Chester draw Bias
Chester draw bias; an unbiased view by Proform
Given its idiosyncratic nature, a low draw at Chester provides a distinct advantage and with the Chester 3 day May meeting starting today, many race goers and punters will try to outsmart the general public’s perception of the draw bias and overlook the obvious to seek value elsewhere. Nevertheless, as shown by specialist tools like Proform siding against basic physics on this occasion may as fruitless as King Canute’s efforts in holding back the tide.
Let’s take an objective view of the draw bias at Chester in all races since 1997.
If by chance you backed every horse berthed in stalls 1 or 2 at all race distances at Chester, your £1 stake on each horse bet at starting prices would have yielded a profit of £189.77, 23% better than normal expectations and a return on investment of approx. 7%.
However such a blunt approach is open to improvement and an obvious refinement is to group the statistics by those race distances where the turning nature of the course provides the greatest advantage to horses drawn low.
5 Furlongs
6 Furlongs
7 Furlongs
The (draw), win (W), run(R), strike rate (S%) and profit and loss (P/L £1 Stk) columns are self-explanatory.
The (impact) column or “impact value” (IV) is an index figure calculated by dividing the percentage of winners possessing a particular characteristic into the percentage of runners that possess the characteristic.
A value of 1.00 would indicate horses with a particular characteristic win no fewer or no more than those without that characteristic. Below 1.00 is indicative of underperformance, above 1.00 is above expectation.
Since 2007 backing blindly horses draw in stalls 1 and 2 in race distance up to 7 furlongs would have returned profits to a £1 stake at Betfair SP in every year as shown by the table below.
Obviously, a blind strategy such as this is again open to improvement using additional handicapping factors i.e. pace, however as shown in the data, the general perceptions of the Chester draw bias hold true, but these general perceptions are being under estimated by the crowd.
In Bet Angel we can use many strategies to take advantage of this information. Let’s look at a couple of basic ideas. We can look at a Back to Lay strategy which is a preferred method for many traders. Using the excellent data from our friends at Proform we can look at sprint races over 5f and 6f and back horses in stalls 1 or 2. The idea is a simple one, these horses will have an advantage because of the draw and because we know that even backing those blind returns a profit then if we are sensible about our approach we can trade out for a profit either manually or with a pre-set amount using the profit calculators within Bet Angel. We can take this one step further and look at Proform data to find horses with a front running style drawn favourably in stall 1 or 2! You can see the possibilities are numerous if you use the data to your advantage.
Another simple strategy is the Lay to Back one. This is basically the reverse of the above where we look at horses with a poor draw. You will often hear people saying “this horse surely cannot win from this number, he’s almost in the car park!” It may sound funny but the data shows horses drawn high are always struggling to get their head in front. Obviously you would need to select your horse based on price, too high and your risk is also high. This is based on your own personal preference but the method is the same. If we select a horse drawn high we know that more often than not it will struggle in the race, the data proves this. So we lay the horse prior to the start and then set our back bet using the calculator for our desired profit.
We have to understand these are long term strategies and we must use stakes we are comfortable with. However, you can see that armed with tools like Bet Angel and Proform you can give yourself a big advantage. The best way to use Proform is to learn from their professional team of analysts. They are holding a day’s training seminar and they will be showing people how to use the software to discover little gems to aid you in your trading and betting. Use the following link for more information https://www.proformracing.com/seminars/
Good luck in whatever you do
Category: Horse Racing
