Tag Archive for: Bangor

Uttoxeter 3m Handicap Chases: Deep Dive

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3-mile handicap chases at Uttoxeter: a deep dive

Last month, I wrote a piece on 7-furlong handicaps at Kempton, writes Dave Renham. That was the second time I had looked at a specific course and distance in this way. Certain types of races on the all-weather lend themselves to the approach as there are many such contests each year. In National Hunt racing we do not get the sample sizes that we do on the AW, but I still wanted to try a similar thing. I trolled through different course and distance (C&D) combinations and discovered that Uttoxeter over 3 miles had the greatest number of handicap chases annually of any course in the country. So it is that this combo begins my NH deep dive journey. As a bonus, there will be some additional course and distance 'goodies' appended to this piece.

I mentioned in the last article that looking for patterns and pointers for races from a specific C&D is a type of trends-based approach. Using past race trends has become more popular in the past 15 years or so, although generally this approach has been used for big races such as the Grand National or the Derby.

As stated above, I will be focusing on handicap chases over 3 miles only, with data taken from 2017 to 2025. Profits have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price (BSP) with returns adjusted for 2% commission. Let's crack on.

Race Distance

Before looking in depth at the numbers let me share the class of race we tend to get when racing over this C&D. The graph below shows the splits:

 

 

Around 75% of all races are either Class 4 or 5 contests with not too many high class chases over the 3-mile trip here.

 

Betting market

Let me look at the betting market for our first main set of stats and specifically market rank. I have used the Betfair market for this:

 

 

As we can see favourites have done well, producing returns of just over 10 pence in the £. Second favourites have fared quite poorly, especially when priced higher than BSP 6.0 – this cohort has won just two races from 40 (SR 5%) for hefty losses of £27.92 (ROI -69.8%). Those ranked fifth or higher in the betting have had a poor record, and it should be noted that the biggest priced winner over this C&D across the 143 race sample was returned just 31.54 BSP. This has not been a happy hunting ground for outsiders. Horses priced BSP 35.0 or bigger were 0 from 149 with just nine placed efforts. Backing them to win would have obviously lost punters £149 to £1 level stakes if backing every single one but backing them instead to place on Betfair would have also amassed big losses of £70.01.

 

Age

A look next at the age of horses that competed over this C&D. There was only one four-year old runner, so I have ignored that age group. Let me share win strike rates first:

 

 

There seems to have been a clear advantage to younger horses, especially those aged five to seven. Let us see how the overall figures look in terms of profits and returns:

 

 

There definitely has been an age bias here, and this table confirms it. Younger horses, aged five to seven, have not just won far more often but each have produced a blind profit. In contrast, there were significant losses for those aged eight to ten. The 11-year-old-plus group have edged into profit but this figure is badly skewed as three of the nine winners were the three biggest priced from all of the races, with BSPs of 29.18, 31.07 and 31.54.

 

Course form

A look at course form next. Below is the breakdown of course winners versus non-course winners; however, the non-course winners have been split into two: those who had raced at the course before and those who had not:

 

 

Course winners had the best win strike rate, but they would have lost more than 10p in the £ if betting blind. Those with no course experience have performed quite moderately with the lowest strike rate and the heftiest losses.

 

Distance change

I wanted to look to see if a change in distance from last time out had made any difference. For the record, the ‘same distance’ stats include races of half a furlong shorter or longer from last time, as well as the exact 3-mile trip:

 

 

The figures suggest that a run last time out within half a furlong of the Uttoxeter 3-mile trip was the optimum. It produced the best win percentage and much better returns. The A/E (BSP) index for this group was excellent too, standing at 1.10.

 

Weight carried

I decided to look at weight carried by splitting the runners into two – those 11st 3lb or higher versus 11st 2lb or lower. This gave us fairly even groups to compare:

 

 

These results surprised me a little as I had expected those carrying more weight to win slightly more often. In terms of returns over this period, the lower weighted cohort almost broke even whereas those in the higher weight bracket incurred a hefty 20% loss at BSP.

 

Recent form

Next on my list was the performance last time out in terms of finishing position. The splits were thus:

 

 

A bit of a mixed bag here with horses that finished fourth last time faring best in terms of returns. Funnily enough the figures for last day fourths were not really skewed by big priced winners, but the sample size means these results are unlikely to replicated in the future; well, I surmise that to be the case, especially from a returns perspective.

