the Derby having gone clear in the straight under new Amo jockey Kevin Stott, but Auguste Robin pulled him back late to win by half a length. It was five lengths back to the rest – hence no extra three-year-old challengers for this weekend.

While O’Brien waited for the Irish Derby, Varian went quickly to Royal Ascot and the Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes. Once called the Ascot Derby, it gave a chance for a trio of Epsom also-rans to try to depose the emerging star, but they were wiped away. It was the ease of that win that encouraged some of the Machiavellian thoughts to emerge among the racecourse crowd – if there is such a thing.

One view was, if Auguste Rodin takes on King Of Steel again and beats him once more, that’s fine. If the result gets turned around, though, the downside for Auguste would be severe. If he stays away and King of Steel wins – “We’ve already beaten him in the Derby”, they can and will say – and in that regard in the Derby hero’s absence, effectively King Of Steel would be running for him, reputation-wise.

Some of that tortured reasoning has its basis on that less emphatic than expected run on the Curragh, but whatever the rights and wrongs of that, Auguste Rodin is lining up to be the first winner of the two Derbys and then the King George since Galileo.

The Ascot race has gone to the Classic generation seven times in the 22 years since Galileo’s success. Two went to fillies, Taghrooda in 2014 and Enable three years later. Of course, Enable was destined to win the race twice more after a break as a four-year-old when she missed the entire summer.

Adayar, the Derby winner of 2019 for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin did win the King George but didn’t appear in Ireland in between. He is one of two further Derby winners still engaged, joined by Desert Crown, last year’s Epsom hero for Sir Michael Stoute, but absent for the rest of his Classic year.

Adayar did make a winning return to action this spring, but two defeats, including at long odds-on as recently as the July meeting at Newmarket, must make him a doubt on both the scores of form and the short time since that appearance.

Desert Crown’s comeback defeat, half a length behind Hukum in the Brigadier Gerard at Sandown in late May, was diminishing in form terms, but the apparent growing confidence behind the Owen Burrows six-year-old, who would enjoy a testing surface, should also throw a favourable light on last year’s Epsom victor.

Talking of 2022 winners, how about the ever-improving Pyledriver? Also a six-year-old, he ran his best race of an illustrious career when seeing off 2021 Arc winner Torquator Tasso in this race last year and returned at the Royal meeting a month ago after that near one-year gap, romping away with the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes.

He might have knocked a few of his rivals over in the closing stages there, but after his delayed return you could imagine William Muir and co-trainer Chris Grassick would have left something to work on for this weekend.

Then, for good measure, we also have the prospect of 2022 Oaks runner-up Emily Upjohn. She followed Epsom with a weak effort in Pyledriver’s King George, but has done little wrong since, winning the Filly and Mare Championship race at Ascot last October and cleaning up in the Coronation Cup a year on from what most people thought a luckless defeat in the Oaks.

Last time, she got within half a length of midsummer sensation Paddington in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown. She was down in trip, with the winner stepping up from a mile, and it’s hard to fault her, especially with the older filly having to concede that outstanding colt 7lb in the Esher showdown.

As the only female in the race, Emily Upjohn now gets 8lb over the two furlongs longer trip and if she doesn’t have a repeat of last year’s poor showing, she must be dangerous.

If either of the first two at Epsom this June should stave off all that older talent, he would be celebrated as the interim middle-distance champ, with only the Arc to dent that reputation. It will be well worth travelling a long way to see it!

- TS

Video: Creating an Odds Line / Tissue

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Following on from Dave Renham's excellent article on creating a tissue (which you can read here), I recorded a video which shows how you can do this using Geegeez Gold. The video is quite long because there is a fair bit to work through, but you can get the gist of it without necessarily watching the middle part (though I recommend you do, of course!).

In this recording I looked at a five furlong sprint handicap at Catterick, and was lucky/good enough to find the winner; but I didn't actually do that well in mimicking the market, as you'll see...

 

 

At the end of the video, I compare the prices I came up with against the final starting prices. The overround was 111% whereas my own was closer to 100% allowing for the late non-runner, but still, I have some work to do in getting my odds closer to the market!

Matt

20/7/23: Another example: this time I got the market (more) right but was undone by a pace tear up I didn't predict in terms of the actual result :-/

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How to Create an Odds Line / ‘Tissue’

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In this article I am going to discuss some ideas when it comes to creating your own odds line (betting odds / tissue), writes Dave Renham. As punters we need to take the odds of horses into account when contemplating a bet so 'finding value' is clearly an area of real importance. I wonder, though, what percentage of punters actually produce their own odds lines? I would guess less than 1%.

The modern world seems all about trying to do things quickly, and most punters haven’t got the time or inclination to spend hours and hours creating an odds line or betting tissue for races. Although there is no magic bullet for creating a line, in this article I will look at three basic DIY methods for your consideration, none of which take too much time to produce.

Why create an odds line?

Before delving into some ideas, let me first talk a little about why you may want to create an odds line and why an accurate one is extremely useful.

Making money from horse racing is not about the ratio of winners to losers you get, it is about whether you are able to achieve value prices. If you can achieve value prices on most of your selections you WILL come out in front. I’ve lost count of the number of times friends who have gone to a race meeting, usually on a ‘jolly’, have asked me to give them as many winners as possible. My reply is always the same: ‘if you want the most number of winners, just bet the favourite’. I tell them that favourites are the most likely horse to win so bet them. Of course this is true – they have the best chance of winning in percentage terms. However, I do also tell them that this is not the right way to approach betting in reality and that I am simply answering their question with a percentage-based answer.

So let's explore what ‘value’ is in more detail. Sticking with favourites for the moment, let us imagine over a long period of time we back a hundred identical favourites who all theoretically have the same chance of winning, and are all priced at Even money. According to their betting odds, each horse has a 50% chance of winning their respective race. For you to achieve ‘value’ the true chance of each horse winning needs to in excess of 50%. In reality is more likely to be around 45%.

Let us now imagine that each horse has a true percentage chance of winning of 55%. Over the 100 races, you will win 55 and lose 45, and make a profit of 10p for every £1 bet.

It would be interesting to know how many punters have a good understanding of probability in terms of betting odds. I am lucky that my main profession was as a Maths teacher and hence probability is something I understand well.

I must admit, I am often amused when I hear about certain ‘significant’ market movers. For example you may hear a pundit say, ‘Horse A has halved in priced from 33/1 to 16/1’, which I think gives people the wrong impression. OK, if these two prices reflect the true chance of Horse A winning, then the probability of success has improved from 2.9% to 5.9%. Whilst it is technically correct that the horse has halved in price, the percentages have changed by just 3%, which is not as big a swing as the numbers 33 and 16 perhaps suggest.

Let us imagine another horse, Horse B, whose price has come in from 9/4 to 13/8. On first glance, for some, I would guess that this shortening in price does not appear anywhere near as big as the 33/1 to 16/1 one. However, this second example is actually a much bigger percentage swing, moving from a 30.8% chance of winning (9/4) to 38.1% (13/8) - a difference of 7.3%. So understanding the percentages when it comes to betting prices is important.

When to use a 'tissue'

Before I look at some different ideas regarding creating tissues, or odds lines, I want to suggest what type of races you might start with. I think it is best to look at races where most of the runners are 'exposed' – in other words, they have plenty of form in the book. I would probably avoid Group races and low grade handicaps, however, and look for something in between – maybe class 2, 3 or 4 handicaps. Also I would personally focus on races with smallish fields for the first few races – around 7 to 9 runners seems a sensible option - in order to manage the time aspect of creating a tissue. Ok, let’s look at method 1.

 

Method 1. The ABCD method

This is a very simplistic idea but is a potential starting point if trying this for the first time. I would grade each runner depending on what I felt in terms of their general chance of winning, where:

A – very strong chance

B – good chance

C – worth considering

D – unlikely, but cannot dismiss

E – poor chance

F – virtually no chance

How you assess each horse to arrive at your ranking is totally up to you. I personally would look at a combination of factors using some, or all, of the following:

i) form, both recent and long term

ii) fitness

iii) trainer/stable form – recent and course form

iv) the draw in flat races

v) potential run style if known

vi) starting prices of most recent starts

vii) speed ratings

 

Of course this is not a definitive list, there are other factors you may wish to consider; essentially it is up to you.

Having graded the horses I would then try and assign a rough percentage chance of them winning. Let us imagine a 7 runner race where we have the following grades:

 

 

From here I would add up all the percentages and here they total 103%. Ideally I would like them to add up to 100% to give me a ‘perfect’ book, but 103% is perfectly acceptable. If your percentages are further away from 100%, massage the 'percentage chance' figures until they fit.

