Guy aka The Mathematician has given us three winning Saturday’s in a row here on Sports Betting Blog.  At circa start of Octover he also went on a short run of an 18/1 winner followed by a 6/1 winner.

Four in a  row is a big ask however.

Fingers crossed

Here is his free tip message for today.

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I like LOYALTY’s chance a lot mainly because he
has a good profile but also because I can tear holes
in the profiles of many of his opponents. The big
problem here is a big field and the desperate need
for luck in running and there are no guarantees of
that and this makes him unsafe and far more riSky.

Friday’s  Full Service Review

Overall a pretty spicy message yesterday given time was
lost with the Racing Post website going down. I ended up
with 14 races to sort out. There were 4 of these that we
broke level in through either savers or each way bets and
they just cancelled each other out. That left 10 races and
there was a clear victory with 5 winners and 5 losers lots
better than I had hoped for. This included a 10/1 winner
so well ahead on paper and overall a good message which
shows my angles work and also shows the more you read
from the message the richer the experience should be.

L i n g f i e l d  1.50

3/1 Mabait, 9/2 Spirit Of Sharjah, 5/1 Clockmaker
6/1 Loyalty, 8/1 Night Lily, Kakatosi, 12/1 Bravo Echo
12/1 Elna Bright, 16/1 Mr Willis, 25/1 Layline
66/1 Mister Green.

* This is an all aged conditions race over a mile
* Quality race but only 18 similar races are run
* I think you have to look at the Draw here
* I looked at 8f Lingfield races with 10 + runners
* The last few races went to the following stalls
* 8 6 5 8 12 7 11 10 2 8 3 10 3 7
* I think the worst stalls have to be 1-2-3
* The last 8 winners were drawn 5 or higher
* MABAIT is Top rated but I see interesting flaws
* He has fewer runs this year than every other runner
* All exposed horses had more runs this year than him
* All horses from 7f races also had more runs
* MABAIT is exposed and comes from 7f
* Dont feel he is equipped to do that with 4 runs this year
* LAYLINE comes out badly with his absence
* ELNA BRIGHT – Doesnt appeal from a 6f race
* KAKATOSI looks unsafe to me
* He has just 1 run since last July and was thrashed in it
* Throw in a step up in distance he looks opposable
* MISTER GREEN is outclassed
* MR WILLIS comes out badly and is badly weighted
* For an exposed horse up in trip he is underraced
* SPIRIT OF SHARJAH wouldnt be first choice
* Not exposed and with 1 run since last June
* SPIRIT OF SHARJAH also has a bad draw in stall 1
* NIGHT LILY wouldnt be my first choice
* I think Stall 2 wont do her any favours
* She is also a Mare and comes from a conditions race
* BRAVO ECHO – Not a negative but doesnt offer much

S h o r t l i s t

* CLOCKMAKER – I see him as shortlistable but unsafe
* He comes from 7f and winning last time troubles me
* The only horse winning at 7f last time was younger
* I think there are flaws in his profile but he’s in form
* Not keen on his draw much in stall 3
* LOYALTY – Very nice profile 3 similar winners
* He is well drawn and has easily the best profile
* Will need luck in running but a clear choice

Selection

* LOYALTY 6/1 Each Way Bet365 Stan James

To visit Guy’s site click here ==> Horse Racing Tips

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3.05 Cheltenham – International Hurdle – 2 miles 1f (Grade 2)

POSITIVE TRENDS

NEGATIVE TRENDS

GENERAL STATS

Trends analysis: the best starting point looks to be horses that finished in the first three LTO as they have provided all of the last 10 winners. From there, look for horses that have won at least once in their last four starts. Horses that ran at Cheltenham last time out have a good record, especially those that ran in the Greatwood hurdle LTO.. Favourites also have a very good record. From a negative perspective, horses beaten by 5 or more lengths LTO look worth avoiding. In terms of age, 5 year olds have done well.

Provided by www.RacingTrends.co.uk

Horses On Their First Run In A Handicap Race

Punters are often trying to spot a big sting or a planned gamble. A classic perception is that some horses are intentionally run badly in order to give them a very lenient first handicap mark.

