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Since racing in the UK ended abruptly on March 17th there have been few enough opportunities to admire the sport’s largely-hidden professionals, but the past week has provided a solo virtuoso demonstration of the commentating skills of Ian Bartlett, writes Tony Stafford. Racing in France began again last Monday with no spectators, but deep in a Paris studio, the unflappable Bartlett has been a constant and supremely accurate dissembler of all things France Galop.
Starting with Longchamp early last Monday morning he commentated with hardly a pause for breath for ten races each, first at the principal Parisian venue; thence north a shade to Compiegne and down south to Toulouse. Over the next six days his all-seeing eyes took in two more Paris tracks, Saint-Cloud and two high-class jumping cards over the past weekend at Auteuil, in midweek stretching a bit further north to Chantilly. In between, his kingdom encompassed Marseille in the south, Angers in the west and Lyon and Vichy smack bang in the middle of the country.
In all Ian ran his forensic rule over 13 fixtures, 128 races and approaching 1,700 horses. Different owners’ horses often run in specific regions in a country which has a land mass more than double that of the UK, yet if there was ever a mis-identification – not that it was easily spotted – he would quickly and self-deprecatingly correct it. It is hard to imagine many of the regulars on the UK roster getting anywhere close to his accuracy of identification, pronunciation of the French names, which he conveys without any over-“Frenchiness” and indeed stamina. Ten-hour days have been the norm. I hate to think just what would have happened if one South African who often in the recent past has been let loose on the racing over there with his embarrassingly wide-of-the-mark attempts at the names, had been thrust into this extremely difficult task.
But Monsieur Bartlett has been amazing. And with a fair number of close finishes while I’ve been watching, I don’t think he’s got one of them wrong. He’s become a real jewel in the Sky Racing crown. I hope he gets a nice bonus for that first week’s magnificent endeavour. Maybe the exchanges should open a market on when he will finally end this marathon stint of clinical excellence. If the management of Sky Racing has any sense, it would block-book him for the next two weeks and then with full fanfare reveal him as the man to broadcast the first UK meeting at Newcastle on June 1 which will be on their screens.
The cast-off portion of the Racing TV deal which brought the Irish racing from the opposition onto their portfolio was looking in a sorry state with an original renewal date of no earlier than June 29th, but that happily has been brought forward by three weeks to begin a week after the resumption of UK racing.
The earliest track to get going on the Racing TV side is Kempton on June 2 and 3, two days of midweek all weather before a spectacular four days on the turf at Newmarket, the highlights of which are the 2,000 Guineas on Saturday June 6th and the 1,000 Guineas the following day. The second afternoon features the Coronation Cup, transferred from Epsom, and other important races also have unusual temporary locations in that first week. Newcastle will stage the Group 3 Pavilion Stakes, normally at Ascot, on June 4th, the third of its four days’ action and the Brigadier Gerard Stakes (Group 3) will be on June 7th at Haydock rather than Sandown. Lingfield, Chelmsford and Kempton all feature in the initial flurry, when Lingfield’s card on June 5th will include both the Derby and Oaks Trials.
I always love going to Haydock where there’s a choice of hotels within walking distance of the track. In the same way as Newcastle, with only the odd owner, one per horse eligible, there will therefore be ample accommodation for jockeys, trainers and stable staff.
Newmarket’s four days in a row, Thursday to Sunday, within the opening seven days is obviously sensible with so many likely participants - equine and human - being locally based and with a selection of potential hotels. I don’t know about you but I’m getting highly excited about the whole thing. I know I’m very much an optimist, but I believe that when the lockdown ease enters its next phase, there will be so much will for action in every area, that the recovery will come quicker than the many pessimistic voices (mostly with political points to make) suggest. Certainly at this stage, Royal Ascot with modifications will be run in its correct dates, June 16-20 and the Derby and Oaks early in July.
The few trainers I have managed to keep in touch with during the lockdown and those I’ve seen on television, as in an interview the other day with Roger Teal, suggest that in most cases, their stable routines have generally been little affected by the virus. Country areas have been far less susceptible to its spread than urban centres like London. They have found it possible to maintain social distancing rules within training on the gallops.
There is no question that numbers will continue to be the principal element in just how quickly certain restraints will be relinquished by the government. One factor which has stealthily been given increased importance is the concept of “R”, the number which expresses the rate at which infected individuals pass on their infection to others. Early in the virulent part of the disease, in mid-March when the numbers started going up, “R” was reckoned to be around 3. By the time the daily graph started to turn downwards the “R” number was agreed to be below 1.
Then all of a sudden in the middle of last week, some “expert” announced that “R” was increasing again. Yet this is contrary to most normally-accepted yardsticks. The numbers of people remaining in hospital have been falling every week for the past month; fatalities in all areas have been falling steadily. In the week ending April 12th, 6425 people died; the next five weekly totals have been 6207, 5573, 4791, 3409 and in the latest week 2781 with a single lowest day of 170 yesterday. Apart from one aberrant jump on Saturday to 468 from 346 a week earlier, every day – Monday to Monday, Tuesday to Tuesday, and so on over the past four weeks has shown a consistent drop in the number of fatalities, apart from that single ‘sore thumb’ total. That was almost corrected by yesterday’s lowest daily number for almost nine weeks.
Even care homes are now showing long-overdue reductions. The government has persisted in keeping to its June 1st date for resuming racing and it looks as though Premier League football will also be back at around the same time. The hunger is there and obviously racing can’t get going soon enough.
One reason for disquiet does remain. Matt Bisogno, this column’s editor in his role as the owner of geegeez.co.uk was previously a member and then for a while chair of the Horseracing Bettors Forum which, in consultation with the BHA and major bookmakers, formulated a Betting Charter. One of its main thrusts was to keep over-rounds per horse in markets on individual races to a manageable figure. During the week of French racing and the action on the limited number of US tracks that have been running, “industry” prices have been the rule rather than exception.
With no spectators in the foreseeable coming weeks, starting prices will need to be arrived at by some agreed method. The almost constant figure for each French and US race in this period has been at around 30%. In the US, there is rarely more than a dozen runners per race; in France fields of between 16 and 20 have admittedly been quite common since the resumption as Ian Bartlett will testify, in which case a 30% over-round would perhaps be fair enough.
But as one good friend of mine said the other day: “No wonder the bookies like the overseas racing: with those prices, it’s like having eight zeroes on a roulette wheel!” Let’s hope the HBF have that unacceptable number in its sights.
Feeling inspired by the quality content on this very site in relation to two-year-olds I wanted desperately to join the (virtual) party, writes Jon Shenton. I remember reading something a while ago which suggested that following juvenile races from the premier UK tracks paid dividends (I don’t remember where from, sadly).
I’ve always wanted to check this out in detail and now is the right time! Of course, with a rehashed racing calendar for 2020 the findings may be of less relevance this year, so are thus presented with even stronger caveats than usual. However, whatever happens over the next few months, I do think that the article is of the “cut-out and keep” variety and should reward in time if not straight off the bat.
Initially, I’m going to focus on two-year-old races and runners from the headquarters of British flat racing, Newmarket. It’s the logical starting point: by my calculations this course alone accounts for approximately 10% of non-handicap races for the juvenile division in the UK. Through a little bit of micro-focusing on these races I’m hopeful of finding a few tasty morsels.
Newmarket 2yo Trainers
A simple spin through trainer data is a pragmatic first port of call. As usual, a focus on those runners with an SP of 20/1 or shorter will be applied. For context, horses starting at a price above this are collectively 33/2345, a strike rate of 1.41% at the course in these races. I’m happy to leave well alone (although I did note that Martyn Meade is two-from-two at these gargantuan prices).
I’ve elected to only include data for currently active yards, technically 100 runners were required to qualify. However, as Mick Channon was comfortably leading in A/E terms and being so close to the century of races, he is included as an act of practicality and utility.
I had little intention to delve any further into Channon’s performance in this article, but you know what’s it’s like... Curiosity abounds, after all there is no harm in looking and, before you know it, you’re onto a nice micro-angle!
Here are the windmill-armed maestro’s runners by race class:
Collectively, the upper echelons of class 1 and 2 racing attained a solitary bullseye from 43 darts. No thank you! Class 3 and lower delivers a total of 16 wins from 53 attempts with a 121% return of £64 to a £1 SP level stake! It needs acknowledging that Channon's Newmarket juvenile runners have been sparse in volume over the past couple of years, but it’s worth keeping an eye on for future developments at the very least.
Back to the main data table and, Channon aside, there are other handlers worth further discussion. Significantly, the behemoths John Gosden and Charlie Appleby produce profit by backing blindly even at this basic data level. That’s of certain interest, as is the less than stellar performance of some other prevalent names for banana skin avoidance purposes.
John Gosden Performance
So, on to Gosden: there are always two specifics worth checking with any potential angle for this elite yard, namely, race distance and time of year (especially regarding juveniles). Generally, sprinters under-perform, and a while back this very site published data in an article regarding a late season surge in Gosden’s performance in specific circumstances, which stuck in the mind.
Here are the Wizard of Clarehaven Stables's distance data for 2yo's running at Newmarket:
As sure as eggs is eggs, the shorter six furlong race numbers are less appealing than the longer distances (1m 2f sample too small to draw conclusions), though the place percentages are largely comparable.
Excluding the six-furlong data and progressing onto the time of year by month looks like this:
Again, there we have it. His two-year-old brigade get rolling from August onwards, certainly in comparative terms to the earlier knockings of the season.
Ordinarily, that may well be solid enough. However, by utilising a value lens on the runners from August through to November and greater than six-furlongs in distance, there is an interesting variance based on the number of visits the horses have had to the track previously.
The table clearly shows that win strike rate is marginally superior for those animals with prior experience. However, those making their bow pay handsomely in comparison. The 'fear factor' of backing unproven talent seemingly manifests itself in the form of attractive prices: fortune seems to favour the brave in these cases.
Whilst there is no harm in backing all Gosden juvenile runners at Newmarket, the selective punter need only focus on those untried potential future superstars.
Suggestion: Back John Gosden horses first time out at Newmarket August to November where race distance is greater than six furlongs and SP is 20/1 or shorter.
John Gosden: Debut Winners
Writing the words “potential future superstars” got the old cogs whirring a bit and some tangential thoughts occurred. A consequence of these reflections was to research the subsequent form of Gosden’s debut winning two-year olds.
It’s instructive to note that those Gosden inmates which prevail on their first outing go on to generally excel through their Classic campaigns. Conversely, those winning during later runs as two-year-olds generally only have so-so three-year-old seasons, in the round anyway. As Gosden isn’t a renowned producer of gold with first time up horses (although his 17% hit rate since 2010 is well above par) it could be inferred that if one of his is victorious on its maiden voyage, it is worth following. Let’s investigate further.
Gosden two-year-old debut winners
In total, I make it that to date Gosden has had 118 winners on their 2YO debut on turf tracks in the UK and Ireland (the Newmarket angle above is included within). I’ve expanded the remit to cover all Gosden FTO winners contained on horseracebase, not just those from 2010. The data goes back to as far as 2003. For clarity, there are no filters for distance, SP, or time of year applied to get the cohort of 118.
Firstly, evaluating this debut winning group in terms of the remainder of their juvenile campaigns on the turf is a sensible and hopefully useful starting point.
The table below illustrates this:
The data is segmented by Newmarket and non-Newmarket regarding where the debut win was attained. That’s mainly to perform checks and balances on the possibility that Newmarket alone could be driving the exemplary performance as inferred by the earlier article findings.
I needn't have worried: the numbers are positive regardless of debut win location. Indeed, it could very well showcase the basis for an angle which is as low risk as I can remember: a 37% winning strike rate, returning a healthy 21% at SP is not to be sniffed at.
The table below demonstrates performance by SP:
In truth, it’s a healthy picture all round. However, horses returning an SP of 13/2 or greater are 2/26 in terms of wins against runs. Undoubtedly, these pay handsomely as individual bets. But to a £1 level stake you’d return £5 profit from these 26 wagers, returning empty handed from the bookies on more than 90% of visits. That's fine if you can stomach losing runs but a similar rate of profit can be returned from fewer wagers. The below graph hopefully assists in terms of explanation.
The graph illustrates the cumulative rate of return attained from backing all runners at the price notated (and all shorter prices) on the x-axis, moving from left to right. I’ve noted the “three peaks”, all of which deliver a similar return on investment. It doesn’t overly matter if this is a difficult graph or concept to follow. The individual peaks are explained below which hopefully will help.
Peak One : This covers backing all horses at an SP of 6/4 or shorter, returning 27 wins from 36 runners with a 25.5% profit to SP (level stakes)
Peak Two : This covers backing all horses at an SP of 6/1 or shorter (inclusive of the peak one data), returning 45 wins from 101 runners with a 21.6% profit to level stakes at SP
Peak Three : This covers backing all horses at an SP of 20/1 or shorter (inclusive of the peak one and two data), returning 47 winners from 125 runners with a level stake SP profit of just over 23%.
The bottom line is that all three of the annotated peaks deliver a very similar return rate on your hard-earned. Selecting peak one as a method of wagering means fewer bets and missing out on the bigger payday potential. Peak three promises dry spells (relatively speaking) but very similar returns overall.
Personally speaking, and as previous readers will be aware, I’m a volume bettor, small stakes fired at a high quantity of bets so I’m probably more inclined to go into bat at the speculative end of the spectrum. Although, writing this, it does beg the question whether playing only in those smaller priced pools with larger stakes would be a more fulfilling and sustainable long-term approach. Ultimately, it's personal choice and the graph certainly offers food for thought.
Suggestion: Back John Gosden 2yo debut winners on turf for all subsequent runs for the rest of their two-year-old campaigns. (SP appetite and approach a personal choice)
Gosden three-year-old debut winners
The major objective of this section is to evaluate these 118 two-year-old debut-winning turf horses as three-year-old performers.
Here are the overall numbers for the classic generation:
Backing every one of the 118 first time out two-year-old Gosden winners throughout their three-year-old campaign on turf is a rewarding exercise! A quarter of runners win and an there is a 15% return on investment based on level stakes.
However, as we've seen already, it makes sense to apply a distance filter to the runners.
There are no rea; surprises based on what we've discovered hitherto: whilst strike rates are broadly fine it doesn’t pay to follow Gosden's horses over sprint distances. It’s also a marginal call on those running between a mile and a mile and a quarter. Races of 10-furlongs plus are undoubtedly where there is most interest, particularly the specific 10-furlong distance (including 10.5f) where performance sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb.
