Have been doing a quick analysis of favourites over the last 12 months and found the following based on my data which is Wednesday, Sunday, Saturday metropolitan everywhere.

All favs: 31.9% strike rate resulting in a 13.4% loss on turnover
Odds on favs: 50.7% S/R for 16.2%lot.

All favs first up after spell or first start in race:
27% S/R for 30% lot
Odds on favs first up or first start:
35.4% S/R for 46% lot (admittedly only 50 such favs in this sample)

Backing every favourite which was not first up and won last start by at least 1.8 lengths resulted in a 46% S/R and 10% pot over 340 bets.(longest run of outs 7 once followed by 5 twice)


Any other ideas?

Interesting stats, Tony.

Why do you select 1.8 lengths? It seems an odd distance?

My problem with methods based on favourites, apart from their poor odds, is often determining what the favourite is and when to back the horse.

Is the tote price used or starting price? If SP does it mean we don't back the horse when it is $5.00, but wait for it to come into say $3.00 when it becomes favourite? This does not make sense to me.

Mr. Logic

Interesting stats Tony.

Mr.Logic,

This is one of the main problems with favourite based systems. Apart from the short prices on offer, the degree of skill, luck and attention to detail required to determine the actual favourite, it is not worth the effort. Unless of course there is a clear cut favourite, and easy to find.
And in the final analysis, if you miss the favourite by pure misinformation and it wins...you'll end up having a nervous breakdown. Especially if it's the make or break winner.

[ This Message was edited by: Equine Investor on 2002-10-08 00:46 ]

Hi Tony. Great analysis.

My problem is the opposite. I'm trying to avoid the favourite. Imagine your example bets $50 on the favourite every race. I bet $50 against it. What's the result of that?

I'm also curious as to when the favourite actually comes in. There's a U.K. site http://www.adrianmassey.co.uk/index.htm that has a bunch of favourite stats.

If you are comfortable sending the raw data in your analysis I would be happy to compose this analysis and publish the results.

Thanks for the insight!

-Duck

Well done Tony ,
Through research , you have reversed a negative stat into a profitable stat.

Thanks for shareing your findings.

__________________
Cheers.

I'm trying to avoid favourites too, Duck, I've been trying to do so successfully for years, trying being the operative word. I just came up with that impromptu "system" while mucking around with the figures.
Thanks for the reference, happy for you to take a look at the data.
Mr Logic, the 1.8 lengths was derived by pure curve fitting; from memory, those winning between 1.5 and 1.7 lengths broke about even and thereon showed a loss.