The main takeaway here I guess is the inferior performance in terms of ROI% of horses that finished fifth or worse last time out – losses of 21p in the £ is steep. This is especially true as the overall returns combining all courses in 3-mile handicap races have seen a loss of just 3p in the £ to BSP.

 

Run Style

Back in November I wrote a two-parter sharing the top ten handicap chase C&D biases in the UK. This track/trip combination did not make the final list, but it was part of my ‘long list’ of 20 and was one position away from being shared with readers as it stood in 14th, and I shared the top ten as well as three near misses (11th to 13th). Anyway, the following splits for wins to runs ratio for each run style group should not surprise anyone!

 

 

Front runners / early leaders have had a strong edge, with hold-up horses really struggling. This has been mirrored by the each way stats with leaders making the frame over 43% of the time, compared with just 23% for hold up horses (within their run style groups). Hence the PRB figures also continue this strong correlation:

 

 

For the record, if we had been able to predict pre-race who would lead early then we would have seen huge returns of over 69p in the £!

 

Ratings

With the recent addition of Topspeed ratings and Racing Post Ratings (RPR) to the Geegeez Query Tool, I thought I would share some results over this C&D focusing on ranking position. RPR first:

 

 

The rankings proved to be excellent since 2017 with the top two rated outperforming the rest by some margin, both in terms of strike rate and profit / loss / ROI%. And how has Topspeed fared?

 

 

Top rated runners again performed very well while second rated runners also nudged into profit, albeit just. Both sets of ratings were extremely good across this time-frame.

 

*

 

I hope this article has highlighted where the value has been in these Uttoxeter 3-mile handicap chases, and now as promised here are some bonus C&D extras. These snippets cover Bangor, Exeter and Perth as each of these tracks hosted more than a hundred handicap chases over 3 miles between 2017 and 2025. The key findings are shared in bullet point format.

 

Bangor 3-mile handicap chases

  1. As with Uttoxeter there were no winners priced BSP 35.0 or bigger.
  2. Favourites lost over 10p in the £.
  3. Amazingly, just like Uttoxeter, horses that finished fourth LTO made a decent profit of 48p in the £ from an 18% win percentage!
  4. Horses carrying 11st 2lb or more again won more often than the 11st 3lb+ group and produced a small blind profit of just over 3 pence in the £.
  5. This has been a rare C&D where front runners have not had an edge. Indeed, prominent racers fared best in terms of wins to runs ratio. Meanwhile front runners, midfield and hold-ups all had similar wins to runs ratios, within 1.7% of each other.
  6. The top-rated Topspeed runner won 22 races from 104 (SR 21.2%) for a profit of £27.45 (ROI +26.4%).

 

Exeter 3-mile handicap chases

  1. Favourites really struggled here, winning just 19.8% of the time (21 wins from 106) for hefty losses of £38.58 (ROI -36.4%).
  2. Outsiders fared better at Exeter than at Bangor or Uttoxeter with five horses winning at odds in excess of BSP 35.0. Backing all such longshots would have yielded a profit of £180.60 (ROI +150.5%).
  3. 11yos and up enjoyed just one win from 90 attempts.
  4. Horses finishing first, second or third LTO all individually made a blind profit to BSP.
  5. Exeter’s 3-mile trip favours front runners very strongly. They won 29% of all races from just 15% of the total runners.
  6. The top-rated Topspeed runner won 16 races from 107 (SR 15%) for a profit of £14.98 (ROI +14%).

 

Perth 3-mile handicap chases

  1. Favourites excelled, winning 34.9% of the time and returning just over 11 pence in the £. Second and third favs also were ‘in the black’.
  2. There has been just one winner priced over BSP 18.0.
  3. Horses with two or more previous course wins did well with 22 wins from 94 (SR 23.4%) for a healthy profit of £42.78 (ROI +45.5%).
  4. Last day winners have struggled in terms of returns, losing over 27p in the £ at BSP. Horses that finished second or third last time were both profitable to follow.
  5. Front runners have a small edge over 3m at Perth, while hold up horses have really struggled.

