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Glorious Goodwood 2023: Day 2 Preview, Pointers, Picks

31 July 2023/in Horse Racing Blog/by Matt Bisogno

On to Day 2, Wednesday, at the Qatar Goodwood Festival, or Glorious Goodwood to me and probably you. One of the features of the week, if not the feature, is the Group 1 Sussex Stakes at 3.35, and that clash of the generations and the sexes is supported by a trio of 'shoulder' races either side. The action gets underway at 1.50 with the...

1.50 Coral Handicap (1m4f, Class 2, 3yo only)

A three-year-old weight-for-ability contest over twelve furlongs would not be my 'go to' punting puzzle. This, however, is not your average such race. Indeed, previous winners Pether's Moon and Dartmouth ended up high class Group winners and are now enjoying careers as stallions; so it can be an instructive affair. Some pointers pulled from the trends at horseracebase.com as well as our own Goodwood Day 2 trends:

A low draw has typically been advantageous for all that two of the last four winners emerged from double digit berths. The top three in the betting have fared better than expectations, and horses finishing first or second last time have also bossed things. Team Johnston has won three of the last ten and five since 2008, none of them returning shorter than 6/1: they are triply represented. Sir Michael Stoute also has five winners and another eight placed from 22 starters, while Charlie Appleby has a winner and two places from six starters.

Horses last racing at Newmarket's July course or Ascot have much the best record, though those from Newmarket have offered a touch more value.

It's a really tough race to call, for me at least, with virtually the entire field capable of more than they've demonstrated to date; so at the prices perhaps the Sir Michael Stoute angle is the one. His Fox Journey is 15/2 in a place. But I have no clue really.

2.25 Oak Tree Stakes (7f, Group 3, 3yo+)

A pretty strong draw bias race is the Oak Tree Stakes, the winners since 1997 emerging from the following stalls: 2-2-1-10-3-6-1-5-10-10-9-2-2-9-10-1-1-1-6-6-1-5-1-2-2-2. There's a lot of 1's and 2's in that sequence without us thinking we've found the oracle (plenty of 9's and 10's to keep feet on the ground). But 14 of those 26 winners did exit one of the two lowest traps, and they accrued better than 51 units profit collectively.

Internationalangel was a neck second from stall 10 last year when a 66/1 chance, and has box two this time; geegeez-sponsored Marco Ghiani rides. Oscula represented Nick Bradley Racing when winning last year and jumped from stall 2. This year, the same connections have Fast Response exiting the inside gate: lucky Nick.

It's been a fair race for overseas runners, too, specifically from the French yard of Francois Rohaut: he saddled the winner three years running between 2015 and 2017. Add to that Samahram, trained by Francois-Henri Graffard, who would have won with a clear passage last year; and 25/1 Rocques who was fourth of 17 in 2019. Alas, the overseas raiders have had a torrid time at the draw, Samedi Rien getting stall 13 and Sicilian Defense drawing 15 of 16. Only the luckless Matilda Picotte fared worst, with the car park post position.

Breege has stall 3 and was second in a 7f Group 3 here last August. She handles soft ground and is a definite contender.

3.00 Molcomb Stakes (5f, Group 3, 2yo)

Rapid fire sprint action and low may be slightly favoured in terms of stall positions. Big Evs has the highest gate but he's lightning from the start and wasn't stopping at Royal Ascot when making all in the Windsor Castle. He almost overcame an even worse draw at Redcar on debut so that is unlikely to be his undoing. Kyllian is a highly legitimate challenger but Big Evs has achieved plenty more so far and is less exposed after only two career starts.

Barnwell Boy is probably better than he showed when midfield behind Big Evs - he won his maiden here over six - but it's hard to see him reversing places with the winner that day. The rest need to grow a fifth leg on form, but all are entitled to improve to one degree or another.

Big Evs is favourite in my book and about 6/4, but he's 5/2 with the actual layers right now. That looks wrong for all that he has to prove he handles very different underfoot conditions.

3.35 Sussex Stakes (1m, Group 1, 3yo+)

The feature of the day is a mile showdown between the Classic generation, represented by the Irish 2000 Guineas / St James's Palace Stakes / Eclipse winner, Paddington, and the Fillies' Mile / Coronation Stakes / Prix Jacques le Marois winner, Inspiral.

As a three-year-old, Paddington gets weight from Inspiral, but only four pounds because she is a filly. They have had hugely differing campaigns, Paddington lining up for the sixth time in 2023 here while Inspiral has just her second spin of the year.

