It’s Champions Day at Ascot this Saturday (October 19th) but I want to concentrate on one of the supporting meetings – Stratford’s jumps fixture. In the past, I have rather unkindly referred to this venue as a “dog track” and a “front-runners’ benefit” where you simply need to back the horse who is likely to lead into the first bend in order to make a profit. Having been critical of pundits who use throwaway comments like this but don’t back them up with data, I felt the need to address the situation…
I’ve gone back to late August 2015 and looked at the last 1000 races run at Stratford, which featured 8086 runners. Here are there stats split by running style (L = led, P = prominent and H = held up)…
Please note that the 14 horses who weren’t awarded a pace abbreviation by Proform probably refused to race or fell/unseated at the first.
Almost half (3977) of the 8086 runners were described as held up, but they only won on 287 occasions (7.22% strike-rate) whereas front-runners (a pace abbreviation of L) landed 251 races from just 1073 runners (23.39% strike-rate). The hold-up horses returned a huge loss of £1610.42 at SP (-£679.21) at Betfair SP) and laying them at Betfair SP, after 2% commission, would have returned a profit of £580.46 (+14.80%). Prominent racers (e.g. “tracked leader(s)”, “chased leader(s)”) landed the other 462 races from 3022 runners (15.29% strike-rate), returning a loss at SP but a profit at Betfair SP.
The strike-rates for front-runners were similar whether for chases, hurdles or national hunt flat races (bumpers)…
The above stats suggest that, as a general rule, front-runners make great bets at Stratford but how do we profit from this. The obvious angle is to stare at the TV in the seconds leading up to the off and simply back the horse(s) lining up in front who look like they want to make the running. This is a popular option with in-running traders who might want to be in and out of the market quickly – backing at 10-1 and laying 8-1 after the first couple of furlongs for example. For this reason, you will often see the price of likely front-runners contract just before the off. However, jumping off in front doesn’t turn a slow horse into a fast one, a poor jumper into a good one or a weak finisher into a strong one and this method is risky (there are no refunds if your front-runner falls at the first).
The market has been a good guide to the success of front-runners at Stratford and if we split the 1073 qualifiers (there can be more than one front-runner in a race if two or more runners dispute the early lead) by SP rank we get the following figures…
SP favourites who made the running won 119 of their 219 start (54.34%) for a profit of £62.44 to a £1 level stake at SP and those who started as second, third, fourth of fifth favourites also made a healthy return. This still leaves us with the problem of how to determine the likeliest front-runner before the race.
We could try looking at how the runners were ridden last time out – Proform has a handy ‘pace abbreviation LTO’ feature which gives the following results…
The first group of blanks (438 runners) were newcomers, foreign imports or ex-pointers, while the 25 others were ones who refused or fell/unseated early last time and weren’t allocated a pace abbreviation for that effort. Backing the 1080 horses who made the running (L) in their latest start didn’t help – they returned a loss of £188.33 at SP. Now let’s look at the aggregate running style from the last three runs, awarding 4pts for a front-runner, 2pts for a prominent racer and zero for a hold-up horse…
This is a little more helpful, with the strike-rate generally on an upward curve. For example, horses who were held-up in their last three starts (0pts) had a 10.28% strike-rate, whereas those with 10pts (e.g. “led”, “chased leader” and “led” on last three starts) had a 19.80% strike-rate). However, all groups are still showing a loss at SP.
How about ground conditions? We often see the inside of jumps tracks (especially in hurdle races, which usually feature more runners than chases) get churned up quickly when the going is on the slow side putting the front-runners/prominent racers, who naturally migrate to the inside rail, at a disadvantage. Let’s return to those 1073 horses who made the running over the last 1000 Stratford races and see how they fared on different going (judged by Proform’s actual going verdict, not the official going)…
Soft ground runners returned a profit, but the sample size was small. The bulk of the profit came on genuinely good or faster going. However, we’re still left with the original problem of not knowing who is going to make the running until the race has started.
I’m in danger of approaching the end of a 1000-word article about one racecourse without coming up with a punting angle but I’m going to try this at Saturday’s Stratford meeting where the going is currently described as ‘soft, heavy in places’ with showers forecast.
With the usual bias to front-runners in danger of disappearing on the prevailing deep ground we could be in for some shock results. Over the past 1000 Stratford races we could have bet every runner (over 1800 of them) on good to soft or softer going and made a healthy profit at Betfair SP…
Conversely, laying every runner on good or faster going would have returned a profit.
It’s possible that we could back every runner at the meeting and make a profit (buying SPs with the spread betting firms is one option) but I’m going to simply lay the ones who the pace map suggest are likely to make the running or at least race prominently (i.e. those with a Proform pace rating of 6 or higher). Since the beginning of 2021, there have been only 14 such winners from 145 bets (9.66%) for a loss of £69.62 to a £1 level stake at SP (-£57.84 at Betfair SP) and laying them at Betfair SP after 2% commission would have returned a profit of £55.12 (+38.01%). I’ll post a list of the qualifiers on Friday, either on X (@trendhorses) or by updating this article. Please feel free to remind me!
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