A Deep Dive into Two year Olds

As we approach the middle of the summer, (why does that always seem to come round so quick??!), I want to look in detail at 2yo horses with the focus on their first four career starts.

I am looking at UK Flat / All Weather race data covering 2017 to 2024 with profits and losses quoted to Betfair Starting Price (BSP) less 2% commission.

The A/E indices are based on the Betfair SPs too.

2yo races on the flat can be a little bit ‘marmite’ – some punters really like them and focus on them; others avoid them like the plague. The issue for many with 2yo races is often the lack of form.

Clearly horses making their debut have no form to go on and nearly 30% of all 2yos running are making their debut. As the season progresses one could argue it should get a little bit easier because there will be more ‘form in the book’ and less horses making their debut.

I would like to begin by looking at the performance of all two-year olds in terms of their debut run, their second run, their third run and their fourth run.

Here are the splits:

Career Runs	Bets	Wins	Win SR %	Profit / Loss (BSP)	ROI % (BSP)	A/E
0 (debut)	23156	1889	8.16	+ £781.48	+ 3.37	1.00
1	18671	2266	12.14	– £319.25	– 1.71	0.97
2	14338	1671	11.65	– £1218.9	– 8.51	1.03
3	9184	1209	13.16	+ £446.58	+ 4.86	1.04

In terms of win strike rate, the trend is generally upwards and horses having their fourth career start (3 previous runs) have the best strike rate and have produced the highest returns (nearly 5p in the £).

Of course, we know that profits can be skewed markedly by some very big prices ‘going in’, so it is prudent to see the splits when we use a price cap.

I am going to use 14.0 BSP as the maximum price allowed which roughly equates to an Industry SP of 10/1 (11.0).

Here are the figures now:

Career Runs	Bets	Wins	Win SR %	Profit / Loss (BSP)	ROI % (BSP)	A/E
0 (debut)	8611	1435	16.66	– £218.42	– 2.54	0.98
1	8956	2039	22.77	– £313.40	– 3.5	0.96
2	6331	1505	23.77	+ £290.19	+ 4.58	1.04
3	5118	1067	20.85	+ £80.77	+ 1.58	1.04

In terms of returns at least, having had two or three previous starts seems have been optimum.

I would now like to the examine the PRBs next. PRB stands for ‘Percentage of Rivals Beaten’ – this is one of many horse racing metrics I use to help me try and measure horse performance. I like this particular metric because it considers all the runners in a race.

This means we can be more confident in its findings than some other measures of performance, especially if the race sample size is on the small side. In this though our sample size is huge so we can assume the figures will be extremely accurate.

As far as PRBs are concerned the average figure should be 0.50 or 50% - I tend to use the decimal rather than the percentage. Hence, I want to examine the PRBs for different career starts for ALL runners and then those BSP 14.0 or less.

The table below displays this data:

Career Runs	PRB (All Runners)	PRB (BSP 14.0 or Less)
0 (debut)	0.46	0.62
1	0.52	0.70
2	0.50	0.70
3	0.51	0.64

As we can see, horses on debut have the lowest PRB in both groups. In terms of rivals beaten within the BSP 14.0 or less group, those with one or two previous career runs have done best.

My next port of call is to combine number of career runs with the race code of this race and the previous one.

What I mean by race code is whether the race was on turf or on the all-weather. I wondered if that would uncover anything useful.

I am sticking to horses priced under BSP 14.0 once more to avoid big priced wins skewing profit figures:

Career Runs	LTO Code	Code	Bets	Wins	Win SR%	Profit / Loss (BSP)	ROI % (BSP)	A/E
1	Turf	Turf	5622	1270	22.59	– £329.18	– 5.86	0.96
1	AW	Turf	764	147	19.24	– £53.07	– 6.95	0.91
1	Turf	AW	1497	379	25.32	+ £153.44	10.25	1.04
1	AW	AW	1073	243	22.65	– £84.59	– 7.88	0.92
2	Turf	Turf	3971	933	23.5	+ £111.17	+ 2.8	1.02
2	AW	Turf	518	109	21.04	+ £71.11	+ 13.73	1.10
2	Turf	AW	1034	270	26.11	+ £70.30	+ 6.8	1.09
2	AW	AW	808	193	23.89	+ £37.60	+ 4.65	1.03
3	Turf	Turf	3084	664	21.53	+ £75.42	+ 2.45	1.05
3	Turf	AW	955	195	20.42	+ £28.30	+ 2.96	1.02
3	AW	AW	647	139	21.48	+ £60.79	+ 9.4	1.10
3	AW	Turf	432	69	15.97	– £83.75	– 19.39	0.88

In terms of profit and loss horses switching codes have performed better than those sticking to the same one.

Combining the data shows this more clearly:

Race Code Switch?	Bets	Wins	Win SR %	Profit / Loss (BSP)	ROI % (BSP)	A/E
No	14990	3372	22.5	– £273.33	– 1.82	1.00
Yes	5415	1239	22.88	+ £330.87	+ 6.11	1.02

More horses stick to the same code as the previous race (turf to turf or AW to AW), but those switching look the ones to focus on.

I want to have a look at data from handicap nurseries next.

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