Two years ago, I wrote an article looking at some past races in the month of April, writes Dave Renham. At the beginning of that piece, which you can review here, I looked briefly at the performance of favourites. I established then that favourites at this early stage of the season seemed to have struggled a little when compared to other times of the year, but in terms of the stats shared I barely scratched the surface. And so, in this piece, I want to delve considerably deeper and cover a broad array of factors to give Geegeez readers the best possible overview of the ‘jolly’ at this time of the year.
Introduction
The article looks at favourites in turf flat racing only during the month of April and covers the period from 2018 to 2024 (there was no racing in April 2020 due to Covid). Profits and losses have been computed to Betfair Starting Price (BSP) with any winning commission accounted for in the calculations.
Let me start by sharing the overall figures for all favourites in April. For the record these include clear and joint favourites:
We see a strike rate of just under 30% with losses of between eight and nine pence in the £. Let’s see how these results stack up compared with other months of the year.
Monthly Comparison of Favourite Performance
Firstly, let’s compare the win strike rates (I have ignored March and November due to limited data):
As the graph shows April and October have the lowest strike rates while the remaining months all hit 32% and above. Part, but not all, of this is a function of field size, with the average UK flat turf field being 8.51 runners in July compared with 9.35 in April.
How do the profit and loss figures compare in terms of returns? Let’s see:
The returns for April favourites are comfortably the worst full month of the season, with at the other end of the spectrum July showing a small profit; May and September are within a smidge of breaking even. The A/E indices paint a similar picture as the table shows:
As can be seen, the April figure is the only one below 0.90 showing positive correlation with the ROI%s. Meanwhile, the highest, July (0.97), also correlates well. When I compared the PRB (Percentage of Rivals Beaten) figures for flat turf favourites between April and July, April scored 0.71, July 0.74.
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by Race type
The next port of call is to examine race types. I have decided to split these into age group race types. Hence, I am comparing 2yo non-handicaps with 3yo only non-handicaps, mixed age non-handicaps, 3yo handicaps and mixed age handicaps. For mixed age races I have combined 3yo+, 4yo+, 3-4yo, and any other such derivative. [There are no 2yo handicaps in April.]
The non-handicap figures are quite similar in terms of returns and A/E indices, but the handicap results are poles apart. 3yo only handicap favourites have performed well above expectations, making a tidy profit with excellent figures across the board. Backing them would have secured a BSP in all years bar one.
Handicaps for mixed age runners in contrast have seen the poorest results by some way. The vast majority of these races are 4yo+ contests at this time of year and, intriguingly, horses aged 4 have the worst record when starting as the market leader. 4yo favourites in 4yo+ handicaps have won just 21.1% of the time (86 wins from 408) for a BSP loss of £103.19 (ROI -25.3%); A/E 0.71.
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by Race Class
I want now to see if the class of race makes any difference at this time of the year. Now, the majority of races in April are Class 4 or lower, but it is still worth sharing the splits:
Class 2 and 3 races have been the poorest for the jollies albeit from modest sample sizes. Interestingly, non-handicap Class 2 and 3 events have been the worst of all for favourites with losses of nearly 26 pence in the £. In terms of value, Class 6 races have offered favourites the best returns although we are still in the negative zone. In these contests backing favourites would have lost just under 3 pence for every £1 staked.
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by Sex
The sex of a horse is something I always check when researching any area, and it transpires that there is quite a difference in performance between male and female favourites at this time of the year. Female favourites have won nearly 3% more races than male favourites, and losses for females stand at 2p in the £ compared with 10p for males. There is a big difference, too, in their A/E indices as the bar chart below shows:
Female favourites have been far better value than their male counterparts in April going back to 2018. Indeed, in mixed sex races female market leaders have edged into the black thanks to 79 wins from 251 runners (SR 31.3%) for a small £5.30 profit (ROI +2.1%); A/E 1.02.
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by Days since last run
This is the first of the last time out (LTO) factors I plan to look at. Due to how the numbers have panned out I divided runners into three distinct groups: horses that are returning to the track within a month (1 to 30 days), horses that have been off the track for over a month but less than five months (31 to 150 days), and horses returning after five months or more (151 days+). These, granted somewhat arbitrary, splits make for interesting reading:
Horses that were off the track for five months or more (151+ days) and started favourite have performed the best by some considerable margin. Horses which were fit from a recent run (1-30 days) are next best, but their record - losing more than 10% at BSP - is modest at best. Runners returning to the racecourse after a break between 31 and 150 days have a quite dreadful record with losses not far off 30p in the £.
Focusing on the 151+ days cohort their record has been very good when contesting a handicap, winning 103 races from 353 (SR 28.9%) for a profit of £40.59 (ROI +11.5%).
