Understandably, course favourites are always a very popular method for selecting horses as they offer the best possible chances for winning races. Yet blindly backing favourites is not the road to
riches, as the majority of course favourites have too poor odds to make a profit.However, if you concentrated on the most profitable historic race type and race course, which have shown significant past
profits over a reasonable time, then you have an excellent betting foundation, as it is likely, although not guaranteed, that the profits may continue in the future. Especially when you combine this
information with your own selection criteria to decide whether a back or lay represents good value or not. In other words you are betting favourites in the most favourable type of races.
For my analysis, I
have used the one of the best forecasted sources for obtaining the most likely favourite, namely the Racing Post. All profitability is based upon this, whether the selections actually become course
favourites or not. (In fact, not surpassingly, nearly 70% of the Racing Post forecasted favourites do in fact end up course favourites). However, my analysis breaks with tradition by not using course
favourites.
(Racing Post favourites can be found either by buying a copy of the Racing Post on the morning of racing, or checking the race cards, which are free from the Racing Post web site the night
before racing).
Whether you are backing or laying favourites, it is by no means certain to tell in advance which horse will end up favourite, especially if you bet hours before the race starts. Unlike the
old days when you could bet on the unnamed favourite, you cannot do this so easily on the exchanges. So knowing which type of race, and which course shows a good historic profitability, is of little
use when the favourite is not known in advance of racing with any degree of certainty.
I have a very large database of horse results going back to 2004 covering over 32,000 races. I have used this unique
source to compile the favourites analysis. This data is kept up to date on a regular basis.
The race types are split between handicaps and non-handicaps and further split by types of races, like chases,
hurdles, national hunt flat, 2yo, 3yo, 3+yo, and 4+yo races. All this is shown separately for each of the 60 Race Courses in the U.K.
I set out below a free sample taken from one race type so you can see
how easy it is to locate the best profitable races for both backing and laying. The ones, which offer good profitability, are highlighted. The actual number of favourites winning or losing is shown along
with the points profit or loss, for backing, and in a separate column, the profit if laying the same selections. So, a profit of say 12 points in the backing column would be £1200 at £100 per race, or, 12
points in the laying column, would be lay risking of £100 per race. I have calculated the backing profit at starting prices (SP), and for laying - SP plus a 10% - to allow for the extra laying percent
necessary on the exchanges.
I am sure you agree that the profit backing at SP is probably very conservative, as most backers ought to be getting slightly better odds than this on the exchanges, or by
shopping around for the best prices.
I think the layout of the analysis is self explanatory, but any questions you have would be most welcome.
If you would like the full analysis covering all race types,
it is available as a PDF file format sent as a email attachment at the modest cost of only £10 each, and £50 for a whole year's monthly update. I will update the analysis at the end of every month, but the
figures should not change very much in between updates, and certainly would be up to date enough as a general guide.
You will need to have a PDF reader on your computer, and just in case you have not
yet downloaded one, copy and paste the following link into your web browser. It is free: -
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
To get my full analysis, just click the Paypal payment
link show under the analysis, and I will email you the PDF file as an attachment to an email.