The stats show however that betting every horse on it’s first handicap run is a very fast track route to the poor house.

However NOT all first time handicap runners are a bad bet. With some research and number crunching it is possible to identify profitable angles for backers or alternately sources of good lays for Betfair.

Dave Renham has crunched several years of racing history and written it all up in a couple of free to view articles.

Take a look here

The problem today is serious rain is coming and
said to be hitting everywhere. I have to produce
the message knowing that the ground will change
everywhere. There is no way of knowing just how
much rain there will be or when it will fall so this
is going to be the single biggest issue of the day.

It will mean lots more non runners later on top
of several already pulled out. Plenty of opinions
in lots of races today. Done what I can despite a
lack of knowledge about what will run. Its one of
those messages to slowly navigate through. Dont
be afraid to overrule some selections if evidence
later shows that to be sensible. The weather does
not make it safe or sensible to go with a strong
stake today.

Perhaps unpredictable as a race but the 4.30pm at
Ripon interested me. I wasnt convinced about the
favourite and I felt the bet was BLUE DEER as
an improver from a stronger stable with entries
all over the place and bred to appreviate softer
ground. I felt he was worth a bet around 11/2.

R i p o n  4.30

5/2 Arrivaderci, 6/1 Blue Deer, 17/2 Song Of Parkes
9/1 Decadence, 9/1 Eeny Mac, 10/1 Lady Platinum Club
12/1 Cottam Stella, 12/1 Gambatte, 12/1 Grazeon Again
12/1 Spinatrix, 14/1 Roman Ruler, 16/1 Bahamian Jazz
25/1 Ivy And Gold.

This is a Maiden Handicap over 6f. This race has 18
renewals and being a “Maiden” handicap its best seen
in isolation from other races. I didnt like the look of
favourite ARRIVADERCI as a 3yo filly coming from
a 5f race when inexperienced and having so few races
this season and I would look elsewhere. For the same
reasons I would also oppose COTTAM STELLA too.
No past winners of this dropped from a Mile or more
so SONG OF PARKES from 8f and DECADENCE as
a horse from a 10f race look vulnerable. These would
be my main negatives in an open looking races. I feel
LADY PLATINUM CLUB and EENY MAC have to
be seriously considered. So to does BLUE DEER who
comes from a good stable and a horse entered all over
the place this week.  EENY MAC who looks likely to
appreciate the drop in class and track and I was very
tempted by him but an inexperienced winnerless pilot
puts me off him. BLUE DEER looks the one to me.

Selection – BLUE DEER 6/1 bet 365
If that goes or 365 have limited you to penny stakes as they tend to do..
11/2 available at Coral Ladbrokes William Hill Sky

Live prices at http://mathematician-betting.bestbetting.com/horse-racing/2011-07-16/ripon/16-30/betting/

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This was provided by Guy Ward of Horse Betting Blog

First Time Blinkers

With the flat season gathering pace, I have decided to look at horses that are blinkered for the first time. There are numerous ideas why horses are given blinkers to wear.

These include:

-         To try and get the horse to concentrate as some horses get distracted by the other runners in a race;

-         To help the horse break quickly from the stalls. Blinkers often have this effect when worn for the first time;

-         As a last resort to try and improve a horses’ performance.

What one should realise however, is that generally fitting first time blinkers is a negative rather than a positive. The data for this article is taken from the last 6 complete seasons – flat/all weather racing only. All profits are calculated to £1 level stakes at SP. It should be noted that I have included only runners that are wearing blinkers only (for the first time) – I have excluded runners who were wearing tongue ties also. For the record the combination of blinkered first time + tongue tie produce virtually identical strike rates and returns (from a much smaller sample).

Firstly let us look at the results of all runners wearing blinkers for the first time on the flat over the period of study:

Essentially therefore these runners win around once in every fourteen starts (roughly) for losses of just under 28 pence in the £. Not a great starting point from a betting perspective. However, let us break these stats down into different categories to see if we can either find better betting propositions, or ‘gilt-edged’ laying opportunities.