From here I would assign the closest betting price to each percentage. Some percentages such as 25% have an exact betting price of 3/1; others, like 15%, have not, but the closest price to that is 11/2 (which equates to 15.4% chance). Here is my grid with the prices added and the percentage chance rounded:

 

 

The overall percentage book has edged up slightly to 103.9%, but this still pretty good.

From here I would simply look at the best prices available across all bookmakers, and/or check the Betfair market. The Betfair market and most odds comparison sites (including the geegeez cards 'odds' tab - see image) give you the book percentage for the race so you can see how close that is to your book percentage.

 

 

The book percentages should be similar to yours, within a few percentage points at least. Betfair Exchange will always have a figure closer to 100% than the best bookie prices.

If you prefer to work with odds and then convert those to percentages, the 'My Ratings' icon will enable you to do this. Click the icon in the menu bar to open the ratings boxes for all runners, and then simply add odds to each runner. You'll see the percentages calculated for you, both for the individual runner and for the race overall:

 

 

At this point you need to compare the actual prices on offer with your own prices. We are looking for the positive outliers - horses that are priced higher in the real betting market when comparing them with your prices. Let us imagine in our example above that Horse C is best priced with the bookies at 9/1 (10.0) which equates to a percentage chance of winning of 10%. This gives us an ‘edge’ of around 5% assuming that our price is accurate! If our price is an accurate representation of the true percentage chance of the horse in question, then we have a value bet.

 

Method 2. Simple Rating Method

The second idea I want to look at is a basic rating idea. Once more I’ll assume we have a 7 runner race with exposed horses. Look at each of the horses in the race and their finishing position last time out. I would then look at the long term data in relation to that finishing position when racing in similar 7 runner races. For example, last time out winners win roughly 22% of the time in these races, horses that finished 5th last time win around 12%, etc. From here I halve each percentage and assign that as a rating figure to each horse.

Then I would look at four or five different factors (such as those I shared earlier in the ABCD method above), giving each horse either a positive, neutral or negative mark. For positives I would add two points to their total, neutral marks I would leave the rating as it is, for negatives I would subtract two. One of these factors could be, for example, last time out starting price. If a horse started at 3/1 last time, say, this would count as a positive and gain a ‘+2’. If another horse started at 25/1 on its prior run then I would give that a ‘-2’.

Once you’ve done this across all factors / variables you will have ‘rating’ totals for each horse such as below:

 

 

From here you can add up the final rating totals which in this case equals 62. Then divide the rating for each horse by 62 and multiply by 100 to give them a percentage chance. In this example we get the following:

 

 

With the percentages of the seven horses adding up to 100% we have a perfect betting book. From here we would change these percentages into betting odds in the same way as before. If you are unsure how to convert percentages into odds, then there are odds calculators that you can google and use; or enter the odds into the geegeez ratings boxes like in the image above.

I personally use an excel sheet with a simple formula to calculate the individual horse percentage chances, and the sheet also calculates the percentage book for the race. It is not too difficult to set up and anybody interested please request in the comments below.

Once we have our odds, as previously, we would cross check our prices against the actual odds on offer looking for any horse that offers ‘value’.

 

Method 3. Using a ‘benchmark’ horse or horses

This is the method I used for these types of races when I was writing Spotlight for the Racing Post many moons ago. Interestingly, Andrew Mount, who co-wrote a draw bias book with me 20 years ago and also worked as a Spotlight writer for many years, used the same idea in certain races for more exposed runners.

The ‘benchmark’ horse is basically the horse which you think is the easiest to accurately price up / give a percentage chance of winning. Each race will of course be slightly different and hence each ‘benchmark’ horse is likely to fit a slightly different profile. The types of horses I’d be looking for are either:

  1. a horse that stands out on form – in other words the horse you believe should start favourite. The potential price of your favourite will depend on your perceived chance of the horse winning. If you thought the horse was likely to win this type of race one in every three starts you would price the horse at 2/1 (3.0); if you thought it was likely to win the race one in two you’d price it up at Evens (2.0), etc.
  2. a horse with a consistent recent record; hopefully one with solid form figures over the last three or four races. Ideally this horse would have gone off at similar prices too in these races. So if we say had a horse that had finished 4th, 2nd and 3rd in their last three runs, starting at prices of between 3-1 and 5-1, then you would probably could price the horse up at around the 4-1 mark.

Once you have a price for your ‘benchmark’ horse you can build the prices of other horses around it. Horses you think that have a better chance than your ‘benchmark’ will be put in at a shorter price, those with a worse chance in your opinion will be priced higher. You may find that two or more horses in a race have either profile 1 or 2 mentioned above, which will speed up the process slightly. Naturally, you can use the odds boxes behind the My Ratings icon on geegeez racecards to help you price up.

Once you have priced up the other horses around your ‘benchmark’ horse(s), then you will need to see what the percentage book for the race equals and it may need some slight adjustment of prices up or down. Once you have a book close to 100% then you can compare prices with the best prices on offer as we did for the previous two methods.

 

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For those of you who have not attempted to create odds lines before, I hope these ideas make the task feel less daunting. Of course, using any of the three methods suggested does not mean you will be getting that much needed value race in, race out. It is going to essentially depend on how accurate your odds line is. The only way to find out how accurate it is, is by choosing a method, either one of the above, or a method of your own, and testing it out. One indication that you have a sound method is if your prices generally ‘mirror’ the actual market. If they don’t and, say, you price up horses at 2/1 that are regularly available at 5/1 in the real world, then you need to go back to square one and figure out why the disparity.

If the prices you create generally look reasonable compared to the actual prices on offer then I would suggest pinpointing those horses that look good value when comparing your odds with those of the bookmakers. Paper test these value selections with imaginary £1 stakes and see what happens over a series of ‘bets’. If you are in profit by the end of your testing phase then there are hopeful signs that your odds line is pretty accurate.

How many of these imaginary £1 bets you should work through during the testing phase is not easy to say, but I personally think you need to have at least 200 to give the test some validity. Of course, you could also look for horses that seem poor value and see how they performed as well. All of this will give you a decent overall picture of the effectiveness of your tissue making skills. Once you are happy with your method, then I would suggest looking at races with bigger fields but still races where the horses are exposed.

One final point to note is that I would look at a race as early as possible. With 48 hour declarations you can price up the race before the bookmakers and give yourself plenty of time. Also pricing it up early avoids you being influenced by early odds or the Racing Post forecast prices.

I would not advocate the same method for every single race – for example you cannot use any of the above ideas with a 2yo race with little or no form. Perhaps in the future I will revisit this topic and look at how you may try to create odds lines in other races such as these. For now, though, I hope this article has encouraged you to look into creating your own odds lines – even if you do not find the holy grail, the process you go through will, I am sure, be useful and enlightening for your overall betting / value understanding.

- DR

p.s. Here's the simple sheet I referred to: forecast odds overround calculator

You type in the odds (traditional) and the spreadsheet will calculate the percentage for each horse, the book percentage and the overround. As long as users take care to retain the formula in cell C2 then it is merely a case of deleting the column B odds and the column C percentages (cells C3 and below). Then, once you've typed in the new odds for your race you can simply copy and paste the formula in cell C2 down column C as far as you need to.

If you lose the formula in cell C2 just re-type =100/(B2+1) in to that cell. The total book percentage and overround will provide the relevant percentages for each race.

Monday Musings: Newmarket 875

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If you arrange an outdoor promotional event in Newmarket in the summer, the morning of the July Cup, you would think, would be the ideal time, writes Tony Stafford. Judging by the light summer dresses and shirtsleeves on view in the High Street earlier on Saturday morning, the decision by Hanako and Roger Varian to launch Hanako’s luxury new fashion brand Newmarket 875 at Carlburg stables in Bury Road that morning was perfectly logical.

The July meeting 2022 had been conducted in the middle of one of the many heatwaves of last summer. By contrast, last week thunderstorms randomly struck all over the country, but as I drove up to the yard the weather was clear and l was just able to sneak a last spot in the car park.

The sun was still making an appearance, but as I approached the marquee where Hanako was steeling herself to address her audience, suddenly the heavens opened. Within seconds, a torrential downpour had stable and catering staff scrambling to close any possible ingress from the elements, while the brand founder fluently delivered her reasons for the creation of her project.