They even made a fair profit to Industry SP of £23.72 (ROI +6.7%). Essentially, don’t be put off by any favourite returning to the track after a long break.
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by LTO Race Code
I want to look at the splits now in connection with which race code the last run was be it turf flat, all-weather or National Hunt. Here are the findings:
There have not been many horses that have switched from a National Hunt race last time, but the small group of qualifiers made a profit. As regards a run on the turf (flat) or the all-weather LTO, clearly a turf run has been preferable. Turf and NH race last time out win rates are almost exactly the same whereas April turf favourites that ran on the AW last time won at a much lesser clip.
These data correlate to some extent to the DSLR (days since last run) data shared earlier because combining days off the track of 31 to 150 days with a run on the all-weather LTO produced these dismal findings for favourite backers – 58 wins from 249 (SR 23.3%) for a BSP loss of £74.57 (ROI -30%).
Flat Turf Favourite Performance in April by Day of the week
I am moving away from LTO factors for this next area to share my findings for favourites on different days of the week. We know the quality of meetings varies from day to day so will that make any difference to the performance of favourites during April? Below is a graph illustrating the Return on Investment percentages across the seven days:
Traditionally, racing at the beginning of the week (Monday and Tuesday) offers more modest fare and favourites have really struggled at this time of year on these two days. Contrast that to the performance of the market leaders on what is usually the most competitive day of the week, Saturday where such runners have made a profit of close to 10 pence in the £.
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by Class Change
My next stop is to look at favourites and class change. Let’s go straight to the splits:
Favourites raised in grade have the best record, with the highest win rate and A/E index, as well as edging into profit... just. Favourites dropped in class have produced the poorest returns and the lowest A/E index. As a whole, these stats suggest strongly that we should prefer to back a favourite that is taking a step up in class.
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by Position LTO
A look now at where a horse finished on its last run. I have combined LTO positions to give better sample sizes:
We have the usual sliding scale in terms of win strike rate as we would expect. Last time winners that started favourite performed above the norm and in fact made a small profit. At the other end of the spectrum favourites that finished sixth or worse LTO have performed quite poorly.
Earlier it was noted that female horses had performed well when favourite. If we look at female favourites that won LTO we see some excellent figures – 39 wins from 98 (SR 39.8%) for a healthy profit of £23.88 (ROI +24.3%). One final LTO winning stat links back to class change and horses upped in class after a victory have produced a strike rate of close to 38% (81 wins from 214) and a profit of £36.49 (ROI +17.1%).
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by Going
A look at underfoot conditions now. I have split the favourite results into two looking at good or softer conditions versus good or firmer. There is a slight difference between the two as the table shows:
It appears that favourites in April have an improved winning chance with firmer conditions underfoot. Such runners are ahead in all three of the main metrics of strike rate, ROI% and A/E index.
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by Market position Early Morning Odds
In some recent articles I have looked at market movements combining Early odds, Opening Show and SP. Here I want to examine favouritism status in the Early Morning markets for this April group of SP favourites. I have split these early morning market positions into three: horses that were clear favourite when the early odds came out, horses that were joint favourites and horses that were not favourite. Here is what I found:
56% of SP favourites were also clear favourite in the early morning odds published by the bookmakers. However, despite predictably enjoying the best strike rate they still returned losses of close to 11p in the £. Joint favourites early had the worst record, albeit from a smallish sample; while horses that became favourite later in the day (the original ‘not favourite’ group) provided the best outcome from a return’s perspective (they also had the highest A/E index).
Flat Turf Fav Performance in April by Trainer
The last main area I want to look at is trainers, although sample sizes for the majority of them is too small to glean anything useful. Therefore, I have restricted the list to those that have saddled at least 40 UK turf flat favourites in the month of April between 2018 and 2024. The list is ordered alphabetically:
Charlie Appleby and Roger Varian stand out based on all the metrics. Both have produced returns in excess of 20p in the £ and this is impressive. The Gosden stable and David O’Meara have also nudged into profit. On the other side of the coin, Andrew Balding and Kevin Ryan struggled relatively.
Conclusions
Despite turf flat favourites performing below the norm in April there have been several positive findings. Female favourites in mixed sex races, favourites in 3yo handicaps, favourites upped in class, LTO winners sent off favourite, and favourites off the track for five months or more have all produced positive returns.
There have also been some strong negatives which hopefully will help steer us away from potentially bad value favourites.
I have one more positive stat to share and that relates to horses that were favourite last time out. This cohort has won 196 races from 511 qualifiers (SR 38.4%) for a profit of £62.65 (ROI +12.3%); A/E 1.06.
For those of us that will be backing some favourites this month I am hopeful the above will point us in the right direction.
- DR
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