 

 

That's all for this piece. I hope you will be able to make use of these facts and figures in the coming months and years.

Until next time...

- DR

Monday Musings: Nothing To Say

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There’s just over a week to Royal Ascot, therefore we’ve an extra few days to fill this year because of the vagaries of Easter, writes Tony Stafford. Not much happened in the last week, and I doubt too much more of any great moment will occur in the coming one, so we can concentrate of some of the more obvious ills (or rather frustrations, to me) of the sport.

Without too much investigation I’ve got a gripe about a few things. Sunday racing, Race Planning, handicap marks and unfathomable stewards’ decisions are all fertile places to start. Then maybe after examining an example of each over recent days, we can see whether that constitutes an article. I hope so because otherwise I’ve Nothing To Say.

Let’s start with Sunday racing. The experiment with Sunday evening cards was abruptly dropped over the past couple of weeks. High summer is here – at least the sun shone yesterday where I am – and Saturday proved an attraction around the country.

The stands were, as one Racing TV presenter in the north, so either Catterick or Beverley, “heaving”, and the gogglebox pictures confirmed the same at both tracks and at Goodwood.

Mick Fitzgerald reminded Sky Racing viewers on Saturday, that there are no stands at Bangor to be “heaving”, but the bank was extremely well populated. That brought to me a time when Bangor, as the last UK track I had still to visit two decades ago, was the scene of a runner in which I had an interest.

Noted stud owner and youngstock producer Richard Kent kindly told me he had saved me two badges “for my box in the main stand. I can’t get there, but I’ll make sure they look after you royally.”

They do that anyway there, in a ground-floor building next to the paddock. Richard was there actually, to bask in my embarrassment. Anyway, with the first sight of sun around the country, the punters, for all the extravagant cost of going racing, were out in force.

As I mentioned when I started, the BHA promise had been for enhanced Sundays. Goodwood yesterday lived up to that with a card that should have ensured another good attendance, but anyone else other than in the south of the country who wanted to watch live racing would have been stymied.

According to Google maps, Perth, the nearest and only other horse racing – point-to-points apart – being staged, is 511 miles away. Even from Scotland’s two biggest cities, Edinburgh (47 miles away) and Glasgow (62 miles) the one-way drive takes around an hour and a half. Better than nothing I suppose, that is unless you don’t like summer jumping.

Goodwood offered just over a quarter of a million pounds on a strong card, designated a Premium Raceday and I was gratified to see a selling race for juveniles offering a £10k first prize. The disappearance of so many selling races down the years has been a major negative.

What was the problem of owners having a win and getting a nice few quid on then having the option of getting rid of an unwanted horse or trying to buy him back in the auction? My dad – I was stuck in the DT office - once got bid up to a record 14 grand to buy back my horse Bachagha after he easily won a selling hurdle by a distance at Fontwell. Isidore Kerman, then owner of Fontwell and the Kybo horses – as a boy he was always advised “Keep Your Bowels Open” – didn’t flinch from telling Dad, about the record not his ablutions, so afterwards.

My first ever winner was at Beverley, one of my favourite tracks. Charlie Kilgour was a moderate animal I’d bought via a friend of a friend from Alan Spence, probably then still at primary school it was so long ago. I always wondered who Charlie was, but Alan told me years later he didn’t have a clue: “He was already named when I got him,” he said.

Ridden by 7lb claimer Simon Whitworth and trained by Rod Simpson, Charlie won. I backed him, got the prize money and the selling price. A day of days. Not being one to wish ill of anyone I was delighted when, for the new connections, a very truncated career ended without a win. I’d like to think I’d be more charitable nowadays. What I do believe, though, is that often the action in the ring after a seller enlivens proceedings and I’d love to see a lot more tracks including sellers in their cards.

Goodwood have made a big effort and there’s nothing better than a day on the downs close to the Solent which can be seen on a bright day high up from the back of the stands – albeit away from the action.

I mentioned Race Planning. I’m involved with a so-far maiden three-year-old rated 74 after three runs at two but, for one reason or another, he hasn’t managed to get back on the track in 2024.