Hanako explained that from the age of 14 back home in Japan, she had been involved with horses, riding as a show jumper. At 18 she decided to come to England, aiming to develop her skill with the animals she loved. Over the last 25 years, latterly married to one of the world’s leading trainers, she has been closely involved, observing horse racing all over the world.

Her conclusion of that lengthy experience is that this is a pivotal time for horse racing. American racing, she says, is suffering from drug and medication issues. UK and Irish racing have funding issues and are also hampered by a declining work force, while France, despite boasting the best prizemoney in Europe, finds it difficult to attract domestic owners.

It was almost with embarrassment that she concluded that the only country where racing is thriving is her homeland. Prize money is in a level of its own and their home-bred horses are more than a match for any from the remaining principal racing and breeding locations. The Varians had a lightning trip last week to the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido, home of the famed Shadai and Northern stud farms.

On Monday and Tuesday, Japan’s Select yearling and foal sales were staged and up to 1,000 registered buyers were attempting to secure one of these potentially top-class animals, yearlings on Monday and foals on Tuesday. Each would-be bidder was required to have his finances in place beforehand, so there would be no chance of a repeat of the embarrassing and much-publicised non-payment issues that befell Tattersalls last year.

Roger Varian said: “It was my first time at the sale, although I have been to Japan around a dozen times before. The yearling sale was not unlike Tattersalls, except that the lots were easier to find, ranged in a near numerical order rather than randomly all around the sale.

“The foal sale on Tuesday was very different. Around 250 were catalogued, and each stood with its mother, loosely in numerical order. More astute buyers had the chance to view the respective foals’ sires at the nearby stud farms beforehand. Then, by looking at the mare and foal together, they could get a good idea of how that foal might develop physically,” he said.

Back home in Newmarket, Hanako has, with designer Joe Baker, developed a high-end clothing range with a Newmarket theme, along with luxury accessories, aimed to reflect the glamorous nature of horse racing and breeding in the town.

Examples of the beautifully crafted shirts and other clothing items were ranged around the marquee, interspersed with some imaginatively designed belts, shoe-horns, handbags and the like, all with a horse theme. Hanako was quick to emphasise how important sustainability has been in the creation of the concept.

It is hoped that Harrods, Selfridges, and other leading stores in the UK will stock Newmarket 875 products, although in the meantime they can be viewed and bought on the website, newmarket875.com. The ambitious project will then be aimed at New York, Paris, and other fashion hotspots around the world. Hanako firmly believes horse racing in the UK has plenty to be proud of and hopes Newmarket 875 will become an emblem of that proud tradition.

*

Back down at the July Course, something happened that might well reignite the age-old debate about whether the weight-for-age scale is of relevance in the present day. Framed in the distant past and only minutely modified since, weight for age still stands to tell us when three-year-old, four-year-old and even older horses cease to receive a concession from older generations in such races.

Often, when the three-year-olds keep winning condition races in the middle of the season against their elders, admittedly on a sliding and less generous scale as the year progresses, calls are made for its revision or even removal.

Interestingly, I was told by one emerging trainer a few weeks back that the unraced two-year-old filly he was running that afternoon had worked better than an 86-rated older horse.

I took that to mean a four-year-old – but it could have been a year younger. That said, to achieve that result was astonishing and I’m not sure that the rookie trainer concerned had consulted the scale to get the full implications of the gallop.

Anyway, she won nicely, even though only third in the betting in a field of five behind a previous promising debut runner-up and a penalised previous winner. She is set for a step up in grade next time.

But on Saturday we had a moment when a second run, this time in a Listed contest, Newmarket’s Superlative Stakes, threatens to blow the entire WFA scale into the water.

Once-raced City Of Troy, impressive on debut in a maiden at The Curragh, lined up as a well-backed 4/6 shot for the Coolmore partners, amid concerns that the heavy if intermittent rains of the previous few days, plus the sudden torrent I just avoided up the road at 11 a.m. might have made the ground unsuitable.

But, as Aidan O’Brien chatted with Christy Grassick and Paul Smith along with Ryan Moore beforehand, he said that the ground there was still better than is customary, say, for the National Stakes at The Curragh in September.

Cue relief all round: after all, Aidan has won 11 National Stakes, albeit none of the last six. He’s also behind namesake Vincent who has 15 and gets to have the race named after him nowadays, reasonably enough.

The Superlative Stakes was won with a breathtaking burst of speed by City Of Troy, who after duelling for the lead from the off, was let loose by Ryan coming into the last furlong and a half and stormed – he really did storm, I promise you – to a six and a half length verdict, with daylight second.

Handily, on that card, apart from the six-furlong Group 1 July Cup, won in similarly impressive fashion by Commonwealth Cup winner Shaquille, there were two more seven-furlong contests, both handicaps. The winning time of the Group 1 race was, understandably, the best by a second in relation to standard times, while the three contests over an extra furlong were completed in similar times, all very respectably.

First, there was a three-year-old 0-100 handicap, won nicely by the filly Naomi Lapaglia, carrying 8st 4lb in a time 2.82 seconds above standard. Then came the Superlative and City Of Troy, shouldering 9st 3lb and clocking 0.11 seconds slower.

Finally, the Bunbury Cup, a Heritage Handicap with a storied history, was won by Ralph Beckett’s 6yo Biggles, ridden by Ryan Moore, coming home in a time 0.33 seconds faster than City Of Troy. He, coincidentally, carried the same weight as the, erm, superlative Superlative winner.

I asked a few friends who keep up their interest in racing day to day and they all know a fair bit about the sport and have all gone racing with me many times. The question was: What’s the weight for age between 2yo’s and older horses at 7f in the first half (just) of July. To a man they replied, “About a stone.” I answered that, if that were the case, then to run almost an identical performance to the Bunbury Cup winner would have been meritorious.

The reaction when I told them it was 38lb in the first half of July and 35lb thereafter (8lb less against 3yos), was stunned silence. No doubt the scale is probably a shade outdated. Two-year-olds traditionally had their first chance of a run over seven furlongs in the Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot. Nowadays a lot more stoutly bred animals are precocious as well and more ready to run over the trip than in earlier days.

But cutting to the chase, that was a monstrous performance. City Of Troy has been allotted an early RPR in the Racing Post, of course always open to alteration and downright fudge, which exceeds that given to Thursday’s fluent Group 2 6f July Stakes winner Jasour, trained by Clive Cox, by 8lb.

Inevitably, thoughts projected to the other track and May next year for City of Troy. Aidan remarked before the race, he hadn’t really thought him a big horse until he stood into him. As he returned to unsaddle, amid the sort of buzz of excitement only rarely experienced on a British racecourse, he seemed to have grown another hand taller!

The best news for the Coolmore boys was that this colt is a son of their unbeaten Triple Crown-winning US-based Ashford stud stallion, Justify. Long-range optimism even for the Derby must be included, too,  with the knowledge that Justify won the 12f Belmont Stakes on the most galloping track in North America after making all the running.

O’Brien and Ryan Moore might have initially found a trip yesterday to France proving frustrating as His Majesty, placed in his last two runs at Group 2, made it a hat-trick in second. But it was another Justify runner, this time four-length Christopher Head filly Ramatuelle, who impressed. After sprinting well clear in City Of Troy fashion in the Prix Robert Papin at Chantilly, she has serious claims of being the best juvenile in France so far this year.

  • TS

New Geegeez Syndicate: Bringing in some Razzam-atazz!

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I'm super excited to welcome the latest member of the geegeez.co.uk stable, a three-year-old Showcasing gelding called...

RAZZAM

 

He's a very lightly raced, unexposed horse who looks a near certainty to win a maiden or novice stakes at the minimum trip before going on to better things. He will go into training with Mick Appleby, a master at handling sprinters, and below you can find out more about the horse, the opportunity, and how you can get involved!

 

The pedigree

Razzam is by Showcasing, who stands at £45,000. That’s before the breeder has incurred the costs of minding the mare for a year, raising the foal for two years, and then the owner has paid training fees to get him to the track.

 

This lad actually sold at the Tattersalls Yearling Sales in October 2021 for 45,000 guineas (£47,250).

Showcasing has countless highlights on his score card, including the now stallions Advertise, Soldier’s Call, and Tasleet, all of which were very fast racehorses.

The dam, Whispering Bell, only ran three times but won a Windsor maiden before taking on Listed company on her final start. Razzam is her second foal to race, after Zeussina, a dual winner in Italy.

She also has a colt by Too Darn Hot who is yet to race. He sold for £70,000.

Here is Razzam's 'page'.

