A four-week trial of combining Pace with SR Ratings, Part 1
Back in May of 2025 I wrote a couple of articles looking at 5-furlong handicaps with the focus being the scores for each horse found in Geegeez Racecard pace tab, writes Dave Renham. In the second of those pieces, which can be read here, I looked at a set of results based on the top three horses ranked in terms of pace scores in their specific race, when they also appeared in the top three of Peter May’s SR ratings for said race.
The findings were extremely promising over the whole year for horses in the top three of both as the table below shows:
Considering these results came from combining all UK courses, some of which do not strongly favour horses that race close to, or on the pace, I think the results were even more impressive.
In this article I will revisit that idea but before getting to the meat and bones, let me briefly discuss the pace tab and SR ratings, especially for new readers.
The pace tab shows the running styles of the horses for a maximum of their last four races. Each past running style is given a score of between four and one. The breakdown is as follows:
4 – Front runner / early leader
3 – Prominent racer
2 – Raced in midfield / mid division
1 – held up near or at the back early
Past number crunching has noted that early leaders / front runners have a strong advantage over other running styles at some of the shorter distances. This front running bias does not occur at every ‘shorter’ course and distance, but at a significant number.
The one tool that should be able to help us is the Geegeez Gold pace tab. Logic dictates that the higher a horses’ pace score total, the more likely it is to lead and, if it leads, then over time such runners are at an advantage offering us punters good value. Let me share an example of a 5f handicap race run on 25th June of this year focusing first on the pre-race pace ratings:
The first point to note, before we look at the pace totals for each runner, is the performance of early leaders over this course and distance (C&D).
The most important number for me is the PRB figure of 0.64 for early leaders/front runners (the ‘Led’ group). That suggests front runners have had a significant edge over this C&D in the past. Hence, this is the type of race where, if we can predict the front runner and back it, we should make good money over time. I will come back and discuss the C&D PRBs later in the piece.
In the image above I have ordered the runners by their pace scores and we have two in double figures, namely Iris Dancer and Mr Cool. Pre-race it seemed likely that one of these two would lead. Here is how the race panned out:
Iris Dancer did indeed take an early lead and made all the running. Mr Cool was pressing the lead early but eventually finished fifth. The race followed the most likely pattern and the most likely result. Now, of course, there will be plenty of times when a race does not pan out like this, but the odds should generally be in our favour.
Just before I share my new research, I want to briefly talk SR ratings. These are derived from a neural network developed by Peter May. They are much more than a measure of speed; they include a number of form considerations making them a sort of composite of, in Racing Post terms, RPR (Racing Post Rating) and TS (Topspeed) - both of which we also publish in the daily racecards. Crucially, though, the SR figures are not published on every racecard in Christendom, and so fly under the radar considerably more.
Now, going back to that previous race, let me change from ordering the horses by pace rank to SR Ratings:
Here we see Tarlac top rated on 61, Penny Mountain second on 58 and Iris Dancer third on 56. Hence, based on my previous research article looking at horses being in the top three of both the pace rankings and the SR rankings, the winner Iris Dancer, was the only horse to appear in both top threes.
So, onto today's new research. I thought it would be interesting to come up with a very simple ‘system’ similar to what I did in that original article and test it over a recent four-week period. I chose the first four weeks of May of this year, 2026, to do the testing.
Here are the ‘system’ rules:
- UK Handicap races only
- Race Distance 5f to 1m1f
- The PRB figure for the ‘led’ group on the pace tab for the specific race conditions must be 0.60 or higher
- Horse must have one of the top three pace scores for the race
- Horse must have one of the top three SR ratings for the race
It should be noted that if there were two joint third-rated pace horses then both would potentially become a qualifier if either or both of their SR rating positions were also in the top three. If there were three or more joint-thirds, then I would count the two with the highest most recent race pace scores. In terms of SR rating joint-thirds, I need to include them all as I have no way of splitting them. Also, if a horse had only three previous pace race scores, I would use their pace average figure to compare with the four race averages that most horses have. In this case, the horses with the three highest averages across either three or four past races would count. I did not consider horses with one or two past scores.
As before I have stuck with handicap races as they give us the most reliable results for this type of idea, but I have expanded the distance consideration from 5f only to races of 5f up to and including 1m 1f. The other main difference is that I am only considering C&Ds where the past data indicates a significant front running bias (PRB of 0.60 or more). For the record, I have excluded any rare three-runner races as all three horses would always qualify in those races under these rules.
OK, let me share my findings. For the rest of this article, I will look at results across the first two weeks, and next week I will share weeks three and four, as well as some thoughts on the four-week trial as a whole.
Week 1
There were 29 qualifying horses in week one and the table below gives each individual result. In the table I have added eight columns – date, course and horse being the first three, then the fourth column gives the PRB figure for ‘Led’ runners under the race conditions for that C&D race (i.e. based on the going and number of runners grouping). Column five gives the finishing position of the horse, then their Betfair SP, SR rank of the horse, and its pace rank.
The results for this first week were as follows with winners highlighted in red:
For the record, I have asterisked (*) Nakatomi simply because the sample size for the pace ‘led’ PRB figure came from a very small sample. Most of the PRB ‘Led’ samples came from a very decent number of horses which adds confidence to the overall findings.
Here is the summary for week 1:
A very positive start, although with the caveat that there were only 29 qualifiers. Having said that, there were six horses that finished second and a further four that finished third. Therefore, over half of the qualifiers finished in the first three.
Week 2
After a great start could the momentum be maintained in week two? The first race in week two where we had qualifiers was the 3.40 at Chester on 8th May. Note that the ‘Led’ PRB for these races conditions (6f, Good going; runners 11 to 14) stood at 0.67 so it comfortably matched system rule three.
I will share both top-rated runners using the SR ratings and then show top rated pace runners to help clarify the selection process. Ordered by SR ratings first:
We had three joint third SR ratings, which actually is extremely rare, but it did mean I had five potential horses that could become a qualifier. Onto the pace rankings now:
A clean top three here, with Rosenpur and Miraculous appearing in both lists, hence they were both qualifiers. The race result was thus:
I haven’t given all the finishing positions as we were only concerned with Rosenpur (who won) and Miraculous who finished fifth. An excellent winning BSP for Rosenpur of 9.54 compared with the ISP of 6.5 (11/2). Also, we should note that Rosenpur led early and made all the running.
Week two had started on the best possible note and below is a table with all the results from that week including those two.
A quieter week with 20 qualifiers and the weekly summary was as follows:
Four winners from 20 this time and, as with Rosenpur, the other three were good prices (BSP 7.5, 7.27, 12.74), hence the excellent profit figure and ROI%. There were also five more horses that finished second.
After two weeks therefore the overall figures read:
We see a very impressive set of numbers here, but I do appreciate it's from only 49 qualifiers. Having said that, the winners do not seem to have come out of the blue because along with the ten winners, there were 11 second places, too.
This incredibly simple system, for which Geegeez Gold members are able to work out qualifiers on a daily basis, has started very positively. Will weeks three and four continue this trend? All will be revealed next time... until then...
- DR