August Micro Systems
As always, a quick look back over how the last month finished, as of writing, which was June.
All in all, not a lot to get excited about, three of the systems failed to see a single qualifier and the Johnston system had a very poor return managing just 2 wins from 23 selections and ending up over 16 points down.
The one (minor) success was the Michael Appleby system. Whilst it ended up a point down on the win side of things it made a very nice 9.37 points profit on places and is one I will run again next year. Those places profits coupled with 2.92 points profit on places on Aidan O’Brien’s system meant that places at least showed a profit on the month, coming in 6.04 points up. Johnston’s -16 points meant wins were never going to show profit and in fact all of them ended up down, albeit only a point or two in most cases.
Here’s the final table.
So, it is onwards then, for a dig around to see if we can find some micro systems for August.
This month we’re going to start with something a little different and perhaps speculative. It’s certainly something I’ve never tried looking at before in terms of finding a micro system.
Below is the table for the past three years of the last track a horse ran at before any run in August.
Listed below are the top 10 on strike rate.
All of these come in with a positive A/E as you might expect as these are the best ten results although there was no guarantee that would be the case.
Southwell comes out top as having the best percentage of winners from runners who ran there last before a Flat course run in August.
All bar 5 were All Weather runs.
We’ll exclude the five National Hunt runners, none of which won.
This actually shows profit across each of the last three August’s and also would appear to show something of a trend.
In 2023, thirty horses ran in August off the back of an AW run at Southwell.
Only two of them won but they still managed to record a 3.23 point profit.
2024 saw virtually double the amount with 59 runners returning 10 points of profit and 2025 almost doubled again to 109 runners with 25.90 points profit.
All very interesting! I think I might keep a record of this August’s as a whole purely out of interest in what kind of total number of runners we get this year.
As it stands though it is of course way too many qualifiers for a monthly micro system
Let’s take a look at where they actually raced and where the majority are going to.
The answer is pretty much everywhere!
Let’s look at where they finished last time out.
There’s a couple of minus figures but essentially a top six finish in their previous race is where 90% of the winners came from. Let’s remove the rest and see what that looks like.
We’ve lost one of the two winners from 2023 leaving a 6.27 point loss for that from 14 bets rather than the initial 30 but 2024 and 2025 have improved to 32 and 54 points profit respectively and dropped from 59 qualifiers to 35 in 2024 and down from 109 bets to 75 for 2025. There’s still too many for a micro system but it’s intriguing nonetheless.
If we look at the August race distance compared to their Southwell run, it’s those that have kept to the same distance that have performed best. A 28.07% strike rate compared to 22% and 18% for further and shorter distances.
A look at how long ago that Southwell run was shows that it really doesn’t seem to matter. Those over 150 days (7) did only manage one winner but it was at a BSP of 17.20. The best grouping would be having had that last run between 4 and 20 days ago. That tranche have a record of 28 runners 10 winners for a profit of just over 30 points and also brought in almost 20 points profit on place as well. Across the three August’s we get these totals.
I think for the purposes of a live test we’ll go with this for our micro system. I will monitor them as a whole as well though, ignoring the days since run filter because they are more profitable without that albeit with a fair few less bets.
Longest Losing Run (Wins): 5
Longest Losing Run (Places): 2
Let’s have a look at Brighton next.
Right off the bat Brighton is profitable in each of the years as well. It’s only just in profit in 2023 by a point and a half but 2024 shows 27 points and 2025 almost 56 points. Again, far too many bets for a micro system though so let’s delve a little deeper.
A look at track region is interesting. Brighton is of course in the South East of England. Looking at the track raced at during August those in South East England and Central East England are where the profit lies.
If we look at distance changes those racing at further distances have managed just 5 wins from 54 races although there must have been a big winner in there because it still made 5 points of profit despite the 9% strike rate.
We’ll remove them though which brings our strike rate up to 18.45% on the rest for now.
If we look at the class of August’s races then those who have come from a race at Brighton to run in a Class 2 race have gone 0 for 10. Seeing as the vast majority of Brighton’s races are in Classes 4 to 6 I think that’s a valid filter to apply.
Any horse going from Brighton to a Festival in August hasn’t won so we’ll remove those.
We still need to lose quite a few qualifiers here if we’re going to make this a micro system. Given that all the tracks are in two adjacent areas let’s look at the distance travelled figures.
Those horses who have travelled more than 150 miles have won just 4 times from 38 runners, for a 7 point loss. Let’s lose those.
A look at race types show that we can stick to Handicap races as that is where all the profit lies.
This should leave us with around a bet per day.
Strike rates are not the greatest in two of the years but there are plenty of decent priced winners and the A/E’s are very good.
Longest losing run (Wins): 10
Longest losing run (Places): 5
Let’s look at Ascot now.
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