 

The ‘physical’

Physically, Razzam has plenty of size and substance – a big bull of a horse – and he looks all speed. We expect he’ll prove a different proposition racing over five furlongs under Mick’s guidance.

 

 

The trainer

Mick is perhaps not the most fashionable trainer, but he is undoubtedly top drawer. He’s the reigning all-weather champion trainer, an accolade he has won numerous times; and this year he’s taking his turf season highlights to another level with Annaf running 3rd in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes and Big Evs blitzing a field of 23 by three lengths in the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes – he might have won the Norfolk if he’d been entered there - both at Royal Ascot.

Mick trains out of Langham Stables near Rutland Water, and his record when dropping horses back to five furlongs where they’d run over further for someone else last time is highly impressive:

 

 

Such horses include the likes of Saaheq, who arrived rated 71 and won five races and £68,000 while going up to a peak rating of 92; Warrior Brave, three wins and two seconds from seven runs (and £26,700) before selling for 100,000 guineas; Raasel, who has now won over £225,000 for connections; and Night On Earth, who won five from 22 and £66,000 before selling for 2.5x his purchase price.

There is quite simply no better man for improving a horse by dropping it to five furlongs than Mick.

 

The form

Razzam has had six races, placing four times. His full form string is 325243 and a line on each run, as well as a link to watch the videos (if you have appropriate access) is below. You can view his form on geegeez.co.uk here.

The general themes are a burst of acceleration and then not quite getting home over six due to over-racing/wanting to go faster.

We feel strongly that dropping him to five furlongs is the key to unlocking his potential.

 

3/6/22: 3rd/4 Class 3 Bath novice 5f GF. Blew the start before recording the fastest time in each of the last four furlongs. Razzam’s only run at the minimum trip. Winner ran in Norfolk next time, rated 87 currently.

https://www.attheraces.com/atrplayer-popout/VOD/1270889?showResult=yes

 

17/1/23: 2nd/12 Kempton 6f. Car park draw (11), dropped in, fastest final 3f split, passing 8 horses last quarter mile.

https://www.racingtv.com/racecards/kempton-park/427629-unibet-supports-safe-gambling-maiden-stakes-5?show_all=true&sort=racecard&non-runner_display=false

 

 

15/2/23: Kempton 6f. Jumped well from middle draw, over-raced for quarter mile, didn’t get home. Disappointing effort. Winner now rated 105, 2nd 80+.

https://www.racingtv.com/racecards/kempton-park/431330-unibet-breeders-backing-racing-ebf-maiden-stakes-5?show_all=true&sort=racecard&non-runner_display=false

 

 

5/5/23: Newcastle 6f Standard/Slow – Raced widest, travelled strongly, came with winning run but got mugged close home. Sectionals again solid.

https://www.attheraces.com/atrplayer-popout/VOD/1345637?showResult=yes

 

15/5/23: Wolverhampton 6f – Turned out 10 days later, good inside draw but nearly put through the rail by a rival on the outside. Did well in the circumstances.

https://www.attheraces.com/atrplayer-popout/VOD/1348204?showResult=yes

 

 

8/7/23: Nottingham 6f Good – First start after gelding; again over-raced, before not quite getting home. Winner a very smart horse, ran off 77 here, put up 8lb to 85 and looks a 90+ performer all day long. Was beaten a neck for second.

https://www.racingtv.com/racecards/nottingham/452760-premier-league-offers-at-rhino-bet-handicap-5?show_all=true&sort=racecard&non-runner_display=false

 

 

His Work

Razzam was given a week to settle in to his new surroundings, and did his first piece of fast work on Saturday 22nd July.

He worked with a horse called Juan Les Pins, who is rated 98 and was last seen finishing third in the Wokingham Heritage Handicap at Royal Ascot; in other words, a very smart horse.

And, as you can see, he worked very well. He's the horse near side with the yellow cap. [The video quality is not great, I'm afraid, as it's taken from WhatsApp]

 

 

The plan

The plan is pretty clear. Revert to pure sprint distances, jump and run. He seems best accelerating from off the pace but we may need to learn about how best to ride him. The one five furlong run was his debut, where he missed the break quite badly through inexperience.

He has been bought for the all-weather season but that is not to say he can’t run on the turf, too. At some point, either immediately or by mid-August, he will have a break to freshen up ahead of the winter season.

The syndicate

Razzam is being offered as 12 equal shares. The initial cost to join is £4,000, which will cover the purchase price plus VAT. The VAT will be reclaimed by the syndicate and used to fund training and any racing expenses to the end of October.

From November 1st, members will each pay £208 / month to cover training and racing expenses.

At the end of the all-weather season, we will decide whether to continue to race or to offer Razzam at the Guineas ‘Horses in Training’ sale at Newmarket. A further decision point will be the July Sale at Newmarket, where he will sell unless we unanimously agree to retain him.

Naturally, each syndicate member will receive a full pro-rata (i.e. 1/12th per share) dividend of all prize and sales revenues.

Members will be entitled to one owner’s badge (and the option for a second when available) each time Razzam runs.

To express your interest and to receive a copy of the syndicate agreement, which contains further details of how to get involved, click here.

 

 

Matt

 

 

Run Style: When Early Leaders *Don’t* Have The Edge

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Regular readers of my Geegeez articles will know that probably my favourite area of horse racing research is connected with the run style of horses, writes Dave Renham. This is mainly due to the fact that at shorter distances early leaders/front runners tend to have an edge over horses which initially take up a prominent, mid-division, or held up position. Indeed, as I've observed before, this front running edge is extremely potent at a good number of course and distances. However, there are plenty of races where front runners do not have an edge, and hold up horses start to become much more competitive. In this article I am going to explore this area, and I will begin by digging into some general stats.

For this piece I will be looking at UK racing from 2015 to 2022 with the focus on 8+ runner handicaps.

General Hold Up Run Style Data

Let's start by looking at a graph comparing front runners with hold up horses across all the flat distances, looking firstly at win strike rate:

 

 

This graph illustrates neatly how the general advantage to front runners drops as the race distance increases. We do not really have to worry about different field size averages for different distances, because we are basically comparing the strike rates for one run style group against the other at each specific distance range. However, it should be noted that in any race there are almost always going to be more hold up horses than front runners. In a 12-runner race for example, we might expect to see one front runner, maybe two; but in terms of hold up horses we are likely to have three or perhaps four. This is something to keep in mind when comparing run style win percentages.

If we look at the A/E indices*, a measure of value, we see excellent correlation with the win SR% graph:
*You can read more about A/E here

 

 

 

In 8+ runner handicaps of 1m5f or more there is virtual parity in terms of betting value between front runners and hold up horses. Although just about equal, however, following either run style as a betting approach is a sure route to potlessness! Sticking with these longer races, there are some interesting findings when we break down results by going. Here are the win strike rates for front runners / hold up horses when comparing results on good or firmer ground with good to soft or softer:

 

 

As we can see the going on turf does seem to make a difference in 1m5f+ handicaps. On firmer ground there is a smaller difference between the records of both run style groups, when compared with data on softer ground. It seems harder to make up ground from the back on a softer surface.

If we look at the all-weather data for these longer races, we can see a different outcome from the turf:

 

 

Hold up horses actually have a better strike rate in longer handicap races on the synthetics with front runners struggling, winning less than 1 race in every 14. There is also a big difference between the all-weather A/E indices, with front runners standing on a lowly 0.61 figure (akin to punting suicide) and hold up horses at 0.86.

Let's now dig into some individual course data in terms of hold up horse performance. In the graph below we can see a comparison between courses that have the highest A/E indices for hold up horses versus those with the lowest. The top 10 course figures and the lowest 10 figures are shown – all distances have been combined:

 

 

There is a huge difference between the top figures and the bottom ones: Yarmouth heads the list with a highly credible A/E of 0.95 which is a world away from Ripon’s hideous 0.53 figure. The ‘returns’ for hold up horses at each of these courses mirror the A/E index chasm with Yarmouth hold up horses losing 18.7 pence in the £ at Starting Price, while Ripon hold ups lost a massive 53.7 pence in the £.

 

Course Specific Hold Up Run Style Data

We will look now at some specific track statistics concerning hold up horses, beginning at the Norfolk seaside.

Yarmouth 5f

Here are the win strike rates for each run style category over Yarmouth's 5f distance:

 

 

This is a highly unusual set of run style figures: the minimum trip at most flat tracks shows the highest positive edge to front-runners. Looking at the ALL courses data combined over five furlongs, front runners win 18.2% of races while hold up horses are down at 6.5%. But at Yarmouth we have the reverse with the strike rate for hold up horses being three times that of front runners.

