The Draw Analyser Challenge
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.
1a. Go to our UK racecourses page and choose a course.
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!
Good luck,
Matt
An example layout:
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.
York, 1m1f – 8/10 LOW
Low draws well favoured though those closest to the inside (stalls 1 and 2) may need early pace to avoid being boxed in. Bias consistent over time and on all going, and is heavily accentuated in bigger fields (10/10 in 16+ runner handicaps), where the bottom four stalls have won 9 of the 10 races in review (and claimed 20 of the 40 place positions).
Goodwood, 7f – 9/10 LOW
Low draws very well favoured in 10-15 runner handicaps, winning 38 of the 65 races (16 middle and just 11 high for comparison).This produces a positive profit at SP, A/E of 1.23 and I/V 1.74, with stalls 1 to 5 all having I/V over 1. However, in 16+ runner handicaps, draw is far less favourable to low draw, with the middle draws seemingly better favoured, while high draws retain their poor record win and place. There are only 21 races in this sample though so couldn’t say low is much less favoured as place percentage and each way profit is better than for middle draws.
Brilliant, thanks Lee. Just looking at your 16+ runner handicap observation, and breaking the data down by date range shows that from 2009 to 2014, there were NO low draw winners, 8 middle and 2 high. The place percentages for low and middle were broadly similar.
However, from 2015 to date, the 16+ runner handicap split is 7 low, 3 middle and 1 high.
Overall the place percentages for 16+ runner handicaps since 2009 were low 33% strike rate, 24% middle strike rate, and and just a 12% place strike rate for high draws.
So I think it’s fair to say that, in spite of that bit of variance between 2009 and 2014, the bias in bigger fields remains as strong as it is in 10-15 runner fields.
Good shout!
Matt
Thanks Matt, good point on checking the most recent dates to confirm or otherwise the findings. Also forgot to add ‘LOW’ to my course and score.
LEI, 7 FUR – 1 MILE, LOW OR HIGH
6-14 runners on good ground high or low numbers ridden near the pace seem to do well, when it gets soft/heavy the middle comes into it especially if they front run. When it gets to 1 mile the low seems to be even more of a advantage on good ground.
Hello Matt,
I decided to go from the back of the alphabet and first track was Yarmouth, which appeared like a very good candidate with it’s oval shape and sharpish bends. At the first look, there were two distances I was interested in: 1m 1f & 1m 6f. I went with the first one as I expected to see Low draws doing better then the rest of the field, but the graph kind of surprised me. Showing kind of a bowl shaped chart with low draws on the top of the left side and high draws on the top of the right side. I decided to ditch that at that point and check the 1m 6f. Again, bend looks to come relatively early after the start and one would expect low draws doing way much better. Well, I was surprised again. This time with a flat line from low towards middle linearly increasing from middle towards high. So here is my draw study attempt.
Yarmouth: 1m 6f 6/10
Sum up:
High draws seems to perform much better compared to low and middle draws especially on faster ground, however be wary of horses drawn in the car park (extreme high draws). Preferably held-up running style for high draws.
Analyse:
Flat line from low to middle draws changing to linear increase from middle to high draws, if we speak in numbers, it’s 14 wins out of 29 runs for high draws and A/E 1.11, therefore roughly the same chance of winning compared to Low and Middle added together. High draw’s win % over each 5 year rolling period did not go below 11% and seem much stronger in the last two 5 year old rolling period with at least 20% SR. Trend seems to be valid mainly on faster grounds where it is 9/18 and same chart appearance, however on the slower ground (from Good/Soft – Heavy) it becomes the bowl shaped line again. I gave it a 6 because of the relatively small amount of runs and dependency on ground and pace. However, as this info seem to go against all logic, I think it is very useful to be wary of this.
Note: I opted in for 8 min runners (29 races), 10 runners would leave me with 14 races. Chart looks the same and it gives me a reasonable-ish sample size.
I was trying to understand why is that and thought about that better angle for horses drawn outside, therefore going faster to the bend or at least not needing to slow down and taking the lead, but that was proven as a wrong theory as out of 11 runs, nobody won from high draw when led and the best stats are shown by held up horses which are 6/36 runs with A/E of 1.57 and these numbers seems quite indicative that the angle does not play a role.
Thanks Jan, I love the hypothesis testing there!
Yarmouth is an interesting track. What quite often happens is that horses get boxed in against the far rail in the home straight, and those drawn wider maybe incur less trouble in running. Just a crackpot theory which might be miles wide of the mark, but with the place data supporting the win strike rates there’s clearly something going on there.
