course and distance winner

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Horse Performance: Course, Distance, and C&D Winners Compared

7 May 2024/in Dave Renham/by Dave Renham

I looked at course, distance, and course and distance National Hunt data a few months back, writes Dave Renham. I will revisit this area now but switch my attention to the flat. I will ignore all-weather racing to write about that in the future. Hence, these findings apply only to UK turf flat racing, and I have looked at the last eight full seasons from 2016 to 2023.

I mentioned last time that there is a perception that course form is necessary; likewise, some see it as a positive if the horse is proven over the distance. In the National Hunt article, previous course winners/distance winners/C&D winners won more often than horses that had not won at the course/distance/C&D. They offered slightly better value despite the market adjusting quite well. Let us see if we see a similar pattern ‘on the level’.

Course winners

I will start with course winners. As we know, courses in the UK are not uniform – the topography for each course varies. Hence, one would assume some horses act better on specific courses than others. I would like to begin by comparing the strike rates of course winners versus horses that have not won at the course (non-course winners). Both win and each way figures are shown:

Course winners clearly perform better from a win and a win-and-placed perspective.

Regarding returns to SP, course winners fare slightly better, although the difference between the two is barely 2p in the £. To Betfair SP, the roles are reversed, with non-course winners doing a little better. As we have seen in various previous scenarios, the betting market seems good at making the necessary adjustments.

Looking at the non-course winner group first, if we split them into two as follows:

1 - those who have previously run at the course

and

2 - those who have not run at the course previously,

then we see that those who have not run at the course have been slightly more successful in terms of win percentage, with an 11.3% strike rate compared to 9.9%. In terms of returns, however, they are virtually identical.

One statistic worth sharing is that horses with no course wins which have raced 15 or more times at the track in question have won just one race from 81 attempts. Such horses are rare but it looks like any future qualifier can be discounted.

Concentrating now on course winners, I would like to start by looking at horses with just one previous course win to their name.

Course Wins = 1

I will split the performances by number of runs they have had at the track. The reason behind this is simple: you could get some horses that have raced once at the course and hence are one from one, whereas you could get horses that are one from 10 or even one from 20. A horse that has just won once in 20 attempts at the same venue will not scream out as a horse that is particularly suited to the track.

Let me share the win strike rates for different numbers of course run groupings:

The graph clearly shows that one-time course winners with fewer previous course runs win more often. Horses that have won once at the track but raced there ten or more times have scored less than once in every 14 attempts.

Let's see if the A/E indices correlate with these strike rates:

The graph shows a strong relationship between the A/E indices and the strike rates. Any potential value in one-time course winners tails off once we hit seven or more previous course runs.

Course Wins = 2

I will look at the same idea for horses that have won twice previously at the course. Once again, I’ll start with the win strike rates for different numbers of course run groupings:

We see the same pattern as before. It should also be noted that horses with two course wins and that had previously raced at the course either twice or thrice broke even to BSP (ROI was –0.4%).

Onto the A/E indices now:

The two to three previous course run group has a very solid A/E index at 0.92. The 10+ group spoils the correlation, but if we look at the complete stats, we can clearly see that the returns to BSP indicate that the fewer previous course runs, the better.

Losses become significant once we get to seven or more previous course runs.

Course Wins = 3+

I will now lump together horses with three or more course wins to give a decent sample size. This time though, as we have different numbers of previous course wins, it makes sense to share the data using past course win percentages. Hence, a horse with three wins from 5 visits would sit at 60%, a horse with four wins from 25 would sit at 16%, and so on. This time I will go straight to a table showing all key stats in one area:

Horses with three-plus course wins and who have previously won at least two-thirds of their starts at the course - the 67-100% group - have by far the best overall figures. They have a much higher strike rate and the best A/E index and have made a small profit to BSP.

We have seen the same pattern across all data sets to date: horses with the best course win rates (based on all previous course runs) perform the best.

