An All Weather guide for this winter

By the time you read this article, the All Weather season will be getting into full swing. All weather racing has often got a bit of raw deal from some flat aficionados, but I think the quality of racing has steadily improved over the years, and from a flat fan myself it means we get flat racing all year round. Personally, I have more success on the flat, so I am happy about it at least!

In this piece I am going to delve into several different areas to hopefully give you some useful insights and stats to help you with your punting on the sand this winter. The data set I will be examining goes back to the start of 2015 (up to and including 8^th September 2021). Also, with Southwell having changed its surface this summer I will be focusing on stats for the other 5 courses (Chelmsford, Kempton, Lingfield, Newcastle, and Wolverhampton).

Last Time Out (LTO) Winners

Some punters are drawn to last time out winners for obvious reasons. Horses that have won last time out are clearly in form, but in terms of All Weather LTO winners, only 1 in 5 on average managed to back up that win next time out.

Backing all LTO winners would have lost you 13p in the £ to SP, but only 4p in the £ to Betfair Starting Price (BSP).

Here are some All Weather LTO winner stats that I hope will steer you towards to some good bets, but equally importantly steer you away from some poor ones:

Horses that won at Chelmsford LTO have proved the best value of all. Losses to SP of 8p in the £ to SP, but profitable to BSP to the tune of over 4p in the £ (ROI +4.56% to be exact).

Horses that won at Chelmsford LTO have proved very profitable when they turned up at Kempton for their next run. These winners running at the Surrey track next time have provided an impressive 64 winners from 290 runners (SR 22.1%) for a healthy BSP profit of £89.22 (ROI +30.8%). You would have even made a profit to SP albeit much smaller (ROI +4.4%).

Horses that won at Wolverhampton LTO have proved the worst value with losses to SP of over 16p in the £ to SP. Losses to BSP have been less but still around the 8% mark.

Horses that raced at Newcastle having won at Wolverhampton LTO have had a dreadful time of it winning barely 12% of all races from 187 runners losing 38p in the £ to BSP in the process.

Horses that won at Lingfield LTO in a handicap have performed well if returning to Lingfield in another handicap. 23.2% of them have won for a small BSP profit of just over 3p in the £. However, if they return to the track within 2 weeks of that win the record looks impressive – 68 winners from 268 runners (SR 25.4%) for a BSP profit of £59.84 (ROI +22.3%). A profit of more than 20p in the £ is not to be sneezed at. What is interesting is that in 6 of the 7 years studied the strike rate was in excess of 25%. Now whether this sort of return can continue in the future is unclear, but it will be something that I will monitor.

Over half of the LTO winners at Newcastle race again at the same venue next time (56% of them to be precise). This is almost certainly down to geographical reasons as Newcastle is out a limb a little being so far north compared with the other All Weather tracks. Indeed, the distance from Newcastle to either Kempton or Lingfield is over 300 miles. Hence it is unusual for LTO winners at Newcastle to travel south next time to contest a race at either Kempton or Lingfield. However, when they have, they have done extremely well going back to the start of 2015. 172 LTO Newcastle winners have made the long trip with an impressive 52 winning again.

This equates to an impressive strike rate of 30.2%. Backing them to SP made a pleasing profit of over 26p in the £; at BSP this increased to a very acceptable 38p in the £.

More Last Time Out stats

Horses that raced in a National Hunt LTO race have a very poor record when switching to all weather on their next run. Just 180 have been successful from a total of 3154 runners (SR 5.7%). Losses to SP stand at 41p in the £; losses to BSP are still over 16p in the £ (ROI –16.2%). Losses are even steeper if racing at a Northern National Hunt track LTO – a massive loss 31p in the £ to BSP.

Male runners returning to the track within 4 days of their last run have provided 382 winners from 1947 runners (SR 19.6%) – this is a good strike rate winning virtually 1 in every 5 races. They would have made you a BSP profit too of £118.86 (ROI +6.1%).

Horses upped in class 3 or more have a poor record on the sand. 562 horses have tried to bridge this huge class rise but only 51 have managed to win (SR 9.1%) for huge BSP losses of £224.30 (ROI –38.4%). It is clearly very difficult to bridge that kind of class gap.

Beaten favourites LTO generally lose around 3p in the £, but if those beaten runners have come from a Grade 1 track, then they have proved profitable. 195 winners from 808 (SR 24.1%) for a BSP profit of £84.69 (ROI +10.5%). For the record there are 8 Grade 1 tracks namely Ascot, Doncaster, Epsom, Goodwood, Newbury, Newmarket (both Rowley and July courses), Sandown and York.

Market Forces

Let me look at some of the betting market data now.

Firstly, a look at how the favourites have fared at each of the tracks. For this I am looking at clear favourites only:

Relatively modest losses across the board.

Best in terms of returns has been Wolverhampton losing just over 1p in the £.

Drilling into Wolverhampton favourites in more detail I have found a couple of profitable areas; or at least have proved profitable in the past.

In addition, one break even stat and one negative stat:

2yo races have seen favourites win 41% of the time for a small return of 5.5%.

Amateur races are quite rare at Wolverhampton but in the 53 such contest an amazing 25 favourites have prevailed (SR 47.2%) for a BSP profit of £21.32 (ROI +40.2%).

Handicap favourites at Wolverhampton have broken even to BSP.

Very short, priced favourites at Wolverhampton (SP 8/11 or shorter) would have lost you money to BSP. Roughly 10p in every £ bet.

To read the rest of this article upgrade to a Gold account now by clicking HERE and read which trainer track combinations offer the best returns for your money.

David Renham