Age

The perception is that blinkers improve younger horses best, especially 2yos. Let us look at the results breakdown when split by age:

As we can see 2yos actually perform below the ‘norm’. Looking at the ages as a whole, there is no discernable pattern, although much older horses (8yo+) have done relatively well from a very small sample.

Digging deeper into the 2yo stats, I have broken down the data by number of career runs:

Two things that seem to stand out here are firstly that 2yos that have raced several times (7 or more), react to first time blinkers relatively well; secondly 2yos that are assigned blinkers on their 2^nd or 3^rd career start do extremely poorly in terms of strike rate. My guess is that there is an over-reaction to a poor debut run and the addition of blinkers actually makes things worse.

Market position

Generally the market is an excellent guide to the chances of each horse. Let us look at first time blinkered horses coupled with their market position:

At first glance the performance of favourites looks OK. However, when we take ALL flat favourites as a whole, the strike rate is around 30-31% with losses of only 6-7%. Hence, horses that start favourite when blinkered for the first time are not good betting propositions.

Race types

Let us break the data down now by specific race types:

Although the data is limited a combination of first time blinkers and an amateur rider looks one to avoid. Indeed of the 55 losers, only 3 got placed. I decided to look back further just to gather a bigger data set. I looked at first time blinkered runners in amateur contests from 1997 to 2004 – they fared poorly once again with just 3 wins from 104.

Maiden races have seen losses of around 42 pence in the £ which above the base figure of 27.6p. Auction maidens have provided the poorest results for first time blinkered runners with just 12 wins from 279 (SR 4.3%) for a loss of £151.06 (ROI -54.1%). Indeed, 2yo maiden Auction races are even worse with just 3 winners from 160 runners (SR 1.9%) for a hefty loss of £129.50 (ROI -80.9%).

Claiming races have seen close to a break-even situation despite a low strike rate of around 9%. Indeed if you exclude maiden claimers the strike rate rises to 9.3% and profits are made; albeit 9 pence profit for every £ wagered. However, it should be noted that these profit figures are essentially down to a few big priced winners and hence it is not an area where the backer can be confident to make a profit in the future.

Race distance

Let us break the data down now by race distance:

In general there does not seem to be any pattern here. I had expected longer races to produce slightly poorer results but this is not the case.

Turf v all weather

Horses wearing blinkers for the first time perform better on the all weather compared with turf. This could be due to the fact all weather racing is less competitive; or generally of lower grade. Whatever the reason, the stats are worth taking note of.

Jockeys

I decided to see if the experience of the jockey made a difference. The table below compares professional jockeys with claiming jockeys:

The figures seem to suggest the less experienced jockeys struggle when horses are blinkered for the first time. Losses close to 44 pence in the £ combined with a strike rate of under 5% means that one should swerve these jockeys under these circumstances.

Trainers

Some trainers have a better understanding of their animals than others so one would expect a real mix of results for first time blinkered runners. I have included all trainers that have saddled at least 30 horses with first time blinkers:

Sir Mark Prescott has excellent figures considering how poor these runners do in general – a better than 1 in 5 strike rate with profits of over 50 pence for every £ wagered. At the other end of the scale, Milton Bradley and Alan Berry have combined to produce 0 winners from 116 runners.

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To conclude, horses blinkered for the first time are essentially poor investments. However, some are much worse than others as this article has hopefully highlighted. If nothing else, I suspect this article may save you from backing certain horses that have a very poor chance of winning. This should help your betting bank balance.

Dave Renham

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Dave Renahm is a regular feature writer in the Racing And Football Outlook newspaper.  If you are more of an investor rather than gambler at your racing, more of his educational research work may be found online at www.PunterProfits.com and at www.racingtrends.co.uk

HINT: Both sites above will on occasion offer a free trial to sports betting blog subscribers. Why not Register Here for Free so you know when such a deal is available.

Looking At Races Differently Can Make A Profit

When reading articles about analyzing horse racing you will always find the writers saying that you ‘mustn’t follow the crowd’ or to ‘do things differently’ or something similar. They then go on to outline a method that is not particularly different to anything else that you have ever read!

