Horses having their first run in a Handicap on the Sand
Last month I did a deep dive into the performance of horses that were having their first run in a National Hunt handicap race. In this follow up piece I am going examine the same idea but with flat horses, but the caveat being that their first handicap run must be on the all- weather NOT on the turf.
The data for this article has been taken from 1st January 2018 to 30th September 2025 for UK AW racing.
As with all my articles, profits and losses have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price (BSP) less 2% commission on any winning bets.
The A/E index (Actual / Expected) which can help to determine ‘value’ has also been calculated to BSP.
First run in a flat handicap (must be on the AW)
Let me look at the figures for all qualifiers to give us a benchmark to work from:
| Bets | Wins | Win SR % | Profit / Loss (BSP) | ROI % (BSP) | A/E (BSP) |
| 10420 | 1151 | 11.0 | + £606.30 | + 5.8 | 1.05 |
We have seen a win rate of roughly one win in nine, and as if backing all handicap debutants blind, a profit would have been achieved.
Of course, there are a few winners in there that won at very big prices so backing all such runners is not a strategy I would necessarily advocate.
I would now like to restrict the qualifiers to having had a Betfair SP of 20.0 or less, to see what that shows:
| Bets | Wins | Win SR % | Profit / Loss (BSP) | ROI % (BSP) | A/E (BSP) |
| 6208 | 1038 | 16.7 | + £290.10 | + 4.7 | 1.04 |
Obviously, the strike rate has improved and there was still a tidy profit overall. From this initial starting point, there should be an angle or two we may find to potentially exploit in the future.
I am now going to look at the Betting Market, based on their position in the Befair Exchange market. I think the Betfair market is the best guide:
| Market Rank | Bets | Wins | Win SR % | Profit / Loss (BSP) | ROI % (BSP) | A/E (BSP) |
| Favourite | 1165 | 379 | 32.5 | – £15.28 | – 1.3 | 0.97 |
| 2nd favourite | 988 | 220 | 22.3 | + £64.18 | + 6.5 | 1.08 |
| 3rd favourite | 921 | 139 | 15.1 | – £15.09 | – 1.6 | 1.03 |
| 4th in betting | 938 | 108 | 11.5 | – £5.77 | – 0.6 | 1.06 |
| 5th+ in betting | 6408 | 305 | 4.8 | + £578.26 | + 9.0 | 1.17 |
I guess it should come as no surprise based on earlier findings that the 5th + group made a fair profit. Handicap debutants starting favourite have been close to breaking even, while second favourites have made a profit.
Overall, most positions in the market have done ‘OK’ so it is time to dig a little bit deeper.
For the other areas I wish to examine, I am going to restrict qualifiers to price limit I used earlier in the second table, concentrating only on runners priced BSP 20.0 or less.
This is simply to try and eliminate skewed findings from the odd winner at ridiculous odds.
I would like to examine male runners versus female runners next, so essentially the performance of the horses by their sex.
| Sex of Horse | Bets | Wins | Win SR % | Profit / Loss (BSP) | ROI % (BSP) | A/E (BSP) |
| Male | 3831 | 707 | 18.5 | + £395.23 | + 10.3 | 1.06 |
| Female | 2377 | 331 | 13.9 | – £105.13 | – 4.4 | 1.00 |
There is a much more even split of runners here than we found over the jumps.
Traditionally, for whatever reason, male horses tend to have an edge on an artificial surface, and this definitely appears to be the case here.
We see a significant difference between the two across all metrics and most importantly when we examine the bottom lines.
Male runners have proved profitable to the tune of just over 10 pence in the £, whereas females would have lost us over 4p for every £1 bet.
Over 95% of all female qualifiers were fillies which is not unexpected. However, the small group of mares have really struggled securing just 7 wins from 99 (SR 7.1%) for a hefty loss of £61.33 (ROI –61.9%).
A look at the age of the runners next.
The majority are going to be younger horses, but it will be interesting to see whether one of the younger age groups has had more of an edge than the others:
| Horse Age | Bets | Wins | Win SR % | Profit / Loss (BSP) | ROI % (BSP) | A/E (BSP) |
| 2 | 1678 | 268 | 16.0 | + £133.19 | + 7.9 | 1.10 |
| 3 | 3701 | 631 | 17.1 | + £171.81 | + 4.6 | 1.02 |
| 4 | 702 | 116 | 16.5 | + £8.35 | + 1.2 | 1.00 |
| 5+ | 127 | 23 | 18.1 | – £23.25 | – 18.3 | 1.12 |
2 and 3yos have produced the vast majority of the profit so that will be something to look for over the coming months.
The 5yo and older group made fairly significant losses despite a good A/E index. Sometimes smaller sample sizes give us anomalies such as this.
With age stats shared it is time to have a look at the class of race to see if that throws up anything of note:
| Race Class | Bets | Wins | Win SR % | Profit / Loss (BSP) | ROI % (BSP) | A/E (BSP) |
| Class 2 | 173 | 35 | 20.2 | + £16.59 | + 9.6 | 1.03 |
| Class 3 | 331 | 72 | 21.8 | + £23.40 | + 7.1 | 0.97 |
| Class 4 | 1280 | 259 | 20.2 | – £31.66 | – 2.5 | 1.03 |
| Class 5 | 2032 | 337 | 16.6 | + £81.29 | + 4.0 | 1.06 |
| Class 6 | 2380 | 335 | 14.1 | + £212.49 | + 8.9 | 1.06 |
| Class 7 | 12 | 0 | 0.0 | – £12.00 | – 100.0 | 0 |
Class 7 races we can safely ignore due to there only being 12 qualifiers. Other than Class 4 events, there is not that much in it in terms of returns. Runners in classes 2, 3, 5 and 6 have all made fair profits so it is difficult to make a case for better or lower classes of race being best for handicap debutants.
To me there is nothing clear-cut when it comes to class of race.
How about past successes on the AW? The next set of stats I am looking at are based on previous AW career wins.
Here are my findings:
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