Chelmsford City Racecourse
Chelmsford City is the UK´s newest racecourse having opened in April 2015 with its All Weather polytrack and was built on the site of the previous Essex Showground. Previously known as “Great Leighs”. The Great Leighs course was opened in 2008 but by January went into administration
The racecourse describes itself as “sleek and modern” in design with it’s grandstand having been built in 2016.
2016 also saw the racecourse hold the prestigious Greenham meeting which had been scheduled to be run at Newbury, which featured three Group races.
Major races held at the course now include The Cardinal Stakes (“the final leg in the European road to the Kentucky Derby”), The Chelmer Stakes, a competitive 6f sprint, the Louis Roederer Queen Charlotte Stakes and The Chelmsford City Cup.
The course itself is located no more than 50 miles from the racing hub of Newmarket in the heart of the Essex countryside and is easily reached by most forms of transport. The main Chelmsford train station is some 20 minutes away by taxi, while the Braintree station is just 10 minutes.
The racecourse does now offer a bus service directly to the course from Chelmsford on race days, and there are two public bus companies which run from the Bus Station.
The course suggests that you try and take advantage of their bus service as “due to the nature of the busy A131 the racecourse does not recommend accessing the racecourse on foot from Great Leighs”.
Configuration of the course.
The course is laid out in an 8.5f oval as can be seen here.
The Fate of the Favourites.
(General data covers the period 2015 – to date)
Backing the clear favourites, even though they show a healthy strike rate of almost 35% would be a route to the poor house, although interestingly you would have made a profit backing the Joint/Co Favourites outright, and a fair one at that at BFSP.
In fact, you would have made a profit for 6 of the 8 years (includes 2022 to date of writing – 12th September) at BFSP. 2022 is currently just about breaking even.
And it will probably come as no surprise that those profits have been produced in the Handicapped races.
It’s a shame we can never know which horses are going to go off joint or co-favourites…
Chelmsford and the Trainers.
It will also come as no surprise that trainers’ names such as Johnston, Appleby, Gosden, head up the table when it comes to the numbers of winners at the track, but you would have probably broken your bank overall had you tried backing their runners blindly.
There are a small handful of trainers of interest who have produced a profit with their runners over the years:
Ralph Beckett (R M Beckett)
And as we can see below, recent years have been particularly profitable at Chelmsford with his runners having a healthy 20%+ strike rate.
Breaking down those profits in terms of the Class of race clearly shows that the strike rate and profits are from Class 3 through to C5 runners with just 1 winner in 17 runners from Class 6.
And apart from 2016 you would have made a profit, or at the very least broken even.
There probably won’t be that many runners over the next three months but we will be following the Beckett runners at Chelmsford in C3-C5 races and see if we can bank a profit.
System 24: (JO-95-24-10-22-OCP): Back Ralph Beckett’s Class 3, 4 and 5 runners at Chelmsford for the months of October through to December.
Owen Burrows
Runners from the Burrows yard at Chelmsford are few and far between, but it pays to take note when they send a handicapper. Burrows spent 12 seasons with Sir Michael Stoute as his assistant and surely picked up a tip (excuse the pun) or two.
A 30% strike rate with his handicappers Burrows would have landed you a profit in all but one year since 2016. We’ll keep a note of any runners but the numbers of runners at this time don’t merit a “system” per se. Add him to the tracker.
Richard Hughes
We wish we had noted this one before!
Richard Hughes’s recent success rate at Chelmsford may have already swiped us of value if this has been picked up by the eagle eyed.
In 2021, backing Richard Hughes’s runners at Chelmsford would have banked you a blind profit to level stakes of over 40 points with a 20% strike rate.
2022 to date (12th September) shows a profit of a shade over 25 points profit and a 25% strike rate.
Do we jump onboard now, or have we missed the boat?
We’ll take our chances and look out for any Richard Hughes runners at Chelmsford over the coming three months (October to December inclusive).
System 25 (JO-95-25-10-22-OCP): Back Richard Hughes’s runners at Chelmsford.
Simon Pearce
Training since 2019 Simon Pearce is based at Newmarket at Wroughton House and has had some success at Chelmsford in that time. In fact, had you backed his runners blindly you would have cleared a level stakes profit of 46 points.
Yes there is a 33/1 winner in there, but we quite like landing on one of those from time to time and we are wondering what if anything the rest of 2022 may have to offer.
System 28 (JO-95-28-10-22-OCP): Back Simon Pearce’s runners at Chelmsford.
Chelmsford and the Jockeys.
Sean Kirrane
Sean Kirrane is an apprentice jockey to Tim Easterby and since 2019 has won 5 of his 21 races at Chelmsford and those winners were not from the Easterby yard.
He’s not had any rides at Chelmsford so far this year but as the Turf Flat season draws to a close a move to the All Weather may be on the cards. We’ll keep an eye.
Kevin Stott
Kevin Stott rode a number of runners at Chelmsford during 2015-2018 and has subsequently moved on to greater things, when riding the Ayr Gold Cup winner last year. So, we are unlikely to see him appear at Chelmsford (with just 8 rides at Chelmsford since then and 3 winners).
And then of course there is…
Ryan Moore
If he’s spotted riding a horse at Chelmsford the chances are there is little if any value in his ride.
That said, there may still be a glimmer of some value to be had if you see him turn up on a ride running over 1m1f-1m6f.
Now a few more recent general course statistics for you.
(2021- to date of writing 13th September 2022)
Position in the Betting Market
The top three in the betting have provided 409 winners from 1796 runners giving a strike rate of 22.77% and an A/E of 0.88.
921 of the runners from the top three in the betting finished in the places.
Of the 580 winners during the period just 28 went off at 20/1 or greater.
Last Time Out
Horses that finished in the first three last time out produced 301 winners from 1524 runners and 684 finished placed overall.
Previous Wins at the Course.
Of those horses which had won at the track previously just 58 of them went on to win again from 442 runners.
