Monday Night is Windsor Night

A Brief History

Originally enclosed more than 700 years ago as a royal hunting ground racing was first recorded back in 1682 during the reign of Charles II, and it was in the 18^th century that the Royal Ascot meeting each June started.

During the 1800’s Flat racing began on the now current site of the course, having been established by John Frail a barber who became the manager for Disraeli’s election campaigns in the Midlands.

He went on to own several racecourses with Windsor being set up to offer racing for those horses who were considered poorer than their Ascot counterparts.

The course is famous for the 1926 triple dead heat of Dinkie, Dumax and Marvex when in the days before photo finishes a spectator managed to capture an image of the three horses crossing the line together.

Three years later in 1926 following the introduction of the betting tax by Winston Churchill, the course would see bookmakers at the Windsor course go on strike, refusing to take any bets on the races…the might of the book makers even then prevailed and the tax was scrapped a few years later.

Interestingly while most courses were unable to race during both World Wars, Windsor was allowed to continue racing but it was not to be unaffected by the war when a flying bomb landed on the course although thankfully no lives were lost as a result.

Jumping ahead to more recent years Windsor is where, in 2012, Richard Hughes landed seven winners in one afternoon from eight races. Had you been backing him that day you would have landed a 10168/1 combination.

He was only the second jockey at that time to win seven races in one meeting following on from Frankie Dettori’s success at Ascot back in 1996.

Location

The Royal Windsor course is located on the Maidenhead Road in Windsor and one and a half miles from Windsor town centre, set on the banks of the River Thames with a view of Windsor Castle in its sight.

The course is well signposted and easily accessible from Junction 6 of the M4 if travelling by car, and trains run from London Waterloo to Windsor and Eton Riverside. There are also connections from Slough which connect with the cross country lines from Paddington.

You can also take a river boat taxi from Windsor Town Centre which goes directly to the racecourse.

The Course

The course is a figure of eight in shape and a total of twelve and a half furlongs in distance. It is a sharp turning track and there are both left and right hand turns in races run over a mile and a mile and half, while shorter distances encounter only right hand turns.

Normally such a sharp track would limit sprinters but the run in at Windsor is a relatively long five furlongs and as such the sprinters are still able to run their race.

You can see a layout of the course here.

The Favourites Stats

All figures are based on data available from 1^st January 2020 to 10^th May 2023.

An explanation of A/E can be found here.

Favourites (including joint and co favourites) have produced the following set of results:

174 winners from 539 runners 32.98% -39.52pts (SP). A/E 0.92. 335 placed 62.15%.

Breaking those 539 runners down between Handicap and Non Handicap races.

Non Handicap: 71 winners from 166 runners 42.77% +4.13pts (SP)/+14.52 BFSP. A/E 0.98. 128 placed 77.11%

Handicap: 103 winners from 373 runners 27.61% -43.65 (SP)) A/E 0.88. 207 placed 55.50%.

• Favourites that won their last race have produced – 36 winners from 104 runners 34.62% -5.86pts (SP). A/E 0.91. 64 placed 61.54%.

• Favourites that had finished outside the top four on their last start produced – 55 winners from 153 runners 35.95% +21.31pts (SP) +31.12pts (BFSP). A/E 1.11. 96 placed 62.75%.

Summary: Do not discount those with a poor previous run when running at Windsor.

There MAY be profits to be had when turning up at Windsor when going off at the top end of the market off the back of a poor run…

With Non Handicap runners fairing slightly better than the handicappers.

Trainers and Favourites:

There are three trainers with standout strike rates when their runners go off as favourites at Windsor in recent years, Charlie Appleby 63.64%, John and Thady Gosden 62.50% and George Boughey 60%, and all three have had interest A/E values of 1.24, 1.51 and 1.45 respectively.

We may look at these trainers again later.

General Course Stats:

• Odds SP: 14/1 and above – 40 winners from 1797 runners 2.23%, -653pts to ISP. A/E 0.66 172 placed 9.57%.

• Previous course winners provided 63 winners from 507 runners 12.43%, -142.11pts to ISP. A/E 0.80. 169 placed 33.33%.

General Trainer Stats and Micro Angles

Interestingly the three trainers mentioned earlier are not in the overall stats so if you are able to follow the markets it may be interesting to see how their favourites fair over the summer.

However, as we state regularly following favourites is difficult unless they are a clear and obvious favourite in the betting markets as the prices can change as the gates open!

Three trainers in recent years that may be of interest when they have runners at Windsor are: Paul Cole, Simon Crisford and Hughie Morrison.

Backing their runners blindly at Windsor since 1^st January 2020 would have seen you increase your initial betting bank by 58.09% to ISP and 88.93% to BFSP (allowing for 5% commissions).

There is a nice even split in the strike rate between both Handicap and Non Handicap races.

The A/E is showing a healthy figure and the profits which we could have earned are pleasing too.

There would have been twice as much profit from the Handicappers, but this is to be expected with how the betting markets operate.

Overall, there has historically been a pleasant offering from this trio of trainers.

There have been profits each of the years, albeit 2020 was a small profit of +1.28pts to ISP / +8.97pts to BFSP, but 2023 has already got off to a flying start with 3 winners from 5 selections at the time of writing and +12.38pts to ISP / +13.98pts to BFSP.

We are tempted to leave this as it is and just to back the runners blindly, but truth be told we can’t decide whether we would be better placed to back them Win Only or Each Way using the betting Exchanges???

For the purposes of testing, and simplicity, we will suggest backing WIN Only using BFSP, but we will also be interested to see how we fair when backing Each Way as we have a feeling that may offer a significantly better return.

Watch this space…