20th June 2016

Do you look at a horse’s past form figures to see if it has a chance of winning today?

I know they’re in every newspaper, but have you ever wondered if it’s even relevant?

Today I’m going to take a look at how important a row of wins are in betting. I’m going to answer whether having the last race as a winner is just as important as having the last two races as a winner, and whether that’s as important as have the last four races as winners.

Of course, the other question we will be asking is… are these runners profitable to bet?

To do this I’ve taken a random 110,118 runners.

As you can see from the table above, the strike rate significantly improves for every win a horse has had in it’s last four races. It goes from 18% for horses that have won their last race, to 28% for horses that have won all their last four races.

But…

Also notice how the ROI significantly drops as well!

We start at -17% for horses who’ve won their last race, going to -41% for horses that have won all their last four races.

Now this isn’t unexpected. In fact if anything it is expected because four wins in the last four races is obvious to everyone. What we now know however, is that betting on these horses is not an advisable thing to do. Long-term they're very bad bets.

This means if we want to do anything we’re going to need to focus on a horse’s last race. So... let’s look at how the last race finish position pans out across other positions.

Above we can see the results of these runners broken down by their last finish position. Immediately we can see this isn't going to be offering us any advantage. The strike rate decreases and we get no benefits on the ROI or the PIV (Pool Impact Value).

So far we have already disproved a phenomenal amount of betting systems which tell you to start looking for horses who’ve won their last two or three races.

This information on it’s own offers absolutely no edge and will lose you money.

This information is easily available to everyone betting on the races. In fact, it’s the first place that most punters start which means it’s been accounted for in the market.

However, before we draw a conclusion I will look once more at how the last finish positions perform when we combine them with the horses being favourite in the race.

Finally we’re starting to make some progress!

Horses that finished 4th last time out and are favourites only lose 3% of their stake to SP. But they still win 31% of their races.

In fact, it’s possible that this may be break-even (or even just profitable) to Betfair SP!

In the table above I've changed the odds from SP to Betfair SP, and you can see that this makes a big difference. The horses that finished in fourth place last time out and are favourites actually make a small profit of 2%.

Those who won last time out and are favourites are break even.

Now, I don’t suggest that you go and start betting on these selections, and bear in mind that you need to be getting the best odds available in order to make them break-even or slightly profitable. But… use this information to find selections which are already making a small profit and add your own analysis to make them even more profitable.

Best Wishes,

Michael Wilding