Switching From the Flat to the National Hunt

There are several horses in training that switch between racing on the Flat and racing in a National Hunt race. In this article I am going to see whether there is any worthwhile data out there that will either point me in the direction of a good bet, or indeed highlight a poor bet to avoid.

I am going concentrate on UK flat racing, and the facts and figures has been taken from the past 10 full seasons (2012 – 2021).

Any profits/losses have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price (BSP) less 5% commission.

I have never delved into this type of research before, so I am extremely interested to see where the research takes us. I am not expecting anything earth shattering but am hoping to find a few pleasant surprises.

So let me start by sharing the overall figures for the last 10 full seasons where a horse is running in a National Hunt race having raced on the flat last time out.

We see a relatively low strike rate of around 1 win in every 12 which is to be expected. A small profit would have been made, but essentially this is down to a few huge, priced winners (14 have been priced 100/1 or more on Betfair including one at 585/1 and another at 437/1).

Turf / All Weather LTO – From the initial starting point, I wanted to look at was to see whether a Flat run on turf last time was better or worse than a last time out All Weather Flat run.

The table below gives us the splits:

There is quite a difference here in terms of strike rate at least.

A turf run last time out definitely looks preferable. There is also an edge in the A/E indices for LTO turf Flat runners.

Market factors – due to what I shared earlier about big, priced runners; it will probably come as no surprise when I tell you that horses at BSP prices of over 30.00 made a profit.

A return of 14 pence in the £ was secured which is decent. However, with just 97 winners from 5754 runners this means on average you are winning 1 bet in every 59.

Backing such runners is not that viable in the real world – you would need a huge bank to cope with such long losing runs.

Indeed, we could see losing runs in excess of 100 races, maybe more.

Hence not for me, and I am guessing not for most of you reading this.

On the plus side, if we focus on the front end of the market, we find a potentially positive angle. Horses with a BSP price of 3.00 or less provided an impressive 245 winners from 500 runners (SR 49%) showing a profit of £35.26 (ROI +7.1%).

These qualifiers would be worth considering in the future.

Distance LTO – as one might expect, last time out sprinters (those who raced over 5 to 6 furlongs) rarely switch to the National Hunt code on their next start.

Only 142 have tried in the past 10 years, and all 142 have lost.

Indeed just 5 managed to place (one second and three thirds). In general, when looking at LTO factors, the longer the distance raced on the flat the better.

The table below shows this neatly:

The 10% strike rate for LTO flat races of 1 mile 5 furlongs or more can be improved if restricting it to Turf flat races LTO only – strike rate increases then to 11.8% (with an increase also in A.E index to 0.92).

In our Gold edition Dave tells us how to profit from LTO runs, which courses to avoid, and which trainer can offer a standout performance when sending their runners from the Flat to National Hunt Jumps.

To read the rest of this article upgrade to a Gold or Platinum account now by clicking HERE

Already a Gold or Platinum member? Read the full article in Issue 95