Again, another very far from obvious call – thanks for sharing.
Matt
Thirsk 7f – Low Draw 3/10
Low draws very poorly favoured at this track and distance. Fast ground -144 runs from 2014-2020 – high clearly best (A/E of 1.37, I/V 1.72) – low very poor -4/144 28p (A/E 0.31, I/V 0.34).
On soft ground, 74 runs from 2014 – 2020 – mid best (A/E 1.09, I/V 1.45) followed by high (A/E 0.84, I/V 1.02) – low very poor – 3/74 12p (A/E 0.48, I/V 0.51. Low rarely wins whatever the ground, fast or slow (all ground 7/218 40 placed. Larger fields (16-16+) toofew runs to draw conclusions. Low draw 7f Thirsk 3/10
Excellent, Rob, many thanks.
Ayr 7f – 6/10 Low 8/10 Middle
Hard to good the bias changes middle still very good 9.77% 27 wins from 71 races but low draw drops down to 7.92% from 9.27% with 21 wins High draw is at its highest point of 8.68% with 23 wins Good/soft to Heavy The low draw goes up to nearly 11% with 24 wins from 58 races the middle draw stay’s around the same @ 9.77% with 23 wins High draw drops down to its lowest point 4.95% with just 11 wins from 58 races
Last 5 years Hard to Good Middle draw is at a highest of 12.03% with 19 wins from 41 races Low draw and high draw are both 11 wins from 41 Good/Soft – Heavy the low draw shoots up to 13.71% with 17 wins from 32 races Last 3 years Good/Soft – Heavy the low draw peaks at 18.37% but with a small amount of races 9 wins from just 12 races
Great work, Paul.
Ayr 7f is less than clearcut isn’t it, with so many different elements. I’d be a little apprehensive about things generally, though the point about middle probably being the place to be comes through in what you say. Excellent breakdown, thanks!
Bath, 1m, 8/10 MID/HIGH
This one is more a big negative for low rather than bigger positives for either of the others. Bath’s 1m start looks awkward for the low draws to overcome along with the very sharp bend and uphill finish in the straight. Races on good going or better (most of them with Bath’s absence of watering) shows just 9 wins from 217 starts (4% S/R) for low draws since 2009. More recently, 2015 onwards it’s just 3 from 104! Middle and higher draws definitely have the best of things (with I/V above 1), especially alongside a prominent/front running ride. Low draws over a mile on decent ground looks one to swerve (softer conditions still poor for low draws for win purposes but I’ve concentrated on the better ground races).
This is a great shout, Lee. Not an obvious one at all, but a clear – and logical – negative for low.
Well played!
Matt
I would just add that there is an incredible difference between Middle and High draws in terms of Profit/Loss which I wouldn’t ignore. Considering basically the same number of winners, 2015-2019 profit for middle draws is 116, however there is loss of 6.87 loss for high draws. If you take all data from 2009, it basically doubles to profit of 210 for middle draws and loss of roughly 28. So if you have to decide between two equally good horses, pick the one in the middle as that one seems to be overpriced.
It can be dangerous to take profit figures at face value on small samples, in my experience. I’d always look to the A/E number first, especially when there isn’t any obvious reason – off the top of my head, at least – why middle drawn horses would be over-priced compared with wider-berthed runners. Happy to be corrected on that – and, indeed, anything else!
Best,
Matt
Hiya Matt,
yeah, I might be guilty of jumping into conclusion without going through numbers in more detail 😉
yarmouth over both 6f and 7f – stall 3, over 6f 20% win, 38.89% place, IV 1.95 and AE 1.51, over 7f – 17.82% win, 36.63% place, IV 1.78, AE 1.45. i used data from 2012 to 2020, also stall 6 over both distances had abouth 15% win rate but 3 seemed better value, all runs with max of 13 runners.
Hi Tel
Thanks for that, well played for getting involved.
I’d be very wary of cherry-picking individual stalls, unless the data both sides of those stalls supports that approach. We need a logical basis for our analysis, or we are likely to come unstuck in the future, alas.
Matt
RIPON, 5 FUR, 8/10 HIGH
High drawn horses have a good advantage if they can lead or be prominent. Your going to struggle if you have a slow start not easy to make up the ground especially if the ground is fast. If you can get a speed ball to start well and grab the rail at half way it would take some catching.