And then Paddington has recorded a six-timer improving from run to run while Inspiral has been a touch inconsistent. On her best form she's a danger to the three-year-old champ, especially if he feels the effects of his busy campaign. But there was no sign of fatigue as Paddington toughed it out against a strong stayer in Emily Upjohn last time. That one clunked in the King George at the weekend and it is certainly not impossible that the effort exerted by the winner that day could flatten his energies here.

Inspiral looks a touch over-priced at 4/1 given the busy schedule Coolmore's flagbearer has maintained hitherto.

But there is an outlying scenario where neither of the obvious two turn up. It's unlikely but the picture I've tried to paint above is that it's not extremely unlikely. After all, look what happened to Auguste Rodin and Emily Upjohn on Saturday. Who, then, might be able to take advantage of such a scenario?

With Chindit having blown out twice at this track, albeit on much faster turf, Aldaary perhaps preferring a straight track as when he won the Balmoral Handicap up the straight mile at Ascot, French raider Facteur Cheval is interesting at a price. He handles soft ground - naturellement as it's always soft in France - and, though he's been beaten three times by the same horse recently, he does have a solid turn of foot. Maxime Guyon takes over from Gerald Mosse and perhaps will time his challenge better than the veteran has done.

Charyn ran a bold race when third in the St James's Palace Stakes but he, too, has had a hard campaign and might favour a shorter trip; that said, with no obvious pace angle in the field it may ride more like seven furlongs.

The obvious form horse is Paddington and if he turns up as we know him, he wins. But there are reasons to think he might not, in which case Inspiral is certainly worth a small bet at 4/1. Each way and/or without the favourite players might look to Facteur Cheval as a sporting alternative in a fascinating and high class contest, on paper at least.

4.10 Alice Keppel Fillies' Conditions Stakes (5f, Class 2, 2yo)

The fifth renewal of this, features of the first four being top two-year-olds trainers and commensurately short prices. After that, I'm afraid you're pretty much on your own.

4.45 British EBF Fillies' Handicap (1m2f, Class 2, 3yo+)

A race in its eighth year. Ralph 'Raif' Beckett has won two, from just three runners; three-year-olds have won four of the first seven (they've also been responsible for 37 of 63 runners - near enough three-fifths - so not much of note there, except that they've arguably underperformed).

Red Raif runs La Isla Mujeres, who will probably race handily, a feature of three of the four winners. She might offer a fair run for money at 9/2, though I clearly haven't scoured the form with a fine-toothed comb: caveat emptor.

5.20 World Pool Handicap (7f, Class 3, 3yo+)

More like it. A big field brings draw into play, sort of. This has been won in the past ten years in two ways: either an inside post racing handily or making all, or a middle to wide draw being waited with and pouncing late. Looking at the pace map there are quite a few whose recent run style profile does not adhere to that very blunt identikit sketch:

We might give Dark Thirty a point, and then perhaps the likes of Haziym, Baileysgutfeeling, Classic, Farasi Lane and, perhaps, Darkness if ridden patiently, before looking at some actual form. Plenty of that list have shown little to nothing recently, though Haziym is tumbling from a high mark earned in France. Two which have run well lately are Darkness and Dark Thirty, though they're very far from dark Dark horses, if you see what I mean. Splitting a pound between the pair ought to give you one to shout early and hopefully one to challenge him late in a race that appears to have a fair bit of dead wood.

It looks tenuous tickle territory pretty much all day. Paddington will shock nobody by winning but he is opposable with Inspiral; I am cheering Big Evs at value odds against Kyllian et al; and after that maybe dutching Breege and Fast Response will get a couple of quid back. The rest is even more guesswork than usual on my part!

Matt

Glorious Goodwood 2023: Day 1 Preview, Pointers, Tips

31 July 2023/in Big Race Previews, Horse Racing Blog/by Matt Bisogno

The wonderful carnival of racing that is the Qatar Goodwood Festival, or always 'Glorious Goodwood' to many, commences on Tuesday and there is a glut of top class racing and, indeed, races full stop. Eight contests punctuate the opening day, beginning with a big field five furlong sprint handicap and headlined later on by the Group 2 Lennox Stakes, arguably the best seven-furlong race in the British calendar, and the Group 1 Goodwood Cup.