What they are saying is correct. You do want to do things differently. It is by doing things differently that you will find your edge and by finding your edge you will also find your profit.

Over the course of this article I want to plant some seeds for ways of analyzing a race that you may have never of thought of before. It is these ideas that will ultimately help you to look at a horse race differently to everyone else betting on it and find your long-term profit.

All races have different conditions and they also have different types of runners. This is what determines how you should analyse them. There is less point focusing on speed in a race that is 3 miles long, you would be better off focusing on pace and stamina (for example).

I would like to focus on sprint races as it is something I have been teaching quite a lot recently and with increasing all-weather racing I feel that it is going to be something that you can use in the future.

With sprint races we can focus on speed as our analysis. This in itself is not different but there are many ways to look at a horse from a speed perspective. Some of these can include:

Speed class based on speed figures of winners in previous races

Projected speed

Speed ratings

Collateral speed form

Speed improvements

These are just a few possibilities and I can guarantee that out of the list above, speed ratings will be the only one that has a lot of people using it and even with this you can look at the actual speed ratings in different ways to other people.

However the perspective I would like to focus on here is Speed Improvements. It stands to reason that a runner that is improving in speed has every chance of improving its speed in the race it is about to run.

All you now need to do is simply to find out if the horse has the required speed to compete in the race to make your final selections, but I am getting ahead of myself. Let me go back a bit and investigate how I do this.

First of all I look at each runners last 8 speed figures. I am looking for horses who have a general trend of improvement. This does not mean that I expect them to increase in every single race but that the overall trend of the last 8 races is upwards.

You are now already ahead of most punters because you are focusing on runners who have shown a recent improvement rather than just narrowing your search down to those with the highest figure. A horse that has shown recent improvement would have every reason to continue this trend.

Speed figures, although normally adjusted for these factors, can change for a runner depending on the distance and going. This makes it better for us just to consider the last 8 races that match a similar distance and going condition as the race we are analyzing.

Already in the last 2 paragraphs you have learned how you can identify runners that are improving over the same conditions as the race you are analyzing in a matter of minutes. This on its own is incredibly powerful and can result in profits on its own. However we want to target our selections even more accurately.

We have a shortlist of runners that are improving in speed over the distance and going of todays race. It makes sense to now look at whether or not these runners are fast enough to win the race. While they may be improving it is no use if they do not have the raw speed to win.

Assessing the raw speed of a horse can be very difficult and, contrary to popular belief, cannot be done by just looking for the runner with the highest speed figure. Just using the highest speed figure or the average speed figures of all runners does not work because no rating is 100% accurate. To get around this we use something called confidence intervals. A confidence interval will allow you to assess, with a 90% confidence, the likelihood of a speed rating being between a high and low figure. The actual figure recorded will sit in the middle of these two numbers.

We calculate this figure by:

1)      Calculate the average of the last 8 speed figures

2)      Calculate the standard deviation for these figures

3)      Calculate the standard error for these figures using the result of step 2

4)      Multiply the standard error from step 3 by 1.397

5)      For the lower confidence level subtract the result of step 4 to each of your eight speed figures

6)      For the upper confidence level add the result of step 4 to each of your eight speed figures

For each of your speed ratings from the last eight races you will now have 3 figures. The lower confidence level, the speed rating and the upper confidence level.

How does this help us?

This helps us because we now know, with a 90% confidence, that the slowest the horse ran was the lowest figure and the fastest the horse ran is the highest figure. If we work this out for each of our 8 past speed ratings we can begin to see which of our selections actually have the speed to win the race.

You do this by following these rules:

Find the winner with the highest speed figure in the last 8 races.

Record the lower confidence interval for this speed figure.

Make sure that all of our selections have had a race in their last 8 races where the highest confidence interval is above this figure.

That’s it! Just three simple steps and you have made sure that all your runners actually have the speed to win the race.

What have we actually achieved?

