Place Betting Strategy – small non-handicaps

Small Non Handicaps

So, I took a look at non-handicap races with between 8 and 15 runners

The data that I am using is from the 8th of July 2013 to the 9th of June 2015.

In other words, almost 2 years of data.

I'll share the raw data in case you want to come up with a better way of doing things.

However, I'm between a rock and a hard place here..

It takes me ages to create all the different spreadsheets and I may not be able to get those done tonight.

I just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about working on this strategy.

Tomorrow there will probably not be a Morning News.

So, if you don't get your morning news tomorrow, don't worry - I won't have died in my sleep - I'll have probably just had a little lie in!

I have got another 4 or 5 hours work to do on the Place Betting Strategy tonight and that means that I might want a lie in tomorrow.

After all, I've been at it since about 5am this morning.

If there's no Morning New then I'll update you with results of the new strategy sometime tomorrow afternoon.

The Spreadsheets

I ran a query on the database to select every top on yield horse (from the top three rated horses) in every handicap race where there were 16 or more runners.

This data is available at PBS03andPBS04.zip

I have zipped up all of my working files to make them easier to download.

This is what I shall be working with.

Note - that link might not work until tomorrow morning.

You'll see that, at the bottom of the spreadsheets, there are a number of tabs.

The first tab (Data) contains the raw Data.

PBS03

I started off by taking a look at a number of different filters and detailed the results on the spreadsheets titled PBS03.

As you can see, I did a lot of analysis but nothing stood out until, that is...

I had that "Bingo!" moment and realised that Focus Ratings does better for some race type than for others.

So, why not just discard those races that Focus Ratings doesn't do well at?

I did this and carried on my investigations on the spreadsheets titled PBS04.

The selection process only allowed race types where the minimum strike rate was 30% or greater and the minimum ROI was 95% or greater.

This gave me about 3200 races over the 23 month period and I'm looking for another 2 races a day to add to the one race per day that I got from PBS01 (16 runner plus non-handicaps.)

So, I need about 1380 valid races from the spreadsheet; that means that I can add additional filters to get rid of about 60% of the races and improve the strike rate and ROI.

PBS04

At this point, the valid race types are, as follows...

All Weather

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Apprentice	12	41.67%	115.98%
Claiming	52	50.00%	106.29%
Classified Stakes	1	100.00%	587.10%
Conditions Race	15	40.00%	109.82%
Maiden	582	39.89%	96.21%
Selling	33	54.55%	108.42%

Flat

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Auction Stakes	2	50.00%	130.36%
Claiming	39	48.72%	104.87%
Intermediate Race	2	50.00%	164.83%
Maiden	982	43.28%	106.25%
Novice	4	50.00%	128.73%
Nursery	48	39.58%	100.74%
Selling	58	51.72%	97.13%

National Hunt - Chase

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Beginners	138	33.33%	96.91
Juvenile	38	42.11%	95.15%

National Hunt - Flat

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Intermediate Race	28	32.14%	115.56%
NH Flat	298	33.89%	115.40%

National Hunt - Hurdles

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Charity Stakes	3	100.00%	186.83%
Introductory Hurdle	4	50.00%	98.33%
Maiden	477	39.62%	102.92%
Novice	433	39.95%	103.82%
Selling	40	55.00%	121.24%

Overall, we have 3289 races and a strike rate of 40.92%. The basic ROI is 104.35%.

Now, that's a pretty good start for a strategy!

It does help if the strategy is profitable (and with a high strike rate) before you even start.

I did a whole load of analysis on this data and found that the key defining element was RC1.

However, at this point I did have to somewhat question my motives.

I was looking for a strategy which gave me 3 bets a day and 5 winning days a week.

Now, it could be that, by place betting the horse that is top on yield, I may never get this.

And so, I made a major decision to just come up with A Profitable High Strike Rate Strategy.

This does mean that I'll have to re-visit the 16 runner plus non-handicap strategy but...

Even if we only end up with one bet a day (I still want those 5 winning days a week) but at a higher strike rate and more profit, does that matter?

I think not.

Now, free from the constraints of my initial goal, I did some more analysis on RC1.

What is RC1?

RC1 is an abbreviation of Race Coefficient 1.

RC1 starts off as the percentage of horses in the race that I can actually rate.

I then subtract from this, 0.01127 times the total number of runners.

The reason I do that is that the accuracy of the ratings decreases as the number of horses in the race increases.

The 0.01127 number is recalculated, on a monthly basis, as the accuracy of the ratings increases over time.

And finally, if the confidence level of the top rated horse is 200% (the maximum), I then increase RC1 by 5% as the ratings are about 5% more accurate when that is the case.

RC1 Analysis

So, I created a new column which I called RC1%.

I've done some initial analysis on this and have shown the results in the RC1 Detailed Analysis column of PBS04.

I've highlighted some sweet spots and would like to explain them here.

Up to an RC1 of 29%

If I can only rate about 29% of all horses in a race I wouldn't normally rate that race - too risky.

An RC1 of between 29% to 32.99%

There's a definite sweet spot here.

And there's good reason for that.

If there are 10 horses in a race and I can only rate 3 of them then there's a reason for that.

Perhaps some of the horses have been racing in Kuwait or France and, as a result, I don't have any numbers for them.

Perhaps those other 7 horses just haven't raced enough for me to have created a rating for them.

In a way, that turns a 10 horse race into a 3 horse race.

Anyway, there's a sweet spot here and I kind of like it.

An RC1 of between 33% to 66.99%

Now, is is a dodgy area for me.

I can rate about half the horses in a race but there are half the runners that I can't rate.

These are the types of races that I'd avoid.

An RC1 of between 67% to 90.99%

Another hotspot and...

This is a sweet spot for me.

I can rate upwards of two thirds of all horses in a race and, thus, I've got a pretty good idea of the abilities of all the horses.

By just concentrating on these sweet spots (and the race type filters) I am now down to 949 races for 23 months.

That equals about 41 extra races a month.

Conclusion

I'm now going to cut a new spreadsheet with the following filters...

All Weather

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Apprentice	12	41.67%	115.98%
Claiming	52	50.00%	106.29%
Classified Stakes	1	100.00%	587.10%
Conditions Race	15	40.00%	109.82%
Maiden	582	39.89%	96.21%
Selling	33	54.55%	108.42%

Flat

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Auction Stakes	2	50.00%	130.36%
Claiming	39	48.72%	104.87%
Intermediate Race	2	50.00%	164.83%
Maiden	982	43.28%	106.25%
Novice	4	50.00%	128.73%
Nursery	48	39.58%	100.74%
Selling	58	51.72%	97.13%

National Hunt - Chase

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Beginners	138	33.33%	96.91
Juvenile	38	42.11%	95.15%

National Hunt - Flat

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Intermediate Race	28	32.14%	115.56%
NH Flat	298	33.89%	115.40%

National Hunt - Hurdles

Race Type	Races	Strike Rate	ROI
Charity Stakes	3	100.00%	186.83%
Introductory Hurdle	4	50.00%	98.33%
Maiden	477	39.62%	102.92%
Novice	433	39.95%	103.82%
Selling	40	55.00%	121.24%

An RC1 of between 29% to 32.99%

An RC1 of between 67% to 90.99%

I'll report upon this later tonight or tomorrow.

Wine O'Clock has arrived (although I do have to say that it was a little bit late tonight!) and I'm pretty tired (and going a bit goggle eyed from looking at numbers all day) and so...

I am rather tempted just to take the rest of the day off and...

Sit in the garden with a good book.

As always...

My kindest regards