My approach this week will be more short hand than has been historically the case, with one race previewed in depth and the remainder given the pointer treatment: I'll suggest what I think are some of the more material factors to consider in your own deliberations. I might lob in a selection or three where I feel that's appropriate. Anyway, you'll see what I mean as we proceed...

The going is currently good to soft, good in places, with plenty of rain forecast. The latest live weather station readings are here.

1.40 Coral Handicap (5f Handicap 4yo+, Class 2)

15 runners in what I suspect will be wet ground. Draw and pace will be factors but so too will an ability to handle the conditions of a big field and soft turf. These are more exposed runners so Instant Expert is a decent port of call. One horse stands out there: last year's Group 2 King George Stakes second over course and distance, Raasel.

The winner that day was Khaadem, subsequently a Royal Ascot Group 1 winner, and Raasel has been running very well in Group company this season. His Goodwood record is 112 and he handles all going. If there is a draw bias it might be towards low numbers, so trap four will be right in the mix. My only slight niggle is his general waited with run style, but he's tractable in that regard and could get a slightly more forward ride here.

Look for horses that can handle, the going, grade and, if they all go, field size. Then look for bookmakers offering bonus places!

2.15 British EBF Maiden Stakes (6f maiden, 2yo, Class 2)

Not really a race I know anything about. Perhaps look to Goodwood trainers such as Charlie Johnston (taking over from his dad but well advertised as having plotted a squad for this meeting), Andrew Balding and, to a lesser extent, Karl Burke and Charles Hills. Richard Hannon runs a lot of horses in Glorious Goodwood 2yo non-handicaps and occasionally hits the target, but he is expensive to follow (-55% ROI since 2016).

Nine of the last ten winners were sent off 13/2 or shorter, though the other was 100/1! The balance of probabilities is that the market will have this winner in its crosshairs.

2.50 Chesterfield Cup Handicap (1m2f Handicap, 4yo+, Class 2)

Team Johnston have won this four times since 2014 and usually at a price, so Outbreak is of immediate interest. He's up in trip from a mile to ten furlongs but was a length third over this range in a valuable handicap on the All-Weather Finals day consolation card. Showing at 14/1 with Sky - six places - that's plausibly playable on the trainer angle alone. The going may make things more testing, which is a concern, but he's a square price to have a cut at.

Moktasaab was third in this last year off a five pound higher mark and will benefit from a waiting ride from Hayley Turner, a fine exponent of such tactics. He's quite likely to have been 'jobbed up' for this and is 12/1 with the same firm and the same place concession.

3.25 Vintage Stakes (7f, Group 2, 2yo)

The first Group race of the week is a two year old event over seven furlongs. Winners of this have typically been strong market fancies, though it was a 14/1 shot that prevailed a year ago.

It's a bit too tricky for me.

4.00 Lennox Stakes (7f, Group 2, 3yo+)

An excellent race in prospect, and a clear and obvious favourite in Kinross. He was second in the race last year when ridden by Frankie Dettori, and that man remains in the saddle, as he has been in three subsequent wins the most recent of which was the Group 1 Champions Sprint over six good to soft furlongs. He ran well when third in the July Cup last time, again over six, and looks ready to return to seven-eighths. I think he'll win for all that that's a mightily unoriginal observation.

Of his rivals, I am not yet convinced by Isaac Shelby, whose second in the French 2000 Guineas has yet to be backed up by this lad. That said, he's had only the one spin since, when fourth to Paddington in the St James's Palace at Royal Ascot; the thinking may be that a true run mile stretches him whereas he can use his turn of foot over seven. Still, he's got it to prove, to me at least.

Pogo has plenty of classy runs to his name which, being a seven-year-old, he's had more chance to achieve. He seems to go on any ground and seven looks his best trip. I can see him running a nice race without having the class or youth to beat them all.

Al Suhail was less than three lengths behind Kinross in the G2 Park Stakes over seven at Donny last September and has picked up a packet of prize money in Dubai at the trip this spring. He ran a creditable race over six at Royal Ascot and can step forward again here. The Park Stakes third was on soft as is most of his best form.

A possible lone pace angle is Audience, who is a steady improver this season for the Gosden squad. He won two back in a fair handicap and then bolted up on seasonal debut this term in a Group 3 a month ago, Jumby his closest pursuer at a distance of two lengths. There are not many miles on his clock and, if he handles the ground - unraced on softer than good - he could be hard to peg back.