Whether backing the protagonists at a mile or so is a worthwhile exercise is debatable but there are certainly worse ways to gamble. However, for the sake of this article I’m only going to evaluate runners at 9-furlongs or further for a final lap of analysis.
Firstly, SP pricing, I’m not going to go into detail here (for the sake of relative brevity) but I’m only going to include horses with an SP of 12/1 or shorter. Horses running with SP’s of greater than this only deliver a solitary win from 22 attempts. I’m happy to leave these benched.
There is one additional step which delivers a cherry on our Johnny G cake and that’s evaluating by race class:
It’s clear that the upper echelon performance is better than the rank and file output. Class 1 and 2 races garnered a combined 40 victories from 112 runners (36% strike rate) with a profit of £76 to a £1 level stake (ROI of 68%). That’ll more than do for me.
For completeness/tracker purposes, the 2019 crop of two-year-old debut winners on turf from the yard were, in chronological order:
Verboten (Yarmouth 17/7/2019)
Leafhopper (10/8/2019 Newmarket)
Palace Pier (Sandown 30/8/2019)
Enemy (Ascot 6/9/2019)
Cherokee Trial (Ascot 7/9/2019)
King Leonidas (23/10/2019 Newmarket)
Tuscan Glaze (1/11/2019 Newmarket)
Heiress (2/11/2019 Newmarket)
Moonlight in Paris (Nottingham 6/11/2019)
That’s nine horses to follow through this condensed 2020 season and if any of them run over 10 furlongs or further in a class 1 or 2 race they will be getting maximum focus!
Suggestion: Back John Gosden First time out 2YO turf winners over ten furlongs or further in all class one and two races in the UK where the SP is 12/1 or shorter
Final thoughts
The more I’ve researched this the more I’ve discovered, the net result being that I’ve had to exclude a reasonable amount of solid angle content. This article is long enough already, but I did want to just point towards a couple of other interesting Gosden juvenile data angles for consideration.
It appears horses with a single autumnal run in their juvenile campaign perform very well in their first run as a three-year-old, irrespective of how well they performed on their debut. With filters of race distance over a mile and a cut off regarding sensible odds (12/1 or shorter) there is definite utility to be attained. My personal angle along these lines is 32/82 with an A/E of 1.30. Although as it has been quiet in terms of qualifiers in 2018 and 2019, I excluded from this article.
Finally, all of the data in this article relates to turf runs only. I had a quick check of all Gosden All-Weather debut winners and applied similar logic / parameters to those (the only difference from turf is it appears as though runners over a mile are productive on the AW). Again, as a cohort they are worth following with a record of 40/117 from their three-year-old campaign. However, there is an interesting difference through analysing by race code.
Yes, it’s a small sample of artificial surface runners; however, it appears as though a 2YO Gosden debut winner on the all-weather is worth tracking on a similar surface during the following campaign: maybe a case of horses for courses. Cobber Kain, Tiempo Vuela, Waldkonig, Hypothetical and Desert Flyer are the AW horses winning on debut as two-year olds in 2019. If they run on the AW in 2020, they will be worth more than a second glance based on these numbers.
I didn’t get the chance to evaluate Charlie Appleby in anything like the same detail. I always find working through John Gosden-related data a fascinating exercise. Consequently, a much deeper immersion - a veritable soaking! - occurred than originally intended; I guess some tangents are just worth following.
I’m looking forward immensely to seeing how these angles pan out, even in this strange upcoming 2020 season. Seems like I’ll be having a bet in some marquee races after all!
Until next time, look after yourselves and take care.
- JS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/johngosden_churchilldowns_BreedersCup2018_830x320.jpg320830Jonny11https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngJonny112020-05-13 14:32:442020-05-13 14:59:07Following John Gosden Debut Winners
Sadly, for those of us who love the UK and/or Irish racing, it looks like we're in limbo until at least June 1st. The good news, relatively at least, is that the odds of a restart on that date are shortening all the time. Assuming nothing untoward occurs during these next few weeks, we ought to be ready to get cracking just 20 days from now. Everything crossed, of course.
In the meantime, it's time to further tool ourselves up, and so I've come up with another challenge!
So that everyone can play I've made our absolutely awesome, best in breed, Draw Analyser tool available to all registered users; so if you have a geegeez account, free or paid, you can join in. This is for the duration of the challenge - one week - only.
Here's what I'd like you to do:
Step 1 - Visualisation
The first thing to do is to bring some logic to the party. It is all too easy to walk straight into the data without thinking about the problem at hand. That casual approach lends itself readily to back-fitting, because you're not trying to prove - or disprove - a theory. Rather, you're looking at the numbers and trying to work back from there. Whilst such an approach is not completely without merit, it is less rigorous than beginning with a notion of what you're hoping to find.
A way to do this when considering potential draw biases is to first look at the track layout. Let's use an example, York racecourse in this case.
I've linked to it there, and you'll find it in the top menu under Courses/Fixtures.
Hint: try to avoid obvious ones like Chester; we're looking for angles that might not be over-exposed
In the top right corner of the racecourse page, you'll see a course map. Clicking on it will expand it and display the locations of the race starts.
1b. Scan for possible draw-affected race distances.
I'm immediately drawn to the mile (1m) and 1m1f distances because of that sharp bend at the top of the home straight that comes up fairly quickly. I wonder if, in bigger fields, that might inconvenience wide/high draws and, therefore, favour low to middle stalls.
So that's the assumption I'm going to test. (I think it's possible that in bigger-field two mile races there might be a similar bias for a similar reason given the number of left-handers the field takes, but we'll save that for another day).
Step 2 - Set up the tool
So now we need to set up the Draw Analyser. We're going to do this in a specific way so we test apples against apples, as it were.
The Draw Analyser has a series of options at the top of the page to allow us to configure things as we'd like.
So we're going to use a standard set of parameters, shown above and ignoring course and distance for now, as follows:
- Set 'Draw' to Actual - this will review the data based on the actual stall positions of the horses, removing any non-runners from consideration (so, for example, the horse drawn six would have an actual draw of five if one of the horses drawn inside him was declared a non-runner, and so on).
- Set 'Going' to Hard to Heavy (you could use Firm or, at most courses, Good to Firm, but we'll do this for now).
- Set 'Runners' to 10 to 16+
- Set 'Races' to Hcap (so we're only looking at handicaps)
- Set 'Dates' to 2009 to 2020
Once these are set up they will only change when we change them, as all data below the options area updates auto-magically 🙂
Now select your course and distance combination from the dropdowns.
Step 3 - Review the data
If we've performed steps 1 and 2 correctly we should have some data in the tool which may or may not support our theory. Let's review that to see if it is starting to tell us anything.
3a. Consider the course and distance draw 'all going' data
We can see from the chart that there's a lovely linearity - a straight line - from low to high. That is a very good start and normally things will be less cut and dried at this stage. N.B. Do make sure you check the left hand scale because you might see a line like this with very few percentage points from the top of the scale to the bottom.
The table above the chart tells us a number of things:
- There have been 65 races that match our criteria (wins column, 32 + 21 + 12) so a reasonable sample
- The win percentage drops as we move from low to middle to high; so, too, does the place percentage
- The A/E and IV figures for low are both above 1.00, a strong sign
3b. Consider going subsets
At some courses the favoured sector of the draw/track can change markedly on differing ground. For example, at Epsom and Brighton, jockeys will chart a course to the polar opposite side of the home straight on soft or heavy ground due to the way the camber leans and, therefore, the way the rainwater drains (it is always softest at the bottom of a hill or incline).
So we must check for any variance of going. I divide things into two simple subsets, fast and slow. Fast is 'Good or quicker', and slow is 'good to soft or slower'. [For all-weather, I include all AW going in a single range]
N.B. When using going ranges, the faster going must go in the top box or you will get no data returned.
Let's bisect our York mile data in this way:
Fast:
Slow:
In this case there is very little of note: the slow group has only a few races in it and it appears progressively tougher for high drawn horses to prevail, but there is not really enough evidence to be categorical about that.
What we can say is that the bias is 'going agnostic', that is, it manifests largely the same regardless of the state of the ground.
3c. Retest on date range subsets
Racecourse husbandry is an extremely complex business. I, and many others who value data in their wagering decisions, have given clerks of the course a hard time on occasion for their misleading reporting, but there is little doubt that all of them operate to a high level of skill in their field (pun intended!). Advances in irrigation (watering) and drainage, as well as tactical rail movements, have reduced or eliminated many historical biases and so it is important to check our data against different periods of time.
Dave Renham, our main resident draw expert (along with Jon Shenton, who takes a broader sweep in his course analyses), has recently taken to following the Mordin approach of rolling five-year subsets (e.g. 2009-2013, 2010-2014, 2011-2015, etc) and that is a great way to go if you have the time and inclination. For now, though, we'll break the data into two groups, 2009-2014 - the oldest six years in our database - and 2015-2019, the most recent five years. Again we're looking for any material change in the bias.
Hint: Remember to reinstate the full going range
2009-2014
2015-2019
While the sample sizes are quite small, the general principle is the same: low favoured, middle less favoured, high unfavoured. So we appear to have a bias that is consistent against both time and going. These are rare birds so do not fret if you don't find such a clean and consistent relationship with your chosen course and distance combination; after all, mine was cherry-picked for example purposes!
Step 4 - Fine Tuning and Scoring
The last step, assuming there is anything of note to this point, is to fine tune and score your course/distance combination. Actually, there is value in noting that there is little or no bias over a course and distance. No knowledge is bad knowledge and knowing that draw is not a factor in certain races enables an unencumbered focus on other aspects of the puzzle.
4a. Fine tuning
The fine tuning comes first; it's not really fine tuning as such, because we are working within the fixed parameters of field size, going and date ranges to resist accusations of convenience fitting.
But... it is sometimes the case that, for instance, very wet (heavy) ground or the biggest fields accentuate a bias, and it is worth noting that alongside the 'fixed parameter' work.
For my mile handicaps at York research, I wanted to see if a bigger field would emphasise the advantage to those drawn inside and the disadvantage to those drawn highest.
This is really interesting: in the 30 qualifying races, low has readily outstripped middle and high. But looking at the constituent draw data we can see that stalls six and thirteen, on either cusp of the middle draw section, have kept that group afloat. It does appear that either the inside stalls 'get away' or the wider drawn horses sweep around the outside to prevail. Those berthed in the middle have had a tough time being neither one nor the other of those things: not getting first run, and being potentially trapped behind horses in the straight preventing them getting the late run also.
That is conjecture on my part to some degree, but it's credible enough. Of course, I welcome alternative theories!
The IV3 chart at the bottom of the image above (IV3 being the average Impact Value of a stall and its immediate neighbours) demonstrates the middle drawn hinterland as well as the low-draw safe haven for punters.The constituent draw table reveals that ten of the 30 races in the sample were won by horses drawn 1, 2 or 3: that's a third of the winners from less than a fifth of the runners.
4b. Scoring
The last part of the process is to try to score the utility of any observed bias. It may be useful from an elimination perspective - that is, avoid high draws unless their form/value case is irresistible - or, more generally, from a 'mark up' perspective: in other words, bonus points to the case for a horse optimally housed.
The score should be more than a mere number, because there is normally a qualitative element to our observations as well the quantitative component.
For example, in my York mile example, I will score the bias as a solid 7 at this stage. When I've worked through a few more course/distance combinations, I might revisit that score and nudge it up or down a bit, but 7 feels about right for now.
The fact that it's somewhat 'feel-based' - we could use percentage scoring bases, but this challenge is not intended to be too academic in its rigour - adds ballast to the need for the quantitative element: some commentary on what we've discovered.
In this example, my final comments are thus:
York, 1m - 7/10 LOW
Strong linearity from low to high, the widest-drawn runners unfavoured. Bias has been consistent over time and on all going, and is accentuated in bigger fields (8/10 in 16+ runner handicaps), where the bottom three stalls have won a third of the 30 races in review.
5 The Challenge
This challenge may be considered a little more in-depth than the horse profiling one from last week, but it's actually about the same once you get into a rhythm. It would be easy to go through all of the distances at a given track in 30-40 minutes, and to select and review the most likely distance(s) in 15 minutes or so.
I'd very much welcome readers of a curious bent taking up the challenge and adding a comment below in the style of my York 1m note and score. I'll add it to the comments as an example, and hope it's not a lone comment!
We were simply kidding ourselves, writes Tony Stafford. Friday May 15th sounded a nice date for racing in the UK to resume and, with three meetings in France today as the shining example and some of the domestic trainers suggesting they would be ready by then, we waited for Boris to offer some encouragement on Sunday night. No such luck.
The PM’s message, supplanting the old “stay home” slogan with “stay secure” while allowing extra outside time for exercising was hardly the hoped-for signal suggesting the return of professional sport in any form. Horse racing it appears, even behind closed doors, will have to wait its turn.
At least horseracing enthusiasts, starved of meaningful action for eight weeks, will have full coverage on Sky Sports Racing from all three returning reunions, Longchamp, Compiegne and Toulouse. Coverage from Longchamp starts with a bang at 9.55 with the five-furlong Prix Saint Georges, one of four Group races on the Parisian track.
Wall-to-wall action will ensue until late evening and whatever else is uncertain in these unnatural times, there will be a relief that betting on something tangible will at last be available. Bookmakers and the exchanges will be doing great business and in the way of such things, the possible resumption dates for the UK are probably most accurately signalled by Betfair Exchange’s special markets. June 1st (on or before), so two weekends on from the putative first date on Friday, at 5 a.m. today was a pessimistic 2.26 (5-4) for yes and 1.72 (8/11) for no.
Slightly less predictable was the market on Royal Ascot going ahead on the normal opening date of June 16 which was 2.84 (almost 15-8) for yes and 1.52 (1-2) for no. Racing had seemed to believe that the Royal meeting was sacrosanct, but maybe the monarch will be open to a date adjustment, or perish the thought, even accept a one-year blank. A restart of racing by July 1 was 1.2 or 5-1 on. No doubt the talks between government and the racing lobby, with the more vociferous trainers at its helm, will be continuing. For the sport to expect to be made a special case might be hard to gain much traction while so many others are still making life-changing sacrifices every day.