In addition to the win stats, the A/E index for hold up horses over 5f at Yarmouth stands at an impressive 1.04. Sticking with A/E indices, at five of the eight distances run at Yarmouth hold up horses have secured a figure of above 1.00, suggesting the advantage to patiently ridden horses is underbet.

Newcastle 1m

I have always felt that the all-weather track at Newcastle is one where hold up horses are competitive due to the stamina-sapping nature of the configuration coupled with the uphill half mile finish in the straight. I am pleased to see the stats back this up. It should be noted that for Newcastle I am looking at data from 2016 onwards, when the course changed from a turf course to an all-weather one.

The distance where hold up horses do best at Newcastle is over 1 mile. This trip is the longest of the four distances on the straight course, and it clearly plays more to the strengths of hold up horses.

 

 

These strong figures for late runners are replicated when we look at the Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB) data:

 

 

The held up PRB figure of 0.55 is a strong one. Closers have actually made a blind profit to Industry SP despite there being nearly 1400 of them. Such runners have secured returns of just over 3p in the £. Compare this to the combined losses of the other three run style groups which stands a depressing 29p in the £.

Digging deeper into hold up horses over 1 mile at Newcastle, when they have started in the top three of the betting they have won 80 races from 360 (SR 22.2%) for an SP profit of £49.98 (ROI +13.9%). Hence, a well fancied hold up horse over this course and distance is definitely worth a second glance.

The longer distances of 1m4f and 2m at Newcastle see front runners having a really hard time of it winning under 6% of all races and backing all front runners would have yielded heavy losses of 54p in the £.

 

Doncaster 1m4f+

In races of 1m4f or more on Town Moor, hold up horses perform strongly as any group, while front runners have really found it hard going. Taking the data straight from the Geegeez Pace Query Tool we see the following:

 

 

There were just two wins from 92 runners for horses that took the early lead in such races between 2015 and 2022; and front runners as a group also had notably the poorest placed record. One plausible reason for these humbling figures, along with the fact that we are dealing with longer distances, is that the Doncaster straight is 4½ furlongs in length. I am a believer that longer straights as a rule tend to be harder for front runners to maintain their advantage when compared to tracks with shorter straights.

Over 5f at Doncaster front runners also had a hard time of it, winning just twice from 54 runs. Hold up horses at that trip edged it over the other three run styles winning just shy of 10% of the time (A/E 0.98).

 

Ascot 1m

1 mile handicaps at Ascot are often extremely competitive and, from a run style perspective, hold up horses do best. Here are the splits:

 

 

These are highly noteworthy figures for hold up horses considering the stats for ALL courses combined over 1 mile (8+ runner handicaps) sees front runners winning 12.8% of the time and hold up horses just 7.6% of the time.

The PRB figures are also very strong for hold up horses as the graph below shows:

 

 

Backing these 2015-2022 data up, both the Royal Hunt Cup (22/1 Jimi Hendrix) and the Britannia Handicap (6/1 Docklands) were won by hold up horses at the recent Royal Ascot meeting.

 

*

 

Earlier I looked at some data for all courses across all distances. Having looked at a few specific course and distances, I want to now share data for more courses at two different distance ranges.

 

Run Style Negatives: Front runners in handicaps of 1m4f+

At the beginning of the article when looking at long distance races I used 1m5f or more as my cut off point. However, in order to get better and bigger data sets when looking at individual courses (rather than ALL courses), we need to include races of 1m4f or more.

Below are the courses where front runners have the lowest win strike rates at distances of 1m4f+ – the ten lowest in fact (at least 45 races during the study period):

 

 

Doncaster and Newcastle, which we have previously discussed, top the list. It is also no surprise to see four of the six all-weather courses in this table considering what we found earlier with the overall 1m5f+ AW data.

Here now are those courses with the lowest A/E indices:

 

This table correlates well with the first one, eight of the ten tracks appearing on both lists – Doncaster, Goodwood, Newcastle, Brighton, Chelmsford, Ayr, Wolverhampton and Kempton.

It is clear that if we are ‘sweet’ on a front runner at any of these courses in handicaps races of 1m4f or more, we need to be really sweet! The stats are truly against us.

 

Run Style Negatives: Front runners in handicaps of 1m 1f to 1m3f

My final port of call in this piece is 8+ runner handicaps incorporating races from 1m1f to 1m3f. Below is table showing performance data for all courses with at least 45 qualifying races, ordered by win strike rate. As can be seen, there is quite a difference between York, with the poorest front running record, and Musselburgh (the best):

 

 

This table illustrates how important it is to appreciate that UK courses vary so much when analysing certain stats sun as run style ones. That should come as no surprise because the turf courses especially are so different: some sharp, some undulating, some stiff, and so on. That is why the pace maps on the Geegeez racecard are like gold dust. Having past run style insights for a specific course and distance (and going and field size) gives us a huge edge when gauging how important a factor run style is likely to be.

As you know, I am a huge believer that run style can be the key to unlocking the winner of many races. It is something I strongly feel that all punters should include in their form analysis. I hope that, if you're not already, the findings in this article might encourage you to start!

Good luck.

- DR

Monday Musings: G1 Galore

/in /by

They were coming at the big prizes from all directions over this second weekend in July, Classic winners attempting further Group 1 triumphs, writes Tony Stafford. While some notable stars continued their upward momentum, the challenge of maintaining that level of excellence is never easy.

Normally staged on the first Saturday of the month, the Coral-Eclipse Stakes over 1m2f at Sandown might have attracted only a four-horse field, but the quartet posed an intriguing puzzle as the opening clash between the top Classic horses from the respective generations.

Considering the record of three-year-olds in this £425k to the winner prize, it was disappointing that only one attended the party. But then it was a distinguished representative, the winner of five previous races in a row, culminating in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes.

This of course was Paddington and, like several of his Aidan O’Brien predecessors, here he was trying ten furlongs for the first time having been campaigned at a mile.

Ranged against him as the obvious threat was last month’s Coronation Cup heroine Emily Upjohn, dropping back to ten from 12 furlongs and without the reassuring presence of Frankie Dettori. William Buick stepped in.

As the horses started to vacate the paddock, Matt Chapman for ITV approached William Haggas, asking about his runner, the 5yo Dubai Honour, winner of two valuable prizes in Australia and placed in another massive pot at Sha Tin last time out.

“He has won twice as much money as the rest of these,” he said, but that confidence statement did not fool the market, his horse’s price of 8/1 also at variance with his official rating which slotted in between the big two.

Once that pair launched their joint bids past the one other runner, the Crisfords’ West Wind Blows, who had quickly taken the lead after initially being bettered from the stalls by an alert Paddington, it was a match. As the duo stormed together up the hill they proved to be in a class of their own, with Ryan Moore always looking to be holding his rival.

The other pair are talented, but in finishing six (WWB) and eight (DH) lengths adrift, it will be globetrotting, as Chapman suggested “against inferior foreign opposition” rather than Group 1 shopping at home and in the top European venues, that they will have to do to continue bolstering the coffers.

Emily Upjohn is firmly in line to go back up in trip with part-owner John Shack keen on the Arc. The original outright owner, he cashed in a chunk of his great filly last year and still owns a mightily valuable proposition when she ends her career and goes to partners the Lloyd Webbers’ stud.

There will clearly be a massive stud job for Paddington, too, when the son of Siyouni finishes racing. Much has been made of his going from a handicap to Sandown but, as I’ve said here before, the Coolmore team need to offer fulsome thanks to the Irish official who decided to allot him a mark of 96. He had demolished a field of 20 2yo maidens at the Curragh on second start following an exploratory opening foray at Ascot late last September.

The next offer of gratitude is that the Sunday of the Irish 2023 turf flat programme’s opening weekend, at Naas, features the Madrid Handicap which accommodates 3yo’s with high ratings. Paddington won it and then, five days before the 2000 Guineas was being contested at Newmarket, he earned a smooth albeit unspectacular win in Listed company.

The well-chronicled and minutely explained by their trainer unhinging of Auguste Rodin and Little Big Bear at Newmarket – soon eviscerated by the simple expedient of going up in trip (AR in the Derby) and down (LBB to sprinting), conveniently left a vacuum in the Irish 2000 Guineas. We now know who filled it.

