Patterns In The Sand | Chapter Six

Patterns In The Sand....

Chapter Six: Patterns in the sand

Having read this far into my book, it's probably the big question you're thinking right now.... "How can yesterday's speed figures help me pick winners today?"

When you start to analyse a horse's speed ratings closely, it's surprising what they can reveal. In the examples that follow, as is the convention for the rest of this book, the horse's latest run is shown first and on the left.. The easiest trend to spot is that of a horse who is improving steadily....

TEXAS QUEEN 63 S 1m2f | 58 S 1m1f | 55 S 1m1f | 42 S 8f

BOOKIESINDEX BOY 70 L 1m2f | 67 W 1m2f | 66 W 1m2f | 67 L 1m2f

HEADACHE 64 W 6f | 63 W 6f | 53 W 5f | 45 W 5f

And also the horse who appears to be in steady decline...

COPPER KING 59 S 1m2f | 60 S 1m2f | 63 S 1m2f | 64 L 1m4f

ZEFFIRELLI 49 W 7f | 53 W 7f | 57 W 6f | 62 W 7f

You will soon see evidence of horses that appear to have a liking for certain courses and distances...

PLUSH 73 W 7f | 66! S 6f | 66! W 6f | 50 L 5f

WELCOME APPROACH 67 L 5f | 71 L 5f | 71 W 5f | 71 L 5f

MUSIC BOX EXPRESS 77 L 7f | 75 L 7f | 76! L 7f | 71 L 7f

HAWAANA 58 W 7f | 64! L 8f | 64 L 8f | 64 L 7f

Plush would appear to like the fibresand at Southwell and Wolverhampton, but does not do so well on the Polytrack at Lingfield. Welcome Approach seems to be equally happy on either surface, and you could reasonably expect him to handle a five furlong race at Southwell. Music Box Express is clearly a solid performer at Lingfield, whilst Hawaana also turns in consistent performances, albeit at a lower level.

TURFTIME 77 W 5f | 33 S 6f | 49 S 5f | 62 S 5f | 76! W 5f

PURE GENIUS 76 L 1m2f | 62 W 1m1f | 76 L 8f | 68 W 1m1f | 70 L 1m2f

Turftime has produced his best figures over 5f at Wolverhampton, but his performances at Southwell are poor by comparison. Pure Genius would appear to like 1m2f at Lingfield.

EL DANCER 32 S 6f | 60 W 7f | 55 W 6f | 37 S 7f | 63 W 6f

BRAZILIAN BRUSH 72! W 5f | 46 S 5f | 65 L 6f | 72! W 5f | 72 L 5f

DIVINE FORCE 69 L 1m2f | 76 L 1m2f | 61 L 1m4f | 70 L 1m2f | 76 L 1m2f

El Dancer has returned two hopeless performances at Southwell, while Brazilian Brush is evidently at 5 furlong horse at both Lingfield and Wolverhampton. Divine Force is another horse that goes well at Lingfield, but you can see it was a mistake to run him over 1m4f.

These examples are all fairly simple, but I think you can see how easy it is to spot these trends, where they would not have presented themselves by reading the bare form of each horse. The speed figures most definitely give you an edge over the punter reading his Racing Post.

Compared to the United States all weather racing in this country is still very new. So how much can we learn from the Americans who have had more time to study the patterns in the sand over the years? I indulged in a little investigative work to see if any parallels could be drawn. Most people have heard of the 'bounce' factor, and so that is where I started.

Bounce Factor

This will occur when a horse returns an outstanding speed rating or is involved in a particularly hard race. On its reappearance, the horse is likely to run a bad race and post a poor speed figure. Commonly the horse is said to have 'bounced'. I decided to look back over last season's results to see if horses were also susceptible to the bounce in this country. I took a sample of 3, 498 horses from a period of eight months, and I was searching for possible examples of the 'bounce factor'. Here are some examples...