So let us enjoy the French for a change. At least their sport has a tradition where spectators are almost an after-thought, so sparsely have they traditionally attended except when the Brits come en bloc to the Arc. The Pari-Mutuel monopoly over generations meant a traditional culture of the morning Tierce bet in the coffee shops and bars and non-attendance at the sports. The betting there, like everywhere else, has benefited from technological advance and it is hard to argue with a racing administration that can produce three cards that between them offer around £800,000 in overall prize money on a single day.
I think I’ve mentioned before that when Racing TV (ex Racing UK) pinched Irish Racing from At The Races (now Sky Racing), few thought that having the French stuff dumped on them as a token was anywhere near an equitable exchange. But they quickly found an excellent equivalent to Racing UK’s outgoing professional Frenchman, Claude Charlet, in Laurent Barberin, whose patient unflappable style and genuine knowledge of his subject has been highly impressive. While many of Ireland’s races on busy UK days nowadays inevitably clash and require split screens or even delayed relaying, Sky has made a big move forward. Today will be a great opportunity and for its presenters represents something of a penalty kick.
The trio of fixtures reflects France Galop’s new-found flexibility where its financial muscle is shrewdly stretched throughout the day. Longchamp kicks off mid-morning, 10.55 a.m. in France, so an hour earlier here and there will be unbroken coverage throughout its ten-race card which concludes at 2.35 p.m. BST. It would be hard to imagine a single UK meeting on a Monday afternoon offering anywhere near as much as £230,000 yet remarkably that figure is comfortably outstripped by its near-neighbour Compiegne, around 60 miles to the north, whose own ten-race card weighs in at a hefty £350k.
Compiegne is an all-jumps programme with no race worth less than £30k. It offers decent fields throughout with the top trainers and jockeys all on show. Sky again will show all ten races from the 3.05 starting time to a 7.35pm conclusion. A good proportion of the evening mixed fixture at Toulouse will also be featured. This begins at 5.20 UK time, so overlaps Compiegne. Another ten-race affair begins with a hurdle race and two chases, with the remaining seven events on the Flat. Two of these are Listed (worth £38k each in total), while two more are confined to Arabians, including a Group 2, the finale at 9.42pm.
Toulouse, in the South of France, is one of the more important provincial tracks, and offers only £10k less overall prize money tonight than the £230k available at the Group race-sprinkled principal meeting at Longchamp.
Listening to Barberin, from his home in Bordeaux yesterday, I got the impression he would be in for the long haul today. It seems as though he hopes to abandon ship after the second Listed race at Toulouse, (7.20) when he and the cameras might be taking their leave, so Arabian horse fans could be denied. But that still leaves around 25 mostly high class French races to tickle the punters’ fancy. My own fancy, I must confess, has been tickled by one name, Je Deviens Moi – I want to be (or become) me! He runs in a conditions race at 5.05 at Compiegne and, while up in class, goes for four in a row.
I would hope that, following France’s example, when UK racing does return there could be at least one attention-grabbing card rather than some routine betting-shop dross that can do little more than stifle enthusiasm. Okay, we want opportunities for all owners and trainers, but in the crucial early stages, racing should have something special to offer. The good horses have been training towards their comebacks and the possible normal path to stardom. They will need suitable targets, especially as if we do have to wait for a start into June, the season will already have been drastically truncated.
The French have successfully averted one major political threat to their return and it came from a by no means inconsiderable quarter. It seems French Ligue 1 football teams were unimpressed by having their return to action delayed until September or whenever and tried a spiteful legal block against racing’s resumption. In Nicolas Clement, the trainers have got the right man at the helm!
Now the stage – Covid-19 permitting, and the numbers of fatalities and infections in France have been going down steadily – should be set for their mile Classics being run in three weeks. Let’s all hope for a problem-free day. At least the spectators won’t be getting in the way - not that they ever do over there!
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Waldgeist_Enable_Arc2019.jpg320830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2020-05-11 07:32:202020-05-11 07:32:20Monday Musings: Allez France
A couple of weeks ago (seems much longer, doesn't it?), I kicked off a series of research pieces with a fairly simple analysis of trainers to follow on the flat with their two-year-old debutants, writes Chris Worrall.
Now I'm going to look at whether the same approach can be taken on the All-Weather here in the UK. The way I've approached this ahead of the resumption of racing, which will hopefully be here as soon as it's deemed safe to do so, is to look back over the previous five full calendar years to get a list of trainers to potentially follow in 2020. With that in mind, I then applied the following criteria to the long list of trainers with such runners since January 1st 2015:
a minimum of 30 2yo debutants
a minimum strike rate of 10%
profit over the five years at Betfair SP
and profitable in at least three of the five years
Applying those filters reduces the list to a far more manageable five trainers:
Ralph Beckett, Hugo Palmer, Sir Michael Stoute, Roger Varian and Archie Watson.
None, admittedly, achieved five profitable years - in fact all bar Beckett scored three from five - giving us some cause for caution. Ralph Beckett did manage to make profit in four years, but his success also carries a cautionary note as his runners went 0 from 19 last year!
Archie Watson has been profitable in 2017, 2018 and 2019, after only having one runner in 2016, so he couldn't really have done any better.
Their collective figures, pulled from the excellent horseracebase.com, over the last five completed years look like this...
A near one-in-six strike rate and an ROI at Betfair SP in excess of 45p in the pound is something about which to sit up and take notice, even allowing for earlier caveats and a relatively small sample size. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority (almost 75%) of juveniles make their debuts on turf, so we're always going to be working with smaller numbers.
The yearly breakdown since 2015 is as follows...
The first thing I noticed was that 2018 wasn't as strong as the other years and this was replicated in my study on the Flat, so there may well be something to look at regarding 2018's two-year-old crop as a whole.
And here's how the runners were broken down by trainer...
The smaller sample sizes involved make me reluctant to draw down trainer by trainer and I think I'd either cautiously follow all five in a blanket portfolio approach or I'd have to be ruthless and discard Messrs Beckett and Stoute, because their strike rate doesn't appeal. I'd also jettison Roger Varian, because a 17% ROI at Betfair SP might well be steady, but it's not exciting and it did actually reflect a loss at Industry SP, not that any of us use that, surely?
That means I'm left with Hugo Palmer & Archie Watson going forward, whose numbers read as follows...
It's not an angle that is going to keep you busy, but if you're looking for 2 yr old debutants to back on the UK All-Weather scene, then my two go-to trainers are going to be Hugo Palmer & Archie Watson this year with a near two-in-nine strike rate generating more than 55% ROI over the last five years.
I intend to back up this starter piece with a more detailed analysis of each of my five originally highlighted trainers to analyse which of their two-year-old debutants to back based on criteria such as track/track location, surface, distance, jockey, time of year and so on.
- CW
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/archiehugo-e1590238797721.jpg320830Chris Worrallhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngChris Worrall2020-05-07 16:53:342020-05-07 16:57:38Two-year-old A/W Debutants, Part 1: Trainers
This is a follow up article to the Chester piece I wrote in April, writes Dave Renham. In that article I concentrated on sprints of between five and seven furlongs; here I am will look in detail at the extended 7f trip and the 1m 2f distance.
As I am writing this (on May 4th), I feel sad because this week would have signalled the Chester May Meeting which is one of my favourite meetings of the year. The signs are, however, that racing may be back quite soon with Germany and France hopefully set to start again in the near future. When it resumes here, racing will be behind closed doors but for everyone involved in the sport I am sure they will just be glad to get going again.
Since writing the first three articles in this draw/pace series there has been a useful addition to the Draw and Pace Analyser tools whereby you can now narrow down your query by year range. In the past it showed all years going back to 2009 and in order to look at more recent data I needed to use the Query Tool as well. This speeds my draw and pace research up especially when wanting to research time sensitive data.
What the new addition also means is that I can look at the data in a slightly different way using a method I first saw in Nick Mordin’s excellent book, ‘Winning Without Thinking’. He looked at data in five-year batches which is a good way to try and compare things more effectively. This method also potentially highlights whether patterns or biases are changing, and offers more reliable sample sizes.
Below is an example of this method based on 7f handicap data from Goodwood, which I hope illustrates his idea neatly. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s Goodwood’s 7f trip provided me with plenty of winning bets, many of them forecasts and exactas on horses drawn closest to the rail; but the officials got wise to the bias and managed to even it out a little for some years. However, back in 2015 or so I started to notice that the low draw bias was beginning to reappear.
Here is a table using five-year batches of data with percentages for each third of the draw as well as A/E values. The full 11-year data is shown at the top of the table for long term comparison:
I have highlighted in green the low draw data which shows a big change from the first five years (2009-2013) in terms of the low draw bias gradually getting stronger. Having said that I know that 2018 and 2019 have both seemingly started to show a decline again in the strength of bias - this is just beginning to be shown in the 2015-2019 data. The next couple of years may well determine whether Goodwood are increasing efforts once again to level out the ‘draw playing field’. Hence I really think splitting year data in this way is a useful tool for comparisons and I will aim to use it in articles where it is appropriate.
So time to delve back into Chester’s stats. As before I am using some of the tools available on the Geegeez website, those being the Draw Analyser, the Pace Analyser and the Query Tool. The main period of study goes back to 2009, but as before I will examine a more recent data set (2015 to 2019) in detail, too, where appropriate, as well as using the new 5-year comparison method.
I will be focusing once again on 8+ runner handicap races and, as stated in the first paragraph, looking mainly at the extended 7f trip and 1m2f. The draw will be divided into three equal sections or thirds (low, middle, high) and non-runners have been taken into account with draw positions adjusted accordingly. The pace data is split into four groups: led, prominent, mid division and held up.
Chester 7 1/2 furlongs (8+ runner handicaps)
When analysing this trip on Geegeez Draw Analyser you need to look at the 1 mile distance to get this extended 7f data. Otherwise if you key in 7 furlongs you will get the 7f data from the last article. This is because the actual distance is 7f 127 yards, which is closer to a mile than seven furlongs.
Since 2009 there have been 115 races that have qualified which is a decent sample. Here are the 11 season overall draw splits:
There appears to be a slight edge towards lower draws but, compared with the 5 – 7f data, we can see that this 7½f distance offers low draws far less of an advantage.
The A/E values are shown below for this period:
A fairly even playing field here so, despite the small low draw edge in terms of percentage wins, it looks like the bookmakers have that well factored into their prices.
It is time now to look at each draw position broken down by individual stall number:
Perhaps no real surprises here given the draw thirds data. There does seem to be something to be gleaned from looking at the each way placed percentages: combining the figures for horses drawn 10 or wider they have made the frame (i.e. won or placed) just 16% of the time. Their combined win A/E value is also low at 0.55. Compare this with horses drawn 1 to 9 who have placed 30% of the time with an A/E value of 0.88. It seems the long term data suggests that horses drawn 10 and above are at a fairly significant disadvantage to those drawn lower.
Onto a more recent data set looking at the past five seasons (2015-2019). Here are the draw splits for the 58 races that have occurred during this time frame.
This tells a similar tale to the ’09-’19 figures but with a slight increase in the low draw win percentage. This small increase is not statistically significant and the A/E values again indicate a relatively level playing field in terms of potential profitability as shown below:
The five-year stats for individual draw positions are below:
Again it is only the each way percentages that catch my eye, mirroring the long term data (draws 1 to 9 with 32% of placed runners; draws 10 and above with 11.4% of placed runners).
Let us break down the draw figures using rolling five-year batches to compare the data in another way:
Looking at the table we can see that the low draw bias has been very consistent from 2011 onwards and it seems that in 2009 and 2010 for whatever reason low draws slightly under-performed.
Ultimately this is a course and distance where there is a slight low draw edge and, as indicated earlier, draws 10 and above look to be at a fairly significant disadvantage. Hence it should not come as a surprise that as the field size grows the bias towards low draws increases as does the bias AGAINST higher draws. Here are the data for fields with 12 or more runners for 2009 – 2019 (44 races in total):
In bigger fields I would be very wary of backing anything drawn high unless I felt the horse had a huge edge over the rest of the runners, or that its price more than justified the risk. The A/E values correlate neatly as we can see:
It looks therefore that we have a potentially playable draw bias when we get to 12+ runners. Indeed the bias does seem to strengthen when we increase the field size further, but of course the number of races becomes smaller and less reliable from a statistical point of view.
In the first Chester article I pointed out how exotic bets (forecasts, exactas, etc) over 5f would have proved profitable under certain circumstances. Once again I have delved into this area for this distance when the field size has been 12 or more. There are some interesting ideas that would have proved highly profitable during the period of study for these bigger field races:
a) perming the bottom four draws in 12 x £1 straight forecasts would have seen an outlay of £528 and produced returns of £627.49 meaning of profit of £99.49. The exacta paid more (potentially increasing profit by a further £130 to be precise), but exactas being pool bets are not always a good vehicle for draw-based bets: they can easily be ‘overplayed’ and the dividend suffers as a result;
b) perming the five lowest draws in 60 x £1 tricasts would have seen a significant outlay of £2640 but produced huge returns of £4845 meaning a healthy profit of £2205, and an ROI of 84%.
Of course, past profitable results are simply that – past results. However, I have made most of my profits over the years using these exotic bets on draw biased races and the profits quoted are not unusual.
Let us look at pace and running styles now. The overall figures (2009-19) are thus:
A very even playing field here, although hold up horses seem at a slight disadvantage.
I have checked ground conditions and there is nothing clear cut; however, field size does seem to make a difference as it did with the draw. If we look at 12+ runner races again we get the following pace results:
In bigger fields front runners have the best record and have an edge; meanwhile, hold up horses seem to really struggle.
Now a look at draw / pace (running style) combinations for front runners in these 7½f races. Remember this is looking at which third of the draw is responsible for the early leader of the race (in % terms):
Lower draws are more likely to take the early lead but with a run of around 1½ furlongs to the first bend horses drawn wider find it easier to contest for the lead should they wish too. What is noteworthy is that early leaders from low draws go on to win a far bigger percentage of races than those who led drawn in the middle or out wide (high). 58 horses have led from low draws with ten going onto to win the race (17.2%); 81 horses have led from middle or high draws with only six managing to go on to win (7.4%). It should also be noted that prominent runners from a low draw have a decent record, scoring more 15% of the time.
In conclusion, lower draws do have an edge but it is only when we get to bigger fields (12+) that the bias looks playable. Not only do bigger fields increase the edge for low draws, they decrease the chances of high drawn horses. Pace wise the only bias seems again to occur in bigger fields where front runners have an advantage while hold up horses find it very difficult to win.