By looking at races from a slightly different perspective we have managed to shortlist the runners that have been improving on the current conditions of the race. We have then narrowed our shortlist down into the final selections by only keeping those that have shown they have the speed to win using a statistical approach.

To make this even easier the Race Advisor features RA Graphs which displays all the information you need to find these selections in easy to read graphs provided for racing every single day.

Michael Wilding
www.RaceAdvisor.co.uk

Author Bio

The Race Advisor was started by Michael Wilding and is aimed at the new and semi-experienced bettor.
We are the leading online resource for learning how to bet profitably providing unique features that are
unavailable elsewhere. There are also over 200 articles on the site looking at different sports and how to profit from them.

Thirsk 4.10

9/2 Karaka Jack, 5/1 Dubai Dynamo, 6/1 Northern Fling
7/1 Arry´s Orse, 8/1 Reel Buddy Star, 8/1 Summer Dancer
10/1 Everymanforhimself, Ginger Ted, 12/1 Illustrious Prince 20/1 Qadar, 25/1 Arabian Pride, 25/1 Bond Fastrac.

* This is a 7f Handicap for 0-85 rated horses
* REEL BUDDY STAR is exposed absent 7 + months
* Thats a lot for horse on a career mark
* Ignore the horses from 3yo handicaps
* BOND FASTRAC – ARABIAN PRIDE fail that
* Horses drawn in stall 1-2 have underperformed
* 30 races here since 2008 with 9 + runners
* Horses drawn in stalls 1-2 have a 1-56 record
* SUMMER DANCER has a bad draw and modest profile
* GINGER TED has a bad draw and an unsafe profile
* QADAR is 0-27 on Grass and vulnerable
* EVERYMANFORHIMSELF – Weight and absence is a worry
* ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE – Not completely out of this
* I dont like the massive stable downgrade he had this winter
* I wouldnt see him as progressive because of that

SHORTLIST

* NORTHERN FLING – Shaky profile but a possible
* I’d like another run this year or a shorter absence
* ARRY´S ORSE – Almost right good enough to respect
* KARAKA JACK – Well treated and good profile
* DUBAI DYNAMO – Serious chance back on fast ground
* KARAKA JACK and DUBAI DYNAMO stand out to me
* DUBAI DYNAMO is a saver
* KARAKA is a win bet

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Provided by Guy Ward.

To visit Guy’s site click here ==> Horse Racing Tips

It is the day we have all been waiting for where 40 runners compete to win the John Smith Grand National at Aintree.

As always this race is a minefield when trying to find the winner and with 40 declared runners you could easily spend a whole day trying to analyse the race. We need to start by using trends in order to narrow down the field a bit to find runners which we want to look at more closely.

First of all I am going to star by removing any runner which has not won over 3 miles or longer before. No horse has bucked this trend since 1970 as stamina is a key ingredient in the race. This removes In Compliance, Majestic Concorde, Or Noir De Somoza, Piraya, Quolibet and Santa’s Son. That leaves us with 34 runners which we still need to trim down some what.

Next we are going to remove runners who have not won a Class 1 race, never run on Hurdles at Aintree and have fallen more than twice in their career when running Hurdles races on any course.

This leaves us with Tidal Bay, The Tother One, Royal Rosa, Quinz, Don’t Push It and Chief Dan George.  Six runners is much easier to deal with than 34. We are now going to take a look at these six. This doesn’t mean that these are our final six as we may bring some of the others back into the running later  but first we want to remove any runners we don’t like from these six.

Tidal Bay likes the going and race type and is a good performers. While he hasn’t been improving recently he also has not been in decline and he has every chance of taking home a position today if he runs to his best.

The Tother One is likely to find todays race just a bit too difficult. Without improving significantly there are other runners who are going to prefer the conditions.

Royal Rosa looks severely outclassed in this race. There has been no significant improvement over the last four races and being able to maintain the speed necessary over the distance and hurdles of this race is going to be unlikely.

While taking a class jump in this race, Quinz has been showing a steady improvement in his performances. He loves the going and race type but there is concern over him placing 16^th at Aintree in his last race. He is well weighted today though and if he can continue to improve there may well be a place position for him.