Before moving on to distance winners, I want to examine the results for individual courses. To do this, I will look at the A/E indices for horses that have won at least once at the relevant course. Here are the courses with the ten highest A/E indices.

*I am using A/E indices regularly in this piece and if you would like to read more about A/E use this link

Haydock and Epsom have particularly strong indices. Epsom is a unique track, and it will come as no surprise to many that it appears so high on the list. Two courses that have not made the cut, and which I expected to, are Brighton and Chester. They were joint 14th on the list with an A/E index of 0.87.

Three courses have recorded an A/E index of below 0.80: Yarmouth (0.77), Thirsk (0.75), and Carlisle (0.75). Wetherby also has a figure below 0.80, at just 0.71, but the data set is too small to be confident in at this stage.

Distance winners

It is time to switch our attention to distance winners. As with course winners, I will start by comparing the strike rates of distance winners versus horses that have not won at a distance (non-distance winners). Both win and each way figures are shown once more:

There is a slight edge to distance winners, but they have virtually identical A/E indices at 0.87 and 0.86, respectively. When looking ‘generally,’ winning previously at a distance does not offer much of an edge in turf flat racing. However, it is always worth digging a little bit deeper.

Let me compare past distance win percentages by grouping all past distance winners. Here are the findings:

Horses who have previously won at least two-thirds of their starts at a particular distance did best, and showed a very solid-looking A/E index of 0.92 with losses of just 2p in the £. This presents a similar pattern to when I combined the 3+ course win data earlier, especially when considering that top group.

Next, I decided to examine whether it makes a difference how recent the last distance win was. This is what the stats told me:

Unfortunately, this data offers little, with the only discernible general pattern being that the more recent the win, the more likely a horse is to repeat that win. That may very well be conflated with the fact that recent winners overall are more likely to win again the recent non-winners.

After further digging, I discovered the most interesting findings concerning distance winners.

1. Looking at horses aged 5+, if you restrict this cohort to having won once at a distance on their only start at that distance, they have proved profitable to follow. Hence, if backing ALL 5yos and older with one distance win from one distance start when having their second start at the relevant distance, you would have won 133 races from 862 qualifiers (SR 15.4%) for a BSP profit of £220.34 (ROI +25.6%). These runners have an A/E index of 1.01 and have been profitable for the past five years.

2. Horses with three wins from three starts at the same distance have proved profitable to follow when they have attempted to make it four distance wins out of four. They have won over 28% of the time (53 wins from 188) for a BSP profit of £62.52 (ROI +33.3%). The A/E index stands at an impressive 1.13.

3. Horses aged nine or older that have achieved two distance wins in their careers have proved to be poor investments, regardless of how many distance runs they have had. This group has provided 921 runners of which only 56 won, hitting a win percentage of just 6.1%. Backing all qualifiers to £1 level stakes would have lost you £216.64, which equates to over 23 pence in the £.

4. Two-year-olds with two or more distance wins have made a profit when attempting the distance again. They have 144 wins from 891 (SR 16.2%) for a BSP profit of £38.23 (ROI +4.3%).

Course and distance (C&D) winners

It is now time to combine the two elements. I will start by comparing the strike rates of C&D winners versus horses that have not won over C&D (non-C&D winners). Both win and each way figures are shown once more:

These are the highest win percentages we have seen for the ‘winning’ group to date, but only just. The returns to SP have been virtually identical, with a wafer-thin edge to C&D winners; but, to BSP, non-C&D winners have proved better value by nearly 6p in the £ (4% loss compared with 10% loss).

On to the win strike rates in terms of the number of C&D wins. Here are the splits:

The results for 4+ C&D winners are the reverse of the National Hunt findings. In NH races, horses that had won four or more times over course and distance scored 15.5% of the time, procuring a healthy return of over 41p in the £. On the flat, this group scored less than 10% of the time, losing over 34p in the £.

It is past C&D win percentages I want to look at next. I am using the same percentage bands/groupings as before:

We see the usual trend of the strike rates dropping as the C&D win percentages drop. Once again, the best overall stats are the group with the highest C&D Win% of 67% or more. It is possible that some value bets could be found within this group.