Aidan has a supreme ability to get improvement race on race for his charges. In less than five weeks, Paddington has won three of the toughest Group 1s in the English/Irish calendars and his career holds a gathering similarity to that of one of his most famed predecessors at Ballydoyle.

Giant’s Causeway was known as the Iron Horse, but when I looked back at the career of the 1997-foaled son of Storm Cat, I hadn’t remembered he raced only at two and three. Unbeaten as a juvenile, with the Group 2 Prix de la Salamandre as his biggest win, he raced another ten times at three.

A win on his comeback run in a Group 3 in Ireland was followed by a near miss in the 2000 Guineas (2nd of 27 to King’s Best) and the Irish 2000, when runner-up to Bachir. He then went on a five-race Group 1 winning spree taking in the St James’s Palace Stakes (by a head), Eclipse (head again), Sussex Stakes (three-parts of a length), Juddmonte (head once more) and Irish Champion (half a length).

He finished off with two second places, in the QE II at Ascot, half a length behind Observatory, and the Breeders’ Cup Classic, a neck behind the brilliant Tiznow in an epic battle on the Belmont Park dirt track..

Having started more conservatively with Paddington, the O’Brien colt has already gone a long way onto the Giant’s Causeway ladder and in one way is already ahead of that horse’s Group 1 schedule.

Understandably, both the Sussex and Juddmonte were mentioned after Saturday and should he take in and win those, five Group 1 wins would already match the Iron Horse with the prospect of the Leopardstown and Ascot races to follow, not to mention a possible turf foray at this year’s Breeders’ Cup. Eight would be nice and for Iron Horse we would have to substitute Diamond, the hardest mineral known to man.

At Royal Ascot, Paddington meted out stable revenge on Chaldean, the horse that won the 2000 Guineas for Andrew Balding, and there was no hint of Giant’s Causeway’s love of a tight finish in which to show his battling tendencies as the Irish colt went almost four lengths clear.

Chaldean was expected to get back on the winning trail in yesterday’s Prix Jean Prat at Deauville, but after showing up in the middle of the track in the Group 1 over a straight seven furlongs, he faded away to fifth. Other veterans of this season’s mile Classics to finish unplaced here were Indestructible, 4th, Charyn, Hi Royal and the O’Brien filly Mediate.

The winner was the Fabrice Chappet-trained Kodiac colt Good Guess, 40/1 according to the Sky Sports racing caption afterwards but barely half those odds at a miserly 24/1 for off-course punters in the UK. Sixth in the French 2000, he has always been highly regarded and reflects how quickly fortunes and abilities can change as each Classic generation unfolds through the season.

One other Classic winner, Westover, Ralph Beckett’s Irish Derby hero from last year, was also in action in France this weekend, strolling home as the 2/1 on favourite in a four-runner renewal of the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud on Saturday.

Westover had been a creditable second to Emily Upjohn in last month’s Coronation Cup, the pair finishing a long way clear of Point Lonsdale and 2021 Irish Derby hero Hurricane Lane. He, too, will be lining up for an Arc challenge.

Two further 2023 Classic participants made the trek across to New York for the very valuable Belmont Derby Invitational. Oisin Murphy must have been hopeful of winning the main prize on Dante winner and Derby fifth The Foxes,but, having been given plenty to do, he could not peg back the Todd Pletcher-trained Far Bridge who got first run and beat him by a length.

Further back was the Charlie Appleby-trained Silver Knott. Silver Knott had been only 11th in the 2000 Guineas but had been a good second when travelling to Keeneland for last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, where he was beaten a nose by Aidan O’Brien’s Victoria Road.

Incidentally, Victoria Road, who has yet to reappear after a training setback in the spring, has a handful of imminent entries taking in later this month up to September.

No joy for Oisin in the Belmont Derby Invitational, then, but his trip was made more than worthwhile when the Fozzy Stack filly Aspen Grove (15/1) won the Oaks Invitational earlier on the card. Last of ten to Tahiyra in the Irish 1000 last time, the Justify filly, half-owned by Sue Magnier, collected the £229k first prize with a strong late run.

Oisin’s share of the £355k earned by his two mounts will have helped salve the disappointment of Chaldean’s defeat yesterday. You win when you lose when you’re in the Oisin, Ryan and Frankie (who missed both Emily Upjohn and Chaldean) bracket!

- TS

Roving Reports: Royal Ascot

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The summer Festival season is in full swing and there's none bigger than Royal Ascot week, writes David Massey. It's a long, challenging week if you're working in the ring, which I was, but it did at least kick off on the right note with a relaxing evening at Windsor on the Monday. 

Normally I'd be on the team - I'm working for Rob and the S&D mob this week - but he tells me the Windsor Monday nights have been rather poor for business this year, a telling sign if ever there was one. So instead I'm sat behind the joint with a pint in one hand and a race card in the other, backing paddock picks. 

This goes spectacularly badly and I'm almost a oner down after three races so I decide to abandon the paddock and go with form instead, see if that can turn the evening around. An each-way bet on Thankuappreciate gets me my first return of the night, a whopping £26. 

From my perch I call to Jason, on the machine, to ask what price It's How We Roll is in the next. He tells me I can have 20s. "Keep the £26 then, I'll have £13 each-way." I also back it online with a bookmaker that's paying 4 places at 16s. When he romps home by an easy length and a bit at a well-backed 11-1, the oi oiiiis go up from my chair. The evening well and truly turned around and I've got some pocket money to have a crack with through the week now! 

Rather than a hotel, Rob has rented a house for the week in Bracknell for the team, and a lovely house it is, too: a quiet area with a little garden we can relax in at night. Better still, it's a mere 10 minute drive to the Ascot car parks, a right result. Despite a last-race time of 6.10pm every day (thanks for that, Ascot) we are still back for just after 7 most nights, which gives genuine time to wind down with food and a beer. 

Tuesday, unsurprisingly, begins early at 8.30am. Once in, I head off to the greenhouse that poses as a marquee in the middle of the track to get some writing done. Stiflingly hot in there last year, there is at least some air conditioning this time which is just as well, as a humid week is forecast. 

For the first two days I'll be on the rail, facing the Royal Enclosure, so if the King fancies a fiver each-way on one I'll be happy to accommodate him. Tuesday and Wednesday are the quietest days, betting-wise. Rob tells me if I take four grand today he'll be delighted. "Only way you'll take more is if you bump into a punter." Well.....

Once the Royals have taken their seats betting tends to begin. It's very quiet business for the Queen Anne, until one guy stands in front of me. "Can I help you?" I enquiry politely. 

Reader, he pulls a wad of fifties out of his pocket as big as any roll of Andrex you've seen. "I'll have fifty on that, fifty on that, fifty on that and a hundred on that," he says, handing me five crisp bullseyes for his four selections. I thank him and he walks off. Rob is betting two doors up from me and throws me a look that says "nicely done". "Ask him if he's got any mates that want a bet with us!" he shouts at me. Our punter does not back Triple Time but he's back again for the Coventry. This time he picks three out, and has a hundred on each. He walks off, then two minutes later walks back and has another two selections for £100 a pop. He walks away again but within a minute has another £200 on Asnada. I can see the strained look on Rob's face that says "for God's sake, don't lose this guy," and I do all I can to keep him. River Tiber wins and he's not backed that as one of his selections either. What's his next move? 

Let's keep it brief. He has £700 on the next, £50 of which is on Bradsell at 12s, so almost wipes his face. He tells me to keep the £650 and have it all on Chaldean as, and I quote, "Frankie tells me this will win." I'm not going to argue, he might be well acquainted with Frankie for all I know, but sadly for him Frankie is wrong and Paddington proves too good for him. He splashes out a grand on the Ascot Stakes, £100 of which is on winner Ahorsewithnoname at 13-2, has £50 of that back on Royal Champion in the next at 16s (but, I ought to add, has another £800 on top of that on losers) and, come the last, out come the big guns. "I'll have a thousand on Vauban," he says, and stumps up from the cash pile, which has dwindled somewhat since two o'clock. He walks off, then comes back five minutes later with an acquaintance. 'I'll have another thousand Vauban," he says, and pulls out a card. Rob hands me the card machine but the transaction won't go through. I look at the card - it's a credit card. I inform him only debit cards can be taken. He opens his wallet and there must be a dozen cards in there, but not one of them is a debit card. I'll bet Coutts haven't closed his account. 