Possible examples of 'bounce':

KERADA 58 L 1m2f | 74! W 1m1f | 68! W 1m1f | 60 W 7f

BRIDGE OF GOLD 52 S 8f | 0D W 1m1f | 76 W 1m1f | 75! W 1m1f

GENTLE RANGER 61 S 5f | 68! S 5f | 43 S 5f | 74 W 5f

I have deliberately used the word 'possible' because I think there is a reasonable explanation about each bad performance that may not be down to a bounce. With Kerada for example, you might reasonably ask "did he bounce?" when he returned a figure of 58 after a 74. Well, the 58 figure came for a race run 32 days after the race where he earned a 74, so hardly a quick reappearance. It might be that he simply did not like the Polytrack surface at Lingfield.

I would suggest that Bridge Of Gold is much more likely to have bounced. After winning a handicap race at Wolverhampton he returned two weeks later to record a good run and earn a rating of 76. A further two weeks later he came back to race. Having been close to the pace, he tailed off and finished last by a distance. After another disappointing run he was put back in his stable to return on the turf in the Spring.

Gentle Ranger posted a rating of 70 at Wolverhampton and came back to the track 9 days later to record a 74. Ten days later he raced at Southwell, but finished 14th of 15 runners with a rating of just 43. 25 days later still, he returned to Southwell and won with a 68 so the effects clearly did not last long! Anyone who spotted the previous bad run was due to a bounce should be congratulated, as he was returned on course at 16/1

So, are all three of these examples a case of bouncing, or can each bad performance be attributed to some other factor? At the end of the day I guess it does not really matter. Horses every day throw the curve ball that is the 'unexpected bad run'. We have all had a horse that by the form book should be nailed on to win a race, but is unexplainably beaten.

The trade secret is to know why. Was it down to a change in surface? Was it a previously untried distance? Or was it due to the bounce factor? What is important, and what differentiates a successful punter is the ability to spot it and exploit it.

OXOX

In America it is known as the OXOX phenomenon, but I like to refer to it as the zig-zag pattern, as that is how it looks on a graph. A percentage of horses run hot and cold, and alternate between high and low speed ratings. They seem unable to produce two consecutive good or bad performances, and appear almost to bounce after each race. This pattern is most prevalent with 3yo horses, but it surprised me how many horses would appear to fall into this category.

Possible examples of 'ZIG-ZAG' speed figures:

TAGULA NIGHT 64 W 7f | 67! L 5f | 76 W 6f | 67 S 6f | 76 L 6f | 66 S 6f

JADALEE 61 L 7f | 49 W 8f | 54 W 1m1f | 49 L 1m2f | 60 L 8f

FAREEJ 58 W 5f | 42 W 6f | 66 W 6f | 47 W 6f | 57! W 6f

STUMPED 58 L 6f | 53 L 6f | 77! L 7f | 49 S 6f | 71 L 6f

BABY DOTTIE 66 L 1m2f | 75 L 1m2f | 62 L 1m2f | 77! L 1m2f

STEP IT UP 29 W 1m1f | 59 S 7f | 36 W 8f | 57 W 1m1f | 37 S 1m3f

BENNELONG 61 L 2m | 67 W 1m7f | 62 S 1m6f | 67! S 1m6f | 58 L 1m5f

SILK STREET 51 W 1m7f | 60! W 1m4f | 45 L 1m5f | 66! L 1m6f | 42 W 1m4f

SALEROSA 63 L 7f | 70 L 8f | 58 L 7f | 65 L 7f | 59 L 8f | 71! L 7f

If Baby Dottie was entered in a 1m2f race at Lingfield you might reasonably expect him to run to a mark around 75. By contrast Jadalee is likely to post a poor run and a figure around 50.

Three Time Improvers

The title of this category is perhaps a little misleading as a horse may have only improved twice on an original figure. What we are looking for is a horse with three speed ratings in an improving sequence. For example BELINSKY 74, 70, 65. When a horse shows such a sequence we might well ask ourselves "how will he perform next time out?". If you are like me, you might expect a further improvement more often than not. I was surprised to discover this was not the case. A study conducted at American tracks showed that only 25% continued to improve, 4% of horses repeated the previous figure, whilst the remaining 71% in the sample returned a lower figure on their next run.