Windsor 1m 1/2f- 8.5/10 Low
On course map it says 1m1/2f so I analysed between 1m-1m1f also for 1m numbers pretty much the same, full complement low draw 66 wins from 148 races 11.66% going: Hard to good low draw 47 wins from 98 races 12.34% Going: good/soft to heavy 19 wins from 50 races 10.27% 2009 – 2015 low draw 48 from 104 races 12.15% 2016 – 2020 low draw 18 wins from 44 races 10.53%
I did check 2018 – 2020 and there was a significant rise for the high draw with 8 wins from 17 races low draw just 1 better on 9 wins from 17 races and if the going is good/soft – heavy high draw gets big advantage but from a small specimen of 9 races
paul
Thanks Paul, I think Low is consistently favoured in these races, largely due to the tightness of the loop around which the field must travel and its proximity to the start.
When the ground is good or faster, it seems to be more strongly playing to low draws.
Good spot.
Matt
I have entered the data but no stats etc came up-is it just me?
Hi Mel
I’m guessing you have ‘from’ and ‘to’ values the wrong way around. Please try swapping them around for distance and going.
No known problems from anyone else.
Matt
Sorted Matt-will have a go tomorrow.
Thanks for your prompt reply (as always)
Yarmouth update
6f stalls 1-4 ,56% from stall 1 2.94% stall 2 17.05% stall 3 23.53% stall 4 11.76%
7f stalls 1-4, 34% , from stall 1 8.75% stall 2 2.88% stall 3 17.14% stall 4 5.71%
Stall 3 shows best but low apart from stall 1?
Emailed you but then thought others may be interested in the answer from Mat!
Hi Matt
Firstly hope you are well. Concerning the draw analyser tool which you have given us free access for I believe a week. I’ve been playing around and have found some of the figures don’t appear to add up. I’m using your example of York 1mile and am looking at section 4A.
The table above the graph has PLACE DATA, low to high of 49,42 and 28. That correlates to the figures in the table below the graph, where I believe you are using draws 1 to 6 for Low, 7 to 12 for mid and 13 and higher for high.
If you look at the WIN data, you have 16 wins in total for draws 1 to 6, but I cannot make the figures fit the draws 7 to 12 and 13 and higher.
I know we are looking for general trends but is it my interpretation or is it something with the way the data is handled!
Steve
Hi Steve,
I need to add a comment to explain this in the user guide.
Low, middle and high are not fixed stall groups, as you have suggested, if the runner range is more than a single number.
That is, if we were looking at 16 to 16, a specific field size, low would be 1-5, middle 6-11, high 12-16 (a 5-6-5 division).
Where a range of runners is selected, such as 16 to 16+, each distinct field size is calculated as low, middle, high individually.
16 runner races would be as above, 17 runner races would be split 6-5-6, 18 obviously 6-6-6, 19 6-7-6 and so on.
Not sure if that answers your question?
Matt
Thanks Matt. Your info does clarify the draw splits. Thanks for that info. I’m struggling with the 16 to 16+ group. Your example has 20 draws so looks like a 7-6-7 split. Adding up the various wins in the table below the graph the draws 1-7 = 17 wins, 8-13 = 8 wins and 14 – 20 = 5 wins. In the table above the graph we have low = 16 wins, mid = 7 wins and high = 7 wins.
The two tables don’t appear to match. The data still points you in the right direction but to me the numbers dont add up. Thanks Steve.
No, Steve, it will only be a 7-6-7 split in the five 20 runner races. It will be 6-7-6 in the 11 19-runner races, 6-6-6 in the 21 18-runner races, and so on.
Please do try to understand what is being presented before suggesting it’s broken. (Thank you).
Matt
Hi Matt
Please don’t think for one minute I was suggesting your Draw Analyser is broken! I now have a fuller understanding of whats going on. Thank you for your urgent reply! Enjoying your other customers reviews of their results from the Draw Analyser.
Thank you
Steve
Thanks Steve, and no problem. Was getting distracted by my son when replying, so my note was more terse than it needed to be! Apologies.
Matt
So I have done one less obvious purely because I have done others at ascot and I wanted to see if there is something to be found in shorter distances.