Individual course C&D data is the next port of call. Courses are listed alphabetically with ‘positive’ A/E indices (0.93 and above) shown in green and ‘negative’ indices (0.80 or lower) shown in blue. Profit/losses have been calculated to BSP less 5% commission:

Just two of the six ‘green’ courses (Chester and Newbury) managed a blind profit to BSP. Generally, though, the takeaway should be to avoid C&D winners from the courses in blue, especially Carlisle, Thirsk, Windsor, and York.

Finally, I want to share the trainers who have performed best with past C&D winners when comparing their performance to their non-C&D winners. Seven trainers are listed in the table below, comparing their win percentages for the two respective groups:

These seven all perform above the norm when it comes to past C&D winners. Five of the seven have produced blind profits to BSP with their C&D winners, with six hitting A/E indices of 1.00 or bigger. Here are the individual figures for these past C&D winners:

There are some solid statistics there. It will be interesting to see how these trainers fare in the next few years with their past C&D winners.

Summary

To conclude, previous course winners, distance winners and C&D winners clearly win more often than horses that have not won at the course/distance/C&D. However, evaluating the better value is more complicated. Generally, course, and course and distance, winners give better results than do distance winners.

I will leave you with what I feel are the most interesting findings:

1. For horses which have won once or twice previously at the course, stick to those horses that have raced six or fewer times at the venue.

2. With horses that have won three times or more at the course, focus on horses that have won at least two-thirds of their races (67%+).

3. Past winners returning to Haydock, Epsom or Ripon can be seen as a positive.

4. Horses that have won at least two-thirds of their races (67%+) at today's race distance are the best distance group to concentrate on (losses of only 2p in the £).

5. Avoid horses that have won four or more times over C&D. They tend to be over-bet.

6. Chester and Newbury are courses where C&D winners generally perform above the norm.

7. Be wary of past C&D winners at Carlisle, Thirsk, Windsor or York.

8. The stables of Mick and David Easterby, Charles Hills, Brian Ellison, Mick Appleby, Iain Jardine, Bryan Smart and Ed Walker have all done well with previous C&D winners.

Until next time...

- DR

Five Perils of Punting from Racecard Information

7 July 2015/in Horse Racing Blog/by Matt Bisogno

Newspaper racecards haven't changed in 35 years!

Newspaper cards haven't changed in 35 years!

There are as many ways to choose a bet in a horse race as there are punters looking for a winner. And, while on any given day in any given race, any selection methodology can have a moment in the sun (or the icy tundra), over the long term some strategies inevitably play out better than others.

In this post, we'll consider the pitfalls of five of the more common 'racecard short cuts' to wager selection; and I'll highlight what I believe to be some more meaningful information which could be presented to punters as readily as the anachronisms that clutter the cards just now.

1. Last time out winner

Any horse racing bettor with more than a few weeks of exposure to the game may find themselves instinctively drawn to the short alphanumeric string to the left of a horse's name on the racecard. It is, in many ways, the ultimate lazy man's route to the bet window. But how do last day winners perform?

Looking, as we will for each of this quintet of snapshots, at the calendar years from 2012, and covering all codes in both Britain and Ireland, we can see that horses who won their most recent start went on to win again 7,898 times from 42,389 runs.

That works out at a pretty healthy 18.63% strike rate...

...but this most over-used of data snippets would have lost 7,061 points at SP, a negative return on investment (ROI) of 16.66%. That's exactly one pound in every six you invest... lost.

It will take a while to exhaust a betting bank this way, but exhaust it one inexorably will.

2. Beaten favourite

Still common on the racecard, the 'BF' symbol permeates many national newspapers and most on-course and online cards. The theory is that a horse considered good enough to have been market leader last time must have under-performed to have been defeated and, therefore, could be expected to bounce back today. So much for the theory...

