Where To Find Over 70% Of All Winners

Open any newspaper or look at any racing web site on the internet and you will be flooded with horses, races, statistics, jockey names, trainer names, course stats, the going and a heck of a lot more. Even starting to try and  filter the info into manageable chunks can seem quite daunting, in fact just where do you start?

As you may or may not know I am a firm believer that the place to find a large percentage of winners is at the head of the betting market, specifically the first four or five favourites.

The stats do not lie and when there is a consistent 75% to 80% of all winners coming from the first five in the betting then you just have to say it would be crazy to start looking elsewhere for your winners.

I also believe that there is enough racing to be able to concentrate on certain races, (specialisation is another of my favourite topics) and field sizes comes into this with races of between 7 and 12 runners being my personal preference as you have enough horses to be able to get a decent price.

Not too few to make the race possibly be a falsely run affair and not too many to make the task of picking the winner too tough.

If you look at the data below, you can see what percentage of each race, the first 5 horses gives us.

7 runners = 71.4%

8 runners = 62.5%

9 runners = 55.5%

10 runners = 50%

11 runners = 45.4%

12 runners = 41.6%

So for 7 to 10 runner races you have at least 50% of the runners and for the 11 and 12 runner races you still have over 40%. Bearing in mind we are going to find the winner from the first 5 in the betting around eight times out of ten, these stats confirm that you have a massive advantage or edge, simply looking no further than these five horses and by looking outside of these runners could be considered a waste of time.

In 2013 there were 6303 races with between 7 and 12 runners, meaning an average of 17 races per day, so as you can see that just by concentrating on these field sizes there are more than enough decent betting opportunities throughout the year.

Recent Results

I have just taken a look back at the last three days racing and the results bear out this strong pointer towards the first five in the betting when you concentrate on races of between 7 and 12 runners.

The lists below show the price of the winner and it’s place in the betting market, 1st equals Favourite, 2nd equals 2nd fav etc. up to 5th.

Monday 24th

3/1 2nd
16/1 5th
8/1 5th
3/1 2nd
12/1 XXX
11/4 2nd
7/2 2nd
9/4 2nd
5/1 3rd
4/1 3rd
1/3 1st
9/1 4th
50/1 XXX
9/2 3rd
11/1 XXX
13/8 1st

Sunday 25th

9/4 1st
6/1 4th
8/11 1st
7/1 3rd
11/4 2nd
5/1 3rd
4/1 2nd

Saturday 26th

7/2 2nd
3/1 1st
9/4 1st
5/2 2nd
Evens 1st
8/1 5th
11/10 1st
3/1 2nd
9/4 1st
9/2 3rd
2/1 1st
1/4 1st
8/1 5th
7/1 3rd
2/1 1st
9/2 2nd
7/1 4th
10/3 2nd
10/1 4th
15/2 4th
33/1 XXX
8/11 1st
12/1 XXX
7/4 1st
11/2 3rd

So from 48 races over three days, the winner of 43 of them came from the first five in the betting market, giving this small sample a 90% strike rate and for me more than enough proof that if you want to know where to start looking for the winner of winnable races (7 to 12 runners), you just have to concentrate on these five horses.

Looking at the winners too you will see some decent priced winners at 16/1, 10/1, 9/1, 8/1, 7/1 and more, so you do not have to compromise on price every time, with the average starting price being 4.3/1.

As I say this is a very, very small sample and some days will be better than others but it does give a good pointer I am sure you will agree.

The Next Step From Here

So if you want to narrow down a field then you know which horses to look at and in many cases you could back two or even three and still make a profit, however you don’t want to compromise too much on price as a couple of races without the winner will leave you a fair bit behind.

Clearly however, you are still going to have to make a selection from these five and this is down to you but it can also depend on what type of race you are looking at, Handicaps or Non handicaps for example.

In Non Handicap races you should concentrate on recent form, the better trainers and the class of the horse. In Handicaps races form can of course be important but also horses that are dropping down the weights close to or coming close to their last winning mark and stable confidence or gambles on horses that should not be one of the first five in the betting going on recent or overall form.