So, he pulls the remaining cash out of his pocket. There's around £800 left. Fully expecting him to have that on the jolly, what does he do instead? Backs four rags at £200 a piece, that's what. Rob, who is by now as bewildered as the rest of us at finding such a miracle punter, is stunned. He picks his 2k up in cash post-race and my first and indeed only question to him is whether he'll be here tomorrow. Sadly, he informs me, he has meetings in Dubai to attend and won't be here the rest of the week. I wish him all the best and thank him for his business. I've taken over 9k on the day, over half of it with him alone. 

Wednesday. My word, if matey boy from Day 1 was unlucky, I'm about to meet his exact opposite. A lady that cannot stop backing winners. 

Her name was Deborah, as Pulp might have sang, and she was the wife of a high-court judge, although that bit wasn't in the lyrics for Common People, as I recall. She's backing two or three a race and having about £60 on each time. She has, and I'm not making any of this up - a tenner each-way Villanova Queen at 25s, £15ew Rogue Millennium in the Duke Of Cambridge at 9s, £20 win Mosthadaf in the Prince Of Wales, a tenner each-way Jimi Hendrix (and £15 each-way Sonny Liston, for good measure) in the Hunt Cup and £15 each-way Big Evs in the Windsor Castle. She's almost embarrassed to pick up after the last one wins. We have a group photo as I pay her out for one final time. She reckons she's about a grand up on the day. I tell her now might be a good time to buy a lottery ticket.....

Thursday and it's getting hotter. The greenhouse/marquee coffee machine has packed up, and we appear to be out of teabags too. I make a mental note to bring some Yorkshire teabags in tomorrow. (A worker should always - ALWAYS - have teabag reserves, either in the car or in your kit bag. Vital.) 

It's Ladies Day, which might as well be called Frankie Day. I actually do something proactive, namely write down Frankie's mounts and stick them to the front of the light board, so when I'm asked I can just point to my handiwork. It does the trick.

I should add I'm now working in Tatts, on the back row, with Liam. I worked with Liam last year, he likes a bet and knows his stuff. Betting on rugby is his thing, although the one time he told me "this can't lose on the handicap" the bet was sunk by half-time. We've all done it. 

I don't strike a bet on Valiant Force, the 150-1 winner of the Norfolk Stakes, but I can see on the payout sheet that the rails has laid a tenner each-way at the price and someone had a fiver win-only at 125s. That's confidence for you. The results continue to be terrific, with 18-1 Desert Hero and 50-1 Witch Hunter almost unbacked, and by the time Frankie gets his winner, with Courage Mon Ami in the Gold Cup, his legions of fans have rather given up hope and it's actually a good result. 

By Friday we are flagging, the heat taking its toll and I hear stories of some rather poorly workers on some firms. Not all of it is alcohol related either. However, results have been unbelievable and some of the bigger firms already have their expenses on the week paid for. You wouldn't normally do that until midway through Friday, but it's clear that plenty of the firms are going to be paying a bonus to their workers this year. 

One thing to be wary of Ascot week is that you'll almost certainly be tested on a purchase, the local council sending in an under-18 to make sure you're not serving them. The lad that comes up to me before the first looks very young and when I ask him for ID, he cannot produce any. So I ask him his age, and he readily tells me he's 16. I tell him I can't serve him and he goes on his way. I'll say this though - as he puts his money away I see a slip in his hand from one of the very big joints and it's clear they have not asked him anything. That's disappointing from a firm that really ought to know better. 

Coming from a retail background, asking for ID is second nature to me, but there's plenty of firms that go with the "what harm are they doing, they're only having a bet" line and I'd wager most of us reading this had our first investment in school uniform. But times change, and a bookmaker can easily lose his or her license for multiple strikes these days, so you always have to ask. I do, anyway. 

Three winning favourites and a Frankie double on the Friday is a bit of a grounding after a good week, but business was brisk and getting Little Big Bear beaten - I laid an £880-£800 in Tatts, and the rails took an even grand - means a winning day.

None of us want to get up Saturday morning but the end is now in sight. I feel very smug driving in, with no traffic on the road, but as I approach the signs telling me "Display Parking Badges Now" I realise I've left mine at the house and have to go back and fetch it. This results in me losing a potentially good parking spot and by the time I moor up, I'm right at the back of the car park and have to walk up the big hill to get to the course. Arriving at the greenhouse/marquee I'm already soaked in sweat, it's that hot. 

I go for a wander down to the silver ring around lunchtime to see how some of the items in there are getting on. My good mate Joe, working for Paul Johnson, tells me he fancies Age Of Kings quite strongly. I wish I'd listened a bit harder to him. When I congratulate him by text later he also tells me he had a bit each-way on Khaadem in the Jubilee. His crystal ball was on good form, clearly. 

Indeed, today really is humid and working conditions for the afternoon are unpleasant. Saturday tends to be more of a family day but it's busy, and the crowd more chatty. I like that, as it means you get to know your audience a bit better and you can actually call them by their name when they come up for a bet, adding a bit of a personal touch. My favourites are three girls from Enfield who have no clue about betting at the start of the day but are seasoned professionals by the end of it, and they promise me they'll go racing more now they know what they're doing. I do hope so! 

There's not much big money flying around today but plenty of scores and forties which is fine, and results are again favourable in the main. It's been a winning week, which is just as well as we're all knackered out and ready for home. 

I wonder if my Tuesday punter will be at Southwell next Monday? You never know...

- DR

Jockey Profiles: Best of the Rest

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This is the fifth and final article in my series of articles on jockeys, writes Dave Renham. In this piece I will be looking at three more top jockeys trying to pinpoint their strongest stats, be it positive or negative. As with the previous four articles I have analysed the last eight full years of flat racing in the UK and Ireland (2015-2022). I have used the Geegeez Query Tool as well as the Profiler Tool, amongst other things. In all the tables the profits/losses quoted are to Industry SP, but I have shared Betfair Starting Price where appropriate. Let's start with last season's champion jockey...

William Buick Jockey Profile

William Buick became Godolphin’s first choice jockey in 2016 and hence it should come as no surprise that within a year his win strike rate soon began to edge up:

 

 

As we can see from 2017 onwards he has achieved yearly strike rates in excess of 20%, with 2022 being a particularly good year. His overall record reads as follows:

 

 

Buick backers incurred relatively modest losses to Industry SP when we look at all races as a whole. Considering he has had over 4000 rides this is quite impressive. To BSP, backing Buick ‘blind’, you would have made a profit of £317.71 (ROI +7.5%).

Let us now look at his performance for different trainers over this eight year period (minimum 100 rides):

 

 

Buick when teaming up with his boss, Godolphin trainer Charlie Appleby, has secured a strike rate edging close to three wins in every ten rides. Not only that, they have combined to virtually break even to SP, with profits to BSP hitting £139.33 (ROI 9.6%). Indeed, to BSP they have secured profits in six of the last seven seasons. His record is less impressive when riding for the Gosden stable – a stable for whom he has been stable jockey in the past - with a modest strike rate of under 15% and poor returns.

One trainer not in the table due to the minimum ride stipulation is Sir Michael Stoute. Buick and Stoute do not team up that regularly, but when they do their record is excellent – 19 wins from 73 (SR 26%) for a profit of £42.07 (ROI +57.6%). To BSP profits that increases to £57.59 (ROI +78.9%). Their PRB figure is excellent also standing at 0.68.

One thing I like about Buick is that he is an excellent rider from the front. He wins on board virtually one ride in three when taking the early lead. Here are his win percentage splits for the four main run styles:

 

 

Buick follows the usual trend in that his front running rides win more often than his prominent ones which in turn out-perform mid div / hold up rides. For the record, at distances of 1m2f or less his front running strike rate stands at 35.1%; at 1m3f or longer it drops to 19.1%.

As regular readers will know, I like to look at favourite run style data, too, as this eliminates any potential selection bias regarding ‘good horses at the front, bad ones at the back’. Here are the relative win strike rates for Buick-ridden favourites in terms of the four main run styles:

 

 

Again, front running market leaders did best by some margin, while favourites that raced mid-division early had a very poor record: these runners would have lost you 26p for every £1 bet. Buick's record on held up favourites are a lot stronger than most jockeys, presumably because of the number of Godolphin horses able to outclass their opposition.

Before moving on, let us look at some additional statistics for the reigning champ:

  1. Buick has a great record at Newmarket from a significant number of rides. Specifically, he scored on 212 winners from 843 (SR 25.2%) for a BSP profit of £94.09 (ROI +11.2%). When riding for Charlie Appleby at HQ the record is even more impressive – 132 winners from 412 rides (SR 32%) for a BSP profit of £93.34 (ROI +22.7%).
  2. In contrast, at York his record reads 24 wins from 197 (SR 12.2%) for a BSP loss of £41.53 (ROI -21.1%).
  3. On 2yos Buick has won 25% of races returning a BSP return of 6p in the £.
  4. On 2yos having their second career start Buick has a strike rate of 1 in 3 and has returned a profit to BSP of just over 15 pence in the £.