There has been a lot of discussion about Don’t Push It with A P McCoy saddled on him. He certainly has the class to win this race and he is known to like the distance, stamina should be no problem. He has been declining in performance slightly over the last three races but he has certainly been warming up to this race. He won last year and based on trends this gives a warning bell as repeat successes are very rare, although not impossible. He is certainly one that needs to be considered in the betting but the odds on others are likely to be more attractive.

Chief Dan George has been in steady decline recently and his last good performance was against a significantly lower class affair. Aintree is not his favourite track and I think he may struggle in todays race.

From these runners we have Tidal Bay, Quinz and Don’t Push It as potential contenders. As we know the top eight in the market are strong runners and we are missing a number of them out and so we shall take a look at them now.

The Midnight Club has been going from strength to strength recently and certainly has the class to compete. Todays race type is a clear favourite for this runner the preference is for softer going though which may be a slight concern but there is definitely contender potential here.

Oscar Time has only ever won 1 hurdles race and that was in 2008 for an 8k purse. Of course he won the Cheltenham Cup just a few weeks ago and coming on to race here is a tough call. He finished 3^rd next to The Midnight Club in the prep race at Fairyhouse though. The Grand National has been the sole aim of trainer M M Lynch this season and that suggests that he will go well although his early pace could prevent him from making the distance. Going well over three and a half miles indicates good things but the extra mile is a long distance. Certainly a runner with potential.

What A Friend loves the going, distance and track. All things in his favour and is another runner that is hard to ignore. Backstage on the other hand is popular because of his Point-to-Point victory recently. However I would like to see him improve more before placing money on him in this race.

Silver By Nature and Ballabriggs are the last two to look at in the market leaders. Silver By Nature has been racing at a steady level for a while but I think he lacks some of the class necessary in this race. However his excellent weighting my well make up for this and I expect him to run a big race. Ballabriggs has won 5 out of 7 races since 2009 but the class level of those races has not been high. He is definitely rapidly improving but has he got enough improvement in him to win the Grand National? It is certainly possible.

As you would expect most of the market leaders represent some chance in the race, this is part of what makes this the hardest race of the year to analyse. Our shortlist of potentials includes:

Tidal Bay

Quinz

Don’t Push It

The Midnight Club

Oscar Time

What A Friend

Silver By Nature

Ballabriggs

A total of eight possible contenders, not bad from 40 runners. How do we bet them? There are so many markets on Betfair this year it gives us lots of potential. First of all note the 6TBP market which gives you six runners to place, there is even a 10TBP market where the odds are going to be lower but it could well be worth using in this ultra competitive race.

I think I would start for a dutch across all these runners, at the current odds this would give you just better than 1/1 should one of them come in which I think is pretty good going. I would consider a place bet in the 6TBP market for Tidal Bay, Silver By Nature, Quinz, What A Friend and Ballabriggs with a normal place bet on The Midnight Club and Oscar Time.

There is certainly going to be a lot of excitement in this years race and hopefully we can bring in some profit as well.

Michael Wilding

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Michael Wilding is owner of Race Advisor a well respected horse racing site that aims to teach and educate as well as provide tips.

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The below comes from Dave over at Racing Trends.

Stats are based on ten years historical data.

You can read more from Dave at this link  Horse Racing Blog

Saturday

1.45 John Smith’s Mersey Novices’ Hurdle 2m4f

POSITIVE TRENDS

NEGATIVE TRENDS

GENERAL STATS

2.15 Maghull Novices’ Chase (Grade 1) 2m

POSITIVE TRENDS

NEGATIVE TRENDS

GENERAL STATS

2.50 John Smith’s Aintree Hurdle (Grade 1) 2m 4f

POSITIVE TRENDS

NEGATIVE TRENDS

GENERAL STATS

3.25 John Smith’s Handicap Chase 3m 1f

POSITIVE TRENDS

NEGATIVE TRENDS

GENERAL STATS

4.15 John Smith’s Grand National (handicap chase) – 4m 4f

POSITIVE TRENDS

NEGATIVE TRENDS

GENERAL STATS

4.55 John Smith’s Handicap Hurdle (Listed) 2m ½f

POSITIVE TRENDS

NEGATIVE TRENDS

GENERAL STATS

5.30 Champion Standard National Hunt Flat Race 2m 1f

The race was not run in 2007 so I have gone back an extra year.