Since 2012, there were 30,037 runners that were beaten as favourite (including joint- and co-favourites) last time. That group scored 5,297 times at an acceptable 17.63% clip; though for an unacceptable loss of 5,174 points.

In ROI terms, beaten favourites returned 17.23% less than was invested and performed slightly worse than last time out winners.

3. Course and distance winner

Denoted by the letters 'CD' on the card, this symbol tells the reader that a horse has won over today's distance at today's course (not to be confused with C D, the space reflecting that the win(s) over today's course was/were not also over the distance at today's course).

It helps punters to know that conditions are in the horse's favour, to the extent of the suitability of the piste and range at least. But...

A one point level staked 'investment' in every horse running in Britain and Ireland since 2012 with at least one prior course and distance victory would have meant an outlay of 38,018 points.

There were 5,015 horses able to reprise their CD win, a strike rate of 13.19% (just better than one in eight); and cumulatively they returned 30,253 points. That's a loss of 7,765 which is a whopping 20.43% negative ROI, and a rapid route to the potless fraternity.

4. Headgear

This one is less straightforward to compute, on the basis that headgear is a generic term for a number of accessories. They comprise blinkers, cheek pieces, visor, eye shield, tongue strap, and hood. Moreover, these accoutrements can be worn in combination as well as one at a time.

The below table, taken - like all the data in this post - from horseracebase, is instructive:

Effect of headgear on performance

We can see that the best win strike rates were for horses who either wore no headgear, or only wore a hood. In fact, I can reveal that the non-headgear gang had the best win rate, at 10.875%, compared with the hood squad at 10.846%.

However, it is far more material to consider returns on investment than strike rates, and here is where the hood rises above most of its fellow headgear options. A negative ROI of 21.86% is nasty, but not nearly as nasty as the excruciating 36.22% losses inflicted by use of the eye shield.

Eye shield wearers also scored at comfortably the lowest rate - 8.02% - and I can only assume these implements are akin to a minor torture device used for the sole purpose of favourably handicapping an animal.

[Note, I don't actually believe that wearing eye shields would cause a horse any harm, of course. But, please, allow a little poetic license in what is turning out to be a fairly arid exposé!]

The headline messages in the table are clear if conflicting:

1. Horses not wearing headgear win more often than horses wearing headgear

2. Horses not wearing headgear lose more money overall than horses wearing headgear

The reality of 20+% negative ROI's is that it is of only academic interest to work through the apparent paradoxes of the data. A separate analysis of headgear may follow in a subsequent post. For now, the management summary is that while headgear should not necessarily be considered an advantage, nor is it especially more disadvantageous in performance terms than those unadorned by workplace millinery.

5. The forecast favourite

The province of generally desperate 'need a winner' players, checking the forecast odds for the favourite is, unsurprisingly, not a smart play. As an example (because the forecast favourite will vary from racecard to racecard), backing the 'tissue jolly' from sportinglife.com in all UK/Irish races since 2012 would have garnered 12,259 winners from 43,404 bets. That's a 28.24% strike rate, better than one in four. So far so good...

But strike rate is only (the easy) part of the battle. The reality is that those 12,259 winners came at a cost of 5,619 points, a negative ROI of 12.95%.

Ouch.

5b. The Control: unnamed favourite

All of the above can be gleaned from the racecard, and all will lose religious followers stacks (not that anyone would back one or more of these religiously).

For comparison purposes, let's include the performance of unnamed favourites, including joint- or co-favourites. Since 2012, they've scored 15,785 times out of 47,683 bets, which equates to a strike rate of 33.1%. That's comfortably higher than any of the racecard snippets.

That one-in-three trip to the pay window will keep you in the game, but the ROI of -6.91% means it's just a slower, less painful, route to bankruptcy.

Conclusions: The Status Quo

So where exactly does this leave us? The table below shows how each of the five racecard factoids measures up against the others, and against the control: unnamed favourite.