I was a bit taken aback by these statistics, as I was hoping to have uncovered a valuable signpost to future winners. Clinging to the notion I had found an edge, I convinced myself that the figures from the States were from many different tracks. I was confident that the picture would be different here, with only three tracks and a smaller pool of horses.

After digging out my sample of 3,498 horses again I found that this 3-figure improving pattern occurred on 609 occasions. The question I was posing was would these horses fare better on their next run compared to their American cousins? Unfortunately the answer was a definitive "No" and in fact they did worse! The results were most disappointing.

Of the 609 horses in my sample, the results came out thus....

140 improved again 23%

19 produced the same figure again 3%

450 returned a lower figure 74%

Of the 140 horses who continued to improve, only 21 actually won their next race (15%) and that is only 3.4% of the whole sample - not very encouraging.

One question that struck me was whether those horses who posted three consecutive declining figures would do a 'reverse bounce'. The study from America showed that 32% continued to decline, again 4% stayed at the same level, whilst 64% did indeed return a higher figure. I revisited my own sample and found 555 instances where a horse was declining.

149 carried on declining 27%

18 stayed the same 3%

388 produced a better figure 70%

However, despite 70% showing an improvement after a three race decline, they did not improve enough to make them valuable selections to back.

Exploiting the speed ratings for a profit

My friends are aware of the unconventional career I have taken. If ever we are out in Tring of evening, partaking in a pint or two of the falling down water in the Robin Hood, I will invariably be asked "so which are the red ones tomorrow Paul?"

When I run off a print-out of the day's racing I highlight the top rated horse in red. The trouble is, the top rated horse may have run over a different distance last time out, or at another track on a different surface. He may be showing signs of declining performance and only one point clear of the field on the ratings. This afternoon he may be coming out of a wide draw in a 5f race at Wolverhampton, or drawn next to the stands rail on the straight course at Southwell. Whenever I try explaining this to my mates you can see their eyes starting to glaze over, and I'm pretty sure its not the effects of the Guinness. They just like the red ones!

My point is that the speed figures give you a solid starting point from which to eliminate a few runners, and then focus on a few key contenders worthy of further evaluation. I'm not saying following the top rated horse last time out is a bad thing, and last season you would have enjoyed more than your fair share of winners at some cracking prices, but it will not always give you a conclusive edge.

But for the sake of argument, how would you have fared last season by simply backing each top rated horse blindly?

I checked out 67 meetings and 494 top rated horses, and these are the results:

118 winners from 494 races, a strike rate of 23.5% and a profit of +5.8%

The winning price range was from 2/7 odds on, with the best-priced winner coming in at 16/1

So you can see that although you possibly will not be retiring on the back of this system, it still returns a profit, and thus it's a solid platform from which to build and find some positive trends.

The study from America showed that horses with better than a three point clear advantage over the rest of the field on the ratings, went on to win 29% of the time. This is better than the original 23% strike rate. So I divided my sample into three separate sub-sets, and found... 311 were joint top rated or clear by up to 3 points, 113 were clear top rated by 4 to 6 points, and 70 were clear by 7 points or more.

These are the results:

0-3 points.... 21.8% strike rate

4-6 points.... 29.9% strike rate

7 points+.... 22.7% strike rate

The horses clear top rated by four to six points won a fraction below 30% of the time, whilst surprisingly those with an apparently bigger advantage actually won less often.

I recalled how well horses seemed to perform, who were top rated last time out, but also running the same course and distance today as last time. I went back to see how the horses performed who were clear top rated by 4 - 6 points but also racing today over the same course and distance as their previous outing. Now the results were getting very encouraging....

32 races produced 12 winners, a strike rate of 37.4% and a profit of +32%

Now I am the first to concede that these are relatively small sample sizes, but these trends have held up well, and I have made profits for each of the past four seasons. My conclusion is that backing all horses that are clear top rated last time out by four to six points, and also running over the same course and distance, is a solid basis for finding value winners, even without the application of further logic and form analysis.

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