A Real Hotchpotch

When researching racing you often look at ideas that are never shared to the readership due to the fact there is not enough ‘meat’ for a whole article. Therefore, for this piece I am looking at a hotchpotch of ideas – some of which I hope you find interesting. The focus is Flat/All Weather in the UK.

Grade 1 Courses v All Weather Courses – A Price Comparison

My first port of call is looking at the Betfair prices at Grade 1 courses and comparing them with the all weather tracks. Now in the UK there are 8 courses that are generally considered Grade 1 (top level if you like). These are Ascot, Doncaster, Epsom, Goodwood, Newbury, Newmarket (both the July and Rowley courses), Sandown and York.

In terms of the all weather tracks we have 6 – Chelmsford, Kempton, Lingfield, Newcastle, Southwell and Wolverhampton.

So, here’s what I did – I chose a variety of starting prices (actual SP prices) and compared them with the average of their Betfair prices. I looked at the last 4 seasons (2017-2020).

Here is what I found:

As we can see the Betfair Starting Price at the all weather courses was higher in 8 of the 9 instances. In terms of return on investment, when backing all such runners ‘blind’ all weather courses out performed Grade 1 tracks in 6 of the 9, including all 5 of the shorter prices (2/1 to 6/1).

The data seems to indicate therefore that there is better value in backing in all weather races compared to races at the top tracks when using BSP. This seems especially true when looking at the favoured end of the betting market.

Dave Renham

For Gold readers Dave shares his research on Weight in Handicap Races, Winning Streaks including a very simple system that makes long term profits, Handicap Winners up in Class and where to find the profit from Course Winners.

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