How racecard info measures up: not terribly well

There are all sorts of inferences which can be drawn from that little table. The key pair are:

- Consistently betting any 'obvious' racecard angle is punting suicide

- Traditional racecards in Britain are no longer fit for purpose (unless you're a bookmaker)

In fairness, there is an intrinsic cause and effect relationship between those data which are most prominently presented to the market, and the market's voracious desire to subsume such knowledge into the available odds.

In plain English, the most clearly displayed information is the most over-bet information.

Conclusions: The Future

What then can the time-pressed punter do to keep herself in front of the masses, and the market? Clearly, the crucial point is to NOT do what everyone else is doing. That's all well and good, but it would be immeasurably more helpful to understand what to do, rather than what not to do.

Below are a couple of suggestions that ought to sway the balance of probabilities more in your favour:

1. We now know what not to do. So... train yourself to ignore the form string to the left of a horse's name; the betting forecast; and, any letters/symbols on the racecard. Better yet, ignore the actual card itself* and instead focus on whatever form content is included alongside the list of runners and riders.

[*unless it's a Geegeez Gold racecard 😉 ]

You'll be genuinely amazed at how (relatively) easy it is to isolate value when you trust yourself rather than relying on some numbers thunk up by someone else.

2. Look for readily digestible data which is not in the mainstream public domain. Specialist racecard and form services are relatively commonplace, and there are some very good ones out there. Not least of which, naturally, is Geegeez Gold. Our racecards have additional, meaningful, symbols, such as (four different) trainer and jockey form indicators; and flags for horses running for a new trainer (TC) and/or in a handicap for the first time (HC1).

Clicking on the TC or HC1 indicators opens a report from which you can review the trainer's form (and all others with similar sorts running today) in that context over the past year, two years, five years, or at the course in the past five years.

These are often golden nuggets and, importantly, they're not known to the vast majority of the punting population. Here's a quick example from the 7.15 Uttoxeter tonight, which will hopefully win (all the best examples win!)

We know trainer and jockey are in form, and horse debuts for trainer...

Regal Park has form figures of P4P2P/ over jumps. Punters whose first port of call is that data string would leave this fellow well alone. However, he has his first run for Dr Richard Newland this time, and that gives reason to be more optimistic.

We can see (click the image to make it bigger if you're struggling to see) from the trainer form indicators that Dr Newland has the full set of four: two recent form ticks (14 30), and two longer term course form ticks (C1 C09+). Jockey Will Kennedy is also in top recent fettle.

Note as well the TC to the right of Regal Park's name. As I've written, that denotes a change of trainer since last time. So what?, is a perfect legitimate response. Well, let's click the TC and find out [click the image to open it full size in a new window]:

Hmm, this trainer can really improve a horse...

The good Dr Newland has taken charge of 26 second (or more) hand equines in the past two years, and he's won with eleven of them. That's a 42% strike rate. Moreover, the ledger shows a positive balance of 12.51 points at starting price. Taking early BOG prices or BSP would further embellish his already lustrous punting appeal.

It takes me - and anyone else who employs this gen - less than two minutes, literally, to compile this info. That's because I normally take the 'top down' route first: I check the Trainer Change report against my filter settings, and look more closely at horses that fit well.

Win or lose, Regal Park can be expected to step forward on what he's shown historically on the basis that his trainer has shown himself to be able to improve most of the horses he takes into his care. As well as improving them, his record screams of an ability to place those horses optimally.

He was 10/3 with Paddy when I wrote this at 10.40pm Monday night, and for those who can avail of best odds concessions, that will be the worst price you'll get (Rule 4's notwithstanding). Anyway, the point of the example is not to tip especially, but rather to highlight a simple route to finding useful information on the racecard, something that is all but extinct in most of the mainstream digital media and in all printed newspapers.

[STOP PRESS: Regal Park bolted up at 9/4. The Racing Post said "he ended up winning with any amount in hand".]

Now it's over to you: How do you read the racecard? Which elements do you look at first/most? More importantly, what information would you like to see displayed on the card?

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