The British Flat turf season comes to an end at Doncaster this Saturday (November 9th) and Flat-racing punters will only have the all-weather to bet on until the spring. One phrase likely to be uttered from the mouths of racing pundits this winter is “…has the advantage of the inside rail” but ‘dead’ rails crop up regularly on artificial surfaces and such statements need to be questioned. The inside route is rarely helpful on Lingfield’s Polytrack surface, putting low-drawn prominent racers at a disadvantage, but what about Wolverhampton?
For the purposes of this article I’ve studied all Wolverhampton handicaps of 7+ runners since the beginning of 2019, over distances of 9.4f or shorter, and I’ve limited it to horses who ran on the all-weather last time out. This is the breakdown by stall position…
Stalls 2 to 8 have a win strike-rate (WIN S/R in the above table) in double-digits but there’s a drop-off for stall 1 to just 8.548%, thanks to just 124 winners from 1462 bets. The expected number of winners based on their odds (EX Wins) was 159.59, giving a WAX score (winners against expected) of -35.59. Backing stall 1 blind in these races would have returned a loss of £586.81 to a £1 level stake at SP (-40.14% on turnover), while laying the same horses at Betfair SP would have produced a profit of £383.08 (+26.20%) after 2% commission. High draws also underperformed and if we combine those drawn in stalls 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 we get the following results…
…another huge loss at SP (-£1060.41) and a healthy return by laying at Betfair SP (+£511.05 after commission).
Before we start laying stalls 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 blind, we need to consider running style. A high draw might not be a disadvantage if the horse in question is a fast starter. The following table shows the Proform pace abbreviation (L = led, P = prominent, H = held up) for those 2993 high-drawn runners…
…The front-runners fared well, returning a profit of £67.91 and the prominent racers returned a small profit at Betfair SP. Predicting the likeliest leader(s) is not always as easy as looking at a pace map. Running styles can change, especially on handicap debuts or when first-time headgear is introduced. However, Proform’s pace rating gives us a good guide – this looks at the runners’ last three performances and awards 4pts for a front-running effort, 2pts for a prominent ride (e.g. chased/tracker leader(s)) and zero for a hold-up ride, giving a total score between 0 and 12. The pace ratings for the 2993 horses in question were as follows…
…those with a pace rating between 0 and 4 fared poorly as a group…
…returning a loss of £915.62 (-41.43%). Laying the same horses at Betfair SP returned a profit of £519.80 after 2% commission (23.52%) on turnover. You don’t need the Proform software to produce a pace rating – it can be done manually by glancing at the last three runs of the participants in the Racing Post newspaper or on a website such as Racing Post, Sporting Life or At The Races.
Returning to those stall 1 runners…if the inside berth is such a disadvantage in handicaps of 7+ runners over the shorter trips, surely this will be reflected in the betting market? These are the qualifiers split by SP rank (1 = fav, 2 = second fav etc)…
…what’s interesting is the poor record of the market leaders – just 36 winners from 191 bets against a WAX score of 54.16.
It’s also worth noting that both the above angles – opposing stall 1 runners as well as those in stall 9 or higher who are likely to be ridden patiently, work better in the winter months.
Summary/system rules
- Wolverhampton handicaps, 5f-9.4f, fields of 7+ runners, horses who ran on the all-weather last time out…
- Oppose stall 1 runners regardless of running style
- Oppose those drawn in stall 9 or higher who are likely to be ridden patiently
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