There were 94 qualifying races at this distance from 2009 to 2019. The 1m 2f 70 yards distance has been shortened by 5 yards since 2009, not that that would make any difference. Here are the draw splits:
Low draws definitely have had an edge over the 11 seasons, while there seems little in it between middle and higher draws. Let’s look at the A/E values to see whether this bias is appreciated by bookmakers:
No real edge it seems from a punting perspective with an extremely level set of A/E values. Let’s see what the individual draw positions offer:
The lowest six draws seems the natural cut off point in terms of win strike rate, and the A/E values for draws 1 2, 5 and 6 are decent. However, only draw 5 has made a ‘blind’ profit.
Look at the going data there have only been 20 races on good to firm or firmer, but my impression is that any low draw bias is less potent under such conditions. The win percentages are more even and the win and placed figures see just 2 more placed efforts for low draws compared with high. Such a small number of races means it is simply a hypothesis, however.
Onto the last five seasons now. There have been 43 qualifying races since 2015, with the draw splits as follows:
A more even set of figures in the more recent past with low draws only marginally best in win percentage terms. And the A/E values:
Low draws have proved to be poor value over the past five seasons despite still winning more races. The individual draw figures for 2015 to 2019 look like this:
Draws 1 and 2 have a really poor record in the more recent past and checking back from 2009 to 2014 both stall positions actually made a blind profit. This illustrates how religiously backing individual draw positions can be a real roller coaster and in general too risky long term.
Let us now look at the draw figures for 1m 2f using the five-year comparison method discussed earlier:
The five year batch data seem to back up what the 2015 to 2019 figures had suggested: that the low draw bias has been gradually diminishing. I am not sure why this has been happening – it may just be down to chance and it will be interesting to see what results the next couple of seasons bring.
A look pace and running styles now. Here are the overall figures going back to 2009:
These figures show that front runners have a significant edge which, considering the distance, is unusual. In general in flat races, the longer the distance the less successful front runners are. But Chester's very tight, always on the turn, configuration does make it harder for horses to pass without travelling further and using up more fuel.
A win percentage for front runners of nearly 20% really caught my eye. To illustrate this pace bias more clearly, the average win percentage all UK courses over the 1m 2f distance (8+ runner handicaps) stands at 12.8% (A/E 1.09; IV 1.39). Only Beverley and Wetherby have a better win strike rate for front runners at this trip than Chester; and we can probably ignore Wetherby because there have been so few races (just 11) on their recently opened flat track. At the other end of the scale, front runners at this distance at both York and Epsom have won a meagre 5% of races.
As the field size gets bigger the pace bias strengthens a little: in races of 11 or more runners, front runners have won just over 25% of them (12 wins from 47 runners). Meanwhile, in terms of ground underfoot conditions, as with the extended 7f trip, it is difficult to pinpoint whether the going makes any real difference.
Now a look at draw / pace (running style) combinations for front runners in 1m 2f Chester handicaps (2009 – 2019):
It is easier for lower drawn horses to take the early lead but, in terms of these runners going onto win, strike rates are similar: low drawn front runners win 21.8% of the time; those who lead early from middle draws have won 20% of the time, high drawn front runners 19.2% of the time.
1m 4f - front runners over 1m4f do have an edge, winning around 16% of the time (A/E 1.50), but there is no draw advantage for any ‘third’ (47 races in total)
1m 5f – only 23 races at this trip and from the limited data front runners have a slight edge. There is no draw bias.
1m 7f 195yds or more – front runners have an edge even at this trip winning over 15% of the time (A/E 1.57) while hold up horses really struggle (3 wins from 125) producing an A/E of just 0.30. As the field size increases hold up horses find it even harder winning 0 races from 74 in races of 12 or more runners. In terms of the draw low draws actually seem to have a small edge which seems to increase in big fields. There have only been 30 races in total though so it is impossible to fully confident about these findings.
That concludes our investigation into draw and pace at Chester racecourse. As has been shown, there is a generally strong bias towards low draws and/or front runners, with the bias being emphasised in bigger fields.
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/chester_roodee.jpg320830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2020-05-06 12:02:432021-08-10 13:58:53Chester Draw & Pace Bias: Part 2
Thank you very much for your contributions to this little horse profiling experiment. I've aggregated them all in a pdf report at the end of the article.
I've also created a page where the horses will be highlighted if they're running (you'll still need to check whether they satisfy the profile criteria).
This is version 1.0 and, if there are further submissions between now and the end of the week, I'll update the report to include them.
For now, though, if you've read this article already, please navigate to the bottom to download the report and find the page link.
If you've not yet read the piece, start here!
Matt
***
When racing resumes there will be a focus, understandably, on two-year-olds, first season sires, trainers who perform well with horses off a layoff, and of course the Classic generation. Plenty of what happens in those spaces will be less predictable than normal due to the coronavirus-enforced later start. This article eschews those staples of the current content vista in favour of another hardy perennial, a horses to follow list.
Back yon - about eight or nine years ago, I think - I worked with a great guy called David Peat, who was mad about horse profiles. He had written books on the subject, he had a subscription service dedicated to the subject, and he and I ended up co-producing a product/service around the idea.
The concept was, and still is, simple: where everyone else is looking at what's new during spring time, horse profiling requires a body of work to exist in the form book already. Its currency is exposed horses, those who have run scores of times and have shown an affinity for a specific set of circumstances.
As well as highlighting five such horses which might pay their way in 2020, I'll also attempt to show how easy it is to create these for yourself. There are scores of these horses to find and, as an extra bonus, I'll include some further races - chock full of profile types - that I've yet to research: perhaps some of the more community-spirited readers will take up my challenge to add a comment with their findings for a given horse off the list. Right, let's get to it...
Dapper Man
Age: 6 Trainer: Roger Fell Career record: 10/52 Turf Record: 9/40 Turf Handicap Record: 9/37 Highest winning OR: 80 Current OR: 82 Win Profile:
10/10 6-12 runners
10/10 April to July
9/10 5f (all of last nine)
9/10 blinkers (other win in cheekpieces, 0/24 no headgear)
8/10 Good to Firm
Led in all of last six wins (3 of remaining 4 when racing prominently)
Notes
A great example to begin with, Dapper Man is a five furlong speedball. He likes to get out and stay out, and he's hard to catch when he does. Trainer Roger Fell has managed the gelding's form cycles brilliantly in the last two seasons: in 2018, Dapper Man won five times - beginning off a mark of 60 before achieving a high of 86 (top winning rating was 76); and in 2019, he won four times on the spin from marks between 72 and 80.
What is noteworthy is that in between those early summer winning sprees, Fell had got Dapper Man's mark back down from 86 to 72. After his final win last year, he was rated 89 and is now on 82. I suspect his trainer will want a few more pounds back before striking again, so expect to see the blinkers left off and a couple more runs on slower ground if he can. Once this lad gets back to around 75 he'll be dangerous.
Combining optimal conditions - handicaps of 12 or fewer runners, April to July, 5f, good to firm, and blinkers - Dapper Man is 7 from 10, 2 further places, and +28.41 at starting price. I'd be wary of the April to July element this term given the break in racing, but the other components look important.
*
Waarif
Age: 7 Trainer: David O'Meara Career record: 8/41 Turf Record: 7/32 Turf Handicap Record: 7/30 Highest winning OR: 96 Current OR: 97 Win Profile:
8/8 Class 2-4
8/8 turning tracks (0/9 on straight tracks, though has run well)
7/8 1 mile
6/8 Good or Good to Firm (has also won on polytrack and heavy)
Last five wins off rating between 92 and 96
Notes:
Bought from Ireland after a Dundalk maiden win in October 2016, it was a year before Waarif made his debut for David O'Meara and not until June 2018 - 13 starts later - that he got off the mark for his new trainer. It was worth the wait, however, as victory came in the Carlisle Bell, a valuable handicap at the Cumbrian track. That seemingly opened the floodgates as he won a further three of his next five starts to end 2018 with four victories and a mark of 100.
2019 began in the Lincoln off that lofty perch but it wasn't until he'd dropped to 92 that he scored again, on his fifth run of the season. That was a steadily run ten furlong contest which probably rode more like a mile, and was his only non-mile victory. Further scores from marks of 96 and 95 followed. Although it may be nothing more than coincidence, Waarif has yet to win for O'Meara prior to his fifth start of the season.
5/8 Good to Soft (also won once each on on Good, Soft, and Good to Firm)
4/8 Cheekpieces (plus 2 further places)
Notes:
It's difficult to know whether this steadily progressive handicapper needs to drop a little in the weights. The gelding ran arguably his best race when second in a decent Ayr handicap last September, his final start of 2019. That moved him to a perch six pounds north of his highest winning mark but he was competitive off 88 that day.
In any case, Redarna has won second or third time off a layoff the past three seasons so it could be that his mark will drop at least a pound for his 2020 bow.
Seven furlongs ideally, or a mile, on the soft side of good; and both Ayr and Carlisle have been happy hunting grounds. I'm not convinced that cheekpieces are necessary though he's certainly run well in them (and previously without them).
*
De Vegas Kid
Age: 6 Trainer: Tony Carroll Career record: 8/39 Turf Record: 7/24 Turf Handicap Record: 7/19 Highest winning OR: 79 Current OR: 82 Win Profile:
7/7 turf wins on Good or Good to Firm (also won on Wolverhampton's tapeta track)
5/7 turf wins when apprentice ridden
5/7 turf wins on left-handed tracks (also won left-handed at Wolverhampton)
4 of last 5 wins at Brighton (overall Brighton record: 4/7)
3/6 off 60+ day layoff
Notes:
Racehorses are funny creatures. Take De Vegas Kid: he was 0 from 21 going into a very modest seven furlong handicap in February 2018 off a basement mark of 51. Two years and eight wins later and he's now rated in the low 80's!
That confidence-boosting victory at Wolverhampton was his only all-weather win. Since then he's won seven times on the turf, including four at Brighton. There might be something about seaside air for De Vegas Kid, as he's also won at Goodwood and Yarmouth. His hold up style seems ideally suited to apprentices, who don't need to do much until the last part of a race, and he does seem especially effective on left-handed tracks (though the Brighton factor heavily influences that angle).
Four runs on the all-weather since his last Brighton triumph have reduced his rating from 85 to 82 but he may need to drop a few more before he's primed again. Sussex in late summer may again be a happy hunting ground.
10/11 Good or Good to Firm ground (also won on Newcastle's tapeta)
9/11 5f
9/11 ridden by PJ McDonald, Martin Dwyer or Danny Tudhope
6/11 Class 4
5/11 Musselburgh
Notes:
A slightly more left field entry to close, Royal Brave won none of his eleven starts last year and was only sixth of eight on his 2020 debut in early March. If that's the bad news, the good news is that he's now rated a stone below his last winning mark. Moreover, he has run almost exclusively on either all-weather (1/15 lifetime) or softer than good (0/10 lifetime) in that barren spell.
In fact, it is arguable that he only got his conditions twice last season, both at Musselburgh: in the Scottish Sprint Cup, where he was beaten six lengths off a mark of 91; and in a small field Class 3 handicap where he was doing his best work at the finish.
All of his last six wins have come from a rating higher than his current figure which makes Royal Brave dangerously well-handicapped when he gets fast ground and a bit of pace to run at over Musselburgh's five furlong piste.
And those are my five for the tracker.
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How to Find Profile Horses
It's an inexact science but in general terms what I am looking for are horses with a good amount of form to dissect, and which have shown a ready preference for a certain setup. All horses have an ability ceiling and tend to run in 'form cycles' up to that ceiling, then back down the weights, then up again. Spotting these cycles isn't difficult if you're looking for them; it's impossible if you're not!
Here's how to find profile horses...
Step 1: Get a list of possibles
There are a few ways to do this. One is to use Query Tool, though caution is advised because the 'sort by horse' function is likely to crash your browser as it tries to format a table with many thousand rows in it. To get around this:
- Select 'Last 2 Years'
- Select 'UK' (or 'Ireland' but not both)
- Select 'Flat Turf' (or whichever race code you want to investigate)
- Select age '5 to 7' (i.e. a horse age range appropriate for exposed form in your chosen discipline)
- Select 'Handicap' (or whatever, handicaps are best for this type of profiling)
That has brought back 14,272 qualifiers which is probably still too many.
We can whittle that down by choosing a distance range. Let's try 5f to 6f.
My sample is now 4,717 which is workable. So I'll be profiling sprint handicappers here, but I could have chosen seven-furlong specialists, milers, stayers or whatever.
Next I'll click the 'group by' radio button against 'Horse', and then sort by 'Wins'.
And bingo, I have a list of horses to potentially profile:
A second way is to start with a big field race you know will have been contested by numerous exposed handicappers. The Scottish Sprint Cup is a good example. (If you can't find a race, you can again use QT, by choosing e.g. 16+ runners, Class 3 or above, handicap).
Here is the result of the Scottish Sprint Cup with an instant list of 16 horses to dig into:
Step 2: Shortlist Horses to Profile
We now have a list of horses with which to work, but not all of them will have a consistent profile; and not all of them will have won enough races to demonstrate a profile. I look for at least half a dozen wins in a horse's career from which to try to discern patterns. It hopefully goes without saying that we're dealing with very small sample sizes here and all sorts of overlapping factors, so atom-splitters need not apply: this is broad brush stuff, and we will still need to apply judgement to our profile horses when they're entered in the future.
Let's have a look at Major Valentine and Highly Sprung, the top pair on our QT list.
Major Valentine has a few clear patterns, for example, 12 of his 14 career wins have been when ridden by apprentice jockeys. But he has a common problem when the most recent period has been used for search purposes: he is probably too high in the handicap. Having started 2019 off a mark of 64 he went on to win five races for jockey Kate Leahy and trainer John O'Shea. In his final 2019 start, he raced off a rating of 92. We could add Major Valentine to a tracker with his preferences appended, but the likelihood is he'll find winning difficult this year until he's dropped back down the weights.
Back to Highly Sprung, a son of Zebedee (of course) who is now seven. Looking at his Full Form page allows us to review his overall form by various subsets. The first thing to immediately stand out is that he is 0 from 12 on all-weather versus a very solid 10 from 50 on turf.
Checking the WINS filter allows us to see only the ten races Highly Sprung won, and to look for commonalities therein:
We can see he won five times for Mark Johnston before moving to Les Eyre who has also eked a quintet of victories from the horse. What else can we see?