POSITIVE TRENDS

NEGATIVE TRENDS

GENERAL STATS

www.RacingTrends.co.uk

Know Your All Weather Race Types by David Renham

This is the second article in a series of three all weather articles – the first being on southwell Sires In this piece I am going to look at specific race types in attempt to help you, the reader, gain that important edge over “the crowd”. Many punters are put off the all weather due to the general standard of racing – low grade handicaps, claimers and sellers are regular events on the all weather circuit, but there are plenty of positive and negative angles that once appreciated can improve your chances of making a profit. The focus of this article is these lower grade contests.

The data for this article is taken from last six years; ROI stands for return on investment; SR stands for strike rate and LTO stands for last time out. Unless otherwise stated, all profit and losses are quoted to industry starting price.

Claiming races

Market – the top three in the betting have provided just under 74% of the winners. Favourites have an especially good record in all weather claimers scoring 35.6% of the time. Indeed backing all favourites “blind” would have yielded very small losses of 4%. Indeed backing all favourites since the inception of Betfair SP would have seen you break even and that is taking commission into account. Longer priced horses have a poor record and runners priced 16/1 or bigger show significant losses. Their record reads 73 wins from 3570 qualifiers (SR 2%) showing losses of £1473.00 to (ROI -41.3%). At the completely rank outsider stage – horses priced 80/1 or bigger have produced 425 consecutive losers with just 8 of them managing a place.

Last time out – horses that won LTO go on to win again just over 25% of the time in claimers, and backing all such runners would have produced losses of around 11%. Horses that won on the all weather LTO are much better betting propositions that horses that won on the turf LTO – strike rates of 26% against 15% confirm this. Indeed, regardless of LTO position, it is an advantage to have raced on the all weather LTO rather than on the turf LTO.

Age – interestingly older horses have a better strike rate than younger ones in all age claimers. Horses aged 3 to 5 have a combined strike rate of 8.7%, whereas horses aged 6 or older have a combined strike rate of 14.4%.

Sex of horse – In claimers colts, geldings and horses are 1.62 times more likely to win than fillies and mares.

Miscellaneous stats:

1. Horses that are racing for a new stable in all weather claiming races score around 9% of the time, but backing all runners would have lost you about 46% (46p for every £1 wagered);

2. Maiden runners have a poor record in claimers scoring just 6% of the time and losing around 37%;

3. Horses that have recorded 2 or more course successes have a decent strike rate of 17% and backing all runners would have yielded very small losses of 2.2%;

4. Horses having their first ever racecourse outing are worth avoiding with only 7 wins from 229 qualifiers (SR 3.1%). Backing all debutants would have produced significant losses of £149.50 (ROI -65.3%);

5. Horses that raced in a claiming race last time have a strike rate of 15%; compare this to horses that raced in a selling race last time whose strike rate is under 8%;

6. The following trainers secured a strike rate of 20% or better during the 6-year study (from at least 60 runners) – Tom Dascombe, Dandy Nicholls, Kevin Ryan, Jim Boyle, Jack Pearce, Gary Moore.

Selling races

Market – the top three in the betting have provided 71.7% of the winners with favourites winning a third of all races. Backing all selling favourites would have yielded a loss of 6.8%. There are two favourite stats worth noting; firstly horses priced 8/11 or shorter have scored over 70% of the time and backing them all would have produced a profit of 10%; secondly favourites returning to the track less than 10 days since their last run have provided 89 winners from 227 (SR 39.2%) for a profit of £19.55 (ROI +8.6%). Runners priced 25/1 or bigger have an extremely poor record – just 20 wins from 1887 qualifiers (SR 1.1%) showing huge losses of £1164.00 to (ROI -61.7%). Horses priced 50/1 or bigger have produced just 3 winners from 890 runners for losses of over 81%.