His trainer seems happy that at last we’re enjoying a clear run towards a race, and he has been looking for one for three-year-olds only at around 1m2f. On the Monday after Royal Ascot – Eureka, there’s a 0-75 three-year-olds only over ten furlongs at Windsor. Wait a minute, there’s also a 0-75 three-year-olds only half an hour later over 1m3f and a few yards! Take Your Pick. At a time when it’s very difficult to find any race that suits, here’s two within half an hour with the same conditions.

Depending on field size, couldn’t they bring the two fields together, move the stalls to a position midway between and run for double the money?

A senior trainer said recently in a conversation with me that the RCA holds all the cards and the BHA is helpless to argue with them. Maybe that’s the problem.

Now to handicapping. It’s always been a subjective thing and some trainers seem to be more skilled at keeping their horses’ true and potential ability under wraps as they move them through the grades.

Sir Mark Prescott was always the master at getting favourable initial marks for his younger horses, then when putting them up in distance. Sometimes, he would win four or five in midsummer when the fields started to thin out, before challenging for important handicaps or even Pattern races in the autumn.

One trainer has recently been enjoying Prescott-like spectacular achievements but with an animal of a markedly different profile. Phil McEntee’s five-year-old mare Jacquelina had already raced 26 times (two wins) before her sequence started, that after amazingly having run 14 times for one win between late October and early March.

Jacquelina’s mark had been largely unchanged throughout the period, remaining in the mid-50’s, and two narrow wins in her first two runs back on turf early in May gave little indication of the explosion that was to follow. Also, the implications for at least one horse that had never raced within 150 miles of her would prove irritating at least.

In the second of her recent wins, she beat Anglesey Lad, who was receiving 10lb (8lb of that weight for age), by a neck. Her mark went up by 2lb, his by 1lb. Then Jacquelina took off. Thirteen days ago at Brighton, she carried a 5lb penalty to an easy two-length success. Three days later, this time under a double penalty, her weight of 10st 6lb (less daughter Grace’s 3lb allowance) made no difference, the mare winning this time by more than three lengths.

Now running off another new mark of 70, three days ago at Thirsk, she probably would have made it five in a row but for Grace’s dropping the reins at a crucial stage and she was caught close home. Not to be deflected by her latest rating of 75 coming into play, McEntee took her on to Chepstow. There, Jacquelina had no trouble in easily winning an apprentice race, Grace’s claim keeping her weight below 10st 10lb!

Her progress makes Phil McEntee an early challenger for some kind of trainer’s award and no doubt owner Trevor Johnson and breeder Nicola Kent, Richard’s sister, know where their votes would go if they had one!

I had to look to see how many more races Phil had in mind for this amazing mare who no doubt will go up a further 10lb tomorrow. With no penalty to be incurred for the latest apprentice success, surprisingly, McEntee hasn’t made any. Slipping there, Phil.

But if you like the look of Jacquelina’s form, you can instead wait until Thursday at Yarmouth and Anglesey Lad. As I said earlier, just 1lb higher than when beaten by the mare at Brighton on May 21, he runs in a modest handicap. Anglesey Lad has appeared once since, when beaten by 1.75 lengths by Edgewater Drive at Carlisle. That margin should equate to 5lb at the time-honoured equation of 3lb to a length in sprints.

Edgewater Drive was instead raised 7lb without any action deemed necessary for Anglesey Lad. When Wilf Storey questioned the handicapper, she cited the Jacquelina element, even though she hadn’t done anything with Anglesey Lad’s mark, while the mare he had got so close to kept winning.

My last gripe is on behalf of Laura Muir, Edgewater Drive’s jockey. She came home a nose in front after a straight-long duel with the runner up in a race last week at Wolverhampton.

Even though her mount Prince Hector never touched the runner-up High Court Judge (maybe an omen?) and only deviated marginally in the closing stages, the result was overturned, much to the amazement of all the media and television pundits on the day. To add to what seems an unfair verdict, Paula also got a two-day ban, an appeal about which is being funded by the Professional Jockeys’ Association.

How many times have you seen big race finishes where one horse carries the other across the track and the verdict is left alone. Having watched it a few times, and all the other matters I’ve touched upon, I wonder why this great sport wants to shoot itself in the foot in so many ways. Apart from that I’ve Nothing To Say!

- TS