All ten wins were over six furlongs. Eight of the ten were on good to firm ground, though not his most recent pair. Having won off as high as 83 (see the OR column) for Mark Johnston, he is now rated 81; that's a feasible mark but not a bargain: he might need to drop a few more.
Seven of his ten wins have been for either Joe Fanning or Silvestre de Sousa, and both jockeys have won on him for both of the horse's trainers. Six of his ten wins have come at Pontefract, from 15 starts at the track.
And as easily as that we now have a profile for Highly Sprung:
- 6f (he's 0/18, just three places, at other trips)
- ideally Good to Firm ground (though recent wins mean this is not a deal breaker)
- Extra point if racing at Ponte
- Extra point if ridden by Joe F or SdS
Step 3: Add to Tracker
Add your horse and all relevant notes to your Tracker. Users of Geegeez Gold tracker get an email the day before racing to alert them of the next day's runners (horses, trainers, jockeys, sires), so you should never miss a winner.
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A challenge?
It's lockdown, there is still no racing, and we all have a bit of time on our hands. So what about a challenge? I'd like you to share your profile horses in the comments below. Add a few details like the ones above - I've put an example in the comments below for you to use as a template - for a horse you've profiled.
Wouldn't it be awesome if collectively we could pull together a list of 20 or more horses and their optimal conditions? Hint: do try a different race distance and/or code. Below are links to the results of some of the big field handicaps at various distances from last summer, which might help:
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/HighlySprung_SdS.jpg319830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2020-05-04 13:52:392020-05-05 14:08:23Form Profiling: Five to Follow in 2020
Most numbers associated with the last two months of life in the UK, first under the imminent threat, and then quickly the awful reality, of the Coronavirus pandemic have been shocking, writes Tony Stafford. More than 28,000 deaths with at least 75% of them in the 75-and-above age group justifying the Government’s initial and apparently over-the-top strictures that it could be several months before those over 70 could be allowed freely to leave home except under highly-limited conditions.
But one statistic which has been little discussed is the most miraculous. The latest detailed data is up to April 22, showing that 119 NHS staff died from the virus. With more than 1.5 million people working throughout the NHS and a further 350,000, taking in temporary staff and also medical workers in the private sector, that means fewer than 1 in 15,000 have died. That said, many more will have been infected in differing degrees of severity and have recovered.
Considering the exposure to patients in hospitals suffering from the virus – Boris Johnson talked of having up to eight nurses and others attending to him during the most severe stages of his stay in ICU – those 119 deaths are truly miraculous. Approaching 200,000 people have been admitted to hospitals suffering from Covid-19. The overall death rate in the total population is closer to 1 in 2,500. In the NHS 60% of those that have died have been age 50 and above.
Numbers have been the key to the Government’s release of details over the last two months with sensitivities in the media and how it would react to the numbers being paramount. You can only draw that conclusion when upon the figure of 20,000 deaths being reached, even though it was inevitable for some time beforehand, it brought the usual BBC and Piers Morgan blame-game hysteria.
Much has been said about the rights and wrongs of allowing Cheltenham to go ahead. For it to have been cancelled, it would have meant a decision at least a week before the March 10 starting date. At that time, the daily briefings were still two weeks off, and the first figure I have found for daily deaths is the 15 on March 15, two days after Cheltenham finished.
Since the end of March I’ve kept a table of the daily fatalities and until early last week, the highest single number was an admittedly-shocking 980 hospital deaths on April 10. Then last Tuesday, with figures clearly on a downward curve among people dying in hospital, for the first time the increasing proportion of fatalities in care homes and elsewhere was included. Now April 10 is revealed to have had an even higher overall number, 1,152, one of eight days when the total death toll exceeded 1,000.
It’s still horrendous, but when the Government’s reaction to the situation initially instructed people to stay home, no single day had yet brought more than the 43 deaths, on Wednesday March 19, by which time I, and many in my advanced age group, was already locked away. The first three-figure “score” was the 149 on Monday March 24 but by eight days later it was 670 and soon after it reached those eight thousand-plus spikes.
As racing fans we’ve been denied so much normal action where, in my case, reading a book every two days, catching up on television and our once-a-week walk were only partial consolation; although somehow I’m almost a stone lighter! But then an hour on Racing TV yesterday brought home the frustration of our missing the scheduled Guineas meeting over last weekend.
It was great to see the last 30 years of what is probably the most significant race in the selection of stallions. Not all of them won the race, notably Dubawi, only fifth in his year to Footstepsinthesand, and both Kingman and Australia just a few years ago, stumped late on by Night of Thunder despite the winner’s across-the-course wanderings in the last 150 yards.
We saw Sea The Stars denying my 33-1 win only ante-post bet on Delegator and Camelot’s narrow defeat of formerly Ray Tooth-owned French Fifteen in two thrillers, but still pride of place goes to the extraordinary Frankel, off like a scalded cat under Tom Queally and thereafter never closer to his pursuers than his six-length winning margin over Galileo Gold. In 14 unbeaten runs, this highest-rated horse of all time gets my vote over another Guineas hero, Brigadier Gerard from the 1970’s, and Sea Bird II, a brilliant Derby winner from my youth a decade earlier. Can Frankel’s romp really have been nine years ago?
The timely reminder of the pre-eminence of that race comes with racing deriving positive vibes from recent meetings with Government. May 15 is now being suggested as a likely starting point with Lingfield close to London and Newcastle in the north providing the initial hubs for behind-closed-doors sport. Both have hotels, in the case of Lingfield, part of the grandstand, while Newcastle’s well-appointed Gosforth Park Hotel is a walk along the avenue of rhododendrons which always brightens the spring and especially the summer meetings there.
My first visit to Newcastle was in my Press Association days to cover a jumps meeting one May Bank Holiday in the early 1970’s. Arthur Stephenson dominated the card that early evening and I still remember the leisurely stroll down after lunch in the hotel and the surprising discovery that the horses had gone out of sight behind the trees down the far side. I found it difficult to find them again when they came back into view.
Racing has advantages over other sports in that you need not be there to get the impression that you are; in fact sometimes you get only a limited view of the race compared with viewers at home. A commentator’s crescendo as the horses near the line is much more vital than any crowd noise. The big races that have continued in Hong Kong and Australia without the public have given the UK authorities a blueprint of why and how it should be possible, while as I’ve said before, it must help that the Health Secretary’s East Anglian constituency includes Newmarket.
I haven’t been able to check this fact, but one friend yesterday told me that the Minister is also godfather to one of John Gosden and Rachel Hood’s children. If it is true that can’t hurt either.
The ambitious plan for two weekends of Group races in the lead up to the revised proposed Guineas meeting on the first Saturday of June means that if racing does get the go-ahead, it will start with a flourish. The bookmakers will do wonderful business and I can imagine action-starved horse racing enthusiasts jamming the phone lines and internet connections to get on.
Bookmakers do not always get the best of press coverage, but I was gladdened to hear last week that the 2019-20 Levy yield at £97 million is £2 million higher than the top estimated figure. It seems to make the BHA’s “promise” of races at reduced prize money more than niggardly. Apart from the better races, foreign owners laugh at what’s on offer here day to day. As trainers and owners will tell you, the one thing that never reduces are BHA and Weatherbys’ administration costs.
But in these times, I prefer to take a glass half-full attitude rather than the faux-combative criticism of Government. The Nightingale hospitals haven’t really been needed and within the awful figures, at least one miracle – those 119 deaths where thousands were being predicted – exists whatever the point-scoring after-timers think.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/frankel_2000_Guineas_830x320.jpg320830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2020-05-04 07:11:112020-05-05 14:15:26Monday Musings: A Minor Miracle in the Numbers
They speak a different language in America and that applies equally to betting with their money-lines, parlays and points spreads, writes Tony Keenan. However, it doesn’t mean bettors over there have nothing to say to punters on this side of the Atlantic. Widespread, legalised sports betting is in its infancy in the US but the country has been quick to latch onto it, aided no doubt by having a well-developed gambling culture in Nevada since the 1930s; and a relatively new book ‘The Logic of Sports Betting’ provides an insight into how things are done stateside.
Written by poker player Ed Miller and sports betting modeler Matthew Davidow, the book has three parts. The opening section deals with how the US sportsbooks operate before the second part looks at betting markets in more detail with the final segment discussing strategies for finding good bets. This article will be less a straight review of the content than a look at the application of the ideas therein to UK and Irish racing, translating the suggestions to a different type of betting.
The early part of ‘The Logic of Sports Betting’ deals with the maths (sorry, math!) of the markets and the difference between the value of points and percentage edge. American odds are expressed differently, with plus and minus figures, but the argument is the same. The authors point out that percentage edge value is more important than points value. If you back a horse at 12/1 and it goes off 7/1 (let’s assume that 7/1 is a hard 8.2 on the exchanges and thus a true price rather than a drifting 11.5) you have beaten the market by five points and 4%, a 12/1 shot being 8% of the market, a 7/1 shot being 12%.
That’s a good bet clearly but not as good as the even-money shot that goes off 8/11, again assuming true prices; you have beaten the market by less than a third of a point but with 8% of an edge, the even-money shot being 50% and the 8/11 shot 58%. This is easy to see in the American markets that are typically two-way affairs, sides in a handicap mainly or a points total, but less so for racing punters typically facing ten or more options in a race.
But it could be a reminder of the value of shorter-priced horses, be it in the win or place markets. The front end of the market is sometimes scorned by racing punters – who wants to be that most banal of bettors, the favourite backer? – but there are plenty of good bets to be had there and they are typically easier to get on than those at bigger prices.
Much is made in the book of zero-hold markets which means a minimal overround and how bettors can achieve these by creating zero-hold synthetic markets, referring to searching out prices that reduce the overround on offer; on one level that is just basic advice to take the best price but it’s a little more complicated than that as they explain how to find bets across similar markets that are not properly correlated to each other.
This is difficult over here with so much uniformity of pricing, particularly on something like Irish racing, and the point is made that ‘if every sportsbook has the exact same price on a market, that’s bad for you as a bettor.’ I did think of another simple application of this, however, and that is finding a horse you hate in a race for whatever reason, be it ground, trip, attitude or whatever, and opposing it strongly as this in effect is taking out a chunk of the market. If not quite saying it cannot win, you are at least viewing it as under-priced and every now and then there are horses that are hard to back at any price. We don’t really have a culture of hating horses here, at least not in the media of which I am part, there being no luck for slagging someone’s prize possession; but, as punters, being negative can produce an edge and thus good bets.
On the subject of good bets, Miller and Davidow have a bit to say on how many of those a bettor should be having. We may all want to have brilliant bets all the time, where the price is wrong and the edge is huge, but for them such selectivity is overrated; we should also be having the good bets and the half-decent bets too with the smaller edges. They are also believers in the idea that the best bets have multiple components built into them; for instance, you may have a time-based case for a horse along with a niche trainer angle and a track bias argument baked in too.
‘Attack surface’ is a prominent concept in ‘The Logic of Sports Betting’ and refers to the wide array of betting opportunities that are available across the vast majority of sportsbooks these days; there are so many markets on offer that they are basically impossible to monitor correctly. The authors are believers in betting where the bookmakers are weakest and in America that means away from the main points spread, money-line and totals markets and instead playing in the derivative markets like player propositions.
Over here, that might mean ignoring the major races and main markets and instead going down the grades and into the side markets like place only or without the favourite/s. The reality is that many of the big players will not be as interested in these markets, mainly because they can’t bet in them to scale, which leaves opportunities for the smaller punter as the betting firms drive for more and more content which in turn creates more opportunity.
As to bad bets, the book argues against making anti-correlated bets where even if you win you will also lose in many scenarios. They give an example of having two bets on teasers (an American bet that allows bettors to manipulate the points spread in their favour in the multiple bet) where only a narrow window allows you to win both bets; for example when the bettor thinks one team will win but the other will keep it close; but the reality is that over time that outcome happens rarely and certainly not enough to justify two bets.
I find I often do this in racing by having too many bets in the same market in the same race: if you have four win bets, only one can actually win and it might be better to try and settle on one or two horses, allowing that multiple runners can be overpriced in a big field.
For Miller and Davidow, market resistance (i.e. when a horse is drifting) is something to be taken seriously and they do not believe in betting into it. For them, if you’ve had a bet at 7/1 and it moves to 7/2, you’re on a good bet with the only issue being that you could have had another play at 6/1 which would also be good. Striking that same bet at 7/1 on a horse that is now 16/1 is conversely a bad bet and we shouldn’t be going in again as it merely compounds the error. I go back-and-forth on this issue and drifters certainly do win in racing, the reason for the drift sometimes being significant, other times meaningless, but they do make a good point that if a bettor always tops up on a drifter they will finish up having their biggest plays on bets that are, by definition, bad.
- TK
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/thelogicofsportsbetting.jpg320830TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2020-04-28 14:35:592020-05-05 14:16:44The Logic of Sports Betting: Book Review
At last some movement, writes Tony Stafford. The five-week-long stretch of mockingly-sunny days with unblemished blue skies is about to break in the South of England according to a weather forecast I took scant notice of on Saturday evening. Horse racing is about to start in Germany, on May 4th, and in France a week later.
Hints and allegations, to quote Paul Simon, swirl around the possible resumption in the UK, with mid-May being hinted and Nick Rust reportedly the target of allegations from some senior trainers according to yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph. Rust, whose six-year stint as chief executive of the BHA will end at the conclusion of a year’s notice on Dec 31, according to the paper has been urged to step aside immediately by senior trainers including Ralph Beckett and Mark Johnston.
That pair is reputedly among a group that has canvassed Annamarie Phelps, chair of the BHA, to remove Rust amid disquiet about his handling of the sport during the suspension of racing as a result of the coronavirus lockdown. They clearly believe a rapid resumption behind closed doors is vital, with no racing having been staged in the UK since March 17th, a week after the beginning of the highly controversial Cheltenham Festival.
It is likely that any hesitancy by the sport and its figurehead Nick Rust to press for an imminent return is partly based on the lingering embarrassment that some feel because Cheltenham was allowed to proceed. Matt Hancock, Health Secretary, is also the MP for Newmarket and it would be interesting to discover how he voted when the calls by other politicians to cancel the meeting were being discussed in Cabinet.