Ascot 5f Against Middle draw 7/10
The stats for races with 8+ runners from 2009 to 2019 show a clear picture: Low 17 win, Middle 16, High 30 with A/E from low to high 0.75, 0.58, 1.1. Place % support the numbers as well. Taking 5 year rolling average for win %, High draws have the best numbers, way above the lines for low and middle. So far so good. However dig deeper and you find a problem. Taking the same 5 year rolling average for A/E, lines for low and high draws are basically the same, high difference only in the first (2009-2013) and last period (2015-2019) with middle draws way below them. From that, I would say bookies are aware of this and reflect that in their prices. So personally, even though there is significantly more winners from high draws, I would not recommend to focus on that. On the other hand, middle draws come out as the worst always, taking win% or A/E. Therefore, I would think 2x to back a horse from the middle draws. Charts on fast ground follows the pattern, little data to draw a conlcusion for slow ground.
Ascot 1m4f Against Low 8/10
Regardless the going or number of runners, low draws are clearly the worse. Obvious reason as course is right handed and there are 2 bends at this distance and with the 2nd one being really tight, this seems to be too big of a challenge to overcome. Wins are 18-40-32 from low to high. There used to be a significant bias towards middle draws, however in recent years, this trend seems to be diminishing with high draws getting slight advantage. Talking numbers: 2009-2016 Wins 14-33-22, Places 55-93-76, Place% 20.07-32.52-27.74 and A/E 0.55-1.10-0.81 & 2017-2019 Wins 4-7-10, Places 14-24-31, Place% 15.91-26.67-35.23 and A/E 0.58-0.73-1.07. I personally don’t like something vague or maybe so I would just be happy to know that Low draws have a big disadvantage.
This is one of my favourite draw biases in the country, Jan!
I’ve written about it previously – https://previouslyon.geegeez.co.uk/2019/06/20/royal-ascot-2019-day-4-preview-tips/ (5.35 race) for instance.
It’s counter-intuitive but it seems to be a very strong bias as you say. Agree that the bias is against low rather than for high.
Good one!
Matt
Glad I got it right then 🙂 I was really surprised seeing the poor performance of low stalls in general. As a beginner in horse race stats, I am absolutely loving this exercise.
Ps: I bet it was nice to see Baghdad winning 😉
Brighton 1m 2f
Here LOW numbers have a strong edge in all goings. The stats are 28/263 (10.65%) with an A/E of 1.05 and IV of 1.28. MID have a reasonable record 9.82% which appears to be more prevalent in the last few years. HIGH have a poor record (5.32%) and equally poor A/E and IV. Sample sizes are low for softer going analysis.
Thanks Colin, good shout. High draws do seem to have it to do with the 1m2f start being just about on the turn, and then another turn into the straight. In bigger fields, that’s going to be quite a challenge to overcome.
Ayr 5f
The 10 year record shows a bias for LOW and MID runners over all goings. A/E 0.94 and IV 1.13 for LOW and 1.2 for MID. HIGH scoring just 15/303 (4.95%). On good/soft – heavy a similar stat is seen, there is less of a marked difference with HIGH scoring 5.9% and LOW MID both scoring 7.41%. However for the 2015- 2020 stats MID runners are 16/121 a 13.22% win percentage with an A/E of 1.38 and and IV of 1.81, this may be explained by the considerable drainage work that has been undertaken at Ayr. Unlike the 10 year stats on good/soft to heavy there is again a marked bias for MID drawn horses (8/56) 14.29% with A/E of 1.61 and IV of 1.95.
Possible, Colin, regarding the drainage. It’s one of those tracks where I’m apprehensive about a draw bias. My own view, which is backed up a little by data coming soon relating to ‘percentage of rivals beaten’ (PRB), is that close to either rail is optimal and middle is generally unfavoured. In smaller fields, however, that is less of an issue and they have tended to come middle to low. A bit confusing on balance, for my small brain at least!
Matt
Newcastle 1m2f and 1m4f
Both distances have a bend early in the race, and both show a bias to higher drawn horses. One to review on the 1st June !
1m2f LOW are disadvantaged with a record of 4.59% whereas MID (9.22%, A/E 0.9, IV 1.16) and HIGH (10.09%, A/E 1.01, IV 1.27)
1m4f HIGH have the advantage here with a record of 10.27% with an A/E 1.00 and IV 1.24. LOW and MID have similar winning chances of LOW 7.62% and MID 6.92%.
This is another of those weird counter-intuitive ones. Anyone who has watched much racing from the round course at Newcastle will know how often a horse drawn low gets locked in a pocket against the far rail, and this I suspect single-handedly accounts for the bias. Led and drawn low fare well, but those waited with from a low draw frequently don’t get the run of the race.
Nice one, Colin, thanks