That was Jumby's sole defeat in his last five starts, progressing from a Class 3 conditions race to a Group 2 score in the Hungerford last time. He has it to prove on the slow ground but has an otherwise attractive profile.

Closest to 2000 Guineas winner Chaldean twice at the tail end of last season was Indestructible, and he opened his portfolio this year with a score in the Craven Stakes. He's since been battered in both the 2000G and the St J's P and has a good bit to prove at this point in terms of whether he's trained on (and whether his form is good enough anyway).

Winner of the Vintage Stakes last year, over the same course and distance, and also Group 2, was Marbaan. He returns to familiar climes then and may end up the pick of the three-year-olds. That said, Holguin has soft ground form aplenty and comes here off the back of a Listed 7f win at Chester last time. This, naturally, is a step up - two steps up - but conditions fit.

The best horse in this race on official figures, RPR's and Topspeed numbers is Kinross, and he also gets pretty much optimal conditions. Frankie needs to guard against tactical pitfalls in a race where the progressive Audience may get a soft lead; but he rarely misfires on the bigger stages and I think he'll win.

He's an unexciting price but it's hard to find an alternative bet: things look competitive for the places. Audience should get the run of it, while Holguin and Al Suhail are well suited to the conditions; meanwhile, Pogo is a warhorse at this level and Jumby may not be done with his upgrades yet.

But they're all a few pounds behind last year's second, KINROSS.

4.35 Goodwood Cup (2m4f, Group 1, 3yo+)

This looks very competitive indeed with four horses separated by one pound on official ratings. The least exposed is the Gold Cup winner from Royal Ascot, Courage Mon Ami, and that is reflected in his top of the market status. Coltrane, proven on softer turf, where CMA is not, looks a playable alternative to the jolly, though he does have a tendency to find one too good. He's hyper consistent.

At bigger prices Tashkhan stays well and loves the mud, but he has a good bit to find on the form; and Giavellotto is another who could feature. Very tricky.

5.05 Coral Fillies' Handicap (1m, Class 3, 3yo+)

You very likely need to be drawn low to win this. So far, first place has gone to the fillies drawn 1, 5, 5, 7, 15, 2, 3. The winner from 15 ended up winning the next season's Group 2 Duke of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot so was very smart. Unless there's an equally smart one in here I'd be staying low.

A feature of this field is there looks to be a ton of early speed on, so I'm now favouring low and midfield to held up. That gives me a tentative small stakes shortlist of Back See Daa, Miss Mojito and System (four length 5th in this last year).

Good luck, and don't blame me if trap 20 wins!

5.35 World Pool Fillies' Handicap (6f, Class 3, 3yo+)

If it's genuinely soft, high draws will have it all to do as the heatmap below outlines.

A handy position also looks helpful, which brings in plenty:

Kitai is a Johnston runner that fits the bill, but it's clearly tricky trappy truly treacherous territory.

Good luck.

Matt

Monday Musings: A Smack in the Mouth

31 July 2023/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

Now I know what it feels like, writes Tony Stafford. Coming to the end of my eighth decade, I can now honestly tell you what it is to experience pain. Thinking back to my football days, a broken wrist and a regularly sprained ankle were about the size of it.

I’m sure every woman past puberty has been doubled up on a regular basis and most sportsmen – none more so than jockeys – accept it as part and parcel of their lives. Sorry Keith - and boxers!

But I’ve poodled along and, despite the odd bit of skin cancer on my face and Type 2 diabetes for the past 15 years which has realistically only involved taking the tablets (and not passing up biscuits and cakes), have had a trouble-free run. My friend George Hill, who has had his share of scary medical issues over the years, always says I’m made of tungsten. The tungsten has run out.

It started a few months ago with a twinge in the corner of the mouth, usually when eating. That developed to such an extent that I went to a dentist to see if there was a problem. Nothing on the X-ray.

The pain got worse – not permanent, just intermittent concentrated bursts for seconds or minutes, often while eating in company with friends at the races or in restaurants with my wife. How embarrassing! Ask the editor!

I finally booked an appointment with the doctor for last Thursday but went to watch Ray Tooth’s Glen Again at Sandown the previous evening. It was after his race, trying to have something in the owners’ room that the pain got unbearable.

The nice guy who monitors the room and likes Chelsea FC and Surrey CCC said: “If you need painkillers go to the First Aid room in the main stand.” I did, to be greeted with a: “Painkillers won’t make a difference. I think I know what you have.”