Hughie Morrison, interviewed by John Hunt on Sky Sports Racing the other night, put a very strong case for an early resumption. He said that a behind-closed-doors race meeting could easily be staged with probably a much lower chance of spreading a contagion like Covid19 than mooching round a supermarket to do the weekly shopping. People might be asked to keep their distance in shops, not that they do, so it’s hard to see how anyone with the virus will contrive to keep it to him or herself in that environment.
Morrison reckons race meetings would be relatively easy to organise: with no racegoers other than trainers, jockeys, officials and the odd owner – one per horse the norm when Ireland were racing behind their closed doors before drawing stumps last month – and in the countryside, risks Hughie says would be minimal.
I like the potential look of a mid-to late-May restart, with the plan for both Guineas at the start of June, Royal Ascot – maybe Prince Andrew can be persuaded to come out of his Royal lockdown and tasked to present all the winners’ prizes – fan-free but in its usual slot, and the Derby and Oaks on one day at Epsom at the end of June or beginning of July. The May resumption would allow Classic trials to be staged in advance of the Guineas races.
One unkind soul, when the likelihood of crowd-free meetings extending some way into the future, suggested there might in that case be more people than is usual at some Newcastle and Southwell all-weather meetings!
But joking apart – this is no joking matter – we need racing to return. I heard second-hand from a friend of a friend, who is also a friend, that one major bookmaking company is suffering very little compared with normal activity, such has been the take-up of on-line games and the like.
There is such a hunger for something to bet on – as I hinted or alleged last week – that many bookmaker and casino-game firms are inundating the breaks between television programmes with advertising material.
Imagine how much more business they will be doing when racing and top-flight football return. As to the latter sport I find it totally mind-numbing the way certain newspaper web sites keep reporting on possible future transfer deals and what their tame football celebrities think on many matters, mostly about how little they deserve to have their salaries reduced.
For all the tragedy of at least 20,000 hospital deaths associated with the virus, while obviously by no means the only cause, and however many more elsewhere especially in care homes, some elements of normal life remain.
One long-term friend, a racing fan who had been struggling in the winter despite having for many years sold motor vehicles while also running a shellfish cabin in deepest Essex, told me the other day things have turned around. The fish bar was never a restaurant, so it didn’t need to close. Meanwhile he’s been furloughed from the car sales job so has been able to run the cabin full-time on the four days it opens from Thursday to Sunday, rather than just the weekend.
Now they are doing deliveries and take-outs and he says business is booming. When I’m allowed out again I’ll go down to Billericay and take up Kevin’s offer of a free surf and turf. It’s too far for their home delivery service to accommodate me in Hackney Wick, 30 odd miles away, so I’ll have to be patient.
There were two million-pound-to-the-winner races at Sha Tin in Hong Kong yesterday morning with mixed fortunes for jockey Zac Purton on the two odds-on favourites. Beauty Generation was foiled by a short-head in the Mile race, but Purton got his revenge aboard Exultant in the QEII Cup. Exultant, the champion middle-distance horse in HK is now a six-year-old; as a three-year-old for Mick Halford when called Irishcorrespondent, the son of Teolifio won his first two races and then finished third to Churchill in the Irish 2,000 Guineas.
The Irish Guineas, and all other Classic races in that country and the UK, will need to be slotted into the European programme and full marks to the French for getting their retaliation in first. One positive side-effect for racecourses is that their ground has had a much better chance to recover from the rigours suffered during the incessant rain and universally-heavy ground early in the year, while the Flat-only tracks will be looking pristine.
A happy consequence of that will be that they will last longer into the year when we resume. For instance, in Yorkshire, Ripon and Thirsk, which normally are looking to close their doors early in September, can be capable of going on much longer. I believe that Flat racing in the UK in 2020 could easily be staged on grass well beyond the normal early November finale at Doncaster. Who’s up for a New Year’s Eve spectacular at Newmarket?
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/exultant_QEIICup_ShaTin.jpg319830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2020-04-27 06:16:042020-04-26 18:20:32Monday Musings: The End is Nigh?
In part 1 of this series, here, I suggested that if we were looking to blindly back two-year-olds on their flat debut this season, our starting point should initially be those juveniles trained by Richard Fahey, Jessica Harrington and Ger Lyons, writes Chris Worrall. As well as that standout trio, I was also interested in those trained by Paul Cole, Eve Johnson Houghton and David Simcock, notwithstanding the reservations I highlighted about those three.
I went on to highlight in that opening piece that we may be able to eliminate some bad bets by focusing more on each trainer's runners based on a series of factors: track location, actual track, race class/distance/going, jockeys used, time of year and sex of horse.
Richard Fahey
So, if we start with our three headline acts, we can see that Richard Fahey's results with 2yo flat debutants from 2016-19 were as follows:
Closer inspection of those 381 runners showed no real bias towards either gender or for any particular reported ground conditions, but of the other five tested variables, I found (in sample size order) that those numbers included:
55/363 (15.15%) for 135.66pts (+37.37%) over trips of 5 to 7 furlongs
53/359 (14.76%) for 125.13pts (+34.85%) during April to September
51/339 (15.04%) for 122.82pts (+36.24%) in Yorkshire, NW & Central England
47/314 (14.97%) for 132.07pts (+42.06%) at Classes 4 & 5
38/236 (16.10%) for 92.88pts (+39.36%) ridden by Tony Hamilton or Paul Hanagan
(all profit quoted is to Betfair Starting Price, BSP)
And when combine all those filters, we are left with...
Suggestion: back all Richard Fahey 2yo Flat debutants ridden by Tony Hamilton or Paul Hanagan at up to 7 furlongs in Class 4 or 5 races in Yorkshire, the North West or Central England during April to September.
Jessica Harrington
And now onto Jessica Harrington, whose 2016-19 stats were...
From which (in order of winners)...
18/114 (15.79%) for 81.5pts (+71.49%) over trips of 5 to 7 furlongs
15/122 (12.3%) for 23.28pts (+19.08%) in Leinster
15/104 (14.42%) for 56.85pts (+54.67%) on ground declared as Good to Yielding or firmer
15/80 (18.75%) for 80.7pts (+100.88%) during May to July
13/95 (13.68%) for 26.94pts (+28.35%) with female runners
And combining trip, track location, going and time of year gives us...
of which the gender spilt is as follows....
The females win more often, but the males generate more profit, so I'm not really convinced we should narrow it down either way.
Suggestion: back Jessica Harrington's 2 year olds on debut in Leinster (Bellewstown, Curragh, Fairyhouse, Gowran Park, Leopardstown, Naas, Navan) during May to July at trips up to 7 furlongs and on ground described as Good to Yielding or firmer.
Ger Lyons
The final member of our top trio is Ger Lyons, who qualified on his record over the last three seasons of...
Once again, we'll subject those runners to the filtering system, where it can be noted:
30/130 (23.08%) for 90.71pts (+69.78%) over trips of 6f to 1m
30/125 (24%) for 95.71pts (+76.57%) during April to September
29/137 (21.17%) for 76.78pts (+56.05%) on ground deemed Soft or better
29/136 (21.32%) for 79.30pts (+58.31%) in Leinster and Munster
28/116 (24.14%) for 79.07pts (+68.16%) when ridden by Colin Keane
and when we combine those five sets of data, we end up with a fantastic set of numbers reading...
Once again both sexes fare well as follows...
...so we'll not differentiate between the two.
Suggestion: back all Ger Lyons' 2 yo debutants ridden by Colin Keane over trips of 6f to a mile in Leinster (see above for tracks) and Munster (Cork, Killarney, Limerick, Listowel, Thurles, Tipperary) on Soft ground or better from April to September.
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Those were the three main protagonists from part 1 of this series; combining their two-year-old flat debutants under the specified conditions brings us to 66 winners from 293 runners (22.53% SR) and 266.74pts of profit at an excellent ROI of some 91.04%.
Clearly it will be difficult to fully repeat those numbers but if they only do half as well in the next three or four years we'll still be looking at 130+ points.
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So what of our 'second string' trio of Paul Cole, Eve Johnson Houghton and David Simcock? Are there conditions under which we might follow their juvenile debutants?
The easiest way to find out is to dive into the data, starting with...
Paul Cole
Cole's base figures with 2yo first-time starters are:
That's a small sample size so caution is advised, but they do include of note...
6/35 (17.14%) for 68.1pts (+194.57%) in Classes 4 and 5
6/30 (20%) for 73.1pts (+243.67%) over trips of 5 or 6 furlongs
6/29 (20.69%) for 74.1pts (+255.52%) during April to July
6/14 (42.86%) for 89.1pts (+636.43%) at Brighton, Leicester & Newbury
5/28 (17.86%) for 31.35pts (+111.96%) in SE England
3/10 (30%) for 60.92pts (+609.2%) with Raul Da Silva in the saddle
You probably don't need me to point out how Paul got all of his six original winners, but combining those first four filters gives...
Suggestion: keep an eye out for Paul Cole 2yo firsters in Class 4 or 5 races over 5 or 6 furlongs at Brighton, Leicester or Newbury from April to July, especially if Raul da Silva's on board, even if it's a big price.
Eve Johnson Houghton
Next up is Eve Johnson Houghton, whose own record during the last four seasons was...
...which, like Paul Cole previously, was a smaller than ideal sample size, but did include...
8/52 (15.38%) for 141.35pts (+271.82%) excluding April and July
7/62 (11.29%) for 98.02pts (+158.10%) in Classes 4 and 5
7/46 (15.22%) for 106.94pts (+232.48%) over 6 or 7 furlongs
6/47 (12.77%) for 120.04pts (+255.41%) in SE England
6/41 (14.63%) for 88.22pts (+215.16%) ridden by Charles Bishop
6/37 (16.22%) for 142.18pts (+384.26%) from female runners
and 5/21 (23.81%) for 42.74pts (+203.52%) on Good to Soft or Soft ground
Combining class, month, distance and going gives us...
...and despite this dozen qualifiers include 4 from 7 (57.1%) for 48.5pts (+392.7%) for Charles Bishop, 3 from 6 (50%) for 43.6pts (+726.2%) for females and 3 from 6 (50%) for 31.4pts (+524%) in the South East, there is an uneasy feel to the exclusion of April and July - I can't come up with a logical reason why the horses would fail to fire in that month. Instead, I've taken a more straightforward view...
Suggestion: Look out for Eve Johnson Houghton's Class 4 and 5 runners over 6 or 7 furlongs on Good to Soft or Soft ground. Add a bonus point if you see Charles Bishop down to ride.
David Simcock
And finally for this look at trainers who perform well with juvenile first time starters, we'll put David Simcock under the microscope, despite his sobering record last season (0 from 20). Even with that abject campaign, his four year score is...
and again we've only a small number of runners to consider, but they do include...
6/31 (19.4%) for 18.65pts (+60.17%) when ridden by Jamie Spencer
4/20 (20%) for 49.15pts (+245.76%) over a mile
4/15 (26.7%) for 27.4pts (+182.66%) at Yarmouth
3/14 (21.4%) for 23.6pts (+168.6%) for Jamie Spencer over a mile
3/9 (33.3%) for 28.6pts (+317.8%) for Jamie Spencer at Yarmouth
3/7 (42.9%) for 30.6pts (+437.1%) over a mile at Yarmouth
and 3/6 (50%) for 32.69pts Jamie Spencer over a mile at Yarmouth
Obviously the Jamie Spencer angle is interesting, especially over a mile at Yarmouth, but I feel that particular stat lends more to the excellent record the jockey and trainer have together at that venue (a story for another day, perhaps?), but as for this piece...
Suggestion: Note, but don't necessarily back, David Simcock two-year-old flat debutants.
*
All of which second team deliberation leaves us with just the Paul Cole and Eve Johnson Houghton runners, whose suggested angles combine for 11 winners from 22 runners (50% SR) and 144.84 pts (+658.6% ROI) as a juicy-looking - but less reliable based on sample size - supplement to our top trio's 66 winners from 293 runners (22.53% SR, +266.74 BSP, ROI of 91.04%).
Hopefully, we'll soon be able to "live trial" these angles. Fingers crossed and all that, but for now, thanks for reading and I'll be back with more soon.
- CW
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/faheyjessieger.jpg320830Chris Worrallhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngChris Worrall2020-04-22 17:36:382020-04-23 09:14:41Two-year-old Flat Debutants, Part 2
I wanted to share a quick update with you on where we are in terms of the site seeing out the current hiatus. The summary is that things are looking better than first feared, and all bar an Armageddon scenario should see our ongoing function.
Here's what's been happening:
I've reduced running costs by cutting back to a minimum: staff have kindly paused or reduced their capacity until such time as we're racing again.
I still need help with editorial content and we're still doing some development (so things will look even better, and have still more features, when we return), so there remain some non-essential expenses.
Those have been covered, give or take, by the loyalty of subscribers during this lockdown; and as a result of that we are in much better shape than I expected.
Indeed, assuming a resumption of at least two meetings a day from June, we will be absolutely fine: bloodied, but well able to continue.
At this point nobody knows when things will be back but there is some guarded optimism from BHA that racing could return somewhere between mid- and late May.
The rough timeline of concern here at geegeez.co.uk is as follows:
May resumption - all good
June resumption - all OK
July resumption - all OK
August resumption - just about OK
September resumption - concerning
October resumption - in trouble
The reality is that if we're not racing by June, some racecourses may go under as well as, quite possibly, a fair number of trainers. There is, then, a strong desire both inside racing and in the corridors of Parliament to see the industry (along with hundreds of other industries of course) sustain the least damage possible whilst contributing appropriately to the national and international efforts to combat the pandemic.
That's a verbose way of saying that others - some of them sizeable entities - will be in trouble long before geegeez.co.uk as things stand. For information, the betting on which month will see UK racing resume looks like this:
Although the overround on this - granted, novelty - market is a crippling 23.75%, there is still an implied 75% chance of racing returning before June is out (after normalising the overround to make a 100% book).
We remain in the realms of art more than science in trying to establish what next, but there are plenty of grounds to be cautiously hopeful for a late May/early June restart, perhaps earlier – though that would be best case.
If you've been wondering about geegeez.co.uk (thank you), or about racing's return more generally (me too!), I hope the above adds some colour to the situation.
In all bar a disaster scenario - the ramifications of which would render the loss of a little racing website trivial in the extreme - we'll be back better than ever before the longest day of the year.
Thank you again for your loyalty and ongoing support during what is a trying time for just about all of us.