Last time out – horses that won LTO are not good propositions in selling races. They win roughly 1 time in 5 but backing all runners would have yielded losses of around 19%. One area worth noting is that horses that ran LTO in 3yo or all age maidens have a dreadful strike rate – they have provided just 14 winners from 317 qualifiers (SR 4.4%).

Age – as with claiming races, older horses have a better strike rate than younger ones in all age claimers. However, the bias is less pronounced. Horses aged 3 to 5 have a combined strike rate of 9%, whereas horses aged 6 or older have a combined strike rate of 12.2%.

Sex of horse – in sellers once again colts, geldings and horses have an edge over fillies and mares. However, it is not quite as clear cut as it was in claimers with the male to female success ratio in sellers standing at 1.4.

Miscellaneous stats:

1. Horses upped in class have won just 4.5% of the time; horses racing in the same class as LTO have won 10.3% of the time; horses dropping in class have won 11.4% of the time;

2. Trainers Peter Evans, Jim Boyle, Gary Moore and George Baker are trainers who have good records in selling races on the all weather;

3. Horses carrying high weights in sellers have a better strike rate than those carrying low weights. Horses carrying 9st or more have a strike rate of 12.6%; horses carrying under 9st have a strike rate of 8.8%;

4. For “in running” punters it should be noted that the early leader of a 5f seller goes on to win over 25% of the time.

Handicap races (class 6 or lower)

Market – the top three in the betting have provided just over 54% of the winners. Favourites win around 1 race in 4 (26% to be precise) for losses of under 7%. The most successful favourites in handicaps have been in 2yo nurseries – a strike rate of 30.4% and profits of 6%. 3yo only handicaps see favourites perform solidly thanks to a strike rate of 30.9% with losses amounting to less than 2%. Lingfield has been most successful track for low grade handicap favourites producing a break even situation to SP.

Last time out – LTO winners score 16.6% of the time, with losses standing at 19%. However, if the LTO winners return to the track within 7 days their strike rate increases to 24%. These quick returns score 37% of the time and reach a break even situation if they start favourite. However, beware of LTO winners that start 10/1 or bigger in the betting – they have won just 4.4% of the time with steep losses of 38%.

Horses that ran in handicaps LTO are better betting propositions that horses that ran in non handicaps LTO – strike rates of 9% against 6.5% confirm this. The returns for each category though do not totally mirror the strike rates with losses of 21% for runners that ran in handicaps LTO, compared with losses of 25% for runners who ran LTO in non handicaps.

Sex of horse – the male to female success ratio is 1.3 in low grade handicaps open to both sexes. Percentage losses for male runners stand at only 17% compared with 28% for females. It is also should be noted that female runners have really struggled at Lingfield – their strike rate at the Surrey track is just 5.6% and losses are over 40%. Male runners have a definite advantage over female runners in these handicaps.

Miscellaneous stats:

1. Female runners returning to the track after a break of 57 or more days have a poor record – just 92 wins from 1967 runners (SR 4.7%) for a loss of £788.17 (ROI -40.1%);

2. Colts when starting favourites have been fairly rare (around 40 per year). However, of the 225 qualifiers over the past 6 seasons, 86 have won (SR 38.2%) for a profit of £50.05 (ROI +22.2%);

3. Runners priced 25/1 or bigger have won 2.1% of the time for losses to SP of 25%. However, since Betfair Starting Price was introduced in 2008 you could have made a profit by backing them all at BSP. Despite having only 70 winners from 3717 runners, you would have made a profit of £730.88 (ROI +19.7%).

I hope this article has shown you that the all weather offers betting opportunities in all race types – you just need to do some digging!

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Dave Renham is a leading researcher into uk horse racing.

His site at www.PunterProfits.com contains a lot more of his research work. Some is free and some is member only. It’s a good site for racing realists who believe that knowing your stats is a likely root to success.

The private boards there contain many interesting and highly past profitable threads maintained by members of punterprofits who obvioulsy have learnt a trick or two from all Dave’s horse racing research teachings.