To my shame, I didn’t take down her name, but this highly capable woman told me that she had been originally a dental nurse and for 30 years a paramedic. She was clearly the boss, working very congenially it seemed with her two male colleagues: “It’s trigeminal neuralgia.” Relief, I know what it is. I’ll tell the doctor tomorrow.

Then I Googled it after I left her room and, for relief, read horror as I realised I will have this condition for the rest of my life.

I slunk to the surgery on Thursday, telling the GP the symptoms and it took about ten seconds for him to repeat the dreaded name. “I’m pretty sure it’s trigeminal neuralgia, but it’s not entirely certain. We’ll prescribe the usual drug for the condition. Start with one a day for a few days, then go to two.

Thursday, Friday, I had one each day. Saturday, I went to Ascot, had the good fortune to be in a box where the food was laid out in glorious, nay luxurious profusion. To that point, all I’d managed to get down me from Wednesday had been a couple of coffees and a diet coke, but anything that involved access to the right-hand side of my mouth was the inevitable trigger for another shooting pain.

On Wednesday evening, post paramedic, I was trying to put away a little soft dessert, to no avail, and recently retired trainer Harry Dunlop hove into view. I was keen to ask him what he was doing now and just as I began, the pain came at maximum force. All I could do was stand there like a moron; mouth open trying to stave off the agony. Kindly, with an apologetic smile, he moved away.

So what is trigeminal neuralgia? It stems from the trigeminal nerve, the biggest nerve in the brain. That sends signals of pain to the face, ear, upper and lower jaw and teeth. When it gets damaged for whatever reason, the neuralgia follows.

The literature says that the sharp pain, like an electric shock, can be induced by talking, smiling, chewing, brushing your teeth, washing your face, a light touch, shaving (or putting on make-up – pass), swallowing, kissing, a cool breeze or air conditioning, head movements, vibrations, such as walking or travelling in a car. If that catalogue wasn’t comprehensive enough, it can happen spontaneously with no trigger at all.

Looks like I’ll have to change many of the things I thought I could do!

The literature suggests it can never be cured, the medication – a smaller dose, but the same that is given to epilepsy patients, great news eh - can help ease or even stave it off for periods, but it’s always lurking in the background. A bit like the tablets I must take for the diabetes.

If you’d have asked me yesterday morning how I felt, it was still at stage one. I was beginning to see why patients with this condition can go into depression or even worse. I won’t. At Ascot, I drank a coffee without incident, but thinking soup would be the only sensible option, I asked if they had any and a nice bowl of tomato was put in front of me.

I needed two goes. The first when I managed three spoonfuls; the second, a third of a bowl, before the wave of pain sailed in. That was game, set and match and after the King George I went straight home.

Yesterday, though, the fourth day of medication and the second with the full daily dose of two tablets, I thought I would try to drink my soup rather than eat in the conventional way, for lunch. That worked. For dinner, a Tesco Fish Pie, spooned minutely so that it took 25 minutes to consume, also went without a problem, although two or three times, the hint was there. So, you pause, take even more care for the positioning of the next morsel. For now, I’m still clear.

The menu is to go back for a blood test tomorrow (Tuesday) and see the doctor again on Thursday week. As I write this, for the first time in weeks I’m feeling optimistic. Maybe the tungsten is still in there somewhere, but boy does it hurt when that shockwave of pain comes!

Two years ago, I sat down – eating again, in the days when I could – having a bite before racing at Brighton racecourse and for the first time, met and had a chat with Owen Burrows. He was clearly anxious about his future as Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum had recently died and the entire Shadwell Estate Company organisation was very much up in the air.

He told me: “There’s a big meeting in Dubai next week and all the trainers are worried that the Sheikh’s daughter Sheikha Hissa and the rest of the family won’t be inclined or even able to keep it going.”

At that time most of Owen’s horses ran in the blue and white Hamdan livery and with the prospect of massive numbers of mares, horses in training and young stock on their way to market, it was understandable the uncertainty, indeed trepidation, that all the Shadwell trainers were feeling.

Project forward two years to Saturday July 29^th 2023 and within 25 minutes, Owen’s older generation horses in the Shadwell ownership collected two big prizes. The four-year-old Alflaila, in his first run since last autumn, made it four wins in a row and six from 13 career, in the £70k to the winner Sky Bet Stakes at York.