Until next time, wishing you good health,
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/geegeez_covid19.jpg320830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2020-04-22 13:27:142020-04-22 13:27:14Update on geegeez.co.uk
This is the third in my series of articles on draw and pace bias at UK courses, writes Dave Renham. Pontefract and York were the first two to come under the spotlight, and now it is the turn of arguably the most draw biased track in the country, Chester.
Chester is by all accounts a lovely place to go and watch racing and, as I write this piece entering the fourth week of lockdown due to the coronavirus, the Roodee is a course that I will make every effort to visit in the future. It lies close to the River Dee and is officially the oldest racecourse in the world, dating back to 1539.
Chester Racecourse is a very tight track only just over a mile in circumference, which means that it does not suit long striding horses because the runners are so frequently on a left-hand lean. The home straight is only 240 yards in length - barely more than a furlong - which tends to help horses close to or on the pace. Traditionally, lower drawn horses near to the inside rail have had a decent edge at most distances. This bias is well understood across the racing fraternity, though, so whether we can actually get a worthwhile betting edge constitutes the purpose of what follows.
Chester Racecourse Map
As with the last two articles, I am using some of the tools available on the Geegeez website: Draw Analyser, Pace Analyser and the Query Tool. The main period of study is a long one, going back to 2009, but I will also examine a more recent (2015 to 2019) data set in detail where appropriate. I will be focusing once again on 8+ runner handicap races only and looking exclusively at the distances from 5f to 7f.
When looking at each race I will be dividing the draw into three equal sections (low, middle, high). This is how the Geegeez Draw Analyser does it and has been the way I have generally done it for 25 years. Draw positions are also adjusted when there are non runners to make the data as accurate as possible. For a strong draw bias I am looking for a figure of over 50% for one ‘third’ of the draw, and I am looking for this starting point to ideally correlate with other metrics such as A/E values.
Chester 5 furlongs (8+ runner handicaps)
Since 2009 there have been 86 races that have qualified. I have also included races over five and a half furlongs, of which there of which there were 29. Here are the overall draw splits:
As can be seen, very strong bias exists which has been consistent year in year out. Below I have split out the 5f data and 5½f data for interest:
The low draw figures mirror each other, but the middle and top thirds seem to ‘reverse’. Possible reasons could be that high draws really don’t have enough time to recover over 5f, whereas the extra half furlong gives them more of an opportunity to get back into it. It could be that middle draws get ‘squeezed' somehow over 5½f. Of course it could perfectly conceivably be down to random results as there were only 29 races in total for the 5½f stats.
Onto A/E values now (5 and 5½f races) and low draws have actually offered value over the longer term:
In terms of breakdown, the five-furlong races produced a low draw A/E value of 1.05, whereas races over 5½f had a slightly better value of 1.14.
It is time now to look at each draw position broken down by individual stall number (5f and 5½f):
As we can see, stalls 2, 3 and 4 have all made a blind profit to SP, and stalls 1 to 4 have provided 63 of the 86 winners which equates to 73.3% of all races. Horses drawn 11 or wider have provided just two winners from 74 runners with only three others getting placed. The huge advantage to low draws is clear.
We can consider that macro picture in context by looking at a more recent data set covering the past five seasons (2015-2019). Here are the draw splits for this shorter time frame (total races 42):
Low draws have been consistently winning at greater than the 60% mark so on the face of it the bias seems as strong as ever. For those who like exotic bets, doing a reverse forecast on the two lowest drawn horses would have netted you an amazing ten winning bets in 42 races. Now the dividends varied greatly as they are dependent on the prices of the horses that fill the first two places. Three of the dividends paid under £10, but two paid between £50 and £70. If you had placed a £1 reverse forecast on all 42 races going back to 2015 you would have been in profit by an impressive £182.41. For any tricast punters out there, if you had permed the three lowest draws in 6 x £1 full cover tricasts, you would have won 4 times and netted a profit of £189.85. I cannot guarantee such returns in the future but it is certainly food for thought.
Here are the 5 year stats for individual draw positions:
In this shorter snapshot, 71.4% of all races have been won by horses drawn 1 to 4, which correlates with the 11 year figure of 73.3%.
Despite everything looking very rosy still for low drawn horses and amazingly still producing some profitable angles I do have a word of caution: I think there are signs that the bias is getting less strong, more notably in the past two seasons. If you look very closely at the 2018-2019 results as a whole, the low draw bias seems less pronounced. Now there have only been 15 races during these two seasons so it could simply be an anomaly due to an extremely small sample.
However, there is a reason why I think this might be the case rather than simply hypothesising over a set of numbers. In the last two seasons 12 of the 15 qualifying races (80%) have been run with the inside rail having been moved. This is almost certainly an attempt by the course to try and nullify the bias as best they can – indeed rail movement has risen from 22% in 2016 to 50% in 2017 to this new figure of 80% during the past two seasons. The rail movement is also not consistent from meeting to meeting having moved different distances ranging from a minimum of 10 yards to a maximum of 33 yards.
Digging deeper into these very recent results, in the three races when the rail was not moved in 2018/19 all three races were won by low drawn horses – in fact both 1st and 2nd were filled every time by horses drawn either 1, 2 or 3. In the 12 races where the rail was moved, less than half of the races (five) were won by the bottom third of the draw and generally the races looked far more even when looking at placed positions too. As mentioned above, the data set is far too small to be anywhere near confident, but it will be interesting to see if this emerging pattern continues in the near future.
Let us consider pace and running styles now. For the pace section I am going to study just the overall figures (2009-19):
A significant edge has been to front runners which win roughly three races in every ten while, in contrast, hold up horses are at a huge disadvantage here. That is almost solely due to the tight turning nature of the track, especially at this trip, coupled with the very short straight. Hold up horses just haven’t got enough time to pass the many runners that would be in front of them as they straighten up for home. The figures are very similar for both the 5f distance and the extended 5 furlongs (5½f). Front runners also produce an impressive A/E value of 1.84.
In terms of whether the going makes a difference, the figures are fairly even across the board although on good ground (34 races) the win percentage for front runners edges up to just over 34% with an IV of 3.79. I don’t personally believe the front running bias is stronger on good ground – the place data is no stronger for example - but I felt it was worth mentioning.
In terms of field size and the number of runners, the front running bias seems strong across the board; it is possibly slightly stronger in smaller fields but when you split the data up some of the sample sizes are a little small to confidently make that inference.
Now a look at draw / pace (running style) combinations for front runners in these 5f races. Remember this is looking at which third of the draw is responsible for the early leader of the race (in % terms):
As one would expect, the early leader comes from lower draws more than half of the time; it is clearly difficult to lead early from a wide draw which makes perfect sense given the appeal of such a position and the topology of the course. It is also easier to win having led early from a low draw rather than from a middle or high draw. Low drawn early leaders have gone onto win 37.2% of their races (23 wins from 61) – an impressive stat.
Having said that the figures are still solid from middle and higher draws: middle draws have won eight times from 35 (SR 22.9%) when leading early, and high draws have won four from 14 (SR 28.6%). Digging deeper, horses that take the early lead from stalls 1 and 2 do lead more often than any other draw and go on to win around 40% of the time.
Below is the draw/run style heat map, displaying place strike rate, for 8+ runner five- or five-and-a-half furlong Chester handicaps since 2009:
The summary is that the combination of a low draw coupled with good early pace, or at least the ability to lead, is extremely important at Chester over 5f.
Chester 6 furlongs (8+ runner handicaps)
The 6f distance is run less regularly than the 5f / 5½f one, with 66 qualifying races going back to 2009. Here are the overall draw splits:
The strong low bias seen at 5f does not occur in the same way here with middle draws being almost as successful as low draws. What is clear however, is that there continues to be a strong bias AGAINST high draws. The A/E values illustrate that middle draws have definitely been the value:
A look again at individual draw positions and how they have fared over this time frame:
Although the lowest third of the draw did not totally dominate the win percentages, draws 1 and 2 have been very successful in terms of wins: 25 wins out of the 66 races equates to just under 38% of all races won by the two lowest boxes. Both have made a blind profit – draw 1 having performed particularly well. It should be noted, not unexpectedly of course, that double figure draws have provided just one winner from 118 runners!
Looking at ground conditions it is possible that firmer ground accentuates the bias against higher draws a little, which seems logical also. On good ground or firmer the top third of the draw have won just 4 races from 38; on good to firm or firmer they have won 0 from 12 races with only 5 horses placing. Limited data, yes, but something to bear in mind I feel.
Onto the last five seasons now. Although there have been only 30 qualifying races since 2015, I believe it is still worth sharing the draw splits:
High draws have continued to struggle in the more recent past, while middle draws have performed slightly better, and the centre is where the value seems to be once again. Double figure draws have secured zero wins and just four places from 46 runners. For A/E values I am going to split the data by draws 1 to 4, then 5 to 8 and finally 9 or higher:
Again, it appears that draws 5 to 8 have been the value stalls in the past five seasons.
Let's break down the individual draw figures for the last five seasons, 2015 to 2019:
With only 30 races in the past five seasons the individual stall data is rather limited and I personally would not read too much into it. Stall 1 has performed well as one might expect in the context of the 11 year data shared earlier.
Below are the running style figures for 6f 8+ runner handicaps at Chester, going back to 2009:
These figures show that front runners have a decent edge while horses that track the pace also perform above the expected ‘norm’. Horses that race mid pack or at the back early are at a clear disadvantage for the same reason that they are over 5f: the short straight makes it very difficult to win when coming from off the pace. Horses held up in the back are worse off than horses that race mid-division.
This pace bias AGAINST hold up horses strengthens as the field size increases. The table below looks at the 11 year splits for the 32 six-furlong handicap races with 11 or more runners:
As can be seen, there were no wins at all for hold up horses, whereas 26 of the 32 races were won by horses that raced close to or up with the early pace. The majority of races (18 of 32) were won by prominent runners, though there were, naturally, more prominent races than race leaders and their peer group strike rates are very similar.
Now a look at draw / pace (running style) combinations for front runners in 6f handicaps (2009 – 2019):
Over 60% of the races have seen the early leader come from the bottom third of the draw (low), a percentage that is even higher than the 5f data. This is a very high figure and worth noting.
The 6f trip does not give low draws the edge, however, as it does over 5f. Rather, only the two lowest stalls as noted earlier have managed to win consistently more than might be expected, taking roughly 38% of all races.
Horses drawn 10 or higher have had little or no chance of winning throughout the eleven-year sample period.
Pace wise, early leaders and prominent runners are clearly most favoured.
The graph (sorted by IV3, the average Impace Value of a stall and its immediate neighbours) and heat map (displaying A/E) below both illustrate this:
Chester 7 furlongs (8+ runner handicaps)
There are two 7f distances at Chester, one over 7f and the other over 7½ furlongs. In this article I am going to look solely at the shorter distance of the two. I plan to look at the extended 7f trip in a subsequent 'Part 2' article. Since 2009, over 7f there have 75 qualifying races.
Low draws have had a strong edge having been responsible for just over half the winners. The A/E values look like this:
The market definitely factors in the advantage that lower draws generally have here, an A/E figure of 0.94 implying that there is a slight negative expectation from backing such runners. Having said that there may still be some value in backing selected lower drawn runners.
Let us now look at each individual draw and its associated stats since 2009:
36 of the 75 races were won by one of the three lowest stalls, but only draw 1 has shown a blind profit during the long period of study.
When checking the data for specific ground conditions the stats suggest that on softer ground the low draw bias increases. On good to soft or softer there have been 37 races of which 22 (SR 59.5%) have been won from the bottom third of the draw (low). The A/E value nudges up to 1.09, and backing all low drawn horses would have secured a small profit to £6 to £1 level stakes at SP.
Time now to switch attention to more recent results and the past five seasons. Here are the draw splits for 2015 to 2019 (total races 33):
The bias has been similar in this shorter time frame although in medium to bigger size fields the results have been quite even. Low draws have dominated in 8 and 9 runner races, but as I have said before it is generally not smart be too dogmatic about results when looking at very small samples.
Let us look at the individual draw figures for 2015 to 2019 (33 races):
Horses drawn 3 have done well, but although very low draws have had an edge, when looking closely at this table I am starting to think that the bias has not been as strong in recent years. My main reservation is that the place percentages for draws 1 to 7 are relatively similar and also the A/E values for draws 7 to 10 are higher as a group than draws 1 to 4, suggesting that any value that might exist is in that counter-intuitive area of the stalls.
The great thing about statistical research is that different individuals will interpret the data in different ways. This is simply my view: I could be wrong and once again it needs to be said that 33 races is still a very small data sample in which to have any real confidence.
Onto to 7f handicap running styles now. Here are the overall stats going back to 2009:
Front runners have had a fair edge with hold up horses again at a disadvantage. However, the bias is not as strong over 5 and 6f, with later runners having greater opportunity to get into a challenging position.
We actually have a reverse pattern to 6f in terms of field size. Over 7f front runners have had a huge edge in smaller fields: in races of 8 to 10 runners, (43 races in total) they have secured an impressive strike rate of over 28% with a huge A/E value of 2.24. I cannot explain why - perhaps it is because they are better able to stack the field up in behind and control the race - but the strike rates and A/E values do correlate strongly.
Finally let us examine the draw / pace (running style) combinations for front runners in 7f handicaps:
Low draws are once again more likely to lead as they are closest to the inside rail and thus have the least distance to travel. High drawn runners manage to get to the early lead in just one race in six on average. In terms of early leaders that have gone onto win the race, lower drawn front runners win more often (24.4%) than middle drawn ones (17.2%) who in turn go on to win more than high drawn front runners (13.3%).
It is also worth noting that hold up horses drawn low have won just once in 58 runs.
Combining the 5 to 7f data
Before I finish I wanted to combine all the data for the 5 to 7f distances at Chester (2009-2019). Firstly the draw splits:
Over half all of races in the full eleven-year study period were won by the bottom third of the draw; middle drawn runners have been roughly twice as successful when comparing them to higher draws.
Now the individual draw by draw data:
This table neatly demonstrates that despite the very well known low draw bias the very lowest draws continue to offer some value. Both draws 1 and 2 have made a blind profit to SP and both have A/E values in excess of 1.00, from a strike rate of almost 19%. The table also illustrates neatly that in general the higher the draw the lower the chance of winning: stalls 11+ have a collective win record of just six from 215 (2.8%).
The table below shows the combined pace data for 8+ runner 5 to 7f handicaps:
Looking at these figures, why on earth would you not try and get to the front at Chester over distances of 7f or less? Jockeys who hold up their mounts here by choice are either not trying to win or they don't know how to!
