Taking A Look at Newcastle Racecourse
Located in Gosforth Park in an 812 acre estate that also boasts a Golf Club, the Newcastle racecourse is another that holds both Flat (All Weather) and National Hunt Jump racing and is one of the busiest racecourses in the UK.
In 2025 across both codes there were some 654 races spanning across the whole year. From a low of 8 races in July to a high of 101 races in December. The All Weather track is the main focus, with some 570 of those races taking part on the Tapeta surface. Whilst just 64 of the races were jumps races the course hosts some big races. Meanwhile on the All Weather they host the Northumberland Plate, one of the richest two mile handicap races in the world. The All Weather track is also unique in the UK being the only one with a straight mile, offering a different test for the horses and jockeys.
Let’s start with the Northumberland Plate and see if we can find a few negative trends that can help us narrow down the field for this year’s edition that will be run in June. These trends are based on the last 18 editions of the race. One point of notice though is that it was run on turf until 2015 before the switch to the All Weather track.
- No horse carrying less than 7-13 (111lbs) has won (0/33)
- No horse with an Official Rating less than 85 has won (0/55)
- No horse who had a run in the last seven days has won (0/31)
- No horse with a forecast price of 33/1 or higher has won (0/42)
- No horse that has not finished in the first two at least once in its last five races has won (0/37)
- No horse that finished worse than fifth last time out has won (0/112)
- No horse that was beaten by more than 10 lengths last time out has won (0/95)
- Only one horse aged 8 or above has won (1/35) The win coming in 2021
- One final negative trend that I’m not sure how much stock we can take from is shown below:
- Jockeys with a 7 day win strike rate of 23% or higher (0/37)
On the National Hunt side of things, the Eider Handicap Chase is a Class 2 Handicap Chase run in February we emailed the trends to readers ahead of race day but have also included here for future reference.
So, let’s see if we can find some negative trends to pare down the often fairly big field.
Data is from the last 15 editions of the race.
- No winners from horses having their first run of the season (0/15)
- No horse without a top three finish in its last five runs has won (0/27)
- Any horse who has been off the track for 76 days or more has not won (0/15)
- Any horse 12 or older has not recorded a victory (0/19)
- The oldest horse(s) in the field have never won (0/15) this includes 11 year olds if eldest.
- Horses clear or joint bottom in the weights have never won (0/21)
- Only one horse has won with an Official Rating below 125 (1/65) *
- No horse has won with an Official Rating higher than 140 (0/17)
- The horse was last year’s winner though: Knockanore at 16/1!
Let’s delve into the last five years now plus those runs that have taken place this January to date. We’ll start with National Hunt.
Here are the trainers who have had at least ten wins here in that time (2021-Jan 2026)
Some interesting records there. Rebecca Menzies is showing a very healthy profit and a very good A/E (to Betfair SP). Dan Skelton has an excellent strike rate and some very nice profit as well from just 50 horses sent to the track. He also boasts an excellent A/E. As indeed does Ben Haslam.
An interesting side note on Skelton is that brother, Harry, has just 8 of those 15 wins from a little over half of the runs (27) and also has half of the profit, suggesting that although his number one jockey doesn’t always go or ride all those that are there it doesn’t deter from the horse’s chances in any way.
A look at National Hunt favourites makes for interesting reading. A loss of 18pts across 423 races and an A/E of 0.99 suggests the market is not far from right and favourites are perhaps not being over bet here.
Here’s how it looks by race type.
A fair few showing profit, not least of which are Handicap Chases, boasting a 38.46% strike
Let’s see how Handicap Chase favourites look by Trainer. Are there any standout ones?
Unfortunately, nobody has really had enough winners for any kind of solid, reliable data. However, all bar Walford and Russell have made profit and boast a 50% plus strike rate.
Removing the aforementioned Walford and Russell, leaves us with this record from our data.
A possible micro system that could be added to a portfolio with a handful of bets per year. Of course, the problem with favourite betting is you generally won’t know until right up to the off.
Here’s the table if we use Forecast Favourite. Again, Russell shows a loss as does Sue Smith. As before we’ll remove those two and see how it looks across our data.
A 75% strike rate across the board although last year saw just 1 win from 3 from these trainers. It did however still just edge into profit on place and win meaning all five years have done so.
As this is a nice easy one to save and add to the portfolio the filters are below should you wish to do so.
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