Then at Ascot in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes, his Hukum picked up almost exactly ten times that in beating last year’s Irish Derby winner Westover after a sustained battle. Jim Crowley, used to winning big races as recently as last year on Baaed, expressed great joy at picking up this massive pot with a six-year-old entire, whose tally over five seasons’ racing is 11 from 17. At six, he matches dual winner Swain and triple heroine Enable, the only previous horses of that age to win the race in its 73-year history.

This was a second flop of the year for Derby and Irish Derby winner Auguste Rodin, whose sudden capitulation before the home turn after which Ryan Moore looked after him, coasting home a long way behind, was a shock, no doubt especially to connections. Minute medical checks will be taken, but Auguste Rodin was not the only disappointment in the race.

Emily Upjohn, who gave Paddington such a brave fight in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown three weeks earlier, probably left her race on the Esher slopes, and never looked like getting Frankie Dettori a last King George winner, finishing 27 lengths behind the first two in seventh.

The Classic generation form was given a small nudge by King Of Steel, second in the Derby clear of the rest and an easy Royal Ascot winner. For a while it looked as though Kevin Stott was bringing the Amo Racing/ Roger Varian representative with a telling run, but he weakened and had to be content with an honourable third.

Tough stuff this Group 1 racing, especially in soft ground. Hukum is tough and Owen Burrows knows how to keep his golden oldies going.

- TS

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

28 July 2023/in Horse Racing Blog/by Russell Clarke

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

27 July 2023/in Horse Racing Blog/by Russell Clarke

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

26 July 2023/in Horse Racing Blog/by Russell Clarke

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

25 July 2023/in Horse Racing Blog/by David Massey

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

25 July 2023/in Horse Racing Blog/by Russell Clarke

“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 3^rd 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

24 July 2023/in Horse Racing Blog/by Russell Clarke

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

24 July 2023/in Monday Musings/by Tony Stafford

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

19 July 2023/in Geegeez Gold, Horse Racing Blog/by Matt Bisogno

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 :-/

How to Create an Odds Line / ‘Tissue’

18 July 2023/in Dave Renham/by Dave Renham

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 5^th 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:

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.
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 4^th, 2^nd and 3^rd 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.

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

17 July 2023/in Horse Racing Blog/by Tony Stafford

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.

New Geegeez Syndicate: Bringing in some Razzam-atazz!

14 July 2023/in Horse Racing Blog/by Matt Bisogno

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 3^rd 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, 2^nd 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 1^st, 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. 1/12^th 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

11 July 2023/in Dave Renham/by Dave Renham

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

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1.50 Coral Handicap (1m4f, Class 2, 3yo only)

2.25 Oak Tree Stakes (7f, Group 3, 3yo+)

3.00 Molcomb Stakes (5f, Group 3, 2yo)

3.35 Sussex Stakes (1m, Group 1, 3yo+)

4.10 Alice Keppel Fillies' Conditions Stakes (5f, Class 2, 2yo)

4.45 British EBF Fillies' Handicap (1m2f, Class 2, 3yo+)

5.20 World Pool Handicap (7f, Class 3, 3yo+)

1.40 Coral Handicap (5f Handicap 4yo+, Class 2)

2.15 British EBF Maiden Stakes (6f maiden, 2yo, Class 2)

2.50 Chesterfield Cup Handicap (1m2f Handicap, 4yo+, Class 2)

3.25 Vintage Stakes (7f, Group 2, 2yo)

4.00 Lennox Stakes (7f, Group 2, 3yo+)

4.35 Goodwood Cup (2m4f, Group 1, 3yo+)

5.05 Coral Fillies' Handicap (1m, Class 3, 3yo+)

5.35 World Pool Fillies' Handicap (6f, Class 3, 3yo+)

Ripon 22/07/23

2.46 5f Maiden

3.20 6f Novice Stakes

3.56 10f Handicap

4.30 12f Handicap

5.05 8f Handicap

“There has to be a twist”

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

Why create an odds line?

When to use a 'tissue'

Method 1. The ABCD method

Method 2. Simple Rating Method

Method 3. Using a ‘benchmark’ horse or horses

RAZZAM

The pedigree

The ‘physical’

The trainer

The form

His Work

The plan

The syndicate

General Hold Up Run Style Data

Course Specific Hold Up Run Style Data

Yarmouth 5f

Newcastle 1m

Doncaster 1m4f+

Ascot 1m

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

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