I hope this article has given you plenty of positive angles from which hopefully we can profit sooner rather than later.
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/chester_strongpacebias.jpg319830Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2020-04-20 10:14:322021-08-10 13:58:42Chester Draw & Pace Bias: Part 1
Logic told me time would pass slowly during lock-down. Five weeks in, it’s definitely speeded up, writes Tony Stafford. I spoke to my son twice last week, briefly on Sunday and then again for a few minutes more on Friday and I swore that there could only have been a couple of days between the two contacts.
Twin came around on BBC4 again on Saturday evening in my favourite 9 p.m. international drama slot and will already be finished by next weekend. Thankfully I’ve now joined BBC I-Player so I can have a second look on the confusing bits of that rapidly-evolving and brain-challenging eight-part (two each week) Norwegian epic when I get some time. I was very disappointed that Spiral, a series of series I most wanted to see and that motivated my joining, is not on the list.
The other evening it was still light when the Thursday 8 p.m. clapping reverberated from the flats all around. Racing fans in the UK, denied so much since the shut-down on March 18 and more so in Ireland, will have lost most markedly; along with the mainstream we all are aware of, the accelerating number of evening meetings, many of them over jumps, that bolster the normal spring racing menu have also been cancelled. Just to let you know, the days start getting shorter in nine weeks’ time!
The Racing Post’s online-only newspaper carries the cards, like Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay, that have kept racing going in Florida. Like everyone else, the Post included, I expected the Wesley Ward juveniles on show at Gulfstream on successive early evenings last week to do a Lady Aurelia and blow away the opposition.
But both on Thursday and Friday, first the 30-100 shot Lime, a daughter of Iqbaal, and then Golden Pal, 1-2 (by Uncle Mo), contrived to show the trademark Ward early pace only to succumb in almost identical fashion to a single stronger finisher even though their races were over only four and a half furlongs.
This pair was reportedly among the planned Ward annual contingent for Royal Ascot but first that spectator-free entity needs to be confirmed as does secondly that overseas runners may be accepted if it does. Should they come, I’m sure the traditional fear in which they are held by home trainers may have been a little diluted, although there’s plenty of time for Wesley to build some of that extra physical maturity that his juvenile challengers always seem to display.
I’ve been intrigued by the identity of today’s evening offering at Will Rogers Downs and thought it might justify a little investigating. I wasn’t at all prepared for what I readily discovered on the web. Will Rogers Downs is a gaming (principally, of course) and horse racing venue in Rogers County, close to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is operated by the Cherokee Nation.
That administrative area encompasses 14 counties in North-East Oklahoma and a local population of around 200,000 in one way or another descended mainly from Cherokee and two other Native American tribes.
If that wasn’t unusual enough, the jockeys and trainers will be totally unknown to most of us, unlike the stars who descend on Florida each winter and spring, especially with New York firmly shut down. For the record, Floyd Wethey, Jr. is the top rider so far in 2020 and Scott Young is leading trainer. Tonight’s 10-race card offers one quite valuable prize, a near £25k to the winner fillies and mares race. I won’t put forward a potential winner.
The gaming provides the prizemoney and the track keeps a chunk of all the race wagering. Gaming is also keeping the UK bookmaking companies going, and if the number of advertisements for casino betting that we see in the commercial breaks on most channels nowadays is indicative of betting levels in these odd times, gambling is probably going off the charts.
How the BHA must wish it could get its claws on even a small percentage of that massive cake, not that it would be right to do so (as we saw with the FOBT fiasco). Maybe they should ask Captain Tom to do a sponsored walking-frame-push around the Ascot paddock on his 100th birthday on Thursday next week while singing his chart-topping duet with Michael Ball of You’ll Never Walk Alone? The £23 million (probably more by the time you read this) by which his exploits will be aiding the NHS efforts exceeds the not-insignificant £22 million that the Levy Board is targeting to help racecourses and others through their troubled financial times.
Yesterday we went for a fourth walk of the lockdown, this time forsaking the Olympic Park, for the newly (at Easter) re-opened Victoria Park, which is in the opposite direction. The park had been closed for some time after that initial period when sunbathing and all the other indicators of holidays in good weather in the summertime caused a Government re-think. Everyone was doing the keep-out-of-the-way six-feet walk yesterday; there is no cycling and all the dogs including our Yorkie Josephina were on a lead.
What was obvious, though, was that while the ground is not yet showing any real suggestion of much new growth, the five weeks of drought, following hard on the months of near waterlogging, has already brought great cracks in the turf at some places.
Hughie Morrison has been kindly sending me a brief video every Friday of Ray Tooth’s big homebred and still unraced three-year-old Bogeyman going through his paces. Each week they have been working on the wonderful grass gallops, developed over many years by the Cundell family but now owned and managed by Sir James Dyson.
The Victoria Park phenomenon is extending into Berkshire as the colour of the terrain seems to be lightening week on week. How ironic, with barely a day’s racing after the turn of the year and before Cheltenham being staged on anything but soft or heavy ground, unless we get some rain soon, it will be firm or as near as makes no difference when we resume. Expect to see stand-pipes in the streets by July.
Finally, after hearing that he thinks racing should start as soon as possible – Nick Rust’s line at the weekend too – it was salutary that Mark Johnston has subsequently revealed he is in isolation at home after being quite ill after contracting Covid-19. It must be so frustrating, frightening even, with the Flat season still to start, for Britain’s winning-most trainer that the new norm is so alien. I’m sure that everyone in racing will be wishing Mark, wife Deirdre and their family and staff all the best in the coming trying days.
- TS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Mark_Deirdre_Johnston_RoyalAscot.jpg320830Tony Staffordhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTony Stafford2020-04-20 07:17:202020-04-20 07:17:20Monday Musings: Time Flying By
Under normal circumstances April and May is my favourite time of the year, both in personal “real-life” terms but also through the racing lens, writes Jon Shenton. Usually, as the flat season kicks into gear it is a period when I’d be at my most active in punting terms. This year there is a void, and I’ve as yet not wanted want to fill it with third tier US racing, or whatever other meagre scraps are on offer.
Before we begin, an uber-caveat: the date of the restart of the sport will go a long way to establishing whether data-driven angles have a strong role to play in this years’ flat campaign.
Sadly, it may be smart to keep certain angles in cold storage until the spring of 2021: a truncated campaign will quite likely manifest in all sorts of data anomalies for otherwise robust angles. Let me explain with a specific example.
Many of my favourite angles are early season specific. Several yards are typically fast out of the blocks and others have a more nonchalant approach to the first exchanges in the campaign, in result terms anyway. Avoiding some yards during the initial knockings of the turf season can be a prudent move. A case in point is Tim Easterby: the powerhouse yard has a colossal number of runners throughout the spring and summer months with performance notable by its variance over the course of the season as the below graph illustrates.
It’s not the most exciting data, illustrating only the yard’s win percentage. However, it clearly shows a seasonal variance: Easterby’s performance in April and May is moderate in comparison to the peak summer period. To give a feel for the scale, there are 642 total runners in April alone, so in horse racing terms the sample sizes are broader than most (the yard is also 0-from-29 in March).
Focusing on 2020, what happens now? It is pure speculation but for the sake of this article let’s assume the season starts in July. Ordinarily, this would be peak Tim territory assuming a standard racing calendar. The million dollar question is, would the yard be expected to drop straight into the usual July prolific form or will it build slowly like usual, allowing its animals to develop race fitness through visits to the track, peaking as a yard in September or later? Perhaps we will see neither and the yard will flatten their own curve.
It is very difficult to project with any confidence, especially when placed in the context of every other yard rethinking and rehashing their own usual blueprint, planning for and around a truncated season.
Arguably, all typical trainer patterns could be of limited relevance. I certainly wouldn’t back a usual Easterby July qualifier this year, at least until I had more evidence to show the yard had adapted to the revised topology.
However, we don’t give in that easily at geegeez. Yes, it is true that a data-driven gambler may have to tread carefully; but there is also such a thing as first mover advantage! By cutting through the noise more quickly than most, there may be opportunities to gain utility from the numbers as they happen. Within that, possessing a good understanding of the ‘norm’ is beneficial as it provides a head start in terms of knowing what to look for as racing awakens from its enforced hiatus.
One sensible starting point is to evaluate how trainers perform after a horse has had a long rest from racing. This year, most animals are going to be hitting the track after a sizeable hiatus when the sport re-commences. Knowing the trainers who perform well in these circumstances ought to be of use.
The table below (containing data from horseracebase) shows exactly this: it summarises trainer performance with horses returning after a break of 181 days or longer (UK flat turf races only, 2011-present, SP 20/1 or shorter). The SP cut-off is a personal choice and generally helps sort the wheat from the chaff in my opinion.
The insight is sorted in A/E order (Actual vs. Expected, assessing performance vs. the expectation of the market, 1.00 being par, anything greater being outperformance against market expectation) and a minimum of 100 runs are required to qualify for the table. There are plenty of points to discuss but we will begin with my eye being drawn to the four yards marked in yellow.
These jump off the page, predominantly due to their impressive strike rates around one-in-four win to run ratio. They are also bona fide prime flat racing organisations where value can be hard to come by so merit closer scrutiny.
Given the profile of these yards, it is surprising that the market seems to ever-so-slightly underestimate their lay-off horses: time and again these guys fire in winners after an absence. The length of time off the track is far from detrimental to their chances; in fact, it may be a positive indicator of intent. However, we, as the general punting public still subconsciously prefer the reassurance of a recent run. In the case of the highlighted yards (and several of the others) it is a wise move trying to ignore the long elapsed time between runs.
Taking this concept further, the graph below illustrates the same trainers contained in the original data table above. The red line shows the A/E performance for the horses returning to the track after more than 180 days by trainer, whereas the blue bars shows the A/E for those who have a run during the last 180 days.
In basic terms, virtually all these trainers perform more profitably with lay-off animals than they do with more recent runners (using A/E as the measure). The only three that do not are Messrs Balding, Prescott and Ryan, but even then, the difference in results is virtually negligible.
The left-hand side of the graph indicates those where the variance between the lay-off horses and the race fit animals is most significant. Ballydoyle maestro Aidan O’Brien heads the list. There is some logic in this, at least theoretically. It is not beyond imagination to speculate that a horse travelling across the Irish Sea to the UK is ready for action and means business. Were it not it would be running closer to home, presumably.
However, to satisfy whether that is a fair assertion or not, a comparison with the yard’s Irish return-after-a-break horses should confirm if this is the case.
As can be seen, O’Brien’s travellers outperform their stay-at-home counterparts on every measure. Whilst it is probably not angle material it is certainly worth factoring into big race considerations, especially if the money is down (the record for horses 6/1 or bigger is just 2-from-45 within the UK dataset).
Another trainer highlighted in the table with a large differential between the performance of his lay-off and recent runners is Roger Varian. The Newmarket-based operation is one that, considering its scale and profile, I do not particularly follow or have many related opinions / angles.
However, in the context of his layoff runners there is an interesting edge to consider when runners are evaluated by age.
The table demonstrates that the winning performance level of Varian’s three-year-olds after a break is not as strong as his older horse returners. This could easily be a sample size issue, particularly as the place performance is very consistent. Regardless, the numbers of the four years and older brigade are highly noteworthy.
Taking those four-plus aged horses and evaluating their performance after an absence against the yard’s performance where a run has been more recent, the numbers grow in stature still further by comparison.
Effectively, the table above confirms that the absolute right time to back a Varian horse aged four or older is its first run after an absence.
I dare say that this is the tip of the iceberg and there are plenty of other interesting data-driven nuances in relation to all trainers in the table. A bit of homework for me – or you? – over the next week or two perhaps.
Again, 2020 may prove to be wholly different from recent history given these unique circumstances. Normally, much of the value in these yards horses after a break can be attributed to the likelihood that much of their competition would have had a recent outing: the beady eye of the market is often drawn to those who have provided recent evidence of their well-being rather than those who have been out of sight, out of mind.
This year, especially early in the season, most runners in each race will be racing on the back of a long break. It is conceivable that every yard and every owner will be desperate to get their charges out as early as possible to mitigate some of the economic damage received through the enforced absence.
Consequently, if the phasing of animals having their first run in a while is compressed into a short period of time as there isn’t the luxury of a long campaign, it could be easily argued that the market will focus more towards the likes of O’Brien, Varian, Gosden and Haggas given their elevated status.
If the mooted Royal Ascot behind closed doors meeting does proceed, virtually every horse will be hitting the track after a long absence. Gosden, O’Brien et al runners could be like moths to a light for punters, even more so than usual, eroding potential value from the lay-off angle.
However, the bottom line is that these yards have proven performance after a lay-off in their locker. Plenty of others do not and those others will have to elevate their game and do something uncharacteristic to their norm to prevail.
Of course, it is conceivable that trainers who build a horse’s fitness through racing will adapt easily. Trainers are generally highly skilled practitioners and should be able to modify their approach to match the situation.
The yards listed in the table below are some of those for whom the first run is typically a sighter; whether things will be different in 2020, time will tell, but it seems prudent to be cautious until evidence to the contrary manifests itself.
It is certainly the case that the performance of runners from these yards after an absence is not meeting market expectation with unhealthy A/E numbers across the board. Again, the table is restricted to runners at 20/1 or shorter (SP), and 100 runners is required to qualify.
In broad terms, unless there is a compelling reason not to, it’s a straightforward decision to pass on entrants from these guys after a hiatus. Naturally, Easterby (Tim) is on here as intimated earlier. It is going to be fascinating to see whether these yards will still be content to play the long game once racing is back.
Personally, I’m not sure how to play things yet. The timing of the resumption will be key in shaping a strategy. With the deferral of four of the Classics it’s looking more and more likely that the resumption date will be mid-summer. Given that, my gut feel is that angle and data-driven wagering of this kind will be fraught with danger. However, where there is a market there will always be an opportunity to find an edge.
One thing is for sure: one of my starting points will be to man-mark the yards in this article when we get going again. By spotting the trainers who are ready to go, or otherwise, there should be plenty of chances to make up for lost time. Who knows, I may even be backing Tim Easterby horses after a prolonged absence. These are strange times, after all!
Stay safe.
- JS
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rogervarian.jpg319830Jonny11https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngJonny112020-04-17 06:06:312020-04-17 06:55:45Jon Shenton: Who to Layoff?
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