Buick is a very good all round jockey who I am always happy to see riding a horse I fancy.

 

Jim Crowley Jockey Profile

Jim Crowley is a seasoned campaigner, and retained rider for the Shadwell operation, who is right up there when it comes to win rate. Here is his overall record going back to 2015:

 

 

These are excellent stats and backing all Crowley runners to BSP would have yielded a profit of £424.79 to £1 level stakes, equating to returns of nearly 8p in the £.

Crowley rides for numerous different trainers and there are 16 trainers for whom he has ridden more than 100 times. Here are their stats:

 

 

We see some very good stats here with seven of the 16 trainers showing a blind profit to Industry SP; and 11 trainers showing a profit to BSP.

Crowley has produced excellent results with horses from the top two in the betting when riding for Owen Burrows, William Haggas and the Gosden stable. All three have yielded good BSP returns on investment (Burrows +19.8%, Haggas +16% and the Gosden stable +8.6%).

In terms of courses, Crowley has ridden more than 100 times at 18 different venues. Here are the A/E indices at these tracks:

 

 

It is very impressive to note that eight courses have A/E indices in excess of 1.00 with Nottingham hitting a remarkable 1.57. His overall Nottingham stats are unsurprisingly outstanding – 43 wins from 131 rides (SR 32.8%) for an SP profit of £159.14 (ROI +121.5%). To BSP this improves to a profit of £186.86 (ROI +142.6%). His PRB course figure is also very strong standing at 0.65.

Here are a couple of stats for Crowley that are also worth sharing:

  1. He has an excellent record in very small fields. In races of five runners or fewer he has won 144 races from 410 rides (SR 35.1%) for a BSP profit of £130.46 (ROI +31.8%). He has made a profit to industry SP also of £84.64 (ROI +20.6%).
  2. On front runners he has performed especially well for trainers Charlie Hills and Owen Burrows. This is particularly true in races of 1 mile or less where Crowley hits the 34% win percentage mark for both trainers.

Crowley is hugely experienced and this shows in his stats.

 

Oisin Murphy Jockey Profile

Oisin Murphy was British Champion Jockey in 2019, 2020 and 2021. He did not race in 2022 as he was banned for two failed breath tests and breaking coronavirus rules but has resumed riding with a win percentage of 17.5% in 2023, slightly above his overall record as can be seen in the table below:

 

 

These are sound stats given Murphy has taken over 2000 more rides than Buick and 1000 more than Crowley, despite missing the whole of 2022! He clearly is a rider who does not have an issue with being busy. Like Crowley he has ridden 100 times or more for several trainers and here are the stats (ordered by strike rate):

 

 

Although he has not made a profit to SP when riding for Saeed bin Suroor, they are a combination to keep an eye on. The PRB of 0.70 is particularly high and, when betting to BSP, they have snuck into profit. Indeed to BSP, all bar Simcock and Williams have produced a profit with Oisin in the plate. Keeping with the BSP theme, if we combine all nine trainers, then Murphy has made a profit with them as a group in every year from 2015 to 2021. The combined yearly returns to BSP are shown in the graph below:

 

 

It is rare to get seven profitable years in a row when combining as many as nine different trainers.

There are four other trainers to keep an eye out for where Murphy has had less than 100 rides in each case. They are the Harry & Roger Charlton barn (10 wins from 32), Mick Appleby (16 wins from 66), John & Thady Gosden (31 wins from 84) and John Butler (8 wins from 21).

Murphy has a notably good record on 2yos with an overall strike rate in the review period of 17.4% thanks to 256 winners from 1473 runners. To Industry SP these runners yielded small losses of just under 4p in the £; to BSP, however, this turns into a profit of over 13 pence in the £. Here are three additional 2yo stats worth sharing:

  1. 2yos that have started in the top four of the betting have provided 226 wins from 971 runners (SR 23.3%) for a BSP profit of £92.32 (ROI +9.5%)
  2. For the Gosden stable he has had 14 2yo winners from just 39 runners (SR 35.9%) for a BSP profit of £12.08 (ROI +31.0%)
  3. 2yos that Murphy has taken into the lead early have won over 30% of their races. But...
  4. 2yos that were held up by Murphy have won just 8.4% of the time

Continuing with the run style theme, I have always liked Murphy from the front as an angle. Indeed, if your crystal ball was in mint condition and you had predicted pre-race all of Oisin's front runners in all races (not just 2yo ones), you would have been rewarded with an SP profit of £312.85 (ROI +30.9%). To BSP returns were nearer 45p in the £.

Looking at his run style record on favourites we see the same pattern we have seen numerous time before:

 

 

Front running favourites do best as is the norm and they would have been profitable to the tune of 12p in the £. Prominent racers would have seen you lose 2p in £, mid div 'jollies' lost 24p for every £1 bet, while hold ups lost 19p.

 

Here are some additional stats for Murphy, starting with two negative ones:

  1. Murphy has a poor record with very short priced runners. On horses priced 8/13 or shorter he has had 61 wins from 112 (SR 54.5%) for losses to Industry SP of £28.10 (ROI –25.1%)
  1. With big-priced runners his record is poor also. Horses priced 28/1 or bigger accounted for just four winners and nine placed runners from 337. Losses to Industry SP stood at £206.00 (ROI –61.1%). To BSP it improves a little but he still lost over 42p in the £
  1. Murphy has achieved a strike rate of 20% or more at five courses (with a minimum of 100 rides) – these are Chelmsford 20.1%, Newcastle 21.5%, Nottingham 20%, Salisbury 21.1% and Wolverhampton 20.5%. Four of the five have yielded blind profits to BSP (Wolverhampton being the only track that has not)
  1. When teaming up with Hughie Morrison at Nottingham they are 6 wins from just 13 runners. They have also had two seconds at 14/1 and 12/1. When riding at Lingfield for Archie Watson, Murphy is 12 wins from 35 (SR 34.3%) for a BSP profit of £11.80 (ROI +33.7%)

I really like Murphy as a jockey and I especially look for horses he is riding that may take the lead early.

 

MAIN TAKEWAYS

Below is a summary of my key findings, firstly for William Buick:

  1. Buick has a good record riding for his boss Charlie Appleby, making a blind profit to BSP with a decent strike rate. He also has a good record when booked to ride for the Stoute stable
  2. He is outstanding from the front especially in races of ten furlongs or less.
  3. He has a very good record at Newmarket for all trainers, but especially with Appleby. At York his record is relatively poor.
  4. His record with 2yos is decent, with second starters doing particularly well.

Onto Jim Crowley now:

  1. Crowley has a strike rate of better than one win in four with four trainers (100 rides or more) – John & Thady Gosden, William Haggas, Roger Varian and Owen Burrows. Three of the four have yielded a profit to Industry SP
  2. He has an outstanding record when riding at Nottingham
  3. In small fields of five runners or less Crowley has been exceptional

And finally Oisin Murphy:

  1. Murphy has a good record with many trainers he rides regularly for.
  2. Harry & Roger Charlton, Mick Appleby, John & Thady Gosden, and John Butler are trainers he rides less often for but his record with all four is excellent.
  3. He goes well on 2yo runners.
  4. He is excellent when riding from the front.
  5. He has a relatively poor record with very short priced runners (8/13 or shorter); likewise with outsiders priced 28/1 or bigger.
  6. Two trainer/jockey course combinations to note are Murphy and Morrison at Nottingham, and Murphy and Watson at Lingfield.

*

So I have come to the end of this series on jockeys. Of course, I have barely scratched the surface as there are hundreds of riders I have not analysed at all. Most punters have favourite jockeys or indeed ‘lucky’ ones, but digging into the stats is a worthwhile use of all of our time. Building up a picture of strengths and weaknesses is important, and with Geegeez’s tools - especially the Profiler and Query Tool - it is not difficult to do or time consuming. In fact, it's fun!

Other jockeys you may want to look at in your own time include James Doyle, Andrea Atzeni, Jack Mitchell, Kevin Stott and Adam Kirby; or indeed whoever interests you. If you find anything noteworthy, feel free to comment below as it will help the Geegeez community. Until next time, when I'll be looking at something different, stay lucky.

- DR

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